Page 19 of Forbidden Wish

TEN

HE DROVE THEM to an all-night diner by the river. In a shitty corner of town. It wasn’t a surprise he knew it existed. It was a surprise she’d never been there.

Dump-diners were a specialty of her father’s. Often childhood visitation meant touring the city for rhubarb pie and vanilla milkshakes. Maybe the eateries weren’t the most hygienic, but her dad knew the best spots. That’s what those visits were: pie and shakes. And laughter. He’d always been able to make her laugh. Damn, why was she thinking about that?

“Coffee,” Jagg said to the waitress, who came over as they slid into opposite sides of a booth in the darkest corner, far from the window. “Want anything, kid?”

“Coffee’s good,” she said, offering the woman a smile.

Couldn’t be easy to keep the faith if life meant coming to this place every night, spending hours on your feet, serving society’s less-than-finest.

Jagg plucked the menu from its slot at the end of the table. “Want something to eat?”

“You don’t have to babysit me,” she said. “We’ve left Hustle. It’s done. Okay? You did your duty, you got me out of there.” Way sooner than she’d wanted to be done. “Good job.”

“This means something to you,” he said, tucking the menu back into its slot. “Why?”

“Why not?”

The server came over with two cups, filled them from her pot, and disappeared again.

“What’s special about these women or this story?”

“Everything,” she said, hooking her cup closer to her body. Letting out some optimism, it wasn’t easy to be the only one giving a shit all the time. “Did you finish that car?”

“You don’t want to talk about the car,” he said. “Tell me about the women.”

For a second there it sounded like…

Suspicious, she met his eye. “Why?”

“This means something to you,” he stated again. “I’m serious, Genny, talk to me.”

“I…” He was asking. Actually asking. Sitting up straighter, she pushed the coffee aside. “It started almost two months ago. For me. Every day we get bulletins from the districts. Updates. Usually nothing exciting, one thing or another. I write for a local section, so I can investigate whatever I want providing it’s…”

“Local.”

“Right,” she said, breathing out a smile. Crime and murder weren’t her typical field. “Michelle Cadlow was found… by the river… She didn’t have defensive wounds, but there were suspicious marks on her body… They couldn’t tell how long she’d been in the water… But she has this tattoo…” Retrieving her phone from her purse, she found the picture and pushed it across the table to show him. “They all have the tattoo. The cops say it means nothing—”

“It doesn’t,” he said, sitting back, drinking his coffee.

She deflated. “Lachlan says it like that too. How can you possibly know—”

“It’s the Manzani mark,” he said. “All their girls have that tattoo.”

At least he explained it. “All of them?”

“Manzanis mark women as property. Once they’re on the books, they’re in for life.” The Manzani family didn’t have books for the women who worked for them, not literally, but she got his meaning. “It on the front of their leg? On the seam where the thigh meets the torso?” She nodded. “Yeah, they’re working girls.”

“But they’re not,” she said, infused with certainty. “These women are good girls. They’re respectable. From good families. With good jobs. Great prospects. None have substance or addiction issues. Their friends and family reported no erratic behavior. No indications they were mixed up in anything suspect.”

“How’d you get to Hustle?”

“The last victim…” she said, “she told her roommate that her boyfriend could get them into this exclusive club. They didn’t know anything about it. I didn’t know anything about it.”

“She used Vex’s name?”

Why in the hell would he ask that question? “I thought you quit working for him.”

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