Loving Night: Dream Catcher Series ~ Book 2 (11 page)

Jesse returned about fifteen
minutes later and resumed watching the monitors.

The two men passed time talking
about their careers and their private lives. They’d known each other a long
time and often showed up at the same tailgating party or wound up on the same
intramural baseball team. Chaz hadn’t played in a couple of years because of
his assignments. Jesse was newly divorced from his second wife. Chaz was in a
new committed relationship. He didn’t say anything about actually being married
or about the pregnancy. They both had recently moved into new homes, albeit for
very different reasons.

“I’ll be back in the morning,”
Jesse announced after meeting the female agent who was his relief. “Nine
o’clock, right?”

“Yeah.” Chaz extended a hand for
his friend to shake. “Thanks for joining us on such short notice.”

“Don’t worry about it. I wasn’t
busy.” He turned to Sydney and said, “Nice meeting you; see ya in the morning.”
She nodded and offered a slight wave without completely turning her attention
away from the monitors.

“Chris left the floor, again,” she
said a little while later. “Has he been doing that all day?”

“I hadn’t noticed, but he’s never
done that any other day. Start a log for me, please.” Chaz had to admit to
himself that he had been more interested in watching the club instead of the
upper floors so he could understand how the flow of clientele was supposed to
work.

A gentleman takes a seat and orders
a drink. He gives the server a gold coin. A few minutes later, a woman returns
with his drink and asks him to dance. Presumably, that’s when his intent is
confirmed. The couple then returns to the table, the server comes to take the
credit card, and the couple leaves. They disappear behind the newly-positioned
screens and take the elevator to the second floor. A guard is there to use his
key to call the elevator. More guards are upstairs, sending a clear message
that the men are expected to be careful with the merchandise. When the couple
returns, the server brings a printed receipt and the gold coin.

The question is: how and when are
the clients given the coin? It’s not happening after they enter the building.
Chaz wondered whether there was some type of membership list. If it existed, it
was computerized and probably password protected. Maybe they could access it.

“How hard would it be to hack into
their servers?”

“That depends on how complex Chris’
security is.” Sydney shrugged. “If he gives me a back door, I could get into
emails and personal files in a matter of minutes. If he doesn’t, there’s no
telling. Why?” She looked at Chaz with an expression that said she would love
to do something other than babysit computer screens.

“We need to find the membership
list. Those coins mean these customers are here by special invitation.”

“But, if Granger is from
Louisville, how is he soliciting local clients ahead of time?”

“Good question. I’ll ask Austin
tomorrow and tell him to get you access to the system.”

They both turned their attention
back to the monitors.

~
~ ~ ~ ~

“Damien and Vanessa keep that
information to themselves. The only way you’ll find any list is to access the
computer,” Austin informed Chaz as they sat in the booth that was closest to
the rear exit of a small diner. Each man could clearly see an entrance.

“Okay. Have Chris either text me a
user ID and password or instructions on how to hack the system, whichever is
less traceable.” Chaz took a drink from his Pepsi. “Now, explain what was going
on with that blonde last night.” He watched Austin’s jaw immediately clench.

“She’s a police officer.”

“What!” Chaz was careful not to
raise his voice even though he was sure his eyebrows shot up to his hairline.

“Yeah. My superior sent her in to
check on me, like I can’t decide for myself how to get out if I need to.” The
slight flaring of his nostrils indicated how irritated he was. “It’s a good
thing she’s young looking. I pretended she was my underage niece, dragged her
out of there, and told the doorman to start checking driver’s licenses.”

“Is she local?”

“No. I’m pretty sure she from the
south western edge of the state. We worked a case together near Bowling Green,
but we weren’t undercover at the time. I don’t know what she’s doing up here.
All I know is that I’m gonna bite someone’s head off when this is over for
risking my ass. Shit!”

Chaz sat back against the vinyl
cushion of the booth and processed this new information. The Kentucky State
Police didn’t trust the FBI. Maybe that’s where those inconsistencies were
coming from that he and Steve McDaniels had noticed several weeks ago. The
reports did pass through KSP first.

Again, he felt that something about
this case wasn’t adding up.

“Why would they do that?” he asked almost
to himself.

“Maybe because of the brouhaha the
night before?” Austin shrugged.

“How would they know about that?”
He could see the wheels turning behind Austin’s eyes before they narrowed in
pure rage. “They have another officer planted.” His hands balled into fists.
“What the hell is going on, Bryson? I’ve been doing this shit for too long to
get hung out like this.”

“I don’t know, but I’m going to
find out. Don’t change anything you’re doing. Someone obviously doesn’t want us
to know they’re involved.”

Someone had set up a double-blind
operation where neither of the participants knew the full story, and he was
going to get to the bottom of it. Even before Chaz’s car left the parking lot,
he was on the phone with his supervisor explaining the situation.

“So, someone else could be
contaminating our investigation?” Roy’s tense voice gave away his irritation.
“We get to risk our asses and spend time chasing down criminals for
them—whoever they are—while they hide in the shadows and watch over our
shoulders?”

“If it’s not FBI or KSP, ‘they’
could only be one agency.”

Roy was silent for a moment before
he caught on to what his team leader was saying.

“Shit!” He let out a frustrated
breath. “Let me get back to you.” The phone went dead.

Chaz took a deep breath and let it
out slowly before calling Sydney to make sure everything was quiet at the club.
Thankfully, the building was fairly deserted on a Sunday morning. Jesse should
be there soon to relieve her.

With that taken care of, Chaz drove
across the bridge to downtown Cincinnati to visit Fountain Square. It was one
of his favorite places to sit and think; the area was beautiful even though the
weather was still too cool for flowers to bloom or people to loiter. That’s
where he was more than an hour later when Roy Gifford called him back.

“It’s taken care of. You’re to
continue as planned through next weekend.”

“What was the Attorney General
looking for?”

“He wanted to know whether this
project involved corrupt government officials. We told him to stop stepping on
our toes and figure it out in his own investigation. If we find something,
we’ll pass it along, but his problem is not our objective.”

It was odd for the Attorney General
to have the Kentucky Bureau of Investigations not work with the State Police.
Apparently no one in the state trusted anyone else. This mess couldn’t be over
soon enough for Chaz.

As an afterthought, he told Roy
about his theory that there might be a membership list.

“If you can get it without risking your
team or the current mission, do it. If not, stick to the plan. We were called
in to reduce the expansion of prostitution and thwart a known major criminal
trying to extend his territory. We don’t care whether a city council member is
on the client list. If all goes well, this time next week you’ll be wrapping up
the arrests and headed back here to tackle a boatload of paperwork.”

That sounded perfect to Chaz.

~
~ ~ ~ ~

“What do you mean you just finished
packing?” Chaz was confused by his wife’s words.

“I didn’t tell you yesterday
because you had so much on your mind already.” Stephanie snapped shut the lid
on the container of homemade spaghetti sauce and set it in the freezer while
she talked. First, she told her husband about the offer to work on this
important case and the travel itinerary. Then, she speculated about the
relationship between her boss and the ex-husband client who was forcing a
face-to-face meeting, combined with the fact that Cherise had carefully
selected the most non-threatening employee to assist her. Finally, Stephanie
explained that she had come to that conclusion because she’d been able to read
her boss’ auras and knew what she was seeing.

“What? Wait. You actually saw
colors this time?” Chaz’s voice was filled with excitement.

“Yes!” Stephanie laughed. “I was so
excited that I could hardly sit still the rest of the day.”

“That’s incredible, sweetheart! You
can see auras, dream about people other than me, and sense moods. This isn’t a
strong enough word, but I’m happy for you.”

“Thank you.” She sat at the
counter, lifted a tangerine from the fruit bowl, and began peeling it. “But I
didn’t have any dreams about that guy you sent me a picture of.” Chaz didn’t comment.
“Something is wrong, isn’t it?” she asked softly.

“I think we’ve figured out most of our
problems, so everything is on track. And, don’t worry about that guy. We found
irrefutable information on him; he’s not on the team any longer.”

“Okay.”

“Baby, I’m sorry to cut this call
short, but I’m a little more tired than normal. I haven’t been getting much
sleep.”

“Don’t apologize. It’s probably not
realistic for us to think we can talk every day while you’re on assignment. You
should be focused on your job, and I don’t want to be a distraction.”

Chaz laughed softly. “It’s too late
for that, baby. You’re my permanent distraction and there’s no way I’ll ever
get you out of my head. I don’t even want to try.”

“That’s sweet.” There was a long
pause. “I’ll text you my hotel information as soon as we check in. In the
meantime, get some rest and stay safe.”

“Always. You might kick my butt if
I don’t.”

“That’s right!” Stephanie failed
miserably at trying to sound stern. Even she had to laugh at the effort. “All
right. Enough of that. Good night, Chaz. I love you.”

“I love you, too, sweetheart.”

Chaz squeezed the bridge of his
nose and leaned his head back against the headrest. He dreaded going back
inside since there was little to do other than stare at computer screens with
almost no movement. Earlier in the day, when he’d been trying to piece together
inconsistencies in the case, his adrenalin had been high. Now that the sun had
gone down, he was running out of steam.

He needed sleep. Even though it was
relatively early, Chaz told Sydney that he was calling it a night and headed up
to the loft. But, as tired as he was, he couldn’t totally relax. Half an hour
later, his brain was still going over everything he knew about this case.

Officer Austin had been undercover
for nearly two years as someone from North Carolina who set up a brothel there
and was looking to relocate. The FBI had been called in once it became obvious
that the project was going to warrant Damien Granger’s personal attention.
Officer Chris Jenkins, supposedly Austin’s younger brother, joined the
undercover operation six months ago when Austin was asked to find someone to
install the electronic security system and set up the surveillance room. They
had been feeding reports to the Kentucky State Police who was floating them up
to the FBI for analysis against people known to be involved in organized crime.
So far, at least 12 people had been identified and cases were being built
against them. All that was left to do was observe the brothel for one week in
order to establish the pattern of operation and the exchange of monies for
illegal services. Then, Chaz and the other FBI agents could go home and deal
with the follow-up paperwork. A whole slew of charges accompanied their
objectives.

As Chaz and Steve Watkins believed,
inconsistencies are almost never insignificant. Someone was altering the reports
sent to the FBI. While Roy speculated that the Attorney General’s Department of
Criminal Investigation was behind that issue, there was no evidence.  Chaz only
knew that the Department had kept its involvement secret from both agencies
conducting the undercover operation—but some unknown person was feeding it
information. No one knew what Brian Pleasant had been doing, for how long, or
who he worked for. No one knew for certain why the security cameras failed.

Chaz was confident in the
reliability and honesty of his team, now. He knew they would be able to
complete the mission of taking down the prostitution ring. He believed the
electronic evidence against Damien Granger would make a significant
contribution to the larger case against him. And he was fairly certain that
Granger had authentic feelings for Special Agent Vanessa Long and that she
would be safe.