“All right. I’ll see you at seven-thirty. You get there before me, stay in your car till I show up. I don’t want you anywhere near Lloyd when I’m not around.”
He hung up, left the diner, and walked quickly to his car. His foot felt good. Marcia had always been a miracle worker with the thing. He crossed the Angus L. Macdonald Bridge, circled the rotary, and took 107 heading for the Eastern shore. After twenty miles, it turned into Route 7, the two-lane highway that went all the way to Antigonish. He wondered sometimes how the locals didn’t go bonkers traveling over this same road day after day.
The familiar landmarks swept past his window. The Gold Coast Restaurant, where he’d gone for lobster with his parents when he was a kid. The new mussel farm near Ship Harbor. They grew the mussels on lines sunk into the bay, and they were the best, biggest, and most succulent shellfish in the province, supplying all the restaurants in Halifax. Then the turnoff at Tangier for Willy Krauch’s smoked fish. Willy had a wall of newspaper clippings in the small outlet. He’d supplied smoked salmon to the Queen of England. Garrett loved stopping at Willy’s and smelling the wonderful combination of wood smoke and salmon. The old man had been dead for many years, and the business was now run by his offspring who zipped around, incongruously, on ATVs.
His thoughts never wandered far from Kitty. What the hell was she up to? Lloyd would never have bragged about anything to do with the girls who’d been killed, not unless he felt there was no need to worry about who Kitty was going to tell or what she might try to put on TV. And that meant Kitty was in deep shit.
He’d revised some of his feelings about the reporter. She was nosy, oversexed, and ambitious. But he’d experienced some of her persistence and thought she might actually be a pretty good reporter, in her own way. If she thought she had her teeth into something with Lloyd, she’d go after it. He had no doubt about that. And he had no doubt that Lloyd would be just fine with having the beautiful Miss Wells cozying up to him.
He drove with one hand on the wheel and dialed Lonnie with the other. His cousin answered on the first ring.
“I’m going to Ecum Secum to see if I can locate Lloyd. But I want you to look around for him in the city. Highest priority.”
“What’s going on?”
“I think Kitty Wells, the reporter, may be with him, trying to investigate him. If she is, she’s going to be in a world of trouble.”
Lonnie grunted. “The reporter on Channel 9?”
“That’s the one.”
“I can see where Lloyd might be attracted. Good-looking woman. I’ll pay a call on Big Margaret. Haven’t seen her in two days. She probably misses me.”
“Right. Listen, if you happen upon them and Kitty seems all right, don’t barrel in and spoil things for her, okay? She might be in control of the situation. Just keep me posted.”
He pulled in to Ecum Secum just as the evening light was fading and the deer were beginning their evening parade across the highway. He narrowly missed a doe and her fawn and was glad when he finally saw the sign for Troubled Youth. Sarah sat in her car waiting for him.
She kissed him hungrily and said, “There’s more where that came from, big boy.”
“Please,” Garrett said, “Not in front of the children.”
“What children? I’ve been here for thirty minutes and haven’t seen a soul.”
He looked around. The place certainly seemed deserted. But if Lloyd wasn’t here, then it figured the kids would be having a hootenanny somewhere.
“Let’s walk up back,” he said.
They passed the more showy buildings near the road and worked their way deeper into the compound. Most of the area around and between the buildings was cultivated with vegetables in long neat rows. Lloyd evidently was a stickler for neatness, so long as someone else was doing the work.
Garrett stopped in front of one small cabin and stared at it, remembering. Sarah gave him a puzzled look.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I used to live here.”
“With the girlfriend?”
He nodded.
She made a show of bending over and checking the foundation. “Looks like it survived the pounding.”
He gave her a look. “My wild youth. Truth is, I could have been a customer for Lloyd’s Haven if Lon and I’d been caught doing some of the stuff we did back then.”
She nodded speculatively. “And if you’d been caught, no job in law enforcement, right? And we never would have met.” She squeezed his arm. “I’m kind of glad you survived your wild youth.”
“What’s that?” He was looking up behind the cabin where the woods grew thick. There was a flickering glow above the treeline.
“Looks like a fire,” Sarah said.
They began to climb higher. The evening light was fading, but the dirt path was still clear enough. As they neared the glow, they could hear music and then saw dark figures moving around a big fire.
They entered the circle of firelight where about twenty boys and girls were lying around. Most were paired off and making out on blankets. The music came from a boom box and there was a picnic table with food and drinks on it.
“I guess we can safely conclude Lloyd isn’t here tonight,” said Garrett, disappointed.
The kids gradually became aware of them. Most sat up and stared, but a few couples, pretty close to fully involved in sex, paid them no attention. Garrett recognized the boy who’d been playing the guitar at his earlier meeting.
“Looking for Lloyd,” Garrett said. “Guess he’s not here, huh?”
The boy waved a hand that took in the booze, food and make-out couples. “Gone for the weekend,” he said. He seemed to be the unofficial spokesman when Lloyd wasn’t around.
“Any idea where he is?”
The boy considered him for a moment, then looked around the group. “Anyone know where the asshole went?” he asked.
A thin, mousy-faced girl unlocked lips with a heavyset boy long enough to say, “Don’t know where he went, but he had company and he looked like he was planning on a good time.”
“He had a woman with him?”
The girl nodded. “Real pretty too, but tiny, like a doll almost. You had to feel sorry for her. I thought she might be a hooker, the way Lloyd was holding her arm. Possessive-like.”
“Who else but a hooker would go with Lloyd?” said the guitar player.
“Was she being held against her will?” Sarah asked.
“Didn’t seem like it,” the girl said. “But I only saw them together for a minute.” She turned away and locked lips again with the heavyset boy who was becoming impatient. Pound for pound, Garrett thought, these young teens must be some of the most sexually experienced kids in the province. He glanced at Sarah and shrugged.
“Have a good night, kids,” he said, turning away. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
There was a sprinkling of laughter and one voice in the darkness cried, “I bet you two do it all the time.”
“I wish,” Sarah whispered, as they worked their way back down the path, now almost invisible in the dark. When they were out of sight, Garrett stopped suddenly and pulled her close to him. He kissed her hard.
When they came up for air, Sarah murmured, “Trying to set an example for the kids?”
He stroked her hair. “For troubled youth, they looked to be having a whole lot more fun than we are.”
31
K
ITTY STARED OUT THE WINDOW
of Lloyd’s car. They were in an upscale part of Halifax, near Bedford Basin. Lloyd had volunteered to introduce her to some people who might agree to an interview about the world of child prostitution. He cloaked it all in the guise of research, saying he’d been around long enough to have built up a certain level of trust with these people.
She couldn’t quite believe anyone breaking the law would want to talk about it openly, but as a reporter she’d used the promise of confidentiality to score big interviews in the past. People liked to talk about what they did. Even scumbags. It had been a revelation to her when she started out in the business. She was already working on the story in her mind. An exclusive look at how young girls were ensnared in the world of prostitution. Maybe she’d make the national news.
But she was beginning to have second thoughts. Lloyd oozed charm like snake oil. As he drove, he emphasized his points by touching a hand to her thigh, just long enough to send a message.
“Who are we going to see exactly?” Kitty asked.
“Woman named Madame Liu. She runs a service called Madame Liu’s Lulus. I called ahead while you were in the bathroom, told her we were coming.”
“And she wants to talk about this?”
“Long as no names are involved. I told her all about you. She said she’s seen you on TV. I guess she liked what she saw.”
Kitty wasn’t sure how to take that. She leaned against the door, trying to get as far from Lloyd as possible. She knew she was taking a risk. But that’s what reporters did, and she felt a certain safety in her fame. What fool in the prostitution business was going to hurt a well-known figure? It would be suicidal. On the other hand, she couldn’t really imagine why they’d be willing to talk to her either. So she was on edge as they turned into the entrance to a large Victorian house with manicured lawns.
Lloyd bounced out of the car, went around, and opened her door, taking her arm proprietarily. “Nice place,” he said. “You’ll like it. Very upscale.”
The door was opened by a bear of a man who seemed incapable of speech. He just grunted and waved them through a foyer filled with Asian statues. Lloyd obviously knew where he was going as he directed Kitty into a luxurious room with leather furniture and a roaring fire.
Standing in front of the fire was an attractive Chinese woman. She looked Kitty up and down, then said to Lloyd, “You’ve got an eye all right, Lloyd.”
Kitty noticed that the huge man who had let them in had entered behind them and now stood to one side, cracking his knuckles, or so it seemed. She tried to assert herself.
“Madame Liu? I want to thank you for seeing me. I can assure you anything you say to me will be held in complete confidence.” She held out her hand.
The woman stared at her hand. Then, without preamble, she said to Lloyd, “Let’s see the goods.”
Lloyd smiled and turned to Kitty. “Take your clothes off,” he said.
Kitty blinked. “What?”
“You heard me. I told you we might be able to land you a job, but we got to see the merchandise first.”
Her eyes went wide. “I’m here for an interview.”
“It’s a kind of interview,” he replied.
“I haven’t got all day,” Madame Liu said.
Kitty looked at the woman, then at the giant standing behind her. Her heart felt like a piece of lead. She swung her head around to look at Lloyd.
“You don’t want to do this,” she said. “You can’t believe the trouble I can get you into.”
“Oh, I don’t think you’ll be much trouble at all,” said Lloyd, and the way he said it sent a chill right down to Kitty’s tiny little toes. “You think you’re pretty hot stuff, don’t you? Well, let’s see how special you really are.”
Madame Liu nodded at the giant. “Strip now,” she said, “or he’ll do it for you.”
But Kitty was frozen. For all her worldliness and experience, she’d never been humiliated in such a manner before. She opened her mouth to say that Garrett knew where she was but something stopped her. These were not nice people. If they thought the cops had any idea who she was with, they might decide to just kill her and be done with it.
Lloyd said, “I kind of prefer it when we have to take their clothes off. But any way you want it, Miss Wells, it’s going to happen.”
A sheen broke out on Kitty’s upper lip. She believed him. She was completely helpless here. She could see it in Lloyd’s eyes. There was no way she wasn’t going to be standing naked in front of these people. Slowly, she lowered her purse to the floor, then stepped out of her shoes. Her hands moved like an automaton as she unbuttoned her blouse. The big guy leaned forward in anticipation. Lloyd settled back to watch with a confident smile, as he saw her resistance collapse.
Kitty dropped the blouse on the floor and began to undo her pants. She could feel her face redden under Lloyd’s stare. Then the pants were gone too. Her legs were perfectly proportioned, slim and tanned. She stood uncertainly, as if hoping for divine intervention.
“Come on,” Lloyd said. “You should have taken my invitation to do a little gardening with me when you had the chance. Might have been more fun. Now I got to share you.”
Madame Liu clapped her hands once, loudly. The sudden noise shocked Kitty. “Everything off!” the woman ordered. “Now.” She nodded impatiently to the big man, who started forward eagerly.
Kitty raised one hand, palm out, to forestall him. Then she reached behind her back and unhooked her bra. Her breasts were the least favorite part of her body. She’d always thought they were too small, like those of a young girl, but they were pert and nicely shaped. She saw Lloyd stare at them and take in his breath.
Then she removed her panties and stood with her arms folded across her chest.
“Arms over your head,” Madame Liu said, “and turn around.”
Kitty complied, feeling like she was in a dream, some sort of exotic sexual nightmare. Except she realized she was excited. More excited than she’d ever been. An incredible warmth came over her, and her entire body flushed red.
Madame Liu nodded approvingly. “You were right, Lloyd. She’s pretty special. Some men like that petite little body. It’s like one of our thirteen-year-old girls, except with more awareness in the eyes. And the body flush … exquisite. I can market that at the highest level.”
Kitty had her back to them now and could feel Lloyd’s eyes looking down at her narrow waist, her perfect, tiny little bottom. Goose bumps rose on her buttocks. She felt Lloyd’s hand on the small of her back and almost leaped out of her skin as he ran his hand lower, caressing the goose bumps. He gave her butt a playful squeeze.
‘Not bad,” he said. “Not bad at all. I bet you’re a real tiger in the sack.”
“All right,” said Madame Liu. “That’s enough.”
Kitty moved as if in a dream. She was completely humiliated that Lloyd had exposed her so utterly. He was the last man on earth she would ever have chosen to be naked in front of. Yet she was stunned at how incredibly hot and aroused she felt, on the edge of having an orgasm. She’d never realized before how erotic it was to feel totally helpless. Kind of like all those men she’d teased and tortured over the years with her body and looks and moves. She’d enjoyed that feeling of power and control she’d had over them. Now she had an idea how they felt.