Page 12 of Love Me Darkly
“Darcy got a hit on our New Orleans victim. The profile seemed typical at first, but then she found something.”
Mateo shouldered past him and into the dark room, glancing over Darcy’s shoulder at the monitors. Taking off her headphones, she swiveled one of the screens so he could see it better.
“Our victim is one, Kacey Mills. Twenty-four years old, three stints in court-ordered rehab, and four arrests for prostitution. But here’s where it gets interesting.”
She clicked her mouse a few times and pulled up a copy of a police report filed six months ago.
“On her last arrest, Kacey told the cops that she was being pimped out by some prick who calls himself Suede. Well, I did a little digging and turned this up.”
A few more mouse clicks, and Mateo was staring at a mugshot of a Black male who looked to be in his thirties. He glared into the camera, brows furrowed. A dark tattoo was etched across his throat—words Mateo couldn’t read.
“Meet Tariq Lavon Hayes, born in 1993. New Orleans native and resident troublemaker. Done a few stints for assault and battery, promoting prostitution, and—oh my God, ew—exposing himself to a minor. But get this … in her statement, Kacey claims to have been bought and sold out of a back room at guess what swanky nightclub?”
Mateo fought to remain stoic as the possibilities of what this all meant swirled through his mind. “Solstice. Any information yet on ownership?”
Darcy spun back to her screens, fingers moving over the keys. “Still working on that one, Boss. So far, all I can tell you is that Solstice is owned by an asset management firm called Valemont Holdings, LLC. Along with Solstice, the company owns multiple luxury real estate properties across the country. There’s also some money tied up in art and antiquities imports and a nonprofit organization—but the financials indicate that the monies raised are used to line the pockets of various political campaigns and city officials.”
“What about the owner of Valemont? Any info?”
Darcy snorted and tossed her pink and purple stained hair over one shoulder. “Yeah, the listed owner of the company and its assets are so obviously fake. The name on the paperwork is Jonathan Blake, but my inquiries into him turn up almost no digital footprint. It’s fishy as fuck. I’ll dig deeper to find the real owner, but that will take some time.”
Mateo dragged a hand through his hair. There were more pieces to this puzzle now than he’d had upon his arrival in New Orleans. He couldn’t quite see how they fit together, the space between them uneven and blurred.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Donovan said, bracing a hand on Darcy’s chair and peering at the screens over her shoulder. “How do the UNSUB, the cult, and the club connect? Or … do they connect at all?”
Mateo was already turning the question over in his mind. “If nothing else, the murdered women could be connected to the club. If Suede was using back rooms to sell girls, and the owner of the club is a shell corporation, we could be looking at organized crime here. Specifically, human trafficking.”
“Maybe the UNSUB’s connection to all of this is just a coincidence,” Darcy argued. “The guy has been all over the country. He happens to come to New Orleans and finds Kacey, and makes her his next kill. That she happened to be a victim of a trafficking ring running out of Solstice could be a coincidence.”
“It can only be a coincidence if the other victims turn out to have no connection to the trafficking ring.”
He strode back through the doorway and approached his team, who were finishing off their lunch while continuing to monitor the video feeds.
“Put a pin in this for now,” he said, lifting the box of their case files from another table and offering it to Smith. “I need the three of you to go back over everything we have on the victims except Mari. I specifically want information on their previous arrests and any statements given to law enforcement. Anything that might indicate that these women weren’t just streetwalkers. The finances and business structure of Solstice may indicate an involvement in human trafficking.”
Williams wrinkled her brow in disbelief. “The UNSUB is a trafficker? That doesn’t fit with the profile.”
Mateo wanted to be irritated with her for pointing that out, but as always, Williams was right. A criminal peddling human flesh was altogether a different animal than one who raped, mutilated, and murdered. The little insight from the crime scenes painted the picture of a narcissist too drunk on his own power and cleverness to work with others. Human trafficking took coordination and cooperation. The coordination, this UNSUB was surely good at. How else could he manage to kill in so many states without leaving a trace of concrete evidence? But, the cooperation bit. Had Mateo misjudged this UNSUB? Had he been too confident in his profile?
“You’re right, it doesn’t fit,” he admitted. “But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t follow this lead. If it reveals anything new about the victims or the UNSUB, it’s something. If nothing else, we have a fresh case for the organized crime division. If it turns out to be a dead end, we’ll hand it over.”
“What about the cult stuff?” Smith asked while passing out case files.
“Darcy is still gathering intel on that. Our source was right … The Veil is obscure. So obscure that almost nothing exists about it online. But, if there’s a connection, we’ll find it. Keep going through those case files and have Darcy dig into anything that requires closer inspection. Keep me updated.”
Mateo turned to leave, finding that the room had grown too stifling. The air inside was stale, pungent with the odors of old coffee, ink and paper, and leftover Chinese food. It wasn’t until he had stepped out into the sweltering humidity of the outdoors that he realized Donovan had followed him.
The man stood beside him on the front steps of the field office, having removed his jacket and rolled up his shirtsleeves. He slipped a pair of sunglasses out of his shirt pocket and put them on, the lenses reflecting the image of the cloudy sky.
“You good?” he asked.
Despite the sunglasses, Mateo could feel Donovan’s eyes on him. Their close scrutiny was even more unnerving behind the shades, with Mateo unable to determine what he might be thinking.
“Fine. Why?”
“You’ve been on this case a hell of a long time. From what I gathered from the files, the investigation had been at a standstill since…”
Mateo’s nostrils flared as Donovan winced, seeming to realize what he’d been about to say. “Since that motherfucker murdered my wife.”
