Page 76 of Hart of Darkness
Duke finished off the whiskey. “Grace is alive. The last time I saw her was three weeks ago.” He scratched his unshaven jaw.
I growled. Hearing him say the words “Grace is alive” felt like a bullet penetrating my skin. I knew what one felt like too—burning and searing pain that gripped me so hard I couldn’t breathe. All thanks to a gang fight gone wrong.
“I promise, Dillon, I searched for Grace when she first took off. I know you don’t believe me.”
I motioned to stand, but Maggie stopped me with agive him a chancelook. So I pushed my elbows into my thighs.
“About eight months ago, she found me,” Duke said. “She walked into my club and asked me for money. I was shocked as hell. Pissed like a motherfucker too. I all but forced her to tell me where she’d been all these years, but she wouldn’t talk. She didn’t look like she was on drugs. She was well-groomed. She appeared to be healthy. So I gave her the money. My only requirement was she had to check in with me on a monthly basis. If she did and showed me she was alive and well and not doing drugs, then I would continue to give her money.”
I was calculating the timeline in my head. Dom had said he found Grace nine months ago. Duke mentioned eight. When Dom had found her, she was bruised and bloody, but a month had passed before she showed up at Duke’s club. So the bruises would’ve been mostly healed. “No signs of bruises on her, then?”
He shook his head. “Not that I could see.”
“Do you know what she does during the day? Does she work?” Maggie asked. “Is she a prostitute?”
Duke and I muttered curses at the same time.
Dom had said Grace would leave early and not return until later in the evening.
Duke sucked on his lip. “Don’t know.”
“Why didn’t you tell me any of this?” I asked.
“She came to me a week after you and I talked. Plus, I promised Grace. She asked me not to say anything to you.”
I slid to the edge of the cushion, ready to dive at him again. The only thing that stopped me was his last statement, which felt as if a blade was slicing me over and over again. “I’ve been searching high and low and in every alley, abandoned building, and crevice in this fucking city for years, and you’re telling me she doesn’t want me to know? Why?”
Duke’s features softened. “She has her reasons. What they are, she wouldn’t tell me. Brother, she only came to me because I have money.”
That didn’t make me feel any better. “What about Denim?” I would feel less hurt if she didn’t want Denim to know either.
“His name didn’t come up. Probably because he’s in the slammer.”
I had the urge to ask why he hadn’t been down to see Denim, but the conversation was about Grace.
“So she checks in with you monthly,” I said. “When is she due to check in?”
“If she sticks to her monthly visits like she has been, then I don’t expect to see her for another week.”
What made me shiver, though, was that Grace had been showing up every night at Dom’s up until two weeks ago. “I think she’s in trouble. The brother-and-sister duo Grace is staying with hasn’t seen her in a couple of weeks.”
Duke unfolded his body. “I give her money, so I don’t believe she’s selling her body. I can have my men scour all the hot spots where the prostitutes hang out, though.” He seemed a tad worried now.
The important question was, where was she?
“Maybe Grace got her own place,” Maggie said. “Maybe she decided to move out of Dom’s.”
While that was plausible, my gut was telling me differently. Dom seemed to have a good relationship with Grace.
I believed Duke had told me everything he knew, so I wasn’t going to get much more out of him.
Duke escorted us to the elevator.
Maggie tucked her pad and pen into her bag. “Do you know the Black Knights, Miguel Rivera, Dan Silva, Cory Calderon, or a Dallas?”
I wanted to laugh at how persistent she was, but I didn’t want my action to come off as trivial, because one, sex trafficking was far from trivial; and two, considering Duke’s status in the world of crime, he might know something about the Black Knights.
Duke’s features darkened to match the sky outside his window. “My gang days are over. But anyone tied to the streets knows of the Black Knights and how their main operation is sex trafficking. Is that why you’re really here?” He was talking directly to Maggie. “Do you think I could be involved in sex trafficking?”
