Triple Cross (Alex Cross #30)(37)

CHAPTER 38




Manhattan


MONDAY AFTERNOON, BREE WAS in a coffee shop having an espresso before returning to the courthouse in Lower Manhattan to look through more legal filings involving Frances Duchaine and her business empire.

Bree had found records of a few recent lawsuits by former employees seeking back wages and bonuses and several liens on her company for failure to pay rent on various stores, but other than that, not much that could be described as damaging. Then again, the index of the various filings against or by the fashion designer was nine pages long. I probably still have one or two more days of looking at records before—

Her phone rang. A number she did not recognize. Bree almost declined the call, but something told her to answer.

“Bree Stone,” she said.

“This is Nora Jessup,” a woman with a soft Southern accent said. “You called me about the lawsuit I filed against Frances Duchaine in Raleigh a few years back?”

“Yes!” Bree said, fumbling for a notebook. “I’m so glad you returned my call!”

“I would have called you Friday, but my mother’s in an Alzheimer’s facility and she fell down and broke her hip.”

“Oh God, I’m sorry to hear that,” Bree said.

“Me too,” Jessup said. “How can I help? You know that case is sealed, right?”

“I don’t know where it came from, but I was given a copy. I know the facts you alleged, and they jibe with research I have been doing in Manhattan.”

After a few moments, Jessup said, “Research for whom?”

“I honestly don’t know the client,” Bree said. “They’ve requested anonymity and told me to dig as deeply as I can into Frances Duchaine. That’s what I’m doing. What can you tell me that I don’t already know about her?”

“Tell me what you’ve found so far.”

Bree gave the attorney a rundown of the information she’d been able to gather.

“Well,” Jessup said, “some of that I did not know. But I’ve always wondered if there were limits to what they’d do. And here you say Frances may have had this other girl, Molly, killed?”

“I’m saying that’s a possibility,” Bree said.

“I’m betting Frances didn’t do it. I’m betting Paula Watkins was the one who did it or at least arranged it. Frances doesn’t like to get her hands dirty.”

For the next hour, Bree listened as Jessup described the tentacles and intricacies of an operation that lured young women and men entranced by the dream of being supermodels and working for the great Frances Duchaine to New York.

Raleigh. Miami. Dallas. Houston. Phoenix. Los Angeles. San Francisco. Portland. Seattle. Salt Lake City. Denver. Minneapolis. Chicago. According to the attorney, Duchaine had stores in all those cities, and in all those stores, Watkins had scouts who were paid well to recruit new victims. Jessup believed almost five hundred young women and men might have been caught up in a scheme to saddle them with debt and ensnare them in sexual slavery so Duchaine could profit from their new and miserable existence.

Five hundred! Bree thought. If what Salazar believed was true—that each victim could generate as much as a million dollars a year—then the fashion designer could have pulled in several hundred million dollars in the past five years.

“How did they get your lawsuit squelched and sealed?” Bree asked.

Jessup said, “Bought off the judge, who, sickeningly enough, was a woman.”

“I saw that.”

“I can overnight you some of the other material we were able to dig up,” the attorney said. “But I want no part of this. As far as I’m concerned, the seal stands. I will, however, give you some advice. Once you go down the rabbit hole into Frances’s world, it’s complicated, almost overwhelming. I suggest you find someone to guide you.”

“Smart. But a whistleblower on the inside might be hard to come by.”

Jessup said, “Then find one on the outside. Someone who knows how Frances and Watkins work. Even better, someone who holds a grudge. Or two. Or three.”

Bree thought about that and smiled. “That’s a really good idea.”

“I have them now and then,” Jessup said. “And you should know one more thing about this entire affair. Perhaps the most troubling aspect of all.”





CHAPTER 39




Walpole, Massachusetts


IT WAS ALMOST THREE P.M. when I left the prison, feeling more confused than I had when I’d entered it. After Herman Foster asserted his innocence, he grew irritable and increasingly unresponsive to my questions about the case.

About the only thing I could pin him down on was his beliefs about Thomas Tull.

“Thomas is a tough, fair guy with a cop’s mind and a penchant for self-promotion,” Foster said. “But he’s no killer. I’d trust that man with my life.”

“Looks like you already have,” I said, which pretty much ended the conversation.

Vic Daloia was waiting by his car in the prison parking lot, drinking his fourth or fifth cup of Dunkin’ coffee. “That was fast. You talk to him?”

“For a bit, then he went quiet on me,” I said, climbing into the back seat.

Daloia got behind the wheel, started the car, and pulled out. “He give you anything good, Doc? Anything new?”