Changing the Rules (Richter Book 1)(76)

“I don’t remember,” Cooper admitted.

Claire returned her stare to Neil. “It was her, wasn’t it? She’s the one keeping an eye on Marie?”

Quiet filled the room.

Olivia was an assassin. Or had been, before Neil and the team tore apart the fabric that cloaked Richter.

Neil’s silence confirmed her suspicion.

Who better to watch out for an assassin than someone who’d been in that role in the past?

“Marie will be safe” was all Neil added.

Cooper rubbed Claire’s back before walking to the front of the room. “So where are we at?” He stared at the situation board, hands on hips.

It took a few seconds before the shock that Olivia was not only alive but working for Neil wore off.

Jax answered Cooper’s question. “Marie positively identified Big Brian Contreras.”

“That’s a huge check on the board,” Claire said. “What about Mykonos?”

“Mykonos Sobol,” Sasha reported and handed Claire a picture. “Extended family with money and power. They are the kind of family that goes to jail for tax evasion instead of prostitution and murder.”

“Russian mafia,” Cooper said, deadpan.

“Affirmative.”

Lars picked up from there. “Vegas vice has been wanting to bust him for years, but no one talks. Two times he was booked, both times the witnesses recanted and later disappeared. Marie’s testimony is exactly what Vegas needs.”

Every time Claire heard Marie’s name, she worried more for her safety, felt better knowing the person protecting her.

“Any direct link between Mykonos and Milo?”

Isaac spoke up. “I’m working on that now. So far, nothing.”

Claire’s mind flashed with the pictures of the bodies in the police report. “Do we have the autopsy reports yet on the two deceased?”

“I’m told we’ll have them tomorrow,” Neil told her.

Cooper pointed to a new photograph on the board. “I’m guessing this is Ice.”

“Detective Phelps already got back to us on him,” Lars informed them. “Marie gave a positive ID. Similar to Brian, he was headed toward his third strike when he and his guys cleaned up their act. The running theory is when Marie was sent there to learn her lesson, Ice needed to make sure she did. When she got busted, she wasn’t going back to Vegas directly to Mykonos, so Ice was told to kill her. But instead of doing that right away, he makes more money off of her, then lines up all of his guys and makes them participate in all the brutality before the girls are set on fire.”

“Which makes all of them accomplices to murder,” Jax concluded.

Claire started nodding as the pieces fell into place. She moved to a clean board and picked up a marker. “Local gangs only organize with leadership. I’ve met Brian, he’s not sharp. But he doesn’t talk like a thug and he doesn’t have an abundance of ink or piercings.”

“He’s not a bad-looking guy,” Jax pointed out.

“Let’s look at the money,” Neil said, taking the pen she wasn’t using out of her hand. “Marie is taken to Vegas and sold.” Neil wrote Brian’s name on the board, put a dollar sign next to it. “Mykonos has her for three years, makes an untold amount of money. By her descriptions, many of these events were high end. These men are expecting more than anything they can find on the street. Chances are they don’t even pay for the girls individually, more like a bonus for spending more than a hundred grand a day in a casino.”

“That’s how it sounded to me when Marie was talking,” Claire told him.

He wrote several dollar signs around Mykonos’s name. “He sends her to Ice. Ice gets paid.” More dollar signs next to his name.

Claire took the pen from Neil. “Three years ago, girls started to be selected, which is why Detective Warren sent in undercover cops. Now that we know what happens to those girls after they disappear, we know there’s serious money for the one who sells them.” She drew a big dollar sign. “It’s given to Brian, and the school connections, and the dirty cop, if there is one. So it has to be big money. And if I’m spending a lot of money, I want to get what I want. A busty blonde with blue eyes, or a fifteen-year-old that looks like their sister . . . or whatever perverse thing drives them.”

Claire studied the board, capped the pen, and put it down. “We need to find the want ads?”

“No, what we need to do is flush out these leads at the school,” Neil said. “And we have less than a week to do it. Now that we know this is over the state line, the commander in Seattle can only hold off on getting the feds involved a short time. He’s giving us that courtesy. Let’s not waste the time. I don’t want any person in this shit show getting away. We can’t depend on Brian pointing fingers or not ending up dead so he isn’t able.”

They all had their assignments for the next day.

Cooper needed to put a tracker on Tony’s car. Hopefully the guy cooperated and showed up for the shop day.

Claire needed to obtain the roster of tutors and find the connection to Bremerton, work Eastman and see if she could get anything else from him.

Jax needed face time with Russell. And get as much information about this party Ally went to.

And Manuel, who Claire was starting to think spoke only when spoken to, was on watch for any change in activity.