The Ukrainian’s criminal tentacles were many and far-reaching: Predominantly human trafficking, arms, drugs, classified information gathered and sold to the highest bidder, in most cases the Chinese. And Pink was smack dab in the middle of it. Had her sister stumbled onto something that got her into trouble? Had Chermensky made sure she would never speak of it? More curious to Flynn was the question of why the hell hadn’t the senator reported his daughter missing. Flynn had double-checked the state and national data banks. Nothing. He checked Alexandra Chastain’s last known address. Her parents’ Piedmont address. Didn’t make sense.
Flynn sprawled back in his chair, and locking his hands behind his head, he stared up at the ceiling and said out loud, “Okay, if I was a senator up for reelection next year and my only child was stripping at a club in San Francisco’s notorious Tenderloin and suddenly went missing, why wouldn’t I report her missing?” Flynn popped up in his chair. “Because once her disappearance was public, so too would be her last place of employment.”
Bastard was keeping it quiet, just like he’d kept his parentage of Pink quiet. Flynn shook his head in disgust. And he’d voted for the guy!
While Chastain wouldn’t win any Father of the Year awards, Flynn assumed that the old man would have hired a private investigator to find his daughter and quietly bring her home. Maybe he had. Once he had more information from the task force, he’d see about paying the senator and his wife a visit.
The irony of this was that Pink, who had been shunned by her cowardly father and sister, was the brave one making the sacrifices. While Flynn was sure Pink didn’t know she was working for a terrorist, who ran girls from the city overseas for Christ’s sake, she knew enough to know he was a sleazebag. It hadn’t stopped her from searching for the sister who hadn’t given Pink the time of day until she needed help.
Shaking his head, Flynn tried to understand why anyone would do that. He knew he wouldn’t. If his father came crawling to him begging for even a minute of Flynn’s time, Flynn would walk away without giving it a second thought.
Isadora Fuentes was proving to be quite a puzzle. One, he told himself, he should leave alone.
Forcing himself to do just that, Flynn turned all his energy back to researching the information the taskforce had compiled over the years. Three hours later he glanced at his watch. Almost seven in the morning, the troops would be showing up soon. When they did, armed with the information Pink had given him and what he’d read of the files, Flynn was going to request permission to join the task force and get Pink the hell out of that rat trap of a club.
Before he could start the next pot of coffee and get on it, his cell phone rang. Damn it, his gut hitched, thinking it might be Pink. It was Simon.
“Hey, what’s up,” Flynn answered glumly. Then he literally shook himself. He needed to get over it and focus.
“What, no ‘good morning’? No, how was your weekend? No, are you a dad yet?”
“Sorry, man, I’m a little preoccupied. Are you a dad yet?”
“No, asshole, Kat’s not due for another three months.”
“Then why’d you say—” Flynn shook his head. “Never mind.”
Simon laughed. “How’d it go with the little drug-slipping stripper?”
Flynn clenched his jaw. “I called her out, she apologized, I let her go.”
“Really?” Simon asked, surprised. “That’s it?”
Flynn was a by-the-book guy. He should have arrested her; had he, he wouldn’t be moping around like a lovelorn sap and she’d be safe in jail.
“The way you were tripping all over your hard-on for her, I thought you might’ve dipped your toe into that pond of bodaciousness.” Simon laughed, enjoying his ribbing. “I’ll let the boys know she’s available, then. They were howling like dogs for her after you absconded with her.”
Flynn’s jaw nearly cracked from the pressure of his anger. “She’s not available.” Yeah, he just said that.
“Anybody I know?” Simon asked, humor hanging on each word. Simon was one of the most intelligent investigators Flynn had ever worked with. His case closure percentage was somewhere in the ninetieth percentile. Flynn might be lying to himself, but Simon wasn’t buying it.
“No,” Flynn bit off.
“Well, son, you need to let her and her boyfriend know that she’s in with unfriendlies. After I texted you yesterday, I did some digging. Boris Sorlov is an alias and he’s not who he purports to be. Dude is bad news. Even if Wild Style didn’t pique your interest, she needs to get out of there or she’s going to end up as some Russian crime czar’s play toy. Sorlov has been moving girls out of Surf’s Up for years.”
“I’ve been working it on my end all night. Evidently there’s a task force in place.”
“Hit up Justin, he’s the SFPD liaison and working it hard. He can bring you up to speed.”
“Thanks, man,” Flynn said.
“Any time, and Ryker?”
“Yeah?”
“As an expert on the opposite sex, and a trained observer, I think I can say with some accuracy that your little stripper wasn’t like the rest of them. Not even close. Hell, she tried drugging you.” He laughed. “If she copped to it and you didn’t arrest her, I’m thinking she was put up to it.”
“She was. By the club manager. She did it to get information on her sister, who disappeared from the club a few months ago.”
There was a lengthy pause on Simon’s end. Finally he said, “You have a problem with the 'she’s a stripper’ part?”
“You were there, she took her top off in front of all the guys,” Flynn bit out.
Simon laughed again. “It’s just skin man, you need to—”
“I don’t need anyone who’s seen her tits to tell me that it doesn’t matter.”
“What is it with you feds and your egos?”
Flynn snapped. “So if Kat did a lap dance for me and rubbed her tits in my face, you’d be able to overlook that?”
There was a long pause before Simon said, very slowly, “I’d get over it because she mattered to me. She’d deserve that from the man who loved her.”
“I just met Pink, I don’t love her!” He didn’t love anyone.
“I’m not saying you do, what I’m saying is that if she matters, at all, she deserves to be valued for who she is, not what she does. That said, if that had been Kat, I’d knock your teeth out if you ever mentioned the lap dance or her tits to me, her, or anyone we mutually associated with.”
“So you’d live with the elephant in the room?”
“There’s only an elephant in the room, brother, if you put it there.”
Could have knocked Flynn over with a feather. Simon West was the most possessive, protective man Flynn had met. If anyone looked at his wife wrong, Simon took care of business. How could a man like that accept his wife’s tits being on blast?
“It’s not relevant. There’s nothing between us.”
“If you say so. But just in case there is, give Justin a call, and he’ll bring you up to speed on Sorlov.” Simon hung up.
Flynn stood staring at the phone. His friend’s words echoed in his head.
There’s only an elephant in the room, brother, if you put it there.
There wasn’t an elephant in the room, there was the lusty vision of Pink’s breasts and her air-humping his coworkers in the room!
Flynn jammed the phone into his back jeans pocket and rummaged through his bottom desk drawer, taking out the spare shaving kit and clean button-down shirt and tie still in the package from the dry cleaners. He kept the items on hand for when he pulled an all-nighter.
As he made his way to the men’s room, the support staff and agents began to arrive. None of them seemed surprised to see him. Indeed, he’d spent many a night here. He gave his SAC, Rod Mills, a nod in the hallway as he pushed the men’s room door open.