Vicki Pettersson - The Taken

“But you still know what’s going on in that household.”

“Some.” She shrugged. “But again, I have no money, no power. No one would believe me because what’s my word-a prostitute’s-against a cop’s? A judge’s? A Mormon businessman who owns them all?” She shook her head. “No, I’m no threat to any of them. But,” Bridget added, staring into her drink, narrow-eyed. “I know that it embarrasses him.”

“That you were a hooker?”

“That I was a street hooker. Did you and Craig go to the gala last Saturday? Did you see the girls?”

She shook her head when Grif nodded. “They’re not bad girls. In fact, their very goodness is why Chambers can command such coin. They’re told to be good girls, big girls. They’re given champagne and caviar when they should be enjoying burgers with their friends. They dream of prom dresses but are given Herve Leger instead. It’s both heady and totally disorienting for someone barely graduated from playground politics.

“I can’t believe he’s still getting away with it.” She shook her head again. “Never underestimate the power of tight, young flesh on old, loose wallets.”

“Never underestimate the power of raw blackmail.”

“That, too.” Bridget nodded. “Craig and her friend were on the right track, of course. Chambers annihilates every person he sees as a local up-and-comer, anyone who might threaten his king-of-the-mountain status, and he does it by luring them to his parties. If he’s playing it like he used to, he’s friendly at first, gets them off guard. Then locates a weakness-alcohol, drugs, anything to loosen them up. Before they know it they’re in a darkened corner with one of his ‘girls.’ ”

“And he’s got it on tape.” Must have learned that one from his daughter, Grif thought wryly. “Okay, so why is Schmidt still in the picture? He provide the girls?”

Bridget looked at Grif like he was crazy. “Schmidt works the street, and regular johns can’t score prime, green flesh. But the glitterati don’t want skin that’s been passed around too much. Even among the chosen, a few months go by, the girls’ faces become known, they get a little too familiar with the local councilman, maybe call him by his first name one time too many, and they’re gone. You think Chambers pulls a mind-spin on the men, it’s nothing compared to what happens to the women.”

Grif had to fight not to down the whole of his drink. “And what happens to them?”

“He sells them to Schmidt.”

He stared hard at that. “Sells?”

“Sure. In return for sending out little ‘legal’ reminders to Chambers’s clientele, and making sure the heat is always directed elsewhere, Schmidt gets the castoffs for his own burgeoning illegal brothel. The girls are usually strung out by then, or else they’ve been made to feel like they’ve got no other use. Told no one with real class would want them anyway. And what are they supposed to do, go back and seduce their school’s star quarterback?”

“They could quit and walk away.”

Bridget sneered. “You’ve clearly never had a pimp.”

“That’s true.”

“A girl can’t walk,” she told Grif, leaning forward. “She has to run, and even then she’d better have wings. Better yet, a false identity and a crash pad far, far away.”

Grif understood now. “Because Schmidt sets them up. Arrests them for nothing, charges them with something. Guess he feels like he owns them.”

Bridget inclined her head. “And unlike my father, he’s never finished with them. It’s work for him or do jail time. Period.”

“He can’t be working alone.”

“Oh no. There are other cops in on it.” Leaning back, she blew out a breath. “Even the girls become complicit at this stage. And, of course, the judges and politicians and lawyers they balled back at Chambers’s place. Everyone has a vested interest in keeping those women quiet and on their backs.”

Grif looked at her. “So what’d they have on you?”

“You mean when I got busted at the Wayfarer?” She shook her head. “I wasn’t working for Schmidt. I was trying to get the girls out. I was sick of it. It was eating at me, and I thought, in some ways this had all started with me so maybe I could end it, too. One of the girls rolled me, though. She thought she’d earn points with the ‘Old Man’ if she told him what I was doing.”

“Is that why you didn’t tell Kit that Chambers was your father?”

Bridget slumped wearily. “Schmidt cost me my job before. After I was fired from the Fifth Avenue salon, the bastard had the nerve to call me up. He didn’t say his name, but he didn’t have to. He said if I messed with his business, then he’d mess with mine. He didn’t care whose daughter I was.”

“And you think he would?”

“Schmidt can do anything he wants. So I decided to keep my nose clean and mind my own business. If they’re smart and want it badly enough maybe some of the others will, too.”

Grif studied her face. “So why contact Kit and Nicole with the list?”

“I didn’t.”

Grif drew back at that, because he’d been sure she had. Yet there was no reason for her to lie now. Not when she was being so honest about everything else.“One last thing, then.”

She lowered her glass.

“Where is Chambers getting all these girls in the first place?”

She looked at Grif like he was impossibly naive. “He’s a bishop in the twenty-ninth ward.”

Grif shook his head. “What does that mean?”

“The Mormon Church. He’s essentially the head of his own congregation.”

Grif felt his face drain of color. “He culls little girls from the church… and turns them into prostitutes?”

Bridget smiled bitterly. “Makes priests look downright old-fashioned, doesn’t it?”

“But why wouldn’t the girls tell someone? Their families, their mothers?”

“There’s a system you have to go through. The same person, a man, who takes complaints for the church…” She trailed off, looking at him pointedly.

“Takes them directly to Chambers,” Grif finished for her.

“One big, happy family, right?” But the scorn was quickly replaced. Soberly, she said, “I actually told at first.”

“Told on your own dad?”

She nodded. “I agonized over it for days-prayed over it actually. I thought if God was on my side then someone would listen and… save me. So I went to church. Went to the elder like we’re told. You know what he said?”

Grif shook his head.

“He said, ‘God will help you out of your sin, child.’ ” She winced with the memory, her face momentarily caving in on itself. “I seen a lot and done a lot since then, but I have never seen anything so cold as that man, who sat before a kid who’d been sold and raped, and told her that her only hope of help was God.”

“You know God’s not to blame for that, right?”

“Oh, He’s not the one I blame.” And sighing, Bridget signaled for another drink. “Anything else you need to know? Any other old scars you want to poke at?”

Rising, Grif shook his head, and pushed in his chair. “Thank you for your time, Bridget.”

She shrugged, and he began to walk, but paused, and returned to put his palms down on the table’s center. “You know, I kinda have a sixth sense about a person’s true nature, and well, whatever you’ve done in the past, whatever was done to you, you’re still walking and breathing and making choices for your own life. And you’re worthy of a good life, Bridget.”

Tears shimmered, and Bridget swallowed hard.

“Oh, and Schmidt was wrong,” Grif said, straightening.

“About?”

“You,” Grif said, staring directly into her hard-soft face. “You’re not a damned bit tainted.”