Chapter 5
—You know the truth by the way it feels.—
Lucy rubbed her temple as she strode across the casino floor. It was two in the morning and time for her to get out of here. It was no wonder she had no social life, given her crazy hours. As she headed for the west set of elevators, she frowned when she saw a local man she recognized well enough leaving the floor, his arm linked with a tall, beautiful woman with brown skin and model-long legs. She’d never seen the woman before but she knew the man, Darius something. He lived in New Orleans and normally came to the casino on Friday or Saturday nights to play the craps tables. He’d never stayed at this hotel. Would have no need to.
Frowning, she watched as the couple walked off together, clearly very enamored with each other. Or at least he was enamored with her. Lucy didn’t like to judge based on appearances, but the woman was light years out of Darius’s league, and this was the third time she’d seen him hooking up with a woman who looked like the woman on his arm. Not physically exactly, but the same type of woman—tall and beautiful.
Yes, there was definitely a chance he was simply getting lucky with out-of-town visitors, but she’d taken courses on what to look for when it came to trafficking…and something did not sit right with her.
Instead of tagging security on her phone, she headed to the other set of elevators and went straight to the security floor, using her keycard to allow for full access. She should’ve looked into this earlier, but now that she was off work, she had all the time she needed.
On the security floor, she swiped her keycard against the glass doors and nodded once at Nick, the security manager on duty this weekend. She liked the older man well enough. He had a lot of experience and did his job well. He’d been with a casino in Vegas for a decade and had come highly recommended.
“Lucy, I’m surprised to see you here. Everything okay?”
“Yes. I’m just checking up on something. Do you have a free computer?”
He paused and then nodded. She wasn’t his boss in the technical sense, but as far as the hierarchy went she was definitely ranked above him. Not that he had any reason to question her presence on this floor. It was slightly out of the ordinary but she had every right to be here.
“Come on, Jorge’s office is empty right now. You can use his computer if you need. Is there anything I can help you with? I can probably find it a lot faster.”
She half-smiled because it was true. But she understood how to do facial recognition searches using the parameters on their security system, and was comfortable doing the search herself. And she wasn’t sure what to tell him just yet so she simply shook her head. “Thank you for the offer. I’m sure you have your hands full and this is definitely not a priority. I was just getting off work and thought I’d do something before heading home.”
He nodded once. “Sure thing. Let me know if you change your mind. And if you’re hungry, they just stocked our kitchen so there’s plenty of food or whatever.”
“Thanks,” she said, sinking into Jorge’s chair. She quickly typed in her own credentials then pulled up one of the programs she knew she would need.
Doing a search for the timeframe she’d seen Darius was easy, since he’d just left the main floor. She pulled up an image of his face, then did another search covering the last three weeks, wanting to be thorough. While the computer ran the program, she captured the face of the woman he’d been with and did a search on her as well.
Ping. Ping. The computer quickly fed her the information she’d requested on Darius. She pulled up the various video clips from different dates—and saw that on various evenings from the last few weeks, he’d been seen leaving with different women, heading up to their hotel rooms. Or she assumed so. She was going to check who’d rented the rooms as well.
From there, she captured images of each woman she’d seen him leaving with and did searches on them too. The biometric technology was fairly new and definitely wouldn’t catch everything she wanted—it was better at working with neutral expressions and full faces, but she was going to see what she could find. Since she could see what floor they got off on—always the same one—it made her searches a bit easier.
It took time to gather the information, but she wasn’t going anywhere until she got what she needed.
Once she’d gotten room numbers, she did more searches and found out that…the rooms they’d been using hadn’t been occupied at the time of use. Well, technically they had been, but they were listed as free rooms.
Her stomach twisted at the knowledge. If Darius and these women were using rooms that were free, it meant someone who worked here had told them. Oh, this was not looking good.
When she didn’t see any of the women in her searches other than the one time, she expanded the parameter and went back six months.
More waiting.
A few minutes later, she got another ping: this time three of the women showed up in different rotations, leaving with different men right around the two a.m. mark on different days. After a double-check of the rooms they’d used, she found that they’d all been listed as free.
She tapped her finger against the desk, frowning about what she was going to do with the information. As she thought about the ramifications of all this, she frowned slightly as she spotted a familiar face on one of the screens. Michael Atkins.
He often worked security.
He was on the floor, watching one of the women leave with a casino patron. She scrolled back to the different feeds with Darius and the different women. And Michael was in each one of them, watching, hanging out subtly in the background.
What was he, like a pimp or something? She didn’t want to jump to conclusions but this was all too fishy. And she wasn’t going to ignore it.
Now she was really glad she hadn’t asked for help, because Michael was part of the security team. Though she hadn’t hired him. He’d been here when she’d come on board. She had no particular feelings about him whatsoever. He did his job, but they often worked different shifts and she didn’t interact with him more than necessary. But she was pretty certain her uncle knew him. And if her uncle found out what Lucy suspected Michael was up to, he would not like this.
Okay, forget being cautious, she was going to call her uncle and tell him what was going on. There was no way she was going to put up with this bullshit in the casino. This was the kind of thing that could get them raided or shut down. Not to mention if these women weren’t engaged in their profession consensually, that was a whole other can of worms. If grown-ups wanted to trade sex for money, that was their business. As long as it was consensual and didn’t interfere with her business. But she also knew that vulnerable women could be exploited, so she sure as hell wasn’t going to let this go on any longer.
Running on fumes at this point, she saved all of the information to a flash drive and tucked it into her skirt pocket. As soon as she got home, she was going to chug some coffee and review the information again just to be sure before she called her uncle. She wouldn’t be able to sleep until she talked to him.
* * *
Lucy tapped her finger against her kitchen countertop as her call went through. When she realized the time, she winced. It was close to four in the morning. Damn it. She should just hang up.
But then another surge of adrenaline punched through her as she thought about everything she’d discovered. She had no doubt that Mike was somehow involved with something—maybe not trafficking women, but he was at least involved in prostitution. And he was putting all of the casino at risk. Not to mention if she found out—
“Lucy.” Her uncle’s voice was intense. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. I’m sorry. I realized the time after I pressed call and—”
“It’s not a problem. I’ve been awake for half an hour. You know me. The early bird catches the worm and all that.”
She laughed lightly despite her dark mood. Her uncle often got idioms wrong so it made her smile that he got this one right. “I have something to tell you, and I know what I’m going to do. But…I’m not sure the extent of how involved I should get with this and what steps I should take to correct it. I’m certain that one of our employees is involved in running prostitution through The Sapphire.”
Talking quickly, she laid out what she’d found out about Mike, the little details with the rooms being unused, and her suspicions overall.
“It’s more than a suspicion though. I’m going with my instinct on this. Do I have one hundred percent proof? No. But I don’t need that much proof. I’ve already sent an email to his supervisor letting her know to cancel all Mike’s shifts. And I’m going to fire him.” Since this was an at-will state she didn’t need to worry about giving a reason. “And I know that we need to do an internal investigation because clearly someone else is involved. Or I assume someone is, because they have access to our rooms’ vacancies and whatnot. Do we involve the police or what?”
Her uncle was silent for a long moment. Then he said, “It’s good you came to me. I don’t think we should involve the police. Because while I don’t like prostitution in one of our casinos, I also don’t want those women to be inadvertently arrested or involved.”
That had been Lucy’s thought process as well. She wasn’t quite sure of the legalities of it but she knew that the women could be arrested, and her opinion of that was bullshit. If someone was exploiting or forcing the women, they were the ones who should be arrested. “Okay.”
“Don’t worry about firing him. I’ll take care of it personally.”
“You don’t have to do that!” Lucy knew how busy he was. Even if he hadn’t been her uncle, she still would’ve called him because he was the owner of the casino. “This is something I can handle on my own.”
“I have no doubt that you can, but if Atkins is doing this at one of my casinos, there’s no telling what else he’s been involved in. I’m going to handle this, and I’ll set up the investigation myself. It’s not up for discussion.”
She knew better than to argue when her uncle used that tone. And the truth was, she was glad she didn’t have to deal with Mike. “Thank you. What about the women though? I want to help them if they need it.” If they were in their profession voluntarily, Lucy would leave it alone, but they might need help, and she wouldn’t be able to sleep if she didn’t try to help.
Her uncle was silent again for a long moment. Finally he said, “I know a private investigator in the city. I’ll bring him into our internal investigation and see if he can find out who the women are and any other details involving them. This is something I don’t want you getting involved in, however. You were smart to come to me, but I don’t want to hear that you’re doing investigative work on your own.”
“Okay, I won’t.” Well, maybe. But she didn’t tell him that. She’d wait and see what happened with the investigation.
“Have you gotten any sleep?”
She let out a short laugh. “No. I came straight home and reviewed everything again then called you.”
“You’re doing a good job at the casino. I’m proud of you.”
“Ah, thank you.” Despite herself, she slightly preened under his praise, even though she knew it was ridiculous. But he’d been a father figure to her, replacing her own father. He might not have been overly warm or affectionate, but he’d given her every opportunity she could need in life to be successful. He’d taken care of her trust and looked out for her. Sure, he wasn’t very complimentary and sometimes it was as if he was tossing her morsels of praise to appease her. And she was ashamed to admit she ate them up. Maybe she had issues. Clearing her throat, she said, “Listen, I talked to Liliana yesterday.”
“Ah, my wonderful girl. How is she doing?”
It bothered Lucy that he even had to ask. He should know. He should talk to his daughter every week. More than once. “Good enough. School is going well. And she has good friends. She’s staying out of trouble, which I’m sure you know.” Because there was no doubt that her uncle had guards on his daughter. The school was secure but she knew her uncle well enough that he’d give Liliana extra security. The kidnapping attempts on her had really rattled him. “She wants to come home for the holidays.”
He made a tsking sound. “I’ve already planned a vacation for all of us. We will go skiing in Switzerland.”
“She doesn’t want to go to Switzerland.”
“Fine. We’ll do something new this year. Maybe we’ll go somewhere warm, to Australia. Wherever she wants.”
Lucy sighed, even as she rubbed her temple. She was exhausted and knew this wasn’t the time to have this particular conversation with her uncle. Maybe it was the exhaustion pushing her to run her mouth, however. “She wants to come home,” Lucy said despite herself. “She needs to know she has an actual place to come home to. She hasn’t been to the States in years. It’s not good. It’s not good for anyone to feel like they don’t have roots.” Jesus, Lucy should know. Some days—most days—she felt completely untethered to everything around her.
Her uncle sighed, the sound long and heavy. “You know how much I need to protect her.”
“I do know. But the last attempt on her was five years ago. She’s more aware of the danger now, of her surroundings. She’s a smart girl. If anything, she can come here, stay with me for the holiday break. There’s so much to do here that she would love. We can catch a play, see a couple concerts, the Christmas Eve bonfires… Liliana would love it.” She bit her bottom lip as she waited for him to respond. He’d never been truly angry at her but she’d also never pushed back about much.
He sighed again. “Let’s discuss this later. I have much work to do today. I’ll call Liliana later and we’ll figure something out. Thank you again for bringing this issue to my attention though. I promise to deal with it immediately. In fact, I’ll be in town in a couple days so I’ll update you then.”
“That’s great. I assume this is for business?” Because he wouldn’t be coming just to see her.
“Yes. I’ve always got something to do.” He laughed, though it sounded almost strained.
Or maybe she was just out of fumes at this point and ready to fall asleep on her feet. And she knew he would not be discussing anything with her later regarding Liliana. If she had to guess, he would call his daughter and convince her that she did not want to come home for the holidays.
Even if Lucy wanted to push the subject, now definitely wasn’t the time. She needed to talk to him again when she was levelheaded and not dealing with a work crisis.
“I’ll see you in a couple days, then. Thank you for handling this.” She knew he was going to start an investigation but she was going to look through the rest of the security feeds and see if she could find anything else. Particularly if Mike had been working with anyone. She was going to make sure that if anyone else was involved, they’d be fired as well.
“Good.” Then he disconnected without another word, which was definitely his way.
Sighing, she set her phone down and stood. She needed a shower and sleep.