One of the pool players snickered. Daniels clenched her jaw.
“We’re going to check the place anyway, just to be sure,” she said.
“I know my rights,” Hawk said. “You can’t do that without a search warrant.”
“Have it your way,” she said. “I’ll place you and your asshole buddies under arrest, and then I’ll get a search warrant. I happened to see a van pull into your compound earlier. We’ll start looking there first.”
It was a masterful stroke. Daniels had nailed Hawk without revealing that she knew the van was loaded with speed and compromising the source of her tip.
“All right, you win,” Hawk said. “Dexter is staying up in New Port Richey. He’s got a room in the back of a strip club he’s living in. The owner’s an old friend of his.”
“What’s the club’s name?”
Hawk looked to the pool players for help. Dirty Pete cleared his throat. Daniels put her hands on her hips and gave him a hard stare.
“Spit it out,” she said.
“It’s called Barely Legal,” Dirty Pete said.
“I take it you and Dexter are friends.”
“Yup. We’ve been running together a long time.”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
“’Bout a week ago. We went drinking, shot the shit.”
“What did you talk about?”
“Pussy.”
She cuffed Dirty Pete in the side of the head and made him see stars. Facing the others, she said, “Your friend is wanted for two murders and a kidnapping. So let this be a warning. If you contact Dexter, and we find out, you’ll be charged as an accessory to these crimes. Am I making myself clear?”
“Loud and clear,” Hawk said, as if putting an exclamation point on things.
Lancaster was impressed. Beth had used the right amount of aggression to convince the bikers that it was in their best interest to play ball. Their business was done, and he grabbed her wallet off the pool table and tossed it to her.
Only they weren’t done. The girl passed out on the couch hadn’t stirred, not even when the chopper had shaken the walls. Daniels sat down on the cushion beside her, and gently slapped the girl’s cheek to wake her up. The girl’s eyelids fluttered but remained shut. Daniels slapped her a little harder, and got the same response. A dark cloud passed over her face, and her mouth silently moved up and down. She stood up and parted her jacket, exposing the sidearm strapped to her side. It was a menacing gesture, meant to invoke fear. It worked.
“What the hell you doing?” Hawk said.
“Tell me about the girl,” she said.
“What do you want to know?”
“Her name would be a good start.”
“Tina.”
“She your girlfriend?”
“She’s everyone’s girlfriend.”
It was the wrong thing to say. Daniels stiffened, and Hawk got visibly smaller on his stool. The others turned to stone, including Dirty Pete.
“What’s she on?” Daniels asked.
“Ludes,” Hawk said. “She took some speed and started bouncing off the walls, so I gave her a lude to calm her down, and she fell asleep.”
“Wake her up.”
“How the hell am I going to do that? She’s passed out.”
Daniels cursed him. She got behind the bar and grabbed a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and a glass, then sat down next to Tina and poured a few fingers of whiskey into the glass, which she put under the girl’s nose. When that didn’t produce the desired effect, she poured some whiskey into Tina’s open mouth, sending half down her chin. Tina came to and coughed violently.
“Who the hell are you?” the girl said.
“Special Agent Daniels, and I’m with the FBI.” Daniels paused to let the words sink in. “I want you to answer some questions for me. What’s your name?”
“Tina Hixby.”
“How old are you, Tina?”
“Nineteen.”
“Do you have a job? Or go to school?”
The girl shook her head.
“Then what do you do?” Daniels asked.
“I hang out,” she said.
“Where did you meet these guys?”
“We hooked up at a bar called Harlie’s.”
“Are you here because you want to be, or because they brought you here?”
Tina hesitated, and Daniels took the girl’s wrist and gave it a squeeze.
“I’m here because I want to be,” Tina said.
“Have you ever tried to leave, and one of these men stopped you?” Daniels asked.
“It’s not like that.”
“Have any of these men ever forced you to have sex?”
Tina’s eyes touched on each biker’s face. Every night, Lancaster guessed.
“Never. I fuck ’em because I want to,” Tina said.
Daniels had heard enough, and she returned the bottle of whiskey to the bar. To the bikers she said, “Remember, boys. If you contact Dexter, I’ll hunt you down and throw your sorry asses in jail. That’s a promise you can take to the bank.”
She moved to leave. Lancaster was a step ahead of her, and he opened the front door. Looking over her shoulder, she gave Tina a parting glance.
“You have poor taste in men,” Daniels told her.
Chapter 19
Daniels was on a mission. Her body language gave it away. There was a bounce to her step that hadn’t been there before, and a heightened alertness. Dexter was hiding in New Port Richey, and she would not rest until he was apprehended and the twelve women whom his gang had abducted were rescued.
The chopper had left, and except for a barking dog, the neighborhood was quiet. She addressed the FBI agents assembled on the sidewalk, and told them what she wanted done. Finished, she marched down the street to her vehicle and climbed behind the wheel. Lancaster barely had his door closed as they took off.
“Your plan is flawed,” he said.
They were in a residential neighborhood. The posted speed limit was thirty miles per hour, and she was doing fifty. She eyed him without slowing down.
“Why didn’t you say anything back there?” she asked.
“Professional courtesy,” he said.
“What’s wrong with it?”
“You want the guys on your team to enter Barely Legal tonight, mingle with the customers, and root out Dexter. That’s not going to work.”
“Why not?”
Using Google Images, he pulled up a photograph and showed her. “It’s a hellhole, and the clientele are lowlifes. Your guys look like Boy Scouts. It won’t work.”
“You’ve been in this place?”
“No, but I know what to expect. There are two types of strip clubs in Florida. The clubs that cater to businessmen have nice addresses and are upscale. The clubs that don’t have nice addresses are dives. I visited New Port Richey once to pick up a guy who skipped bail. The town is the pits, and I have to assume Barely Legal is a toilet.”
“So what do I do? Put my team in disguise?”
The guys on her team had short haircuts and were physically fit. Those two things alone would set off alarms.
“Let me go inside instead,” he said. “I’ll unbutton my shirt and let my belly hang out. I’ll look just like every other slob in the place.”
“And let you handle Dexter alone? Not a chance.”
“I promise, I won’t kill him. I’ll corner him inside the club, and text you. Then your team can come in, and make the bust.”
A sign directed them to the interstate, and she didn’t reply until they were heading back to Tampa. “But Dexter knows what you look like. If he spots you inside the club, he might try to shoot it out.”
“He’s not going to spot me,” he said. “Back when I was a SEAL, I was the front man. Blending in is my specialty.”
Beth said nothing, which he didn’t take as a good sign. She had looked into his eyes the night before at the Jayhawk, and seen the hatred burning in his soul. It was the type of wound that would not begin to heal until justice was served, no matter what promises he made.