His phone vibrated in his hand. Pearl was calling him. Lancaster didn’t know what to say without devastating his client, and he decided to stonewall him.
“Hello, Dr. Pearl,” he said.
“Hello, Jon. I’m lying in bed with Melanie. My cell phone is on speaker so she can hear you. You’ve found something, haven’t you?”
He wasn’t going to lie. “Yes.”
“You sound troubled.”
“I’m very tired, Dr. Pearl, that’s all.”
“Are you going to tell me what you’ve found?”
“Not over the phone,” he said.
He thought he heard Melanie gasp.
“You want to speak to us in person,” Pearl said.
“Yes.”
“Would you like to come over now? I can’t imagine we’re going to get much more sleep tonight.”
“I think tomorrow morning would be better.”
“Why wait?”
“I want Nicki to be in the room with us. I have questions to ask her.”
A pause. Then, “Nicki’s involved in this situation, isn’t she?”
“I didn’t say that,” he said.
“But that’s where this is heading. You’ve found evidence linking Nicki to these horrible men, and you’re afraid to tell us over the phone. Hold on a second.” Melanie was weeping, and her husband spoke soothingly to her before returning to the line. “It’s not a total surprise. My wife and I had a long conversation with Nicki after dinner. You were right — Nicki is holding a grudge because we refused to let her take horseback riding lessons when we lived in Dubai. We had no idea how angry she was with us. She’s been holding it in for a while.”
He’d found a possible motive. Nicki had wanted to get back at her parents, so she’d gone and made a slew of pornographic videos out of spite and posted them on the internet under a false name, never thinking the videos would come back to haunt her.
“That explains a lot,” he said.
“So you’ve figured it out,” Pearl said.
“Perhaps. I still need to talk to your daughter. What time can I come by?”
“Why won’t you tell me now?”
“Because I’m missing a piece of the puzzle. When you were living in Dubai, did Nicki take any trips out of the country for an extended period of time?”
“We took several family trips.”
“I mean by herself.”
“Let me think. There was a school-sponsored trip to Paris seven months ago that Nicki went on. She was gone five days with her class.”
“Do you know where she stayed in Paris?” he asked.
Melanie spoke up. “She stayed in the Intercontinental Hotel with the rest of her classmates.”
“Did she have a private room?”
Hesitation, then, “Yes, she had a private room.”
“Did this trip take place before or after you said no to the horses?”
“After. Is that the piece of the puzzle you’re looking for?”
Five days in a private room in a Paris hotel was more than enough time to make a bunch of sleazy videos and put them out for the world to see in cyberspace. It all made sense, and he felt ready to confront Nicki and get her to admit what she’d done. That would be the first step toward getting this situation resolved.
“Yes, it is,” he said. “What time can I come by?”
“We usually have breakfast around eight.”
“See you then.”
Chapter 24
Down the Rabbit Hole
In his experience, the best way to break bad news was over a meal. Eating food calmed people down when they were upset. He was sure there was a scientific explanation for it, not that he needed to hear it. Food soothed troubled souls.
He drove to the Pearls’ house with the smell of freshly baked bagels filling his car. He’d gotten to the Bagel Snack on Powerline a few minutes before opening and there still had been a line stretching down the sidewalk. According to the owner, the key to making a delicious bagel was the quality of the water. South Florida tap water was not fit for consumption, so the owner imported water from New York. It showed in every bite.
He parked in the Pearls’ driveway and took two bags off the seat before getting out. As he neared the front door, Carlo emerged from the hedge. He handed him a bag.
“Good morning. That’s for all of you,” he said.
Carlo glanced into the bag and grinned. “Thanks, Jon.”
“I should be the one thanking you. How have things been in my absence?”
“Karl and I were talking about that earlier. This street has way too much traffic for a residential neighborhood, especially at night. They’re after the girl, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Have you figured out why? She must have done something.”
It was an obvious conclusion that he’d been avoiding for days. Call it a state of denial born out of respect for the parents and their child. But that was no more.
“I’ll tell you someday over a cold beer,” he said. “In the meantime, I need to book you for a few more days until I get this worked out. Are you available?”
“Calendar’s wide open. Provided you keep bringing us food.”
“Deal.”
“Do you ever miss being a SEAL?” Carlo asked. “I was thinking the other night how those missions were probably the best time of my life.”
It was the best time of Lancaster’s life as well, until he’d spotted a little boy getting too close to his unit in Yemen. The hump beneath the kid’s shirt looked suspicious, and Lancaster’s quick thinking had saved his unit from getting blown up. He’d been a hero, but it hadn’t changed the fact that he’d shot a child, and he’d put in his papers the next week.
“I don’t miss it at all,” he said.
Pearl greeted him at the front door. The doctor looked upset, and justifiably so. If Nicki had been honest with her parents, a private investigator wouldn’t have been needed to figure out what was going on. Instead, the Pearls could have gone to the police, and gotten the Cassandra videos taken off the internet. Nicki’s lying had destroyed her parents’ faith in her and harmed their family. He handed his client the second bag.
“That’s very thoughtful of you,” Pearl said. “We haven’t told my daughter anything. Before you talk to her, I want to hear what you found.”
They stood in the foyer facing each other. They could hear Nicki and Melanie in the kitchen fixing breakfast. The Today Show played in the background.
“I found a dozen lewd videos of your daughter on Zack Kenny’s cell phone,” he said. “She posted them under the name Cassandra. They were made before your family moved here. Based upon things I saw on them, I think they were shot in Paris.”
Pearl brought his hand to his mouth. “A dozen?”
He nodded. It was a big, painful number.
“What is she doing on them?”
“Sometimes she’s lying in bed, other times she’s on a couch or in a chair or she’s dancing. In one, she’s taking a shower. She’s naked and talks dirty to the camera and then masturbates until she reaches orgasm.”
“Does she have sex in them?”
“Yes. In the last nine videos, she has sex.”
“Another teenager?”
“No, her partner is an adult.”
Pearl took a deep breath as if to steady himself. Lancaster placed his hand on the doctor’s shoulder and left it there. “We need to get this out in the open. That’s the only way we can move forward and come up with a solution.”
“I agree, Jon. And so does Melanie.”
“Nicki may not react well when I tell her what I’ve found. I want you and your wife to sit on either side of her, in case she decides to run. Nicki has to hear me out. Understood?”
“Loud and clear.”
He lowered his arm. “Good. I’m glad we’re on the same page.”