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.”
Tears fell unheeded from her eyes as she stared. “Be careful. He’s powerful.”
“You be careful, too.”
Wiping her face with one hand, she lifted her glass with the other. “Don’t worry. Chambers can’t ever touch me again.”
Grif shoved his hands in his pockets. “You should let someone touch you, though.”
Bridget shot him that too-knowing half-smile. “So should you, Shaw. So should you.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
The cab that’d dropped Grif in front of Bridget’s shop was long gone, and he was forced to walk back the way he came. Not that he minded. He had a number of thoughts to chew on, and the almost-fresh air did him good. Again, it didn’t matter that his personal navigation skills told him no more than which way was up, he just lit a Lucky, tucked his head low against a pushy breeze, and headed to the bright bulge in the middle of the desert night.
As he walked, he reassessed Kit’s chances of survival against what Bridget had told him. He’d already known Schmidt was involved in the events at the Wayfarer, and his attack on Kit marked him as enemy number one. He’d assaulted Grif again at Tony’s, and, in all likelihood, killed Paul Raggio as well. He had partners-all nameless and faceless thus far-though one had taken a bullet at Tony’s, courtesy again of Schmidt.
Which brought him to Schmidt’s other partner, Chambers. The oil greasing the wheels. Question was, how was Grif supposed to clear Kit Craig from all these men’s sights? Was it even possible at this point? Could fate be altered a second time, or was she in so deep that it’d be like throwing a floatie to someone in the middle of the Atlantic?
Bust the lid off the Chambers-Schmidt connection, Grif thought, nodding to himself. Even in Vegas that was a scandal. But because power and muscle lay entirely with them, proof had eluded the light of day for over ten years. Chambers had it, of course, but he certainly wasn’t going to let it be used against him.
“Has to keep those tapes somewhere,” Grif muttered, flicking his cigarette butt into the gutter. It’d take time to find them though, and Grif couldn’t even be certain of the next ten minutes. Free will or not, Sarge could yank him from the Surface at any moment. So how the hell was he going to score enough time to reveal Chambers’s dirty little secret, much less save Kit?
Find out who sent Kit and Nicole that list, he thought, cutting across a vacant commercial lot. That’s what started this whole thing, so maybe it could end there, too. But how to find someone who had less interest than ever in being found? And as Bridget had no idea who was behind that initial list, where the hell was he supposed to start?
Exhaling a hard breath, Grif rounded the corner, felt one painful pulse from where his wings once were, and instinctively threw up his hands in defense.
Anne stood there, stoic and unmoving. “If I were going to strike you, you’d already be down.”
Straightening, Grif jerked at his jacket’s hem. “I knew that.”
