The Taken

regret and sentimentality keep me from my rightful place.”

“No,” Grif said, blowing out a long stream of smoke. “Those particular emotions would be the least of your issues.”

“That’s an insult, right?” Paul laughed, spewing a fly, which surprised them all. Grif cringed, and Courtney groaned, while Paul wiped the side of his mouth before his arm fell again. “Well, I don’t fucking care. You and Kit can get your rocks off at my expense, but I… What’s that fucking smell?”

Courtney sat, legs hanging into the side of the grave. “Is it kinda like a jack-o’-lantern left on the stoop ’til December?”

“Yes.”

“Or a diaper that hasn’t been changed in a week?”

“Yes.”

“That’s you, dude.”

Head reeling all the way around on his neck, Paul’s panicked yelp trailed off into a gurgle. “What the hell? Get me out of here!”

Courtney rolled her eyes. “It’s your body.”

Paul scrambled, looking like he was literally trying to pull his head from his shoulders, but his arms kept slipping away. The energy Grif had given him was only enough to coil around his spine. He was upright, his body worked… but it didn’t work very well. “Get me. Out. Of. Here.”

“No.”

The dead eyes pulsed again with true terror as he looked at Grif. “Please, Shaw! I take it back. You and Kit are great, a perfect couple. Happily ever after, all that. Please!”

Grif lifted a shoulder. “Maybe.”

Paul stilled, head dropping to the right, eyes wide. “You want something. What do you want? Raven’s number? She’s hot, right? I only bagged her, like, half a dozen times, but those were all the freebies she had in her anyway. She dropped the B-bomb on me,” he said, and mouthed the word “boyfriend,” and then his jaw cracked. “Ouch. Why am I telling you this?”

“Because your mouth and your thoughts are like your body. Falling out all over the place. There’s no mortal coil to hold it in. So you’re going to tell me what I want to know about Chambers and his little cabal so that I can find Kit before it’s too late.”

“Kit?” His alarm quickly turned skeptical. “Chambers would never want her. She’s too old, too opinionated. Besides, he was furious with her for upsetting his wife at the gala. I told him I’d happily escort you two out, but he said he’d take care of it himself.” Paul frowned, and his brow stuck in that position. “Shit. Why did I say that?”

“Tell me what happened to you.”

“Now you’re talking! Solve a real mystery!” Paul lifted a fist in the air… and it dropped like a deflated balloon. “Um… I don’t know.”

“I know you don’t know,” Grif said impatiently. “What happened right before you don’t know?”

Paul’s furrowed brows unstuck. “Well, there was the gala… and Caleb was pissed at me for getting you and Kit in. How was I supposed to know you two were going to bring up murder in front of the missus? And then, after we came to an agreement on some things, Raven said she wanted to take me for a little ride. We ended up at some horse stables and… Shit, you think that bitch rolled me?”

“Guess she was done with you, too, Romeo,” Courtney called down.

Grif flicked ash on dust. “You never thought she might be one of Chambers’s girls?”

“Ravie? No way, man. She was good, but she wasn’t like, professional-good.”

“Couldn’t fake the O, huh?” Courtney shot from above. Grif and Paul both gave her a withering look.

“And you’d know the difference?” Grif prompted Paul. “Between a rookie and a pro?”

“Hell yeah! I was banging betties at thirteen. Why am I saying that?”

“Because you’re an asshole,” Grif reminded him. “What’s less obvious is why Chambers would want to kill you for it.”

Paul grimaced, the rest of his face scrunching up as tightly as his brow had. Someone was going to have to smooth that down for him to get it back to normal. It wasn’t going to be Grif.

“Caleb Chambers didn’t kill me. No way, man. I was playing him tight! Everyone knows about the parties. But me? I got into his inner sanctum. Usually you need a whole lot of money to do that, but I bought my way in with knowledge. Figured it all out myself. He’s powerful, but he’s not God. As we all know.”

Grif ignored the arm Paul held out for a fist bump. It fell after another second anyway. “So how’d you play him?”

“I took the list Kit gave me the night Nicole was killed. I combined it with what I already knew of his predilections-the parties, the young girls. I went out on a limb and shot off an e-mail that said I knew what he was doing, where the girls were coming from and where they were going. That got his attention. It also got me the invitation to his Valentine’s gala. I think he wanted to see if I knew as much as I said I did.”

“And was he satisfied you did?”

“Satisfied?” Paul laughed, threw his head back, and gurgled. After he’d righted it, he said, “You mean scared. I scared the shit out of the Caleb Chambers, and that’s what got me an invite to the real auction.”

Grif stilled. “Real auction?”

“The new girl. Didn’t you see her?”

Grif flicked his cigarette away. “There were more than a few women there, Paul.”

Paul shook his head. “Everyone wants this one, man, and they’re willing to pay top dime for her. I figured, why them? Just because they’re rich? Just because they got connections? No, if she was going to be taken by someone, it might as well be me. It might as well be free… in exchange for keeping his little secret.”

Grif wasn’t getting anywhere with this. “Authorities have been covering up the Chambers parties for years, Paul. It’s not that great of a secret.”

“The parties, right. But not the auctions. Not the virgins.”

Grif’s blood iced over.

“You still have those down here?” Courtney asked.

“It’s not funny, Courtney,” Grif whispered.

“Hey, you all right, man? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Paul laughed at his own joke, unbalancing his head again.

Bridget’s words from earlier that evening came back like a gut punch. He’s a bishop in the twenty-ninth ward. He’s the head of his own congregation.

“You’re not talking about the women in the back room, are you? You’re talking about…” His mind raced, searching out the name. “Charlotte.”

One of my girls, Chambers had said.

“The galas are a way of showing off the new merch to interested buyers,” Paul said. “That’s when the bids come in. The auction, though, isn’t until the following week.”

Chambers wasn’t controlling powerful men using high-class professionals. He was luring them in using sex, yes, but used his position in the Mormon Church-an institution rife with a host of virginal girls-to do it. He was using the church as his cathouse.

He was turning babies into hookers.

“I feel sick,” Grif said, and began to climb out.

Courtney edged aside for him, calling down to Paul, “Told you you’re rank, dude.”

“Hey! Hey! What about me? You can’t just leave me…” He motioned down at his own body. “Here.”

Grif whirled, pointing at the man who’d been rotten even before death. “You know, it’s sad that you left a good woman to go running with hookers. It’s beyond pitiful that you then got turned by one of your playthings. But to sleep with a kid because you figure it’s going to happen anyway is so far past tragic…”

“Even the Germans don’t have a word for it,” Courtney finished for him.

“When is this auction?” Grif asked, glancing at his watch. Today was Saturday, a full week after the gala. Charlotte could already be gone. No, Grif thought. Taken.

But Paul said nothing.

Slowly, Grif lifted his gaze and pinned it on Paul. “I will keep you sentient inside that body long after your skull