Triple Cross

Salazar laughed. “Call me Rosella, and yes, Pablo is an expert at flattery. Shall we walk?”

“If you’re okay with it?”

“The doctors tell me I need to,” Salazar said, pitching a plastic water bottle into a trash can. “I’ve got gestational diabetes and they said a little exercise every day will help lower my numbers.”

“How far along are you?”

“Almost eight months,” the detective said, smiling. “It’s going to be a boy this time. I told the ob-gyn not to tell me if it was a boy or a girl, but I can feel it. A brother to my little Elaina. You got kids?”

“Three stepchildren who I love to pieces.”

“You’re married to Dr. Cross, right?”

Bree nodded as they walked into the park. “Last time I looked.”

“I heard him lecture when I took a class at Quantico a few years back.”

“He’s a talker.”

Salazar laughed. “He is. And it’s fascinating how his mind works.”

“There’s no one like him,” Bree said. “So, tell me what you think about Duchaine.”

Detective Salazar said, “You really don’t know who you’re working for, huh?”

“All I was told was that the client has very deep pockets and wants us to follow the trail wherever it goes.”

“To find out what?”

“I don’t know,” Bree admitted. “I’m just supposed to listen to my instincts based on information I was given about Frances Duchaine.”

“What kind of info?”

Bree hesitated, then decided she needed an ally. “Some financials, some personal info, press clippings, and some information about a few run-ins with the law she’s squirmed out of, including a civil suit in North Carolina filed by three young wannabe models—two females, one male—that was dismissed and sealed.”

“Of course it was,” Salazar said. “That has Frances Duchaine written all over it.”

Over the next hour, they walked north through Central Park as Bree listened closely to the detective’s take on the fashion icon. Salazar said that she’d known of no complaints against Duchaine whatsoever until four years ago when a young woman who said her name was Molly contacted the vice squad, where Salazar was working at the time. Molly said she had been lured from North Carolina to New York by Duchaine’s representatives with promises that she would be considered for modeling jobs.

“Molly had to pay her own way up here and get a place to live,” Salazar said. “Duchaine’s people provided her with a photographer for headshots, and they paid to put her in mockups for possible advertising campaigns. Molly’s life went well for a minute.”

The detective said Molly was called in by Duchaine and another woman who worked for her, Paula Watkins. They told Molly that the market testing on her was lower than they’d expected and that she should get plastic surgery to fix some of her flaws so she could be considered for future campaigns.

“This sounds somewhat similar to the allegations in the dismissed lawsuit,” Bree said. “Keep going. What were they recommending?”

“Bigger boobs, porcelain veneers, a nose job,” Salazar said. “Molly told them that she could not afford any of that, and they offered her a company loan that they said she could pay back over time once the work was done.”

“Let me guess. She takes the loan, has the surgeries and cosmetic enhancements with doctors and dentists they recommend, and they still don’t give her any work.”

“Yes. And now she’s twenty-one and owes them like seventy grand.”

Molly had asked Paula Watkins if the company could forgive the loan; Watkins said no. Molly found a few jobs, but she earned nowhere near enough to pay off the loan.

Desperate, Molly feared becoming homeless and she wondered whether to return to her abusive family. One night, she went to her favorite bar around the corner from where she lived and started drinking.

“A woman named Katherine, early forties, pretty, put together, slides onto the stool next to Molly,” Detective Salazar said. “Katherine’s outgoing, sharp, easy to talk to. She picks up on Molly’s sadness, gets her to open up. She buys Molly a few drinks, gives her a shoulder to cry on. And then Katherine tells Molly she might be able to help her make real money, certainly enough to pay off her debt in a couple of years.”

“Katherine’s a madam,” Bree said.

“More like a scout,” Salazar said.

Two days later, with no luck on the job front, Molly called Katherine. They met at a coffee shop. Katherine told Molly there were many men and women who would pay well to sleep with her.

Molly was horrified; she was about to leave until Katherine said that with her looks and figure, she’d get two thousand an hour and as much as ten thousand for an overnighter.

“Lot of money,” Bree said. “Did she take the offer?”

Salazar nodded. “Three years ago. Long story short, they used her. Katherine’s ‘friends’ took a serious cut of Molly’s fees, so she never made quite enough money to pay off the loan, which carried a ridiculous interest rate. When she got close to getting all the money she needed, one of Katherine’s friends, a guy Molly knew as Candy, introduced her to cocaine and then oxy.”