“Different from the man with the goatee?” Cannon asked.
“Yes. They...joked about what they were doing. The other man, he was darker and seemed... I don’t know.” She sucked in a shaky breath. “They were all disgusting. But the dark guy just seemed to be more serious about it.”
Cannon slipped an arm around her shoulders and that encouraged her to keep going.
“He treated it like it was his job, but the brothers just did it because they could.” She rubbed her forehead. “I know that doesn’t make any sense.”
“Actually,” Margo told her, “it does. And if they are brothers, it might help us to track them down.” She smiled, hoping to reassure Yvette. “Thank you for telling me. I’ll share with my detectives and we’ll see what we can turn up. You have my number, so if you think of anything else, call me.”
“I will.”
Cannon said, “I’ll walk you out.”
“You’re leaving?”
The stricken note in Yvette’s voice broke Margo’s heart.
“No. I’m going to stick around for about an hour.” Cannon pulled on a stocking cap. “I’ll be right back in.”
As they stepped out, Cannon pulled the door shut behind him, ensuring they could speak privately. Both he and Dash surveyed the area, on the lookout, cautious.
She’d already done the same herself. It was an older neighborhood, the streets lined with sedans and pickups. Cracks split the aged concrete sidewalks and large oak and elm trees grew in every yard.
Similar redbrick houses lined this quiet suburban street. The backyards blended together without fences. At the back of each narrow property was a tall retaining wall, helping to block the sounds of a highway put in a few years ago.
Short of putting around-the-clock guards on the house, it couldn’t be entirely protected. “As long as they don’t open the door without knowing who’s there, they should be safe enough.”
“Convincing yourself, or me?” Cannon asked.
“Both, I guess.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
BRIGHT SUNLIGHT MADE it feel warmer than it was. When the late March wind blew, the chill cut through Margo’s clothes, making her shiver.
She pulled her coat tighter around her, and felt Dash step up to her back, his hands on her shoulders.
“I told them the same.” Cannon shook his head. “They’re supposed to let me know if they go out.”
“You plan to trail them?” Dash asked.
“If I need to, yeah. Best way to catch a thug is to bust him in the act.”
Margo couldn’t believe the enormity of what he took on. “If you see anything—”
“I’ll call.” He squinted up at the bright sky. “Some of my friends helped me clean up the pawnshop today. It’s not perfect yet, but the bulk of it’s done, most of the stench gone.”
Dash shifted in disbelief. “When the hell do you rest?”
Cannon ignored that question. “When they’re ready, they’ll be able to get back to work. But I’m hoping you’ll get the bastards first.”
“I’m hoping the same.” Margo sensed there was more on his mind. “You have something to share?”
“Sort of.” He looked uncomfortable, hands in his pockets, shoulders up against the chill. “I know this all started with some weird black-market p**n os, right? Videotaped rapes and stuff.”
“And some women who were badly hurt, two of them killed. Yes.”
His expression hardened. “Well, a friend knows a guy with a few of those type of movies.”
Anticipation brought her forward and she put a hand on Cannon’s arm. “Who? How did he get them?”
“I don’t know the whole story yet, but I’m working on it.”
“Tell me what you do know.”
He looked out over the streets, watched an elderly woman walking with a grocery cart, an older man putting mail in the corner mailbox. “Most of the people around here are just average, hardworking middle-class folk trying to get by. But there are some others who want out and can’t figure an easy enough way. So they try for shortcuts.”
“By doing dumb things, you mean.”
He shrugged, still not looking at her. “Often by working for someone with enough money to give a leg up. You prove yourself, gain some cred and you can temporarily change your circumstances.”
Margo sighed. “You’re talking about young men who get hired out as thugs. To do some rich guy’s dirty work?”
“Yeah.” He finally looked at her. “Money doesn’t automatically make someone a good person.”
“No,” Dash agreed. “It doesn’t. But it doesn’t make him a bad guy, either.”
Cannon grinned. “I know the difference—and I know you donated to the rec center. Appreciate it.”
Margo twisted to see Dash, saw him flush and something like pride swelled inside her. She put her hand over his on her shoulder, and leaned into him.
“My point is that wealthier guys come trolling through here all the time. Looking for cheap sex or muscle for hire.” He withdrew a slip of paper with a name written on it.
It was then that Margo noticed his busted knuckles. She caught his hand. “This looks new.”
“Yeah.” He met her gaze without flinching.
“Another of your trained fights?”
“Not exactly, no.” He gave her the paper, then tucked his hands away again. “There’s a local guy who likes to make fast cash when he can. He got hired to buy drugs for a private party. When he delivered them, he said a movie like that was playing on a big screen. About six men and as many women sat around laughing about it as they watched.”
Margo caught her breath at such callous inhumanity— and felt Dash squeeze her shoulders, his touch firm, caressing. Reassuring.
She looked at the paper and saw a name. “This is the address for the man who delivered the drugs, or the man who paid for them?”
“The man who paid.”
“I guess you convinced your friend to give you that address?”
“He’s not my friend.”
And she supposed that was all the answer she’d get.
Dash pulled Margo closer. “You’re sure it’s the real thing?”
“No. I haven’t seen them. But when the guy dropped off the drugs, he saw part of one and it turned his stomach. If you knew him, you’d know that’s not an easy thing to do. He said it was obviously homemade, and that the woman was out of it.”
Drugged. “The same woman in the other video?”
“I don’t think so.” Cannon shared the description he’d gotten—maybe through the use of his fists.
Margo braced herself against the hurt. “Sounds like one of the murdered women we found.” Unsure how much Cannon knew, she explained, “Of the four women we know who were victimized, two made it to us, bruised and beaten up a little, scared and disoriented.” The truth burned like acid in her throat. “Two were bodies we found that had similar marks of abuse.”
“And then there’s the woman in the last video,” Dash growled. “They can’t be doing this for money. They’d never make enough. So if a wealthier guy had a copy, then maybe he got it from one of his peers.”
Margo wanted to grab Dash and kiss him. Of course she’d realized the enterprise couldn’t be that lucrative, that the sick bastards did it to feed their perversions. But she hadn’t thought about them being men of means, able to move around so easily.
Able to pay for immunity.
The buildings they’d used so far were disreputable, abandoned. But still... “I think you’re right, Dash—and that gives us some direction.”
He turned her to face him. “We’re heading out of town. Right now.”
“I know.”
He literally lifted her to her tiptoes. “I hear it in your voice, honey. You’re ready to jump in again, feetfirst. But you know it’s not safe. They know you. Anywhere you go, any scene you touch, is a tip-off.”
She put her hands to his chest. “I know.” And just to reassure him, she gave him a quick kiss that startled him quiet. “Now let me go. I need to get Logan on the phone ASAP.”
When she turned, Cannon wore a crooked grin. “I’ll hold tight until I hear from you or Logan. But I’m willing to do whatever I can to get this done. Just so you know.”
Margo held out her hand. “You’re proving to be a very handy person to have around.”
Grin spreading, Cannon accepted her gesture of gratitude. “Yes, ma’am.”
When he didn’t let go, Margo lifted her brows in question. “Is there anything else?”
“Not really.” He held her hand in both of his now. “I just wondered how you’re doing. Rowdy told me what happened this morning with the break-in, the kerosene.”
“We’re fine.”
He didn’t look convinced. “Did you tell Yvette about it?”
“No.” Margo would never do anything to alarm the girl more. “She doesn’t need to hear about things that would only upset her.”
Relieved, Cannon nodded. “This is so messed up.”
“Very,” Dash agreed. “That’s why I’m taking Margo away for a few days.”
“Yeah.” Finally releasing her hand, he tugged at his stocking hat, rearranged it. “I think it’s smart.”
Men, Margo decided, at least the good men, all tended to think along the same lines. “Logan will be in touch very soon, I’m sure. And Cannon? I’ll tell you what I told Yvette. If anything else happens, anything at all, I want to know.”
Flashing a grin, he said again, “Yes, ma’am.”
After he went back into the house, Margo took Dash’s hand and headed for the car. “Why do I get the feeling that he’s a softer-edged version of Rowdy?”
After checking up and down the street, Dash opened the door for her. “I think Cannon is his own man, different from anyone else I’ve known—including Rowdy. From what he said, he had a great upbringing.”
“With loving parents,” Margo agreed. And then, more quietly she added, “Until his dad was murdered.” Childhood trauma had a way of molding a person. Sometimes it screwed him up, put him on the wrong path and he never found his way back.
But sometimes it made him determined to be better. With Cannon, she figured it was the latter.
* * *
WITH EVERY MINUTE that passed, Dash felt more urgent to get her away to someplace safe. With him.
Just knowing they were going wasn’t enough. He wanted to be there, now.
It had always been difficult, knowing the risks that Logan took as a detective. But with Margo everything was amplified tenfold. He didn’t like to think of himself as sexist. Yes, the fact that she was a small woman played into his uneasiness. Never mind her larger-than-life attitude and kick-ass authoritativeness. She was still a woman, slender in all the ways that mattered, without a man’s muscle strength or bone structure.