The Sarah Roberts Series Vol. 7-9 Read online

  The cab dropped her off at the end of the complex. She paid the driver, got out and looked around for her FBI tail. On the way over, she had tried hard to spot them, but couldn’t.

  Slipping out of the building over the superintendent’s apartment balcony was genius.

  To be sure she didn’t have a tail, Sarah walked away from the parlor, circled the building on the cleared sidewalk and then crossed the parking lot back to the building. No one sat in a parked car. None of the cars looked like the FBI Impala in front of Aaron’s apartment all night, every night.

  Her phone said she had three minutes until her interview.

  “Here goes nothing,” she whispered to herself.

  There was something to be said about girls in this profession. She wished a better life for them. Many of them worked in this profession because they had been abused when they were younger. She had read about the “John School” Toronto had where men caught buying the services of a sex worker could be sentenced to go there where they would learn more about sex trade workers and realize they were contributing to the pain and abuse of these women.

  The front walkway of the massage parlor had been shoveled and swept fresh this morning, ready for the steady flow of customers. The windows were tinted too dark to see in. Just inside the glass, blinds were drawn, making sure no one saw anything. A neon open sign hung high in the center window, unlit. On the door, a little sign said to buzz for entry.

  Sarah hit the buzzer and waited. Being in Toronto since before Christmas, without a word from Vivian, she had stopped carrying her gun, until today. Now it dug into the small of her back, a foreign feeling after not carrying it for almost half a year.

  The door clicked. She opened it and stepped inside.

  Immediately there was another locked door. She pushed on it, but it didn’t budge. Trapped between the two doors, she waited.

  After half a minute, a woman in her sixties opened the door.

  “That’s a lot of security,” Sarah said.

  “You never know who is coming in,” the woman said with a European accent. “My name is Rita.” The woman stuck out her hand as she examined Sarah’s body.

  Sarah shook the woman’s hand firmly. “Sarah Robertson,” she said, the fake name rattling her at how close it was to her own. “Are you doing my interview?”

  “Yes,” Rita said. “Follow me back to our lunch room.”

  “When do you open this morning?”

  “Now, but I’ll wait a few minutes so we can talk. My daytime girls should be along at any minute.”

  Rita led Sarah past small statues on little pillars, down a dark hall that smelled of incense with numbered doors lining each side. At the end of the hall, a door opened up to a small kitchen.

  “Please, have a seat,” Rita said. “Would you like a tea or a coffee?”

  “I’m fine, thanks.” Sarah slipped out of her jacket, letting it fall to the couch against the back wall. She sat down beside it, her knees touching. She hated to dress in a way that half exposed her breasts but Vivian said it was important.

  Usually in a moment like this, wearing a top like this one, nervousness would twist her stomach. But she felt nothing. This was where she was supposed to be and what she was supposed to be doing. She sat back and relaxed in the role.

  Rita filled a kettle with water on the counter and plugged it in. She grabbed one cup, dropped a tea bag in it and turned to Sarah.

  “So, tell me, where have you worked before?” Rita asked.

  “I haven’t. This would be my first time.”

  “What makes you think you could do this kind of job?” Rita asked.

  A little speaker by the door buzzed.

  “Please wait here while I see who that is.”

  “Of course,” Sarah said.

  When Rita left, Sarah adjusted her top to show less. If the reason she was here didn’t reveal itself soon, she would have to leave. The gig would be up. Finding the right answers to an interview of this sort might prove difficult.

  Maybe I’m supposed to burn the place down.

  Footsteps down the hall announced someone approaching. She straightened her back, reached for her gun in case the person walking toward the kitchen was the reason she was supposed to be here, and stared at the door, waiting.

  “As I was saying,” Rita said as she stepped in the kitchen. “How do you feel about a job like this?”

  The kettle began to whistle. Sarah waited until Rita had unplugged it before speaking.

  “I’ve been out of work for almost a year. Times are tough. With Christmas just passing, it hurt to not have any money. My girlfriend works at The Rose, a massage studio in Etobicoke. She told me how much she makes in a week, which is more than I have ever made at any job in an entire month. For that kind of money, I would do almost anything.”

  A door opened and closed in the hallway somewhere making Sarah’s head snap toward the door.

  “Two of my girls are here. Don’t worry. They will answer the buzzer now.”

  Sarah nodded.

  “Are you aware of what we do here?” Rita asked.

  “Massage?”

  “Yes, of course, but we offer extra items.”

  “Extras? Like what?” Sarah asked, trying to sound innocent even though she could assume what extras were.

  “I’ll show you,” Rita said. She opened a drawer on the far side of the counter and pulled a piece of paper out. Then she handed it to Sarah.

  Her stomach twitched as she read the list of extras. There were hand jobs listed for forty dollars, all the way up to shower massage, duos, and body slides for a hundred dollars.

  “Some girls offer full service for more than a hundred, but I will leave that up to you.”

  “Full service?” Sarah asked, her voice almost cracking at the anger of the position Vivian had put her in.

  This had better end fast or I’m leaving.

  “Full service is anything the client wants. You know, sex.”

  “Ahhh.” Something in Rita’s face made Sarah want to punch some sense into her. Then she immediately felt sympathy for her.

  “Are you able to handle that list? It would be the minimum requirement of employment here. Hardly any man comes through our establishment without wanting at least a happy ending. And we’re busy. On an average eight-hour shift one girl could see more than a dozen men.”

  “What if each man wants full service?” Sarah asked, unable to control herself. “Would the same girl do that as well? To a dozen men in one day?”

  Rita pursed her lips, looked away, stirred her tea, and then looked back at Sarah.

  “I’ve had girls who have pulled doubles for me, having sex with random men all day. The more you play, the hotter you act, the bigger the tips they offer. After a month here, you buy a new car. After six months, you put a down payment on a house. But in here, you’re safe. This is better than letting the man buy you dinner and a movie and then you have sex for nothing. At least here he gives you the money instead of wasting it on food.”

  “This business has hardened you, hasn’t it?”

  “If you are to work here, you have to know the truth. I won’t coddle you. That’s what the men are for.”

  Rita pulled the tea bag out of her cup and dropped it in a garbage receptacle by the fridge.

  The buzzer sounded.

  “And they start coming early, so to speak,” Rita said, smiling as she took the first sip of her tea. “It sounds to me like you have to think about it.”

  Sarah grabbed her jacket and slipped it back on. “Maybe this isn’t right for me.”

  “I was beginning to think the same thing,” Rita added. “I’ll see you to the door.”

  “Tell me, how can you do what you do?”

  “Don’t come here looking for a job and then once the job description is given to you, judge me for feeding my kids after my husband walked out for a younger model. I couldn’t live off welfare forever. Now, leave. Come on.” She walked ahead of Sarah down
the hall, her tea cup still in her hand. “I would do anything for my kids,” Rita said over her shoulder to Sarah. “I would die for them. This isn’t half that bad.”

  She was right. Sarah had no right to judge or look down on her for the choices she had made in this dog-eat-dog world. Whatever the reason was that Vivian had sent her here, she had done exactly what was asked of her. Now she would catch a taxi back to Aaron’s place, get out of these clothes and take a long hot shower, her image of men greatly reduced.

  How could men routinely do this to these young girls?

  She wasn’t naive. Prostitution was the oldest profession in the world. After stopping Armond Stuart and his human trafficking ring a few years ago, she knew all too well the horrors that men perform on women and girls. But she alone could never stop it all. Being this close, inside a bawdy house, shook her and made her want to grab each and every employee and force them outside to go find better lives. It wasn’t like the girls Armond Stuart controlled. Those girls didn’t have a choice. These women did.

  At the front, a scantily clad woman wearing a camisole, panties and red high heels was admitting a tall good-looking man with wavy black hair.

  What the hell does he need to be here for? He could find a woman easy.

  He wore a wedding ring.

  Sarah wanted to pull her gun and shoot him in the foot for what he was doing.

  Disgusting.

  The buzzer sounded. Then again, as if the person was leaning on it.

  Rita looked through the blinds and then hopped over to open the door.

  “Come in, come in, dear,” she said. “Are you okay?”

  A woman entered the parlor’s front area from the outside.

  The other woman with the customer walked past Sarah and down the hall to one of the rooms. Sarah wanted to grab her, smack her face and wake her up. This was no way to live. The damage these girls were doing to themselves would last a lifetime.

  Rita shut and locked the front door behind her and walked to the woman who leaned on her arm.

  “He was chasing me …” the woman said through tears as she trembled and caught her breath, her hair in her face. “He said he would kill me for what I did yesterday. I called the police on my way here.” She looked at Rita. “I didn’t know what else to do. I’m sorry, I had nowhere else to go.”

  “It’s okay, dear. We’ll sort this out. He can’t get you here.”

  “He’s got a gang.” Her voice raised to hysteria. “He won’t stop. I don’t know what to do.” Her knees buckled, but she caught herself and Rita struggled to keep her upright. “They all want to rape me. If not, then they’ll kill me. I can’t handle it. I couldn’t go through with it.”

  Sarah quickly stepped in and helped keep the woman on her feet as Rita guided her to a leather chair in the corner.

  The woman looked oddly familiar. She raised her face and met Sarah’s eyes, widening when they settled on her.

  “What are you doing here?” the woman asked.

  Rita looked between the two of them. “You know each other?”

  “Not exactly,” Sarah said. “We bumped into each other yesterday.”

  “At the crisis center,” the woman finished for her. “I finally went in and told them everything Juan and his gang had been doing to me.” She sniffled and Rita offered her a Kleenex. “They arrested Juan last night.”

  “Well, that’s good then,” Rita said. “You’re safe now.”

  Sarah moved to the blinds and peeked outside. If someone was pursuing this woman and the police were on their way, one or both of them would be here shortly. She wondered if she wanted cops to catch her inside a massage parlor.

  “Juan made bail this morning. The volunteer at the crisis center told me to come in and they would help to relocate me today.”

  “Are you going there then?” Rita asked. “You can’t expect to work today with those black eyes.”

  “Heartless bitch,” Sarah snapped at Rita. “The fuck you say. This girl is not working today. She’s running for her life.”

  “Why are you still here?” Rita turned back to Sarah. “Interview is over. You did not get the job. You can go.”

  “I didn’t come for a job.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  The buzzer sounded loud and hard.

  “I’m here to protect her,” Sarah said, nodding at the woman sitting on the chair.

  The buzzer sounded again. “When this customer’s settled in a room, I want you gone.”

  Rita moved toward the front door. Sarah came around and knelt down beside the woman.

  “Were they following you? Was it Juan after you this morning?”

  The woman sniffled and looked at Sarah. “They were watching my apartment. I was lucky to get away. I think he tracks my cell phone or something. Six blocks from here, I saw him in my rearview mirror. I called the cops—”

  What sounded like a firecracker snapped in the air, but Sarah knew it for what it was.

  Gunfire.

  Before she could grab her own weapon, two more shots were fired.

  Rita stumbled backwards into the front room, holding her stomach. When she turned around, blood trickled past her fingers. Her eyes wide, she opened her mouth and blood seeped past her lips. For a second, she wavered on her feet, then dropped to her knees, falling face down on the carpet, her hands never leaving her stomach.

  “Come on!” Sarah yelled. “Now!”

  Sarah grabbed the woman’s arm and forced her from the chair. She was like dead weight, her body almost paralyzed in shock.

  Footsteps pounded inside the front behind them as they ran down the hall toward the kitchen, Sarah pulling the woman with her. For that brief run, Sarah kept hoping the woman would stay on her feet.

  As they reached the kitchen door, a man shouted from behind them.

  “I’ll kill you, bitch, and everyone else that gets in my way.”

  Sarah let the woman go inside the kitchen, turned and slammed the door shut. The woman crumpled to the floor and curled up in a ball, shuddering. Sarah grabbed the knob to lock it, but there was no lock on the door. As fast as she could, even as footfalls pounded down the hall, she grabbed a chair and slipped it under the door handle at the exact second the knob twisted.

  She flung herself away from the door and placed her back against the wall, her gun aimed at the ceiling. The woman lifted her head.

  “Who are … you?” she asked.

  “Move away from the door,” Sarah whispered. “Do it now.”

  “Open up or I’ll shoot my way in,” the man shouted from the other side of the door.

  Being threatened angered Sarah in a way she hadn’t felt since her time in Vegas.

  “Okay, I’ll let you in,” Sarah called out. “But you won’t hurt us, right?”

  “Don’t,” the woman pleaded, her face a mask of terror.

  “It’ll be okay,” Sarah whispered. “Just get over to the far corner.”

  “I won’t shoot anybody,” the man shouted from the hall. “I just want to talk.”

  “Okay, I’ll open the door. As long as you just want to talk.”

  “That’s it. Just talk.”

  Sarah waited until the woman was far enough away on the floor in the corner. Then she kicked the chair out from under the doorknob, clicked the safety off her weapon, and brought the gun down.

  The door clicked open, swinging wide with Sarah staying behind it.

  The man stepped into the kitchen, scanned the room and stopped on the woman curled up and sobbing in the corner. Then he turned all the way to the right and caught sight of Sarah, her gun aimed at him.

  Before he did anything else, she fired into the lower side of his thigh.

  He wailed and dropped to the floor, his own weapon sliding across the floor as his hands scrambled to his wounded thigh.

  “Shoot an innocent woman, eh?” Sarah stepped over him and looked down. “You stupid motherfucker.” She brought the gun to about a foot from his face. �
�I’m going to put five more bullets in your face.”

  “Noooo!” he shouted, more out of fear than pain.

  “One bullet in each eye, one in your mouth to shut you up and two in the forehead to turn that brain of yours to squash. Then maybe you won’t hurt defenseless women anymore.”