Sleep was becoming highly overrated.
Fletcher worked all night. He took apart the file on the congressman. Looked at every single detail the Indianapolis police had pulled together from the three murders. Something just wasn’t adding up, and he didn’t know what it was.
On the surface, the congressman looked good for the murders. DNA was hard to argue with. But something was off. Something big. And Fletcher was getting a bit frustrated. He double-checked to see if the ViCAP report was back yet—nothing. He amended the file to include cold cases from Virginia, D.C., and Maryland since 2000. The second round of DNA wasn’t back, either. He wished he was a detective on TV, the evidence run and returned in two hours, the trial the next day. Wouldn’t that be nice?
At midnight, after reading Leighton’s journal for two hours and gleaning nothing of help outside of his seemingly genuine desire to give back to the people of the great state of Indiana, not murder their co-eds, Fletcher was starting to feel he was at yet another dead end. He decided to follow Bianco’s suggestion and made a phone call to a friend of his.
“Vice.”
“It’s Fletcher. Is Thompsen in?”
“Morgan? Nah. She’s out on the streets tonight. Some hotel sting down on 14th Street. Wanna leave a message?”
“That was a joke, right?”
The guy cackled and hung up. There was little to no chance that a message left at a precinct would make it to Morgan Thompsen, much less in a timely manner. He might as well head down to 14th Street and see what was shaking. He knew the setup, they’d have Morgan, who used the undercover name London when she was out on stakeouts, walking the streets, hanging out in the high-end hotel bars, wherever the need was greatest, looking for dates. These stings usually netted a solid ten to fifteen johns in a single night, oftentimes men whose names were recognizable. And everyone enjoyed watching “London” on the prowl—Thompsen was a very pretty girl with very long legs and variable hair depending on her mood. Most johns thought they’d hit the jackpot when they rolled up and saw the “looker hooker,” as she was sometimes referred to in-house, waiting for them: her hip jutted out, her hair in pigtails, or a pageboy, or teased up in a beehive, and a furtive grin on her face. Or when they found her alone on a corner bar stool, in a sleek little black dress and sky-high Louboutins, all dressed up with nowhere to go in the fanciest bars in town.
The street was hopping tonight, the shine of the streetlamps on the asphalt making little rings of safety like stage spotlights. The girls stayed in the rings as much as possible; it not only showed them off to their potential customers, but to the pimps as well, who kept careful watch over their flock at night.
Crazies liked to drive these streets just as much as the local gym rats looking to bust a nut.
Fletcher was lucky in his timing, found London getting into a black Mercedes SUV. He followed the car to an alley three blocks over, and the moment the money was produced, London flicked handcuffs on the john and stepped from the vehicle, pulling her practically nonexistent skirt down over her ass.
The rest of her team closed in, and the arrest was made. A solid bust.
Thompsen walked back a block, nonchalant, as if she were unaware of the tussle taking place in the alley, and leaned against the brick wall and lit a smoke. Fletcher rolled his car up to the curb and put down his window.
She recognized him, but stayed in character. It was safer, just in case. And he was in an unmarked, so to the naked eye, they were just a john and jill, negotiating. She let an arm trail the top of the car and leaned into the window.
“I will be poked sideways. Darren Fletcher. What the hell are you doing out here? You want a date?”
He smiled. God, that felt good. First real smile in days. “With you? London? Hell, yeah. Get in and let me take you for a ride, mama.”
She flicked the cigarette onto the sidewalk and hopped in the car. Her blue eyes flashed, and she leaned back in the seat, relaxing.
“Ah, that feels good. Man, I hate the street. Give me the hotels any day. My feet are killing me. How do they wear these heels?”
“Necessity is the mother of all invention, right?”
“Yeah, but the only reason you need these suckers is to make your legs look longer and your ass stick out. For the working girls, it’s kind of a moot point, they’re going to get picked up regardless of their ass hanging out an extra couple of inches. This ain’t the 9:30 Club.”
She took off one of the stilettos and massaged the ball of her foot. He saw her wave off the team who was looking out for her tonight, a couple of sex crimes detectives he should remember the names of but didn’t.
“Where should I go?” Fletcher asked.
“Head back toward the strip. You can drop me off like I got a second score on the way back. What’s up with you out prowling? Just stop to say hi?”