The other girls all look like Tasha—hard, worn out like the armchair in my apartment. Worn out like the springs on the metal bed down below. I get whatever money Casper doles out, which isn’t much for the work I’m doing. But I take it and I don’t complain because if I do, I might get burned, or choked, or hit, or threatened with a knife, or Ricardo and Casper might do all the things they said they’d to do to my mom or my dad if I tried to get away. What choice do I have? I guess when I’m out to dinner with the girls I could go to the bathroom and sneak out a back door or something and just start running. But what if I get caught? What if they come looking for me? What if they catch me? I know whenever I get back home, if I ever get home, people will ask me why I didn’t run. But what do they know?
They’ve never been inside the hole.
CHAPTER 23
It was after five on Monday evening and Angie had been in her car on a stakeout for more than three hours. She’d found parking on the street with good sight lines to the front entrance of the Ashton apartments at Judiciary Square. These puppies rented for between five and ten grand a month, so whatever Mr. Tall, Bald, and Handsome did for a living, it was highly profitable.
That morning she had awoke in the same Hilton Garden Inn (no bad dreams, thank goodness) with nothing in her inbox, no name, no address, and no plan for the day. Yesterday marked two months since Nadine ran away. Angie went to the hotel lobby where they served a continental breakfast featuring muffins the size and consistency of hockey pucks and coffee that was little more than brown colored water. The joys of her job were plentiful. She bailed on breakfast, returned to her room, showered, did some stretching and light calisthenics, and afterwards went for a walk. Her body was stiff from three sleepless nights and her stomach rumbled with hunger. On her route, she stumbled on a Jamba Juice and put away another green smoothie.
She returned to the hotel and still had received nothing on her target, so she checked in with her father (he was doing fine, keeping busy at work), and updated Carolyn Jessup on her progress.
“So this guy has Nadine?”
Over the phone it was hard to tell if Carolyn had been drinking. It was after ten, so anything was possible. More obvious was that Carolyn’s distress and worry hadn’t lessened with the passing days.
“We don’t know,” Angie said. “I’m still trying to figure out this guy’s name. It could turn out to be nothing, but it’s a promising lead. I’ll get back to you soon as I have more to share.”
More came a few hours later when DocuFind returned a name. The vehicle matching the license plate Angie had uploaded to the search service belonged to Ivan Markovich. She spent the rest of the morning digging up information about Markovich, including a copy of his driver’s license straight from the DMV. Sure enough, the picture matched the handsome guy with the buzz cut she had followed in the mall.
Using InteliSearch, a different subscription database for PIs, she ran a background check. In a few hours, she compiled a thin dossier on Markovich that included information on his parents. The best way to understand the man was to know his past, she believed.
Markovich was a thirty-five-year-old Russian American businessman who would turn thirty-six in January. His mother was from Indiana and his father from Saint Petersburg. They’d married exactly thirty-five years ago, and Angie wondered if little Ivan was already in the womb when vows were exchanged. She found court filings granting Markovich’s parents a divorce only a few years after the marriage, when Ivan was five. Another record showed Markovich’s mother had died two years after the divorce, but there wasn’t any mention of the cause. Before divorce and death, the Markovich family had lived in Egg Harbor Township, and both mom and dad had W-2s from the casinos in nearby Atlantic City.
Markovich’s father had a few brushes with law—two drunken driving arrests and a couple assault charges—but served no jail time. His offspring had no criminal record and no siblings. A real estate database revealed the father sold the Egg Harbor home for a decent profit a few years after the mother died.
Angie couldn’t find any trace of the family until Ivan Markovich applied for a business license to start an import-export company in the District of Columbia he called IM International. Markovich had never been married, or at least she couldn’t find any marriage certificate on record. There wasn’t much on his business, either. No website, no description of what he bought and sold. Either business was booming or he had another way to afford his nice car and fancy address. Maybe what he imported was young girls like Nadine, who had no experience and only one thing of value to offer.
The posh address was Markovich’s only listed residence. He didn’t own other property, but in terms of assets he was hardly an easy book to read. In addition to the import-export company, he was a listed founder on a reinsurance business, and had various holdings in a number of entities Angie couldn’t begin to untangle without returning to her office.
Bao could, though.
He groaned after Angie explained during a phone call what she needed. “What did I ever do to you?”
“Nothing but treat me with kindness and respect. Which is why I’ll treat you to a new board and a bump in pay once this case is closed.”
“Promise. I’m on it even without the carrot. How’s it going for you?”
“My legs hurt, my back hurts, my car stinks, I stink, I feel bloated and gross, and if I drink another green juice I might hurl.”