afternoon. She encountered the same older Mercedes backing out of the driveway and slowed for it. Hoping to be inconspicuous, she casually glanced over at the car to check out its occupants, trying not to stare. A stocky Asian gentleman was behind the wheel, and the older woman from the hotel ladies room was in the front seat.
As they pulled by Emily, she glanced in the backseat and saw the girl from the restroom seated behind the driver, with two other young women in the back. The girl was staring back at her with hauntingly sad eyes—just as Molly had described her.
After her recent conversations with Molly and then with Peter, her interest was piqued about this family. She decided she would follow the car and see where it was headed. She turned around in a neighbor’s driveway and followed the sedan at a safe distance.
The car headed out of Paradise Valley, toward Boise, about fifteen minutes away. Emily watched as the car pulled into a driveway on Overland Road and parked on the side of the small, single-story building.
It was one of a row of small older homes that had been converted into businesses. Emily pulled her car to the curb, across the street from the enterprise, to watch. The man opened the car door and the three girls climbed out of the backseat and went into the rear of the building with the woman.
This location felt familiar to Emily. She shielded the sun from her eyes as it glinted off the marquis sign—it was the Jade Thai Spa.
That’s it! She realized this place was familiar because she had followed a client’s husband to this establishment late one night. It promoted itself as a massage parlor, but the husband, when confronted by his wife and the credit card bills, admitted he went there for sex. Thinking of the young girls she just observed being escorted inside, Emily’s stomach lurched.
She recalled that Isabel had confided in her that the Feds might be watching the place. Emily decided she’d do a little reconnaissance of her own. She dashed across the busy street and tried to open the front door but found it locked. Knocking casually on the door, she hoped one of the girls would open it and she could get a better look around.
No one came. She knocked harder. Still no answer. She slinked to the window to try to get a peek inside, but the blinds were drawn shut. There was a sliver of a gap between the blinds and the window frame where she could see movement, noticing a woman pass by the window.
Emily stepped back and went to the door again. She raised her fist to knock once more, but the door opened a bit and the older woman stuck her head out.
“Not open yet,” she snapped with a heavy Asian accent.
“When will you be open?” Emily tried to ask as sweetly as she could.
“Open one hour. What you want?”
“You do massages, right?”
“Yeah.” The woman sounded suspicious of Emily.
“I’d like to buy a gift certificate for a one-hour massage. I have this friend—”
Emily stuck her foot in the door and tried to get a peek beyond the woman, but she would only open the door wide enough to poke her head out.
“We no do gift certificates,” the woman cut her off, then pushed Emily’s shoe back with her own and shut the door.
Emily walked away and sprinted across the street, back to her car. That’s no way to treat a potential customer, unless their primary income stream is not massages. Was there some secret knock I should have used? The mystery surrounding the girl from the hotel was growing more suspicious by the minute.
CHAPTER 9
On her drive back to Paradise Valley, Emily decided to phone Isabel and bring her up to speed on what she’d found. It was going on five o’clock and Isabel would likely still be at the office.
“Hey, girl. What’s up?” Isabel could be heard shutting the drawer of a metal file cabinet, and Emily assumed she was getting ready to call it a day.
“Just wanted to check in and let you know what I’ve discovered.”
“About Evan?” Isabel’s voice became low and serious.
“No, nothing new on that front. I was talking about the massage parlors. Remember, you were going to check and see if the Jade Thai Spa was on the Fed’s watch list.”
“That’s right. I’ve just been so slammed here at work I almost forgot. I did send an email out to someone