The Wages of Sin: A Nick Hunter Novel (A Nick Hunter Thriller Book 2) Read online

  The Wages of Sin

  A Nick Hunter Novel

  Vallon Grey

  The Wages of Sin

  A Nick Hunter Novel

  Copyright © 2022 by Vallon Grey

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise – without prior written permission of the copyright owner.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Sign up to my mailing list to receive this FREE exclusive copy of “The Ghost in the Woods” – the Nick Hunter story that started it all. You will also be notified of any new releases, giveaways, contests, cover reveals and much more.

  To receive your FREE copy of The Ghost in the Woods, please click here.

  Contents

  1. Prologue

  2. Chapter 1

  3. Chapter 2

  4. Chapter 3

  5. Chapter 4

  6. Chapter 5

  7. Chapter 6

  8. Chapter 7

  9. Chapter 8

  10. Chapter 9

  11. Chapter 10

  12. Chapter 11

  13. Epilogue

  Up Next..

  Leave a Review

  About the Author

  Prologue

  He looked over his desk at the tall bronze-skinned man standing there.

  “What exactly do you want, Mr. Obregon?” he asked.

  “I am looking for a man,” Obregon said in slightly accented English. “I believe he may have arrived in this city. I wish to use your people to help track him down, to confirm his identity.”

  “My people are a little busy…” the man behind the desk began.

  “I can offer you two incentives,” Obregon said, cutting him off. “I have a certain connection with federal law enforcement. Your help with this would result in a much reduced likelihood that they will pay your operation any attention.”

  The man behind the desk scoffed. “We’re well under their radar. They have no idea what we’re doing. The local authorities are more than happy to cover for us.”

  Obregon nodded. “Very well. I should point out that I represent a very successful import organization. I am sure we could reach some sort of agreement on product distribution rights, or an outright donation of product. All the difficulties in importation would be covered by us. There would be no risk to you.”

  The man behind the desk shook his head. “I’m sorry, I really don’t understand what you mean.”

  One of the shaven-headed men beside him leaned down and whispered in his ear.

  “Oh,” he said. “Drugs. Right. Not really our area, but I suppose we could use the extra income. You’d bring them in, right? There’d be no risk to my people?”

  Obregon spread his hands. “No risk at all. We have established channels.”

  The man behind the desk reached a decision. “Okay. Talk to my people, and see what sort of arrangement they think would fit with the assistance you require.”

  The tall man nodded, inclining his head slightly toward the man at the desk. “I’m sure we can reach an understanding that will be mutually beneficial.”

  Obregon turned to walk out of the room. He hated dealing with this man, hated his attitudes, his beliefs.

  “One more thing,” the man at the desk called after him. “This man you’re looking for, does he have a name?”

  Obregon halted and turned back to the desk. “That, Mr. Slater, is what I am trying to find out.”

  Chapter 1

  Nick Hunter settled into his seat with the coffee in front of him. Somehow, a Starbucks seemed out of place at Las Vegas airport. Thinking about all the glitz and glamour that the city prided itself on, Starbucks seemed just a little too normal. He shrugged. Given his profession, he should have known better than to take things at face value. Vegas might be a city that traded on its style, but it was still a city. A city meant people, and people needed coffee.

  His satchel, brown and battered was sitting under the table by his left foot. A nondescript-looking man in rough denims and a trucker cap sat down beside him and put a similar bag on the floor next to his. Nick glanced at the man, as you would when someone sits down next to you in a crowded coffee shop. Yep, the hat matched the one the encrypted email had described.

  He finished his coffee, ignoring the man next to him, who was busy looking at something on his phone. He reached under the table and took the man’s bag, rising and walking out of the Starbucks as casually as he had entered. His normal identity, that of Nick Hunter, was still in the bag under the table. His phone, his documents, his life, such as it was, he left behind with the man in the trucker hat. The email from Splinter had instructed him to do that, and as far as he was concerned, his shadowy employer knew what it was doing.

  He stopped on a chair in the terminal’s public space and fished into the side pocket of the bag. As promised there were the keys and parking stub. He did up the bag and slipped the keys into the pocket of his jeans. Then he checked the parking stub, like so many other people were doing in the terminal, and headed for his new transport.

  The transport had turned out to be a jet black V8 Range Rover Sport with tinted windows. He’d tossed the bag onto the passenger seat and found a passport and driver’s license for Timothy Dorian on top of the clothes packed into it. Along with those had been a printout showing him booked into a suite near the university. The phone he’d pulled from the bag’s other side pocket had guided him to the hotel.

  The suite, with a separate living room and a view over the hotel pool, was certainly better than many places Splinter had sent him. A cursory examination showed no obvious signs of any surveillance devices. Satisfied, he sat on the couch and pulled the folder from the bottom of the satchel, scanning the two pieces of paper.

  His eyebrows rose slightly as he read. This would require a little care, not so much the job itself, but being in the right place at the right time. Well, that was probably why this suite had been rented for several days.

  He put his instructions down on the glass-topped coffee table and moved on to the pictures. There were only three people he needed to memorize. Confident he had them secure in his memory, he rose and walked to the bathroom. The papers went into the toilet. There was a brief hiss, and all that remained was a slight chemical film on top of the water. He flushed, removing even that evidence.

  His first appointment was tomorrow. Methodically he unpacked the material from the bag that matched his Timothy Dorian persona, being careful to leave the magazines by the bed. The rest stayed in the bag.

  He had the evening off, in Las Vegas. The question was, what to do with the time on his hands? He thought for a minute and then ordered room service. Food, some exercise, and an early night should have him ready for what was ahead.

  Chapter 2

  Next morning, he dressed casually in jeans, a t-shirt, and a light denim jacket, and threw his satchel on his shoulder. It was the sort of outfit that would blend in most places, and wouldn’t make him look like a tourist. After a leisurely breakfast, he went down to the road and caught a bus, one that went nowhere near the Strip, leaving the car at the hotel.***

  When he got off the bus on Craig St., he glanced around. A smile spread over his face. Here was the American city he was used to; a Taco Bell, a Co
mfort Inn, an auto part dealer across the road. He felt more at home than he had in the fancy hotel. Had this been his existance before the coma, he wondered? He’d been told his memory might never return, but the odd feeling of comfort in places like this made him wonder sometimes - what had his life been like?

  He shrugged. No way to know. Instead, he accepted the feeling of comfort, of being somewhere that at least felt familiar, and started walking down the road. He was soon past the shops, walking in the morning heat past a row of older-looking wooden houses. Somewhere ahead of him, a jet engine roared into life.

  The heat is the same, making him sweat in his heavy clothing. The street is sand, the buildings on either side brick and battered. Huge holes gape in the walls. Ahead two aircraft roar into view, flying low, their wings draped with weapons. He watches them go, and then lowers his eyes quickly back to ground level, scanning for anything out of place.

  He blinked. He wished he had some control over these… visions. They felt very real as if he was there. Memories, maybe? Or perhaps just something he’d seen on TV? He had no way of knowing.

  Another jet burst into life, spooling up and whining into the distance. His mental map clicked into place. Of course, the runway at Nellis Airbase was only about two miles away. No wonder this side of town was cheaper.

  He passed the Thrift Food Store and walked onto a gravel parking lot. Here the buildings had lost any sense of glitz. They were simply cinder-block rectangles, two stories high, and clearly divided into four apartments each. He checked his memory against the numbers on the building and approached the one on the left.

  He pushed the doorbell and called out, “Miss. Phillips? Karla?”

  A woman’s voice called out, “Who is it?”

  “Timothy Dorian.”

  The door opened. Standing just inside the doorway was a woman who looked to be in her late twenties. Her long brown hair fell over a white t-shirt. What really had his attention, though, was the 9mm pistol pointed at him in her shaking hands.

  “You get the Hell out of here, Dorian,” she snarled at him.

  He ducked and brought his right hand up, striking her wrist while his leg swept hers out from under her. She fell backward, and the pistol flew up into the air. He snatched it with his left hand before it could fall to the ground.

  He took three steps back, far enough to be clear of her, and pulled the magazine from the pistol’s grip. Then he worked the slide, ejecting the chambered round. He stepped forward, dropping the empty weapon on the concrete floor outside the door.

  “Can we talk now, Miss. Phillips?” he asked her.

  It took a while, but after he returned her gun and helped her from the floor, she slowly seemed to get the idea that he didn’t intend to harm her. He made sure to take the seat furthest away from her as she sat on the sofa, though.

  He may as well start at the most obvious point, he guessed. “Why’d you point a gun at me? And, for future reference, if you do need to point a gun at someone again, make sure you stand well back.”

  “I thought you were with them,” she said.

  “Can you explain that, please? It’s a bit early in the day to be playing the pronoun game.”

  She gave him a slightly sheepish smile. “Sorry. After I started putting things together, I posted some stuff online, just in a chatroom, you know. There were some supportive responses, but then the threats started. Then I get an email saying a Mr. Timothy Dorian is coming to see me. Well, I kinda associated the threats in the chatroom with this Dorian guy. Sorry.”

  He nodded. “I can see how that would work. I guess my… employer didn’t think that through. So, what did you post online that drew all this attention?”

  “I do social work. I work with the homeless,” she explained. “I started hearing stories a few months ago, about people on the streets being abducted. Mostly women, particularly those in their teens and twenties, but also some men. Now, you have to understand, many of those on the streets have mental or substance issues, and a certain degree of paranoia isn’t uncommon. So, at first, I disregarded the stories.”

  “But?” he asked.

  “I started to notice people missing. I mean, there’s always turnover on the streets, but this really did seem to be mostly younger women. I was seeing evidence of the stories I was being told. Then I started to notice the spotters.”

  “Spotters?” He raised his eyebrows.

  “People hanging around areas with a homeless population, near shelters, that sort of thing. They clearly didn’t belong, they didn’t fit in. They looked like skinheads. I thought they were just hanging round to rough up some of the men, some people get their sick kicks that way, but they never did anything. The guys on the street think they’re spotting for someone; to identify women to pick up. I believe them. I know that makes me sound paranoid too, but it’s what I feel… know,” she finished with a sigh.

  He nodded. What she’d been saying matched what his instructions had told him.

  “And,” he asked. “Why do you think these women are being abducted? What for?”

  She gave a short laugh. “This is Sin City, Mr. Dorian. What do you think?”

  He kept his face neutral. “What about the local authorities? Have they done anything?”

  “The local authorities,” she spat out. “See homelessness as an economic, not social problem. They have no desire to help the homeless, they simply want them hidden so they don’t offend the tourists. Getting some off the streets, scaring more away, would dovetail quite nicely with what they want. I wouldn’t be surprised if they knew and simply turned a blind eye.”

  He’d guessed as much, but he’d wanted to hear it from her.

  “All of that matches what I’ve been told,” he said. “I’ll look into this. See if I can find the individual responsible and stop what’s going on.”

  “Why?” she asked, obviously surprised.

  “The organization I represent works for justice,” he said. “Justice for everyone.”

  “Ha, good luck with that,” she said bitterly. “But I do appreciate someone trying. What can I do to help?”

  He grinned and nudged his bag with his foot. “I’d like you to tell me where you last saw one of these spotters. Oh, and I could do with a place to change and a ride.”

  Chapter 3

  There were few people, Scott Slater mused, who could combine their interests, their calling in life, with a way to make money. Vocation was a word thrown around a lot, but in all honesty, most people were simple wage slaves, working for money, not pleasure. He, on the other hand, could mix together his desires with his work, and come out on top financially.

  He looked back at the naked woman chained to the bed. She’d do. She’d tried to resist him, which had been amusing. There was no point thrashing around like that when she was so well secured. Still, it had added to his enjoyment. In his heart, he’d wanted to punish her more, make her suffer, but that would reduce her value to paying customers. He’d had to keep himself under control.

  He padded to the shower and turned the water as hot as he could stand. He knew she’d been cleaned up, disinfected, and tested to his requirements, but he still felt dirty. The damn street people, the bums, they were dirty, dirty to the bone. He scrubbed harder, reddening his skin.

  The homeless, he thought, were a curse on the city. He loved Vegas, loved the fact that it provided a fantasy for visitors. They didn’t need to see panhandlers, transients, messing up that fantasy. Damn it, he’d made a life for himself, risen from the ranks of a street gang to make it this high, why couldn’t they show the same initiative? Leeches, that’s what they were. Getting them off the street was the best thing he could do for his city.

  He toweled off and dressed, ignoring the crying from the woman on the bed. She’d chosen to be a drain on his city, so now he’d make her contribute. She’d entertain a number of clients before they wore her out. He’d get the money, not her, but that was how the world worked. Those with the brains and the drive
rose to the top. Those that couldn’t, they were to be used by the successful, and discarded when their usefulness ran out.

  Dressed in slacks and a polo shirt, his hair tidy once more, he stepped out of the room and into a dull-lit corridor. Waiting on the other side of the door was a large, muscular man.

  “She’ll do,” Slater told him. “Put her down for the customers who like rape fantasies. She’s still got a bit of aggression in her.”

  The man scribbled something down in a notebook. “Will do. Oh, number twenty-seven was killed by a client last night. Apparently, he had a thing for knives. I’ve charged him the extra fee for killing the merchandise. He seemed happy enough to pay.”

  Slater nodded. “Get a disposal detail together. Then go talk to the scouts. See what we have to replace her with.”

  The other man nodded, and Slater walked down the corridor. Yep, business was good. He grinned. He really did want to clean up the streets, but then where would he get more merchandise from? It was something of a catch twenty-two really. Ah, worry about that later. Right now, there was money to be made.

  Chapter 4

  Nick pushed his way out of the cardboard box. He could smell himself and smell the others around him as the sun peaked over the low concrete wall. The alley he’d slept in was next door to a charity shelter. There had been no room to sleep in the shelter last night, but there would be food and a reasonably clean bathroom as soon as the door opened.

  Karla had given him some advice on blending in, and on the characters who were likely to hang out in this area before she’d dropped him off two days earlier. Now he moved with his eyes downturned, avoiding the other men around him. There was a lot of desperation among these people, and sometimes it could turn to violence, particularly when they knew food was close but not yet available.