“No idea.” Rina looked around the office. “I always figured brothels to be like western ranch style. This appears to be more like a Vegas resort. It’s got a bank and a casino right near the airstrip.”

“And a pawnshop,” Decker said. “No wonder the kid has piles of cash in a vault.”

“The kid? You mean Chris?”

“I do,” Decker said. “Every time I see him, I keep expecting that eighteen-year-old boy who went toe-to-toe with me. Sometimes it’s hard to reconcile that image with the white-haired psycho.” He drank juice. “Although he was probably a psycho at eighteen. Did you get anything out of him when you talked to him alone?”

“Not really.”

“What’d you ask him?”

“I asked about his relationship with Terry. If there were things that he did that would make her leave him again.”

“And?”

“He admitted being sexually aggressive. Sometimes too aggressive. But he claims she was used to that. And he said when he left to redeem her son, they parted on good terms. She was crying. She said for him to be careful. She seemed genuinely concerned about him. And she put up with him all this time to get her son back. Why would she leave just before that happened? He’s really worried that maybe the same people who kidnapped Sanjay and tried to kidnap Juleen took her while he was gone. He thinks there’s a possibility that maybe those men are going to try to extort more money out of him. In the back of his head, he thinks he might be getting a phone call about a ransom.”

“So, he doesn’t think she left voluntarily.”

“He’s also considering that because she’s done it before.”

“What about the people around here?” Decker asked. “What do they have to say?”

“Apparently no one knows a thing. Terry had full access to come and go as she pleased. Yes, he put guards on her, but she was constantly evading them. They told Chris that it was almost like a game with her … what she’d have to do to get them off her tail. But she always came back, and when she did, she always made a point to check in with them. Chris is wondering if she was doing a number of dry runs to get them used to the fact that she’s out of their control.”

“Bizarre,” Decker said. “Not that she would leave him, but that she would stick with him long enough to get her son back and then leave before she could see him. And it’s also odd that she left Juleen here. Is she that bad of a mother?”

“She left Gabe.”

Decker said, “There were exigencies with that. None this time. I don’t understand her.”

“It seems that no one does.”