It was a Wednesday night and so far they’d seen three men enter. She’d taken photos of each of them.
“The clientele are all male, well-dressed, in a part of town that shuts down at this time of night. What are you thinking? Drugs? Gambling? Sex?” she asked.
“Any of the above,” Hunter said with frustration. “We need to get in there.”
“Sneak in?”
“Or go in undercover.”
“But without knowing what this place is, we have no idea how to get in there.”
He nodded. “We need someone already on the inside.”
“What? You think they’re just going to tell us what’s going on? If it’s illegal—”
“Then they won’t want their name linked to it. Jaron researched the men in these photos, quite a few have prominent jobs and families. They won’t want this to get out.”
“And you think they could be trusted?”
“No, but they could give someone we trust a way in.”
She thought it through for a moment. “That could work. Who do we approach, though?”
“You look for a weak link. One of these three.”
He handed over three of the photos, from a previous stake out, to her.
“Who are they?”
“One of them is a computer hacker. Very good. Very expensive. He’s not going to be happy that we have his photo or that we know what he does. But even though he’s good, Connor’s better. We could have him by the balls.” She looked down at the guy who couldn’t be more than twenty-eight, he stood with a slight slouch and his complexion was pale.
“The next guy,” he tapped a photo of a handsome, well-built man, “is a former football player. Got a wife and three kids, plus he makes a lot of money from endorsements. He’s not going to want to see that at risk.”
“Or there is number three.”
She glanced down at the third man. He was older, in his fifties with a thinning hairline and a slight pouch around his middle.
“He was in the photos that Angie took, but we haven’t seen him here during any of our surveillance. Which could mean he doesn’t visit a lot or maybe not at all anymore. He’s also married, but his wife is the one with the trust fund. He can’t risk a divorce or he loses all her money.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I need to talk this through with the others, figure out the best course of action.”
“You know, they all have one thing in common.”
“What’s that?”
“They’re rich. Whatever this is, it probably requires some sort of membership fee or it costs money to participate in. They probably do background checks on everyone, who do we know with money who could fit in?”
He drummed his fingers against the steering wheel. Then he turned to her. “Derrick.”
She widened her gaze. “Derrick doesn’t live in Dallas and he hasn’t got the background for this.”
“He doesn’t have to live here, a lot of these guys don’t and believe me, Derrick can look after himself. Here comes another one.”
She lifted her camera and took a photo. “I don’t think Jacey will go for it.”
“I can’t see that we have that many choices.”