The Butterfly Effect Read online

  "In the safe. I know that for certain. I was signatory to the safe deposit box when we were married, and he had me put some things in the box one day. He opened the safe to give me the key."

  "What sort of things?"

  She scrunched up her pretty face. “I don't remember. In fact, it was a sealed envelope. I don't know what was in the envelope. I haven't forgotten. I didn't know at the time. I was merely doing him a favor."

  "Are you still signatory to the box?"

  "I doubt it. Surely he changed that arrangement after the divorce."

  "Maybe, maybe not. Little errors like that are common. We'll look into it. Let's drop back and talk about the safe. Is it opened with a key, or is it a combination safe?"

  "Combination. He told me he changed the combination once a month, and he is the only one with the combination. He didn't trust anyone with the combination, not even me when we were married."

  "If he changes the combination that frequently, he might write down the new combination and hide it somewhere. Did you ever see him use a piece of paper to open the safe?"

  "No, but I wasn't in the studio very much."

  "Where does he keep his business papers?"

  "In standard filing cabinets in his office. His secretary locks the files at night and opens them each morning. Evan keeps an extra set of keys for the cabinets in the safe. I remember, because an ex-secretary lost her keys. He fired her. He boasted at the time how clever he was to have kept the extra keys."

  "We'll need a pad on his employees, past and present, especially disgruntled past employees like this secretary you just mentioned."

  We turned and started back. On the return trip, I continued to pepper her with questions. I believe she answered me fully and honestly. A few more titles for yellow pads were isolated.

  Back at the car parked next to the levee, I opened the passenger door for her and walked around to the driver's side. When I was settled behind the wheel, she slid over next to me and wrapped her arms behind my neck. She asked, “Now that you know about my sluttish years, do you still want me, Martin?"

  Her lids closed halfway and her nostrils flared. She was aroused, wanted verification of her ability to attract me after telling me her deepest secrets. Shamed by her behavior during her wild years, and fearful I would think less of her because of past behavior, she wanted me to fuck her, prove to her she was still desirable in my eyes.

  "Beautiful lover from my past, I want you even more than before you told me. You pulled yourself from the hole you dug for yourself. That takes gumption. So you've been with a few hundred..."

  "Over a thousand, counting the orgies, Martin.” She blushed.

  Ah, her confession must be brutally honest to grant her absolution, give her freedom from her guilt, her shame.

  "I honestly don't know how many,” she continued. “It could be two thousand, but I doubt it. I just don't know. I do know it was a lot more than a few hundred. I didn't do anything halfway back then. I was an extreme slut. Sometimes I fucked three or more men or women or a combination of men and women during the same day at different times during the day, and that wasn't during an orgy. And some of them were strangers, men or women I never saw again. I worked, I fucked, I slept, and I ate, in that order."

  "Why?” I asked. Her confession, her extreme sluttish behavior was giving me a hard-on. I didn't understand why her words aroused me, but they did.

  "Because it felt good. I was a sex addict. If I had ten minutes I wasn't busy working, I wanted an orgasm. Sleeping and eating became secondary to sex. I put off sleep if I could achieve just one more orgasm. I was beautiful and famous. It wasn't difficult to attract a partner, and frankly, I wasn't very discriminating. Sex was like heroin to me. I needed my daily fix, and then it was more than once a day. It wasn't low self-esteem, not at first. Of course, like any addiction, my extreme sexual cravings finally created low self-esteem. It wasn't until I started to dislike myself that I did anything about it."

  "What about now. Are you still an addict?"

  "According to my therapist, I'll always be an addict, but now my cravings are normal, maybe a little above normal, and I'm very discriminating. I had five years of intense therapy, Martin. You said I had to tell you the whole truth. Now you have it all. I fudged when I said a few hundred. I didn't want you to know how sick I was. I wanted you to want me, Martin."

  I groaned with passion and pulled her hand to my hard-on. “When is the last time you did it in a car?"

  A small smile started at her full, red lips. “Not since my wild days.” She looked down and watched as her hand fondled my erection through my trousers. Her smile widened and she slid away from me, moved her hands to the side of her shorts and pulled the zipper down. Soon, she was naked below the waist, and then she helped me out of my trousers and shorts. I slipped over to the passenger side and she straddled me. She took my cock and raked it through her crease. She was wet and needy, like I was hard and ready. Her confession had aroused us both. I groaned when she lowered her creamy cunt down over my cock.

  "Take it slow,” I said. “I'm very excited, and I want it to last."

  "Never happen,” she said, and even in the confines of an automobile, she moved gracefully on and off my cock. “Telling you about my wild days shamed me, Martin, but it also excited me. There's an element of excitement about being a slut. I spent years with a wet cunt, always wet, always ready. When you put my hand on your tented pants, I nearly came in my panties. I'll be climaxing around your beautiful cock in minutes, maybe seconds. Oh god, you feel good in me. You were my first, Martin. I loved you as a girl, and could easily fall in love with you again. Oh, oh, oh, I can't wait! I'm coming. Come..."

  I groaned and jammed my erection as far in her as I could and blasted my first spurt of come deeply inside her.

  "Yes! I can feel it. I can feel it jetting into me, Martin. Can you feel my cunt grabbing on your cock, climaxing on your hard prick?"

  "Ah, huh,” I muttered and shot more semen into her.

  Each of us moved quickly through our orgasms and collapsed. It was a quick fuck, a spur-of-the-moment, intense and satisfying fuck for both of us. A quickie. We wanted each other, and we took. We didn't try to give, because in the taking we also gave. We were in tune, in sync with each other.

  As Jill and I drove toward Ruth's home, I realized we had not kissed each other, not before, during or after the coupling. I smiled.

  "That was fun, Jill. It made me feel like a teenager again."

  She looked inward. “Yes, it was, wasn't it? Spontaneous and fun."

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  Chapter Seven

  I looked out over the desert. It had rained last night, and the overall brown tint of the landscape now had a slight greenish hue, a pleasant change. It was dusk, and a magnificent sunset was brewing. I had flown to Phoenix to gather clothes for my extended stay in New Orleans and to meet with a few of my friends. Many of the friends I had helped over the years lived in the Phoenix area.

  Jill traveled with me. We stopped in Houston briefly so Jill could rummage through her packed closets. She, too, needed more clothing for the extended stay at Ruth's home, much more than I. She filled eight bags. She also dropped into her office to personally handle some details that required her experienced touch. Now she was in the shower. The doorbell chimed.

  I opened the door to an adorable, vivacious, young woman named Marilyn Chase, a graduate student in mathematics. She wasn't one of the graduate students I monitored. If she had been, we could not have been lovers. We weren't involved in a serious affair, but we were involved. She dropped by occasionally and stayed the night, or if I felt in need, I would call her, and she would usually clear her calendar and join me. She also had helped me through some bad times after my wife died. She had a loving, nurturing, no-nonsense personality, and allowed me to use her inner-strength to bolster some sad and lonely times provoked by grief over my wife's death. Peripherally, she was one of my friends. I had helped he
r father out of a jam a few years back. He was dead now, killed by a drunk driver, and Marilyn had assumed his obligation. She had helped me with a few of my projects in the past, and because of her experience and knowledge of chaos theory, I considered her important to Operation Monarch. Besides I knew she needed the money. I would pay her and she would accept the compensation because I made it clear I wouldn't use her otherwise.

  At twenty-four, she had an exceptional and youthful body. Medium length, straight blond hair parted in the middle, framed an oval face and bright blue, intelligent eyes. She smiled easily, displaying perfect white teeth. Her overall look was soft, not angular, very feminine, but she didn't give the appearance she needed protection or someone to take care of her. Marilyn took care of herself. Soft but strong best described her look and her personality.

  She smiled at me, slipped into my arms and kissed me. We were still in the embrace when Jill called out to me. Marilyn and I turned to the voice, and Jill stepped out of the bedroom nude with a freshly scrubbed pink look.

  Always regal, Jill didn't squeal and dash back into the bedroom. Instead, she strolled toward us with a runway strut—sexy and commanding. This should be interesting, I thought.

  "Hello,” she said to Marilyn and reached with her hand. “I'm Jill Henderson. You must be one of Martin's friends."

  Marilyn squirmed out of my arms and shook Jill's hand. “Yes, I'm here to help. My name is Marilyn Chase."

  "From the look of the two of you, you're more than friends,” Jill said and smiled without rancor.

  Equally guileless, Marilyn returned her smile. “I assume the same applies to you, Jill. You're very beautiful, especially nude. I've been a fan of yours for ages."

  Oh, oh, I thought, a catfight is brewing.

  But Jill surprised me and didn't take Marilyn's comment about age personally.

  "Thank you for the compliment. Yes, Martin and I go way back. He was my first lover. You're gorgeous, incidentally, so young and fresh. I envy your youth."

  The doorbell rang again.

  "That will be Robert Jones. I don't think his heart could take the sight of you naked, Jill. We'd have to call the paramedics."

  Jill chuckled. “I'll hurry and get dressed.” She strolled away, her feet stepping beyond the centerline—the runway strut. Marilyn and I both watched her until she stepped back into the bedroom. Jill knew we watched, wanted our eyes on her.

  "She's breathtaking, Martin,” Marilyn said, huskily.

  I glanced curiously at Marilyn. Her bright blue, intelligent eyes looked needy. Interesting, I thought again. The doorbell rang once more.

  One of the calls I had made the first day of the operation was to a private investigator named Robert Jones. His services weren't free. He helped me on most of my projects since he became a friend. I used him because he was dedicated to me and was very good at what he did for a living.

  The private detective's immense presence filled the room as he stepped inside. At three hundred pounds, probably more, the man stood over six and a half feet tall. I had helped him out of a financial bind five years ago. An inveterate gambler, he had gotten himself into some shylocks. I loaned him double the money he owed, told him what stocks to buy and when to sell them, and he worked himself out of his hole. He also stopped making sucker bets (part of the deal). Now he only gambled in the stock market, and the methods I gave him to play the markets weren't really gambling at all. He joined a support group and straightened out his problems with his wife and kids. Like I said, he was dedicated to helping me. Also, I supplied a quarter to a half of his income through my operations.

  I was a professor of mathematics, but I made my money applying algorithms I developed out of chaos theory to invest in the stock market. My algorithms allow me to select the correct shares of stock to buy and sell at the right time. In other words, I buy low and sell high—frequently and dramatically. I started investing while in graduate school and have not worried about money since. If I needed more money for any reason, it was easily generated.

  I took drink orders and served Marilyn and Robert. Jill entered and I made her drink and mine, and after I introduced Robert to Jill, we settled in a conversation area in the family room.

  "The three of you are key players in Operation Monarch,” I said. “Jill is the client. You are free to ask her any question that might have a bearing on the success of our project, and she will answer fully and honestly.

  "Marilyn will be my right hand. She is in charge when I'm not around, and is responsible for managing administrative functions and computer applications."

  I turned to Jill. “Don't let Marilyn's youth fool you, Jill. She has worked with me in this capacity before and is eminently capable. Robert is responsible for operations, the chief operating officer, if you will. Like Marilyn, he is experienced in this capacity. Without Robert's help, I would not have taken on your problem, Jill. That's how key his role is in the ultimate success of the project. By profession, he is a private investigator. Robert, you have the floor."

  The big man wiped sweat from his brow with a large, red paisley handkerchief. His eyes were too small for his face, and he squinted when he concentrated.

  "French is a low-life, sick son-of-a-bitch, Martin. If you want the man wasted, I might do it myself—no charge. Here is my preliminary written report."

  I took it and handed it to Marilyn without glancing inside. I would study it carefully later. During this interchange, I watched Jill. I wanted to see her reaction to having her ex killed. Her blank expression offered no clues.

  "Tell us about him,” I said.

  "The cock sucker is making more money off kiddy porn and white slavery than he does with fashion photography. Jill, you gave us the direction we needed to look with your comment about his preference for young girls. Your knowledge saved us weeks of digging."

  Jill looked shocked when told of French's illegal activities, obviously unaware of this particular dark side of her ex-husband's personality. However, she smiled when Robert complimented her. I've often noted that beautiful woman enjoyed favorable comments about their mind more than their body.

  "Robert, we want French stopped,” I said, “put away for a long time, but we can't inform the authorities about his pedophilia or waste him, as you put it. He's blackmailing his ex-wife. If we go to the authorities, Jill will become involved and her situation will become worse, not better. Any ideas?"

  "We could sic the mob on him. Kiddy porn is their racket, and they don't appreciate competition. Still, wasting him is the best and easiest solution."

  "Perhaps, but that's not my style, Robert. And I know you better than you think. Killing is not your style either. Putting the mob onto him has possibilities, but he's pretty slick. He'd probably make a deal with them and become even more bulletproof. What weaknesses besides his perversion can we exploit? Is he into drugs?"

  He nodded. Fat rolled. “Cocaine. Poppers. Casual use only from what I could find out in the time I had."

  "Too bad, that might have given us an angle. Did you work up a full financial package on him?"

  Robert shrugged and his double chin rolled. “As much as time allowed. Check out the report. If you need more details, just holler."

  "Does he have any enemies?"

  "Lot's of them, but they're related to his sick kiddy-porn racket."

  "Who distributes his porn?"

  "A man named Frank Able. He's even sicker than French, if that's possible. Again, Jill, your comments about Able and his wife made us take a hard look at him. I appreciate your candor."

  "What would Abel do if he thought French was giving him up to the authorities?” I asked.

  Robert grinned and wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. “Probably kill him. That would be a neat solution."

  "Maybe, but still we would need to get our hands on French's negatives and photographs. They need to be destroyed to protect not only our client but also the innocent children he has abused. Do a workup on Able, ever
ything you can find out about the man, and take a few more days digging up anything more you can find on French."

  Robert nodded. Fat rolled.

  I looked at Marilyn. “You need to accumulate all the intelligence we have gathered so far from Jill and Robert's sources and get the information in the computer. Use a format that allows us to apply some chaos theory algorithms to predict the directions our wing fluttering will take. And as usual, we need it fast. Robert, did you email French's financials to Vera?"

  "Yes, yesterday."

  "Good. I'll visit with her while the three of you get started. Oh, and Robert, have you talked with Harry Masters?"

  "Yes, he's on board. He despises kid abuse more than me, if that's possible."

  "Vera Williams is my financial wizard friend. She reads balance sheets like kids read comic books,” I said to Jill. Marilyn already knew the accountant.

  "Who is Harry Masters?” Marilyn asked.

  I smiled. “He's a retired safe-cracker. Like you, Marilyn, his involvement is peripheral. I didn't help him directly."

  "Like hell,” Robert said. “You saved his bacon. He'd be in the slammer now if it weren't for you."

  "He wasn't the client, Robert."

  "Doesn't matter. Harry is a friend."

  I smiled and nodded.

  "I also have a meeting with a young man named Michael Forbes. He's a computer hacker and a friend.” I glanced at my wristwatch. “I should be back by midnight. Have fun, folks."

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  Chapter Eight

  Vera epitomized a sweet, little old lady. Her persona had been her undoing. No one believed her emotionally capable of embezzling and no checks and balances had been set in place for the funds she controlled. And Vera was, in fact, the epitome of honesty; that is, until her husband became gravely ill and needed an expensive operation their HMO refused to cover. Vera simply transferred funds from her company's coffers to the surgeon and the hospital. She told me she would do it all over again given the same circumstances. Without thinking twice, she would happily spend the rest of her days in prison if she could save her husband's life. Her husband recovered from the operation, and they still lived happily, one loving the other. No one had discovered the illegal transaction. It would have taken an in-depth audit to uncover her fund transfers, but such an audit was pending when she came to me.