Sweet Seduction Shield(96)

Adam. Casper the Ghost. Angel Dust. Alice. Mister Blue. Muzzle. Moonrock. Brownies. Yen Pop. And then beside those, phrases such as: Zips, Zoomer, House Piece, Holding, Gunther, Trap, Tweaker, Graduate, Toss Up, Teardrops. And then dates and names. Full names, often with last known addresses, or just a street name and cross reference. Dollar amounts, with phrases like, Teener, Spoon, Eight Ball, Sixty-Two. There were symbols, but no legend. There were photos; mugshots, tattoos or scars that could obviously identify the person depicted in the image.

And finally a whole section devoted to payments.

Some were names and figures written in red ink with a cross in the last column. Paid.

Others were in black and had gruesome photos attached. Also paid.

I'd thought it back then, but now with distance and time to shield me, the emotion was more fervent. More real. I couldn't fathom how Rick had put his pen, red or black, to that ledger paper and scratched out those letters without feeling something. How had he come home to me at night and not dwelled on those photos? Not felt relief for those people who ended up in the red line with a cross in their final column. Not felt shock and horror at those that ended up black.

I sat there as Ryan methodically read every single line, no doubt understanding the language, or code, or slang, or whatever the fuck it was. Probably not even needing a legend to figure out the symbols. He didn't say anything. He just kept reading, slowly turning the pages, and occasionally jotting a few words down on a notepad to the side.

I became numb. I tried to tell myself it wasn't the Rick I knew and loved. It was someone else. I was someone else. I hadn't lived on the edges of this strange, vile world. I hadn't known someone intimately who survived in its trenches for years. I wasn't guilty by association, tainted by the filth Rick touched.

But I was, wasn't I?

Ryan made a sound, a slightly excited sound. Although any sound seemed animated after the slow, methodical turning of the pages and the dreadful silence that preceded the next. He flicked back several sheets, then returned to where he had read to, then checked his notes. From what I could tell, in my frozen state of denial, he was comparing a symbol that appeared in each of those spots. A stylised palm tree with a strange pointed cap at its top.

"What do you make of that?" he asked, pointing to the symbol.

"A palm tree."

"With a Phrygian cap," he added. A what? "This is good."

"Why?"

"It's a symbol of Haiti."

"What's Haiti got to do with Roan McLaren?"

"Well, ordinarily, it hasn't got anything to do with him," Ryan explained. "But these symbols here," he pointed to a page with several different symbols against large figures and some of those words like Alice and Angel Dust and Mister Blue. "I'm thinking they're for people. Important people. Such as his largest suppliers."

"Why would you think that?" Granted some of the dollar amounts - or was that weights? - seemed large, but it really could have meant anything.

"The palm tree," he announced, sitting back in his seat with a satisfied air.

"The symbol for Haiti?"

"Yeah. And I'm guessing a certain Haitian born Auckland drug lord would use a symbol like that, don't you?"

I frowned at him.

"This ledger's a goldmine, Marie." I'd never want to wear gold ever again. "Not only does it shed some very disturbing light on how McLaren settled unpaid debts." My stomach roiled. "But it ties Wellington's premier criminal to at least one of New Zealand's most wanted drug traffickers of all time. You know what you've done?" he asked, seeming elated by whatever he'd uncovered between those filthy pages.

I shook my head, frown still in place. He reached up and rubbed his thumb over the creases in my forehead and smiled, intense brown eyes staring straight through me.

"You've handed the Crown Prosecutor, not one, but two and possibly more, criminals at once." he lifted a hand between us and started to count fingers off. "Roan McLaren. Declan King. And I'm betting the boys on the Organised Crime Squad assigned to CIB Narcotics would be able to work out the rest of these symbols as well."

He stared at me for a long while, maybe expecting me to clap my hands? I blinked back at him. Sure, two drug lords instead of one has to be good, but I'd always known the ledger held more evil bastards than just Roan McLaren inside.

"Babe," Ryan said, with a little frustrated sigh at my lack of enthusiasm. "This is better than I first thought. This is your ticket to freedom."

It is?

"I gotta call Dominic and let him know."

He leaned forward and gave me a peck on the lips, then stood up already pulling his cellphone from his jeans pocket. I watched him walk towards the hallway, probably to have the call in privacy, away from Daisy's prying ears.