Professional matters should be left to professionals. Under the intimidation of Jubal and Aubrey, the FBI quickly obtained the information they sought.
Catherine Vera, a call girl who abruptly quit three years ago.
According to the brothel owner, Ms. Payton, she was still young and highly valued at the time, and her departure, without giving any reason, seemed extremely hasty.
"I have to say, the stability of this industry has surprised me a bit," Jack said, driving Jiejie to the house overnight.
He had assumed that regular checkups were considered "regular" in the industry, but he hadn't expected these guys to have developed the entire process to such a sophisticated level.
Helping clients avoid legal risks is a given, but ensuring that the prostitutes also exercised discretion is a real challenge.
However, considering the prostitutes often interact with powerful and influential individuals, this seems understandable.
Call girls, agencies, and wealthy individuals in need maintain a relatively respectable yet extremely secretive transaction model, maintaining checks and balances between the three parties.
Jack and Jiejie stood at the door of a villa in the suburbs of The Woodlands, looking at each other with surprise in each other's eyes.
The Woodlands is a suburban city within the Houston metropolitan area and, along with Plano, is considered one of the most livable cities in Texas. It
has a high-quality population, many job opportunities, and a relatively low crime rate. Judging from the villa before them, which, while not luxurious, is still quite affordable for the average middle class, it's clear that Catherine Vera is living a very comfortable life.
The doorbell rang, the door opened, and a beautiful blond woman, no more than 25 or 26 years old, appeared before them.
"FBI, we're looking for Catherine Vera," Jiejie flashed her ID.
The smile quickly faded from the woman's pretty face. As if realizing she was acting too strangely, she forced another one. "Sorry, I think you've got the wrong person."
Jack pushed his foot against the door they were trying to close, his eyes narrowed. "We're not interested in your past. We're looking for the woman who bought your client list.
We don't intend to disrupt your current life. We came to visit you knowing your husband is away on business. Do you think this is enough sincerity?"
As the woman hesitated, a little boy, barely learning to walk, stumbled out, hugged her legs, and cried "Mommy."
"Baby, go play with your toys, okay?" The woman coaxed her son away, and finally, facing the two FBI agents, whose expressions were no longer so serious, she opened the door. "Come in."
Following behind, Jack took in the villa's decor. He could tell that this humble Katherine Vera had truly risen through the ranks.
Even if the process wasn't well-known, it was a rare achievement for Americans today.
After the two FBI agents sat down on the living room sofa and explained their purpose, Catherine Vera's expression relaxed considerably, at least not as tense as it had been at the beginning.
"The person you're looking for is Megan Kane. Her father is Andrew Kane, one of my eight regular clients."
Jack Googled the name on his phone. "Vice President of Albert Oil Group?"
"Yes," Catherine Vera nodded. "We've been in contact for six years."
Counting the time on his fingers and comparing it to her age, Jack sighed softly. This meant the woman before him had already entered the industry before she even reached adulthood.
"I'm sorry to bother you again after starting a new life, but we have some questions we need your help with," Jiejie said apologetically.
"Six years with a call girl—that's not uncommon, is it?"
Katherine Vera smiled wryly. "A man of his status values privacy far more than the average person. He won't change easily as long as he's still getting what he wants."
"So how did Megan Kane find you?" Jiejie continued.
Katherine Vera's expression was rather indescribable. "Because of me, Andrew left his wife. At least that's what everyone, including me, believed at the time."
Jack frowned, as if he didn't understand.
"He then married someone else, but I wasn't surprised when Megan came to me later. I didn't even tell Ms. Peyton about it."
"Uh, sorry," Jack interrupted, trying to collect his thoughts before asking.
"You're saying Andrew Kane used his love for you as an excuse to divorce his wife and then marry a woman of equal status, right?"
Perhaps the past was too painful to recall, but Catherine Vera clutched her forehead for a moment before recovering, her smile tinged with bitterness.
"Don't laugh at my naiveté. In fact, almost everyone assumed the same thing back then."
"But you don't seem surprised that a wealthy girl like Megan would choose the same job as you? I mean, she clearly had a bright future." Jiejie chose her words carefully.
"Ah? What are you talking about?" Catherine Vera showed a confused expression, "Megan became a call girl? That's impossible!"
"So you don't know about this?" Jack noticed something was wrong and asked quickly, "What did she tell you? Why did she buy that list?"
Catherine Vera's face was full of shock, "She paid a large sum of money and hoped that I would leave Dallas. She said that although the problem mainly lay with her father, I was also an accomplice in destroying her parents' marriage and her life.
But she thought I was a victim as well, so she didn't intend to make things difficult for me. She only asked me to quit this business and hand over the client list to her to avoid it falling into the hands of others."
-
"These are all the information we currently have about Megan Kane." By the time Jack and Jiejie drove back to the office in Dallas, Alice had already sorted out the materials.
"Her parents divorced four years ago, when she turned 18. She then claimed she was traveling the world and disappeared, as if she had vanished from the face of the earth."
Jack flipped through the photo. The 18-year-old Megan Kane was indeed the woman he'd seen in the elevator, though she looked a bit more youthful in the photo, and even her demeanor hadn't changed much.
Such a beauty, coupled with the elegance cultivated by a wealthy family, resembled the women of officials cast down from the earthly realms of ancient Seres's Imperial Court, making her irresistible to the powerful.
It's no wonder that in just a few years, she'd become a leading call girl, commanding a whopping $20,000 a night.
(End of Chapter)