Lust and Lies 04 - Pretty Maids in a Row

sustained.
    "It never seemed to occur to Viello that the lovely Mrs. Donner had purposefully set out to steal his company or ruin him financially. He actually apologized for my losin' my investment. There was never a chance that he'd make the connection with the Little Sister Society because I hadn't been on his dance card. Cheryl, Bobbi, and Rachel had."
    Setting her empty glass on the table, Rachel said, "I've always wanted to send the men condolence cards from the Society when we finished with them. It would be rather satisfying to let them know who got them and why. But April convinced everyone that the risk of exposure wasn't worth the extra satisfaction—at least until the last man receives his just deserts."
    Holly gave herself a moment to see how she felt about what these women had done—and, apparently, were still doing. In a way, they were no better than the vigilantes in the Old West, taking the law into their own hands and meting out justice as they saw fit. But law and justice had failed them all and the men deserved punishment.
    Considering the brutal beating and rapes the last man had participated in, he had gotten off rather easily by only being financially ruined. The truth was, rather than disapproval of the women's methods or sympathy for the men, Holly was feeling a very unchristianlike sense of righteousness. She found herself unable to stifle a smile. "How many of the fifteen have you managed to get to?"
    Erica held up three French-manicured fingers and said, "Three by corporate takeovers. Two others were sentenced to prison time through Rachel's efforts. Bobbi's gotten four for tax evasion and two others were publicly humiliated, careers destroyed, marriages broken, that sort of thing. In most cases, the initial evidence was provided by one of the many different detectives Cheryl hired."
    Again Rachel cut in. "My personal favorite was Ike Brown. After graduation, he became a pilot and started his own charter service based in San Antonio. The detective reports showed that he made a lot of trips in and out of Mexico and had purchased a number of large-ticket items with cash. I did a little additional investigating on my own and came up with enough evidence to strongly suggest he was running drugs.
    "It would have felt good to make the arrest personally, but he might have recognized me since I had given him such a hard time after my assault. I had to turn over the information I'd gathered to the agents in Texas, and they closed in on him."
    "My leads usually begin with a detective's report as well," Bobbi added somewhat shyly. "You'd be surprised how many people have a regular job for which they report their income, but also have some sort of side business that they keep hidden. Normally the deceit would never be discovered. However, between the detectives and Rachel and my information networks, there is nothing about a man's life that can remain a secret."
    Rachel snorted. "One thing you can count on is once a scumbag, always a scumbag. Every one of those fifteen frat boys was bound to stray from the straight and narrow as adults. All we had to do was wait for it to happen and be ready for them."
    April nodded and said, "The main reason I've insisted we keep our motives secret is to avoid being discovered too soon. If the targets communicated with each other, they might try to stop us any way they could—not that we're doing anything criminal, as I said before, but our actions might not be construed as entirely ethical. There could be repercussions. Also, to keep the risk of being discovered to a minimum, we've concentrated on the lesser-known men up until recently."
    Holly could see the logic in what April was saying, but it contradicted the present situation. "Having kept a low profile all these years, why did Cheryl decide to testify against Ziegler?"
    "The Society was never able to come up with a suitable punishment for him. Basically, he's been as clean as his political campaigns make him out to be. The only thing negative that's ever been uncovered is that his wife has a serious problem with depression—attempted suicide some years back. But we have no reason to hurt her. Stopping him from getting the cabinet appointment was the best revenge we had come up with, and Cheryl was the only one of the inner circle who did not have a career or marriage that could be damaged by going public."
    April guessed Holly's next question. "Yes, some of us are married. My husband and I were married