Deep Dirty Truth

by Steph Broadribb

  I’m all out of options. All I can do is wait.

  Time passes. The fire in my muscles intensifies. The temperature rises and I sweat rivers, my clothes turning damp against my skin. I need the bathroom bad.

  No one comes.

  I withdraw inwards, using memories to distance myself from the pain. I think of how my morning began, and it seems like a world, a lifetime, away: waking snuggled against JT with the light streaming in through the window; his lopsided smile as I kiss him awake; the feel of him inside me as we make love in the shower – getting clean and being dirty all at once; then later JT, Dakota and me having breakfast – bagels, juice and coffee – JT and Dakota chattering about Tropicana Field, me smiling at the easy way they banter with each other. The concentration on JT’s face as he tries to braid Dakota’s hair for school; the way she thanks him even though his best effort is a clumsy, half-assed job. Me laughing and telling him practice makes perfect. Him looking at me all serious with those old blues of his and telling me he’ll keep on practising; and how in that moment I knew he was talking about more than just the braids.

  In the couple of months we’ve been playing house we’ve never made each other any promises. I’ve said before, a promise is just a disappointment bought on credit, but that don’t mean I’m not curious, maybe even a touch hopeful, to see how things play out. I want to give us a chance. After everything we’ve been through, we owe ourselves that.

  I clench my fingers together. Grit my teeth.

  So, whatever else happens, there’s one thing I’m sure about.

  I refuse to die here.

  5

  WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19th, 16:58

  I come to with a jolt.

  I’m choking. Disorientated. Blind. I try to cough, but my lips are locked closed. I claw for my throat, but my hands won’t move. By body feels numb, my limbs heavy and alien. Panic grips me. My pulse thumps in my ears. I can’t get enough air.

  A door bangs. Men’s voices come closer.

  ‘You still here, blondie?’ one growls.

  His mate laughs.

  The stench of vinegar-like cologne makes me remember. I’m in a barn, held captive by these people; my mouth is forced shut by tape, there’s a noose tight around my throat. My legs aren’t supporting my weight and I’ve slumped forwards onto the noose – that’s what’s choking me. I coax my muscles into action and push back against the pillar, ignoring the bite of wood splinters in my flesh. The grip of the noose loosens a fraction and I inhale through my nose. Feel my heartbeat start to return back to normal and wonder how long I’ve been unconscious. Wonder what the hell will happen next.

  I don’t have to wait long to find out.

  They release the noose, cut the tape around my ankles, and I drop to the ground, my legs too numbed by cramp to hold me. With my hands still bound behind my back there’s no way to break my fall and I face-plant onto the dirt floor. The impact knocks the breath clean out of me.

  The men laugh.

  The growler prods me with his boot. ‘On your feet.’

  Asshole. I don’t move. Refuse to flounder at their feet. I can’t get up with my hands tied, and I can’t tell them that because of the gag. They’re going to have to figure it out for themselves.

  It takes a minute, but they catch on. I can tell by the smell that it’s cologne guy who hauls me to my feet. Shoving me in my back he says, ‘Walk.’

  I stumble forwards, but don’t fall this time. Force one foot in front of the other, wobbly as a minutes-old colt. One of them grabs my arm and pulls me along faster. It’s all I can do to stay upright.

  We pass from the darkness of the barn back into the light, but the sun is weaker than before, and the heat’s not as intense. I want to ask where we’re going, but I can’t. All I can do is keep going forwards as directed, hating the feeling of powerlessness.

  The man on my left growls a command: ‘Step up.’

  I do as he says and my feet land on wood. The heels of my cowboy boots clonk across boards and I wonder if we’re on a porch. A few steps later and I hear a door creak open. They push me inside.

  I smell fresh bread and gardenia blooms and wonder where the hell I am. Cologne guy is still behind me, pushing. I keep walking.

  ‘Stop.’ Growler says, grabbing my elbow. ‘This is you.’

  I hear another door open, and Growler pulls me hard to the left. The door closes again, and I hear a bolt scraping across wood.

  Growler releases my arm. ‘Hold still now.’

  I do as he says.

  He removes the hood first. The light is unbearably bright and I snap my eyes shut, then start to blink rapidly, trying to adjust. Next he rips the tape from my mouth.

  I inhale hard. Open my eyes. See I’m in a bathroom that’s decorated in more shades of pink than I’d ever realised existed. ‘What the—?’

  ‘No cussing.’ Growler cocks his head to one side. ‘Ain’t that kind of house.’

  ‘You’re kidding, right?’ My voice is rasping. My throat’s dry as the desert. ‘It’s okay for you to abduct me and hold me here as your captive, but damn me to hell if I dare to take the Lord’s—’

  The blow comes fast and hard to the side of my head. Oftentimes I’d have moved with its momentum and stayed standing, but I’m too weak and groggy, so I crumple to the floor, landing on my ass on the fluffy bath mat.

  Growler looks down at me. ‘I warned you, this is no place for bad language.’ Rubbing his knuckles, he shakes his head. Looks almost apologetic. ‘This pains me as much as you. I sure do hate having to hurt a woman.’

  I glare at him. My hands are still bound, but I feel around on the mat behind me, searching for anything I could use as a weapon. ‘Trust me, honey. I’ve taken worse than your little-girl punch.’

  He watches me a moment then shrugs. ‘Guess that’s okay then.’

  I find nothing of use. Keep staring, appraising my enemy. Growler’s about six foot tall and medium build, real tan with cropped dark hair, and older than I’d reckoned on – nearer fifty than thirty – wearing cargo pants and a white wife-beater with a plaid overshirt. I take note that underneath the shirt he’s got a gun in a shoulder holster, and note the bulge around the left ankle of his pants – a back-up piece is strapped there, for sure.

  ‘So what now?’

  Growler doesn’t answer. He steps behind me and kneels down. I tense. Get ready to scoot forwards. Then I hear the rip of tape and my wrists are free. I rotate my arms gingerly. Wince as I massage my wrists where the tape has cut into them.

  I glance over my shoulder at Growler. ‘You don’t like to hurt women, huh?’

  ‘Freshen up. There are clean towels in the closet and toiletries in the rack.’

  ‘I’d rather you took me home.’

  ‘Not my call. Right now, I need for you need to get washed and presentable.’

  I shake my head. ‘For what?’

  He steps back around me, heading to the door. He raps on it twice in quick succession. As the bolt slides back, he turns to look at me. ‘Do as you’re told, and don’t think about trying anything funny.’ He nods towards the window. ‘There’re bars on the outside. You’ve got no way to get free.’

  I wait until he’s out of the room and the bolt’s been drawn back into place on the outside of the door before I move, not wanting him to see how unsteady I am. Easing myself to my feet, I stagger forwards and grip the washbasin. My head’s spinning, and my vision’s blurred. I lied to Growler; his punch was pretty damn hard.

  I splash cold water over my face. Feeling half crazed with thirst, I duck my head down and let the water run over my lips. I take a mouthful and swallow. Cough from the liquid hitting my parched throat, and spit it out. Try again, but it still makes me gag. I try smaller sips and manage to keep some water down.

  There’s banging on the door. ‘Hurry up in there, you hear? Get in the shower.’

  They’re listening to me. I glance round the bathroom, wondering if they’re watching too, but se
e no obvious cameras. It doesn’t make sense, this change in the way they’re managing me. Why tie me hooded in a stress position in the barn for hours without any interrogation, and then bring me into the house for a shower? It’s like no kind of abduction technique that I’ve ever heard of.

  The move inside this house has given me a bunch more information, and there are things bothering me a whole lot more now than when these men were treating me mean. This bathroom has bars on the window and a lock on the outside of the door. Unless it was put there for my benefit, it seems they have a habit of taking prisoners into this bathroom. And Growler saying he didn’t like it when he had to hit women makes me think they could be in the business of abducting women against their will; sex trafficking. Making my abduction about my gender rather than me personally.

  But that doesn’t ring true. If my hunch about where we are geographically is right, then the people holding me dabble in sex trafficking, drugs and a whole lot more bad business. But the reason for them snatching me, and my being here, will be personal. Dead personal.

  I shudder. The only way to know for sure is to play this through to the end.

  Moving across the room to the closet, I open the doors. Inside it’s stacked with towels, aligned into sizes and sorted by colour. I pick two red ones and close the closet. Stepping across to the corner closest the door, I fold my clothes into a pile on the wicker chair and step into the shower, pulling the smoked-glass screen closed behind me.

  The shower is powerful. I let the water cascade over me, washing away the sweat and dust. I find shampoo in the rack and wash my hair. I’m rinsing away the soap when I hear a door bang. Spinning round, I peer through the glass, but it’s too opaque and I see nothing. Heart thumping, I shut off the water and reach for a towel, wrapping it around me before opening the shower door.

  The bathroom’s empty, but someone has been inside.

  My clothes and boots are gone. In their place on the wicker chair is a glass of orange liquid and a bag of cosmetics. Hanging from the mirror is a dress: a floaty, cute chiffon number with blue flowers on cream. There’s a note pinned to it. Reaching out, I rip off the paper and read what it says.

  Wear this. Make yourself pretty. You’ve got ten minutes.

  6

  WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19th, 17:26

  Wear the dress. Look pretty.

  This kind of sexist bullshit drives me bat-shit crazy. I pound on the bathroom door. ‘Give me back my clothes. I’m not wearing a damn dress.’

  I recognise cologne guy’s snigger. ‘It’s the dress or nothing.’

  Son-of-a-bitch. I’m tempted to go with nothing just to throw mud in their eye, but I know that could be inciting more trouble, and I’d do best to avoid that, given the situation. I towel myself dry and reluctantly put on the dress. It’s low cut at the front and virtually backless; the skirt is long and will be difficult to run in, which is a problem, because I need to run.

  I take a black eyeliner from the bag and draw it across my lids, trying to ignore that my hand is shaking. Staring into the mirror, I force myself to face the facts. Growler took off the hood, knowing that I’d see his face. I caught a glimpse of the two goons that lifted me outside the school too. People who go to all this effort – plan a snatch and grab this thoroughly – don’t make rookie mistakes. I’ve seen their faces because they either meant me to, or it doesn’t matter a dime. And the usual reason for it not to matter is because they don’t intend me to leave this place alive.

  I inhale hard. Drop the eyeliner into the make-up bag.

  I’ve lived a life, several lives. I was the daughter of a violent father, the wife of a violent husband; oppressed by weak men who only knew how to express themselves with their fists. Now, at thirty-two years old, I’m living something close to the life I hoped for. I’ve got a successful career on my own terms; I’m mom to Dakota; I’m lover to JT. I don’t want things to end. Not this way.

  There’s a bang on the door and I jump.

  ‘You decent?’ Cologne guy calls. He laughs. ‘Don’t matter none anyways, I’m coming in.’

  I hear the bolt being scraped back. Blinking away the dampness in my eyes, I grab the flat glass dish that holds the soap and slip it into the back of my panties. It’s not much, but it’s something. Because, whatever they’re planning to do to me, there’s no way I’ll go down without a fight.

  The door opens.

  Cologne guy lets out a long whistle. ‘Well, would you look at that?’

  ‘Enough already.’ Growler pushes past him. He looks me straight in the eye. ‘Put out your hands.’

  He’s holding a pair of metal handcuffs. Damn. He puts them on me and my options will be a hell of a lot more limited. Maybe I should make a move now. I calculate the odds. Two on one and they’re both packing heat. I have an soapdish. Even with luck on my side those odds don’t look good.

  So I do as he asks and watch him snap the cuffs around my wrists. ‘Where are you taking me?’

  Cologne guy sniggers.

  Growler shoots him a look. Glances back at me. ‘You’ll find out soon enough. Now move.’

  They lead me out of the bathroom and along a hallway to the kitchen. The place is neat and clean, furnished in a traditional ranch-house style, with freestanding wooden dressers and a huge dining table in the centre of the kitchen where places are set for eighteen. In the middle of the table is a vase of gardenias.

  This is a home, with family pictures on the walls and notes for a grocery run on the chalkboard beside the stove. I glance at the photos as we pass but I don’t recognise anyone. What I do recognise are a lot of the locations: they’re all in Miami.

  Growler and cologne guy take me out through the back door. There are a bunch of vehicles – pick-ups, SUVs and Jeeps – parked around back, and I see four men stationed at a high gate positioned this end of the long driveway. They all have automatic weapons.

  A ways ahead of us along a dirt path are four huge barns, but they don’t lead me that way. Instead we hang a left across the yard and walk around the house to a paved sun deck screened off by a white picket fence and high hedge. Beside me I can feel the two men becoming tense.

  Weird. I glance at Growler. ‘You sure we’re going the right way?’

  ‘Quiet,’ he says.

  We walk in silence. I case out the surroundings, alert to any opportunity for escape. Aside from the gardens we seem to be surrounded by some paddock land, and then a dense forest of trees for as far as I can see. There’s no other property in sight. I’d be crazy to try and make a break for it now and I’m betting my captors know it. Handcuffed, with no vehicle, my only choice would be to run into the trees. Chances are, in their numbers, with all the vehicles and firepower at their disposal, these men would shoot me easier than they could a raccoon in a trap. I figure I need to hold on a while longer.

  As we reach the far side of the deck, cologne guy opens a gate, gesturing for me to go through. Only Growler comes with me. We walk around the end of the house and then I see it. I see him. And everything falls into place.

  I halt abruptly.

  ‘Keep it going,’ Growler says, taking hold of my elbow and dragging me forwards. ‘He doesn’t like to be kept waiting.’

  That maybe so, but I sure as shit am in no kind of hurry.

  Across the vast swimming pool, on the far side of the veranda, a table has been set for two with white linen, silver cutlery, and china plates. As we move towards the table, the man sitting there looks up.

  I clench my fists. We’ve never met, but I can guess who he is. He’s in his seventies, trim with the straight posture of an elder statesman and black hair, greyed only a fraction around the temples. He’s wearing a dark suit with a white short-sleeved shirt, but as a concession to the heat he’s removed the jacket and draped it over the back of his chair.

  He nods to Growler, who removes my cuffs. Then watches him turn and leave, only looking at me when we are entirely alone. He takes his napkin from his lap, folds it neatly
on the table, and stands, fixing me with his gaze. ‘Hello Jennifer Lorelli Ford.’

  I frown, unsure how to interpret what’s going on here; the dinner placement versus the undertone of menace. ‘It’s been a long time since I’ve gone by that name.’

  ‘Time to revisit the past then, I’d say.’ He gestures to the chair opposite him. ‘Sit, please.’

  I stay where I am. My hands are free and I figure I could overpower him easy enough. ‘And if I don’t?’

  He gives a little smile and sits down. Picks up his napkin again and spreads it over his lap, smoothing it free of creases, before glancing pointedly towards the gate that I came through, and then over to another gate on the other side of the house. I follow his gaze and see both gates have a man with an AK-47 standing behind them. ‘Then I’ll be disappointed that you chose for things to get ugly.’

  Outnumbered and outgunned, I step towards the table and sit down.

  He nods. ‘Good girl.’

  Patronising bastard. I lean forwards, close my hand tight around one of the silver knives. ‘I’m not anyone’s girl. You had me snatched off the street, strung me up in your barn and are making me wear this damn dress.’

  He winces as I cuss. Closes his eyes like he’s in pain.

  ‘I want to know why the hell I’m here.’

  He shudders as I say the word ‘hell’, then his eyes snap open and for a moment he looks at me with undisguised fury. Then the emotion is gone, the fury replaced by a neutral mask. When he speaks his voice is low, and his tone dead serious. ‘Well, Jennifer, the way I see it, we’re overdue a talk about how you trapped and murdered one of my boys – Thomas Ford.’

  He smiles at me, and in that moment I know for sure that I’m a dead woman walking.

  7

  WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19th, 18:01

  It’s not always easy to spot a mob guy. They don’t all look stereotypical gangster, and it’s not like they wear buttons shouting about their allegiance. The foot soldiers might get inked, but those higher up the food chain, they’re a whole other ballgame. Respectable, that’s what you’d think if you saw them. And that’s what I’ve heard folks say about the man sitting opposite me, Old Man Bonchese – that he’s nice and respectable. But they don’t know what business he’s in.