by Jack Hardin
The lie that had been so glaringly obvious to Juanita, the other girls bought hook, line, and sinker. The entire fishing rod, too, for that matter. She tried to convince them that none of it was true, that Jesse was an evil man, but they all, every one of them, said they loved him and would do what he needed.
They stayed at the first location for what seemed to Juanita about two weeks. Then they gathered up the girls, fastened dark hoods over their eyes, and brought them here—wherever here was. Since their arrival, Pig Nose had been the only captor they had seen. He also had a key card, although that didn’t matter much. They were all too scared of him to plan anything too crazy. Jesse hadn’t even come by to see them since they were brought here. The conviction that the girls needed to help him was, for some of them, finally beginning to wane.
So talk of escape never went farther than a short-lived talk about hitting him on the back of the head and running to the elevator. But then what? No one knew what lay beyond that. By counting the number of clients she had seen, Juanita concluded she had been at this new place for ten weeks. Twelve weeks since she got into the van and watched her brother disappeared from view. Twelve weeks since this cold waking nightmare began.
Looking back now, she should have known it was too good to be true. And deep down, maybe she had. But she’d wanted to believe that things could change for her and Junior, that someone could actually have their best interest in mind. Sometimes hope could make you see. But sometimes it was just as guilty of blinding you, keeping you from seeing the glaring truth right in front of you.
Juanita discovered a pattern early on. None of the girls here had any family to speak of. Juanita had her tía. But she didn’t care about her and Junior. She was in love with a needle. Other than Alex at Hope House, there had been no one else to show any interest in their lives.
Juanita left her room and walked down the hall to the community room. A couple of girls were at the table playing a card game. Cami was sitting on the couch picking mindlessly at a loose thread. Juanita settled into the other end. “Hi, Cami.”
Cami didn’t look up. “Hi.”
Juanita could see that the other girl’s eyes were puffy. She had been crying. Not an unusual sight for this group of girls. They had all cried, some of them still every day.
“What are you thinking, Cami?” They all learned early on not to ask each other what was wrong. There was only one glaring and mocking answer to that question.
Cami huffed, and another tear jostled loose and sped down her cheek. She didn’t wipe it away. “Vivian,” she said, and that was all.
Juanita bit down on her bottom lip and nodded. “I know,” she said softly.
Last week, Vivian reached her breaking point. She was here, in the common area, watching Survivor, when she quietly stood up and walked down the hall to her bedroom. Minutes later, they heard a varying cadence of screams issuing from her room, and everyone ran to investigate. Vivian was standing on her bed in front of a large hole in the wall, screaming angrily at it. Jagged chunks of sheetrock lay strewn across the bedspread, around her feet, and on the plush carpet below. She had shattered a nightstand drawer and used a large piece of splintered wood to create a hole in the sheetrock. Then she pried away chunks of the wall, exposing what was behind it, hoping for a way of escape. They had all discussed it before, wondering if perhaps, behind the sheetrock, there might lay a brick wall or wooden siding that could be broken through and torn away.
But what Vivian discovered sent most everyone into an emotional tailspin. Behind the sheetrock, past the steel-stud framing and the insulation, was a thick wall of smooth gray concrete, cool to the touch. They were hemmed in exactly as they had feared all along. The only way out was through the elevator. They were captives in a concrete box.
That realization—that they could never escape—was the final haunting.
There were no cameras in their rooms. Juanita assumed it was because there was an agreement with the clients. A camera was, however, perched high in the corner above the elevator, offering whoever was on the other end a view of the entire length of the hallway. Another two cameras were mounted in opposing corners of the common room ceiling.
They must have seen the girls flock into Vivian’s room. For not a minute passed before Pig Nose flung the door to her room open, his eyes flaring wide in hot anger as he took in the damage done and the intent behind it. He immediately ordered all the girls except Vivian out of the room, and as they returned to the common area, they listened while he berated her and his fists punctuated his anger as he repeatedly slammed them into her body.
Vivian was taken away, up in the elevator, a couple of hours later. Everyone knew that they would never see her again, that she was probably not even alive. The wall in her room was repaired, given a fresh coat of paint, and two days later a new girl was introduced in her place, a clear testament that the girls were as valuable as a roll of toilet paper.
The taunting certainty that there truly was no escape, along with the knowledge of what their captors were willing to do should they step out of line, was unnerving. That, coupled with the reality of what they had to do each weekend, had covered Cami in a fresh blanket of darkness that she had yet to shake. Juanita was beginning to doubt she ever would.
“What do you think they did to her?” Cami asked.
“I don’t know,” Juanita answered quietly.
“She dreamed of owning her own restaurant one day. She used to cook for her grandfather before he died.”
Juanita nearly smiled. Vivian would hog the television most days, streaming cooking shows until a small revolution formed among the girls for the remote to be handed off. “She would have been great at it,” Juanita said. She wanted to add, “maybe she will be one day,” but she couldn’t do that to Cami.
The sound of a strong sniff came from behind them. Juanita turned and saw Sandra hunched over a line of white powder. She held a small straw to her nose and sniffed again, then pulled away and shook her head. She looked over at Juanita and smiled happily. A cocaine smile—one that stretched across the pain deep within.
After the first client, Juanita felt herself begin to unplug from reality. She tried the cocaine as a means to cope. It was, after all, why their captors furnished it. Before coming here, Juanita had never experimented with drugs. Not even a cigarette. But after that first night with the first man, after realizing just what kind of nightmare she had fallen into, the cocaine quickly became a trusted friend. The only one she had left, it seemed. When she was suddenly thrown in a world where the only reason she was allowed to live was to please others with her body, drugs became a potent grace.
But two weeks ago, she quit the stuff. The cocaine helped to mask the pain but somehow left her feeling even more out of control. And she couldn’t think clearly when she felt like that. She wasn’t sure why thinking clearly was more important than keeping the pain at bay; she couldn’t explain to herself why the cocaine should go untouched.
The reason, however, was simple.
Somewhere, in the back of her mind, grew sprouting seeds of revolt.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Young children did not possess the ability to discern when their parents should be left alone to sleep in or how to mind sensitive areas of the body that had played a leading role in their existence.
Blake Duprey was thinking something along those lines microseconds after his four-year-old daughter woke him up by base jumping off his bedroom dresser and landing most of her forty pounds below his waist.
“Emma...baby. You...you can’t do that. Okay?”
“Okay, Daddy!” And now she was jumping on the bed like it was her private trampoline. “Hurry up! I want to go to IHOP!”
Jillian, Blake’s wife of nine years, rolled away from the ruckus and tucked back into the sheets. Blake made a groggy effort at sitting up, but his groin was still in AFib and he winced as he leaned against the headboard. “Oh, honey. I can’t this morning.” The fog from two people sharing
nearly three bottles of wine clung to his brain and muddled his thoughts. He tried to focus on his daughter but couldn’t get his eyes above half mast.
“Whhhat??” the little girl exclaimed. “But we always go to IHOP on Saturday mornings!”
“I know, honey, but I have to go into work for a little bit. We’ll pick back up next weekend. I promise.” A shrill cry came from down the hall. Blake nudged his wife’s shoulder. “Baby’s up. I’ve got to go.”
Jillian groaned like she was allergic to sunlight and threw the sheets off of her. She slowly slid her feet to the floor and shuffled out of the room.
Emma jumped off the bed and walked over to her father. “But what am I going to do for breakfast now?” she asked.
“Ask Mommy. Cereal probably.” His daughter dipped her chin and gave him a chastising look that made him a little sorry for her future husband. “I won’t be gone long, okay? Just a couple of hours.”
“Can we go when you get back?”
He stood up and scratched at his lower back. “Maybe. Let me check with your mother.”
“Okay!” she said. “I’ll go ask her.” Then she was gone.
Blake looked over at his bedside clock. It was just after seven. He had foolishly agreed to a meeting this morning at eight. His pre-wine logic had told him that eight o’clock was a good time because, when it ended, it still left him the rest of the day to hit the golf course. Fighting back the urge to call and reschedule, he staggered into the bathroom and stared at himself in the mirror, then turned on the cold water and splashed a couple handfuls in his face.
He was in the car twenty minutes later, having consumed only three Excedrin and two glasses of water for breakfast. A travel mug full of coffee sat in the cup holder between the seats. Jillian had fixed it for him, but he had yet to touch it. Coffee never helped his hangovers; he didn’t really even like the taste of it to begin with. Mostly what he needed right now was a liver purge. He felt woozy and thought that he might still be a little drunk.
He pointed his Ford F-250 north onto Florida State Road 31 and rode it for twelve miles. He was in the country now, passing the occasional house and the ever-present farm. After weaving through Arcadia, he turned off south of Brownville where a stone monument sign was flanked with lavish patterns of purple and yellow pansies, blue lilies, and areca palms. The sign read “Palm Rivers” and formed the entrance to a stone paved driveway that was flanked with royal palms and led visitors to an expensive cream-colored stucco building with a brown tiled roof. In front of the building’s porte-cochère stood a fountain of three nude women clasping earthen pitchers. The location served as a quiet and isolated event venue for weddings, graduations, birthdays parties, and quinceañeras.
Blake navigated around the fountain and pulled in beneath the porte-cochère. When he stepped out onto the stone, a wide yawn escaped him, and he complemented it by spreading his arms and trying to stretch the tired from his body.
It was quiet out here, away from the hum of Interstate 75 and the smaller cities that hugged the Gulf Coast. Two scrub jays were perched on the fountain, slipping quiet chirps into the cool morning air, while in the distance a loose gathering of black cows had formed along a fence line.
The building’s entrance had two heavy wooden doors rising ten feet above the threshold. Blake pulled on a brass handle and stepped inside, where the rotunda’s domed ceiling was frescoed with a stunning replica of the magnificent Minoan leaping bull, the original of which was still on display in the Heraklion Archaeological Museum in Crete.
The interior was everything one would expect from a venue catering to those with refined tastes and high expectations. The theme was Greco-Roman, infused with a modern flare. Diamond-cut marble floors lay in alternating colors of white and sapphire blue. The front hallway was wide with Murano glass chandeliers hanging from its coffered ceiling and life-size marble statues of Greek gods and goddesses lining its floors. The hallway led guests away from the rotunda down to a carpeted lounge at the end where it split off in two directions. To the right, where, save for a few busts resting on freestanding columns, it became an empty corridor that led to the bathrooms and another door at the end. To the left, it brought guests into the ornate ballroom, where dinner and dances were hosted and parties lasted well into the night.
Blake took a right when he came to the lounge and made his way to the open door at the end. He stepped inside. The style of the room was in stark contrast to the rest of the building. A visitor might think he had stepped back in time, and to old London, not Rome or Greece. Wood-paneled walls and exposed wooden rafters set the room in a dark ambiance. Built-in bookcases were filled with vanity books, vases, and picture frames inlaid with black and white photos from an earlier age. A red-felted card table took precedence in the center of the room, and eight Shattuck wood chairs surrounded it, their seats and armrests adorned in oxblood satin. An old pedestal desk sat opposite the doorway, at the other end of the room, where a bank of flat-screen security monitors sat on top of it. Seeing no one in the room, Blake returned to the lounge and took a seat at the empty bar. He waited.
A sliding glass door at the back of the lounge provided access to the pool area. A shadow stretched across the glass just before the door slid back and Victor Cruz stepped through. He shut it and went around the bar, then poured himself a glass of water. “You been here long?” he asked Blake.
“Couple minutes.”
“You want something to drink?”
“Water, please.” His head was still spinning.
Cruz snatched another glass from a shelf behind him. He filled it from the tap and placed it on the bar. “How’s the family?” he asked.
“Good. Jillian wants me to take her up to Coeur d’Alene next month. Might do that for a couple days.”
“Coeur d’Alene...that’s where, Oregon?”
“Idaho.”
Cruz watched as Blake drained his glass in one swift motion. “You look like you could have used a little more sleep,” he said.
“Yeah, well. You have the paperwork?”
“I do. Be right back.” Cruz left the lounge and entered the office at the end of the hall. He returned a minute later and settled into the bar chair next to Blake. He slid a file folder across the polished granite. For now, they were the only two people on the property, so Cruz spoke freely. “These are the new ones. With the extra seven percent added.”
Blake picked it up and flipped through the invoices. He scanned the numbers, nodding his approval. “This is better. Tell them this needs to be the standard going forward. I can’t keep up with what you’re giving me if they don’t bill at this rate.”
“I told them.”
“So you fixed the other problem?” Blake asked. “I haven’t heard of it being an issue any longer.”
“It’s done. Clean and easy. The cops think he fell off the balcony. Looked like a suicide. Nothing more to say.”
Blake waved the file at Cruz. “How about you don’t go leaving this on job sites anymore?”
“How about you forget about it? I fixed it. We move on.”
“We good? I owe Emma breakfast.”
“No,” Cruz said. “Mr. Zedillo, he wants a meeting with you and me in person.”
Blake blinked. “In person? Why?”
“You think he told me?”
Blake set an elbow on the bar and rubbed at his tired face. “He makes me nervous,” he said through his fingers. “Doesn’t he make you nervous?”
“Not really. As long as we keep our end of the deal. He seems like a fair man.
Blake sat back up and released a heavy sigh. “Yeah, I guess so. At least I get to see Emma grow up. If it weren’t for him, she would have been sixteen before I got out. Has Abby let you see Nino yet?”
“No,” was all he said, and then he stood up. He doubted he would ever be allowed a relationship with his son, and that wasn’t something he wanted to think about. So he changed the subject. “I finished cleaning out the old location in
Fort Myers.”
“Where will the new one be?” Blake asked.
“I don’t know.”
Blake’s phone rang in his pocket. It was a FaceTime call. Emma was holding the phone under her face, and he could see up her nostrils. “Daddy,” she whispered. “Are you almost done, Daddy? Mommy said you and me could still go to IHOP if you get home soon. But that we have to hurrrry because I have gymnastics.”
Blake grinned mildly. Gymnastics always came out “jim-nasses.” “Sure, honey. Why don’t you—” But he was interrupted by a scream of childish delight as the phone was dropped to the floor, and he heard Emma running off to tell her mother that breakfast was back on. He called out for her to come back to the phone but was answered by a shiny black nose quickly followed by a dog’s muzzle as his German Shepherd sniffed loudly at the phone.
“Hey Rowdy...I’m going to hang up now. Okay?” Blake disconnected and leaned back in his chair. He blew a long puff of air from his cheeks and ran a hand through his hair. “I’d better go,” he said. “Apparently pancakes are in my future.” He stood and thanked Cruz for the invoices. “You’ll let me know the when and where for our meeting with Mr. Zedillo?”
“I will.” Cruz noted the concern in Blake’s eyes. “Relax, he likes you. He likes both of us.”
Blake nodded but did not appear convinced. The men said their goodbyes, and Blake stopped at the restroom on his way out.
Cruz returned to the office down the hall.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Reticle’s gunsmithing shop was at the back of the main building that held the offices, restrooms, and store. The shop was lit by halogens hanging from thin chains screwed into the ceiling. Several wood-top tables filled the room, along with a mini-milling machine, belt sander, bolted table-top vice, a grinder, and a gunsmithing lathe that sat against the rear wall. A line of gun racks ran along the opposing wall, full of weapons in the queue to be cleaned or modified.
