The Quiet Ones

by Brandon Massey

  Father’s surgical handiwork. She felt a chill, though the day was hot.

  “We’re not here to get anyone in trouble,” Ben added. “We only want to chat with Mr. Grey.”

  “Please,” Mallory said. “It’s important. We’re trying to help someone who really needs our assistance.”

  Neither girl responded, but they rose from their lounge chairs, wrapped beach towels around themselves, and hastened toward the house as if fleeing an approaching thunderstorm, the towels fluttering like capes around them. Mallory wanted to gnash her teeth with frustration.

  “There’s another gate.” Ben pointed toward the far edge of the back yard. “Want to see where it leads?”

  The gate opened onto a new path constructed of pine wood planks. The walkway sloped downward through a thin corridor of elm trees and emptied into a large deck. Beyond the deck, a floating boat dock bobbed in sun-spangled water.

  “Waterfront property, nice,” Ben said.

  “I think it’s the Withlacoochee River,” Mallory said, remembering the town’s Wikipedia entry. “But prime real estate for sure in these parts.”

  As they descended the walkway to the deck, a pontoon boat drifted toward them along the river. A tall, slender Black man stood at the helm. He wore a wide-brim gray bucket hat, a white, short-sleeve button-down shirt, and khakis. He had a salt-and-pepper beard. Mallory estimated he was in his early sixties.

  She also estimated he was displeased at their arrival. From the distance of ten or so yards separating them, Mallory could see his scowl.

  “Mr. Grey?” Mallory asked. “Do you have a few minutes, sir?”

  “My office is closed on the weekend, young lady,” Grey said. He angled the boat toward the floating dock. “Return on Monday during business hours, please, and thank you.”

  He didn’t sound like a native Southerner. He sounded like he came from up North—probably Chicago or Detroit. He had an aristocratic bearing about him and precisely enunciated each word.

  “I’m a fisherman myself.” Ben stepped forward. “What are you catching out here? Bream?”

  “Where I’m from we call them bluegill, but yes.” Grey held up a net holding the fish he had landed, their still, scaly bodies glittering in the sunshine. “This river contains abundant shellcracker, too.”

  “They’ll taste like heaven fried up in the pan.” Ben rubbed his palms together as if eager to start planning dinner. “You’ve got a great setup here, man. How often do you take out the boat?”

  “Not as often as I’d like.” Grey set down his mess of fish and his gaze shifted between Ben and Mallory. “Neither of you is from around here, that’s rather obvious. Why have you come?”

  “What can you tell us about Maid4U, LLC?” Mallory asked.

  “Nothing.” Grey’s air of reserve didn’t falter. “Who are you, again?”

  “I’m Mallory Steele. I’m an investigative reporter for The Atlanta Times.” She showed her badge. “I spent some time at Sanctuary with Father. He’s got a transport van registered to Maid4U, LLC, and it so happens that your address is associated with the company.”

  “My transactions with clients are protected by attorney-client privilege,” Grey said. “As a journalist, you surely must be aware of that, sweetheart.”

  His use of “sweetheart” was about as condescending as you could get, a man’s way of patting her on the head as if she were a toy dog he wanted to shoo away into the corner.

  “Of course,” she said. “I’m also aware that as an attorney, you have an ethical obligation to divulge information if concealing it places an individual in imminent danger.”

  Grey’s eyes narrowed to darts. “Who is in danger?”

  “My sister is imprisoned at Sanctuary against her will,” Mallory said.

  “Even if that were a factual statement,” Grey said, “I’d report my concerns to Chief Norwood, not some Atlanta muckraker trespassing on my property.”

  “Father gave you those girls we saw at the pool, didn’t he?” Ben asked, clenching his fists.

  “Pardon me?” Grey said.

  “Oh, come on now.” Ben made a scoffing sound. “You’ve got two of them living with you, fine young women, especially for an old head. I get it, brother. I’d wager you’re refilling your Viagra prescription every month.”

  Mallory glanced at Ben, surprised by the venom in his tone. His hands were shaking. She could empathize with him. Ben was one of the good guys, got fired up whenever he witnesses injustice allowed to flow unchecked. She had seen so much injustice while out in the streets tracking down stories that perhaps she had become desensitized. The situation with the Brides, with these other young ladies they had seen who clearly had been touched by Father’s malignant hands disturbed her, but she hadn’t allowed any of it to deflect her efforts away from her true ambition: finding Liz. Find Liz, get her somewhere safe, and then she could clear her head and change her focus to these other people.

  Grey grumbled. He bent and picked up an object from his boat: a shotgun.

  “Clear off my property this instant,” he said.

  Mallory raised her hands in a surrender gesture. Ben didn’t.

  “All of you sons of bitches are going down,” Ben said. “I’ll personally see to that, I promise you.”

  “You’ve threatened me, and now I am in fear for my life.” Grey lifted the shotgun to his shoulder. “Firing on a threatening trespasser now would be an act of self-defense, and in the state of Georgia, stand your ground is the law of the land.”

  “Ben, come on.” Mallory had taken a step backwards.

  “I also hunt deer and quail on the weekends,” Grey said. “If you think I’m a stranger to violence, I’d suggest you recalibrate your expectations.”

  “Recalibrate? Jesus?” Sneering, Ben relented. Grey continued to aim the weapon as they retreated along the path to the backyard.

  The women hadn’t returned to the pool, but Mallory felt watched as they returned to Ben’s truck in the driveway. Climbing in, Ben slammed his door so hard the SUV shook.

  “You’re really upset,” Mallory said.

  “Aren’t you?” Ben glared at her. “This is disgusting, on every level. That asshole was so pretentious I wanted to take his fishing rod and jam it up his ass.”

  “I get it, but we need to be careful what we say, Ben. He literally could have shot you and gotten away with it.”

  “I’m cool.” He stabbed the ignition. He rolled down the driveway, back to the adjacent road.

  “We can check the doctor next,” Mallory said. She started to look at her phone, noticed a familiar vehicle nearby. “Shit.”

  Chief Norwood’s Lincoln Aviator was parked on the shoulder of the road. Mallory half-expected him to flip on the light bar and pull them over, but the cop did something even more unnerving: he followed them as they turned in the opposite direction, maintaining a distance behind them of a couple vehicle lengths.

  “This is harassment,” Ben said. But he had slowed to the posted speed limit.

  “Don’t give him a reason to stop us.” Clammy hands knotted in her lap, Mallory glanced in her side mirror.

  The chief continued to tail them. Ben arrived at a Stop sign. The chief nosed his SUV so close behind them that Mallory expected to feel the thud of bumper smacking bumper, but the chief paused just short of hitting their vehicle.

  Ben made a right turn. The Lincoln turned right, too.

  Ben hissed. “What’s he trying to prove?”

  Mallory started to answer when her phone vibrated, indicating a new text message. She opened the texting app.

  A message had arrived from an unknown sender with a local area code.

  Leave town before you get hurt

  40

  Staring at the text message, Mallory’s blood turned cold, as if the phone had metamorphosed into a brick of ice in her hand. She checked her side mirror. The chief drove close behind.

  “What is it?” Ben asked. He handled the SUV as carefully as a st
udent taking a driving test. “You look upset.”

  “Someone warned me to leave town. I don’t know who sent the message to me, but it’s a local number.”

  “Could be anyone in their little sick gang.” Ben clutched the steering wheel, his knuckles bone-white. “We can’t go see the doctor now, not with Chief Psycho riding our butts. I’m heading back to the motel to get my stuff.”

  Mallory replied to the text message with, “Who are you?” but predictably, received no response. Later, she would attempt a reverse lookup on the number.

  Chief Norwood followed them all the way to the Ratliff Motel, parking near the manager’s office when Ben pulled into a slot near his rented room. Mallory got out of the truck with Ben.

  When he swiped the access card in the door’s slot, the little light flashed red. He tried twice more with the same result.

  “What the heck?” he asked. “I paid through Sunday.”

  “Let’s go talk to the manager,” Mallory said.

  As they marched to the office, she stared at the chief’s Lincoln. She couldn’t see Norwood’s face through the tinted windows, but she felt his gaze on them. It took all her self-restraint to avoid flipping him the bird. He’d use that as an excuse to arrest her on a trumped-up charge.

  Inside the small office, a whale of a man shook his head at their arrival. He pointed to a garbage bag lying on the floor at the edge of the front desk.

  “That’s your stuff, man,” he said. “Put through a refund for the last night on your card, too. Gave you that money back, uh-huh. You’re bad for business, gotta go.”

  “What?” Ben said. “Come on, Earl, this is nuts.”

  “Who are you taking orders from?” Mallory asked. “Chief Norwood? Father?”

  But Earl’s broad, cratered face gave away nothing. He only shook his massive head.

  “You’re one of them,” Ben said. “I should have figured it out when I saw Leah working at the police station.”

  “A network of traffickers,” Mallory said.

  “Y’all need to go now.” Earl flicked his hand toward the door as if ushering away a stray cat. “Get out, move on out of here.”

  Muttering, Ben snatched up the trash bag. Outside, they got back in the truck. Chief Norwood waited for them in his Lincoln. Mallory could imagine the cop grinning at his handiwork.

  “Now where?” Mallory asked.

  “We leave town,” Ben said. “It’s our only option.”

  “Are you nuts? I’m not quitting.”

  “A strategic, temporary withdrawal, Mal,” he said. “We’ve got too much heat on us right now. We can find a hotel in Valdosta and plot our next steps from there, then come back to town early tomorrow morning.”

  She hated the thought of letting Liz fester in that place for one more day, but she could see the wisdom of Ben’s approach. They had to get the cop off their tail, let things cool off. With him following so closely there was no way they could continue their investigation.

  Ben veered out of the motel parking lot, and Norwood followed. The cop trailed them until they turned onto the exit ramp for I-75 North—literally escorting them completely out of town. Norwood sounded his horn twice as they pulled away, as if giving them an official send-off.

  “Good riddance,” Ben said. He wiped sweat from his brow with the back of his hand.

  Mallory, too, finally released the pent-up air in her lungs.

  I’ll be back, Liz, she thought, watching the town dwindle in her side mirror. This isn’t over.

  41

  They found a Days Inn located near the interstate, about five miles north of Ratliff. Although check-in wasn’t until three in the afternoon, the hotel had plenty of open rooms and the front desk attendant agreed to let them settle in early.

  Mallory didn’t realize how tired she was until she found herself contemplating a king-size bed with fresh sheets in a cool, quiet room. The weight of everything that had happened in the past twenty-four hours came crashing down on her like the sudden return of gravity. She eased onto the edge of the mattress, yawned.

  “I’m going to take a quick nap.” She shucked off her sneakers.

  “I’ll join you.” Ben closed the blinds. “I didn’t sleep well last night, either. I was too worried about you.”

  Mallory reclined on the bed, on her back. Ben took off his shoes and lay beside her. She found his hand, clasped it in both of hers, held it against her midsection. She craved his touch; it was as if his hand anchored her to the world and kept her from floating away.

  For several minutes, neither of them spoke. The a/c hummed, the ceiling fan whirring.

  Mallory felt herself drifting toward slumber. But she said, “I feel as if we’re missing something obvious.”

  “Like what?” he asked.

  “My niece gave me a jewelry box full of my sister’s things,” she said. “I took it with me when they kicked me out since they said I could have it. I looked through it while I was waiting for you to come pick me up. Her swan was missing.”

  “Her swan?”

  “A little silver pendant my mom gave Liz for her twelfth birthday, designed like a swan. Liz would wear it all the time. It was in the jewelry box at first, I know that. But someone took it out before I left.”

  “Who would have done that?” he asked.

  “That’s what’s bugging me,” she said. “I feel as if it’s obvious and I’m missing . . . something.”

  “Get some rest.” He yawned. “The answer will probably pop into your head when you’re least expecting it.”

  Mallory surfed into slumber. She dreamed, vividly, of her sister, at Sanctuary. Liz wore Bride garments and drifted along a polished corridor ahead of Mallory; Father’s wing. She shuffled to the inner sanctum doors, turned to Mallory, put her finger to her lips, and whispered, “Shhh. You have to be quiet, Princess Butterfly, or he’ll hear us.”

  When Mallory awoke, she was alone in bed. The room was mostly shadowed, but she noticed Ben huddled over a desk on the other side of the room, working by the golden glow of a desk lamp.

  The bedside clock flashed 5:42 pm. So much for a quick nap.

  She sat up and wiped her eyes. Ben turned, the chair creaking.

  “Sleeping Beauty has awakened.” He smiled. “You were out for the count, babe. I let you keep sleeping ‘cause I figured you needed it.”

  “Liz is a Bride,” Mallory said.

  “Come again?”

  “She’s a Bride at Sanctuary, like the others. I think she’s working in a hidden area—she’s got to be assigned to Father’s wing, in his inner sanctum. It’s possible I’ve seen her and didn’t even recognize who she is, like this morning at their wacky judgement ceremony.”

  “Everyone was forced to attend, right?” Ben said.

  “Exactly, that’s a Sanctuary rule, according to Tabitha. There were Brides there I hadn’t seen before. All of it was so overwhelming that I didn’t study everyone’s face like I should have.” She swung her legs to the side of the bed and rose. “Dammit, Ben. She was right under my nose!”

  “It would explain what you’ve seen. The figure in the window last night. The drawing of the butterfly. The swan pendant vanishing.”

  Mallory paced the carpet, ideas flowing like fast-rushing currents through her mind.

  “But Father and Tabitha keep telling me she’s dead,” Mallory said, “even showed me that fake grave marker. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Unless they gave her a new identity.” Ben shrugged. “Not sure. But your Bride theory makes a lot of sense to me. She’s got a certain amount of freedom. She wants you to know she’s there, alive.”

  “Why not come to me directly?” Mallory said. “She had opportunities for us to communicate in private, like last night. All of this cloak and dagger stuff. I don’t get it.”

  “She’s not in a healthy state of mind,” Ben said. “Think about how long she’s lived in that oppressive environment, Mal. She’s been institutionalized. But, I’d say the
fact that she’s reached out to you at all is a reason to hope.”

  Hope. Mallory trembled as she walked back and forth in the room, her chest tight with emotion. Until then, her research into her sister’s fate had almost felt like an intellectual problem, a puzzle to be solved, a fascinating but perhaps pointless thought experiment. But the hope she felt at that moment was like a living thing in her heart, powerful yet fragile, and she was terrified of losing it.

  She swung to Ben. “What’ve you been working on while I was sleeping?”

  “I’ve got the goods on Dr. Daniel Faustin.” Ben grinned. “Pull up a chair, my dear.”

  42

  “He’s a cosmetic surgeon?” Sitting at the desk next to Ben, Mallory studied the photo of Dr. Faustin on her tablet screen. The photograph was included in a newspaper article from The Miami Post. Faustin was a middle-aged Black man with a bald head; he wore wire-rim spectacles and sported a red bow tie.

  “Was a cosmetic surgeon,” Ben said. “Check it out.”

  Mallory scanned the article.

  For Miami butt lift surgeon, state medical board issues permanent ban on cosmetic surgery

  Florida’s medical board accused a Miami surgeon on Friday of lying to patients, jeopardizing their lives, and lacking training to perform cosmetic surgery after one of his patients died in May 2016 during a liposuction and fat transfer procedure at a surgery center linked to several patient injuries and deaths.

  The Florida Board of Medicine voted to suspend the medical license of Dr. Daniel Faustin, permanently restrict Faustin from performing cosmetic surgery again, and issue him a $60,000 fine.

  Faustin, 57, appeared before the medical board to address accusations that he practiced substandard medicine during surgeries involving two patients on whom he performed liposuction and fat transfer to the buttocks, also known as a "Brazilian butt lift."

  The first patient was a 36-year-old woman from Atlanta in June 2017 when Faustin allegedly pierced her abdominal muscle and damaged her small intestine with the metal rod used to suction and inject fat, causing the woman to develop a severe blood infection, according to the health department’s complaint.