by E. A. Barres
When kids he knew started using in his third year of high school, James went a step past them. Contacted dealers, started selling his own stuff. Got kicked out of high school. Pity for him because of his father—something James realized could be weaponized—helped him get back in. He went back, got into a fight, and put a kid in the hospital. He loved fighting, felt like it was that hate given action, like a painting turned into a movie. He fought more. More kids ended up in the hospital. James ended up expelled.
His mother barely hung onto him, seemed like she barely wanted to. A rush of cancer had ended her abusive husband’s life while he was in prison, and she seemed determined to distance herself from everything related to him. James left her house the day he turned eighteen. She didn’t try to stop him.
That bothered James more than he let on.
A traffic stop a year later revealed a glove compartment full of hard drugs and an unlicensed gun. He used that middle-class earnestness to plead his case, got a lenient sentence from the judge. Met someone in community service who was connected, who asked him if he wanted to make some money and didn’t care how.
James did, and didn’t.
For years afterward he skated by on that line, slipping over to whatever side he needed, able to play each side against the other.
And now that nice middle-class disguise was threatened, had the potential to blow away like it was nothing but a pile of leaves awaiting a gust of wind. Those pictures Cessy had implicated him. Defined him.
James rubbed his eyes, looked up. Saw Cessy Castillo standing in front of his car.
The hell?
He blinked, undid his seatbelt, pushed open the door. And then someone grabbed him from behind.
* * *
Chris wrapped his arms tight around Smith’s chest, pinning his arms to his sides.
“Don’t fight,” Chris said, “and we won’t hurt you.”
The back of Smith’s head struck Chris’s nose. Pain webbed his face. His arms loosened.
Smith’s heel kicked Chris’s shin.
His arms dropped.
“Shit,” he heard his sister say.
“I’m okay,” Chris said, holding his aching nose, moving slowly, like the ground was unsteady beneath him.
He looked up and saw Smith in front of him.
Chris felt Smith’s fists on his face, his chest, his stomach. He dropped to his knees, covered his head with his hands.
“How about we come back another time?” he asked.
Then he peeked up, saw his sister disappear into the woods bordering the parking lot. Smith was following her.
Chris groaned, pulled himself to his feet, thought briefly about getting his gun out of his car. Decided against it. It was dark, the woods would be pitch black, and he couldn’t risk losing sight of Smith.
Chris thought about the frantic sounds Smith had made when he was trying to hold him, the animal grunts, and the worry spreading over Cessy’s face. And he felt that familiar distance inside him as he loped into the woods, that emotional and physical distance, like Chris was watching a TV show of himself. But not even watching it intently; more like he was glancing at the television over his shoulder while he hunted for something to eat in the fridge.
He followed the hazy faint blue coming from the shirt Smith had been wearing, watched it dart through trees about a hundred feet ahead of him. Chris pushed past branches and brambles, desperate to catch Smith before he caught Cessy. He ran through the dark, a stumbling bruising run of whipped branches and grasping roots. This was the first time he’d ever been in a forest. Arizona was dominated by mountains and dry land, unless you went north to the pines and ski lodges of Flagstaff. Chris never had. Until recently, he’d never even left Phoenix.
This was a hell of a first trip.
He saw the silhouette a few feet in front of him and dove forward.
Chris landed on the hard ground with his sister.
“What are you doing?” Cessy asked, beneath him.
Chris took out his phone, shined the light into her face. “Cessy?”
She pushed the phone down, pushed him away. “Why’d you tackle me? I thought you were him.”
“I thought he was you! Is he wearing blue too?”
“This is … what? He’s wearing black.”
“He is?”
The siblings gazed at each other in the dark.
“So where is he?” Chris asked.
They stood together, hurried back to the parking lot, their steps slowing and quieting as they reached the edge of the woods.
Smith was pulling a shotgun from his trunk.
“Well …” Chris whispered. “Damn.”
“He doubled back,” Cessy said.
“Run over to my car.” Chris pointed. “Distract him.”
“What are you going to do?”
What Chris did, as Cessy exploded from the woods and raced to his car, was sneak behind Smith. Smith was watching Cessy run, frozen.
Chris used the distraction to grab Smith from behind a second time. The shotgun fell into the trunk.
“Let’s try this again,” Chris said.
And then Chris felt like he was trying to hold onto a hurricane of fists and kicks, a thrashing whirlwind of anger.
“Just hold on please,” Chris asked, as his arms loosened.
There was a cracking sound and Smith’s fight slowed.
Cessy was holding the shotgun by the barrel. She slammed the handle into Smith’s head again. His body slumped.
The siblings piled his unconscious body into the trunk and slammed it closed.
Chris was breathing hard. “Glad you got a handle on things,” he managed. “Get it? Handle?”
“I should leave you here just for that joke.”
* * *
Cessy rubbed her hands together to stay warm. She walked over to the edge of the parking garage roof, where they had tied Smith to a chair with jumper cables.
“It’s my arm,” Smith said, his voice hoarsened from pain. “I think it’s broken.”
“It’s not broken,” Chris said.
“How do you know? You’re not a doctor.”
“No. But I know what a broken bone feels like. And I know what it can do.”
“Whatever.” Smith grimaced, leaned forward, eyes tightly closed.
Cessy didn’t say anything, but if Smith’s arm wasn’t broken, it was still pretty damaged. Smith had tried to run when they opened the trunk, despite the fact that she was holding his shotgun. Chris had caught him, twisted his arm, forced Smith to the ground.
Stomped his elbow.
“You want to go to the hospital?” Chris asked. “We’ll take you. Right after you tell us who your boss is.”
“I tell you that, I’ll never leave the hospital.”
Cessy walked closer to Smith. “Who set fire to the safe house?”
Smith kept his head down.
Chris walked behind the chair, held Smith’s shoulder, tipped him backward over the ledge. Rockville’s city lights and the night and air were the only thing behind him.
“You’d better answer her,” Chris told him.
Smith’s right arm flailed, so much so that he almost lost balance. His left arm stayed tucked in his gut, like a bird’s broken wing.
Chris set the chair back down.
“Feel like talking yet?”
Smith kept looking over his shoulder toward the ledge, at the twelve-story fall to the concrete below. It took him a few moments to turn his head around.
“Fuck you.”
Chris kicked his hurt arm.
Smith’s body convulsed. He bent completely over, hissing in air.
Chris reared his leg back for another kick.
“Wait, wait,” Smith said. “Okay.”
“What’s it going to take for you to leave me alone?” Cessy asked. “Pay off what Hector owed? Because I told you, I can’t.”
Smith spoke through a grimace. “That’s nothing now. You know too much. You have pict
ures and names. They’re not going to stop. No matter what you do to me.”
Cessy tried to keep her face calm, but her stomach felt like a paper bag being crumpled.
He was right.
There was no chance for compromise now. And she hadn’t realized she still needed it as an option.
“Who’s ‘they’?” she asked. “Other pimps?”
“This isn’t all about hookers,” Smith said after a long moment.
“Then what’s it about?”
“Information.”
Chris and Cessy waited.
“They target married men, blackmail them dry,” Smith said. “Easiest marks out there. Married men get too scared, show their ass the minute there’s a chance we’ll tell their families.”
“What does this have to do with Hector?” Cessy asked.
“Hector was one of their killers.”
“Come on,” Cessy said. “Hector didn’t have it in him.”
“You saw the pictures. What’d you think? Hector was just the photographer?” Smith snorted. “He tried to leave. They didn’t let him.”
All along Cessy had assumed that, yes, Hector was just the photographer. He’d always been more of a lackey than anything else, a sidekick to other men.
She hadn’t known what he was, or what he’d become.
And Cessy had assumed she was the only one who knew the depths of Hector’s depravity.
“Was he going to the cops?” she asked. “Why was he killed?”
“We thought he was. And if we’d known Hector was taking pictures,” Smith said, “he’d have been killed a lot earlier.”
Again, a moment of emotion hit Cessy. She wondered if she should feel anger that Smith discussed Hector’s death so cavalierly. But the moment passed. She felt it pass.
She was surprised at how distant from Hector she’d grown.
How distant in just weeks.
Maybe it wasn’t only the men she knew who were damaged.
“Story time!” Chris suddenly exclaimed happily. “One of our mom’s clients was a former Green Beret. Nice guy! Used to teach me and Cessy—I guess she was about fourteen and I was thirteen—all the cool stuff he knew. About guns, tactics, hunting, killing. He was convinced the government was going to turn on him someday, thought he might need to hide out with us. Remember him, Cessy?”
“I do. Cool guy until he shot himself.”
“He teach the two of you how to torture someone?” Smith asked. “Break someone’s arm?”
“Nah,” Chris replied. “He always said torture doesn’t work. That men and women will say whatever you want to hear to save themselves. Which is why you’re staying with us.”
Smith’s eyes widened in surprise; maybe even, Cessy noted, fear.
“What?”
“You stay with us, keep giving us information,” Chris said. “Or off the deck you go. Your choice.”
“Neither has to happen if you keep talking,” Cessy said. She was tired of waiting. And she was tired of the cold. Tired of conflicting emotions. Tired of men and their violent recourses. “We just need a name—who you work for.”
Smith bit his lip and refused, and Chris pushed the chair’s back legs off the roof. But he was a bit too eager, and ended up struggling to keep Smith from falling. Cessy had to help him pull Smith back up.
That was enough for Smith. He gave them a name that Cessy had never heard.
“Who the hell is Levi Price?” she asked.
CHAPTER
30
LEVI LIVED IN Arlington, in a long rambler on the outskirts of a residential neighborhood, separated from his neighbors by a ring of trees. He pulled his silver Audi into the driveway. Deb followed him, parked on the street.
They opened their car doors at the same time, stepped out into the quiet night.
“Would you like to come in?” he called to her. “I just need to find a few case files, but it might take me a minute.”
“Sure.” Deb tried to act nonchalant as she walked over to Levi. Not for any desire to impress him; more that she wasn’t sure she wanted to know whatever he had to tell her.
“I like Arlington,” Deb said. “It’d be nice to live somewhere closer to DC. I just can’t afford it.”
Levi nodded. “That’s why I rent.”
Deb wondered if Levi could sense her awkwardness as they walked to the door. She kept thinking about what he had to tell her and about that brief moment in the restaurant where his hand covered hers. It was just a quick touch, and it may only have been a nice gesture … but she worried he expected more.
She blamed Nicole for putting the idea in her head. There was no reason to believe Levi had anything other than a professional interest in her, maybe friendship, but nothing else. It had been so long since she’d been in the company of another man besides Grant. So of course she’d misread signals. His hand, the gesture, had been nothing more than a comforting touch.
Levi unlocked the door, walked in. She followed him but stayed by the door.
The rambler was nicely, if sparsely, decorated. An open floor plan revealed a stainless steel–filled kitchen to her left, a hall with closed doors—presumably bedrooms—to her right. Modern furniture with sharp edges. Bay windows on the other side of the living room showed trees lining the back of the house.
“It’s really nice,” she said, surprised. “You decorated it?”
“I did.” Levi looked proud. “You like it?”
“It’s lovely. Especially for a guy.” She took a few steps in, peered into the kitchen. “Did anyone help you?”
He laughed. “Turns out I’m good at two things. Investigating and interior decorating.”
“I guess so!”
A pause, and Deb couldn’t put it off any longer. “Speaking of investigating—”
“Right!” Levi snapped his fingers. “Can I get you a drink?”
“I’m good.”
He stood in front of her uncertainly. “Well, here’s what I needed to tell you.”
“What about the files?”
He ignored her question. “It’s three things, actually.”
She waited.
Levi smiled as if embarrassed. “I know who killed your husband.”
A mix of emotions tornadoed through Deb. Relief. Fear. Anxiousness.
“You do?”
“And second, I’m not with the FBI.”
Deb felt like the ground was slipping away from her. She wanted to grab something.
“What?” Her voice, miles away.
His eyes burned. “Three, I fucking love you.”
* * *
Deb didn’t remember backing up, didn’t realize what was happening until she touched the kitchen wall. Then the world seemed to swirl until it returned to her, and she saw Levi standing before her, his hands lifted to show a lack of threat.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I don’t … I don’t know.”
“Is it because I lied about being in the FBI?” he asked. “Or because I said I loved you?”
Deb felt like she was standing on a round metal plate, and that plate was starting to spin and sway, and if she fell off she didn’t know where she’d land. There was nothing for her to grasp, nothing to reach.
“Both,” Deb said. “I think it’s both. Everything. Who are you?”
“Look,” Levi said, “don’t freak out, okay?”
“Don’t freak out?”
“It’s really not that big a deal.”
Deb kept moving along the wall, slowly coming closer to the kitchen door. “Did you kill Grant?”
“What? No! Of course not.”
“You lied to me this whole time.”
“Yeah,” Levi said uncomfortably. “But I had to. You get that, right? You never would have talked to me if I’d told you the truth. That I’d been watching you—and falling in love. But I did tell you my real name. Not everything was a lie.”
It was amazing how quickly he changed, turned excited, flushed, impetuous. Deb
wondered if that side had always been there, and she’d been too distracted to see it.
Too trusting.
“How long were you watching me?”
“A few months.” Levi’s voice changed, almost turned sad. “You’re easy to fall in love with.”
Deb’s hand reached out and touched the door frame. If Levi was aware that she was leaving the room, he didn’t seem concerned.
“Did you kill Grant?” she asked again.
“I promise I didn’t. I promise you. But I know who did.”
“Okay.” Deb ran out of the room.
She raced down the hall to her front door, thoughts rushing through her mind like bullets. She had to leave, she had to find Kim, she needed help. Deb had just touched the door handle when a hand on her shoulder firmly pulled her back.
She was spun around, ended up staring right into his eyes.
“Don’t be mad,” Levi said. His hands had moved down to her biceps, and he held each firmly. “I had to lie about who I was to get to know you.”
Deb managed to free one arm and push him back.
“Just stop it!” Levi exclaimed. “Let me explain.”
Deb thought about kneeing him in the testicles, but was scared of angering him.
Instead, she stomped down on his foot.
His other hand released her, and she rushed past him.
She couldn’t go out the front door, but maybe she could grab her phone and lock herself in a bathroom and call for help.
His arm reached around her waist, pulled her into his body, and something terrifying occurred to her. She realized what Levi might do to her; surprisingly, it hadn’t occurred to her before. Her guard had dropped too far.
She’d trusted authority.
Deb went wild with fear, kicking back and pushing at his arm until she heard Levi grunt and curse. He pushed her forward, hard, into the wall. She crashed into it and stumbled back and fell, holding her nose. She looked down at her hand. Saw blood.
Levi was standing over her, a gun in his hand.
“Calm down,” he said. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
Deb looked back down at the blood.
