They're Gone

by E. A. Barres

  But no one seemed as happy as he was—no one else was smiling, that was for damn sure—so Chris kept quiet and worked on relaxing his smile.

  He wondered if the motel had a vending machine and if Cessy would be mad if he went looking for one.

  Probably. She got mad at him a lot.

  “Mom,” the girl continued, “what’s going on?”

  “The men who killed your father … they threatened me tonight. These two saved me.”

  “What?” the girl asked, her voice faint. “I don’t understand. What men?”

  Now Chris felt like he could talk. “Our investigation has revealed them to be a group of assholes,” he said.

  “Pimps and crooks,” Cessy elaborated. “They blackmail men.”

  “But how was Dad involved?” Kim asked.

  “So they used prostitutes,” Deb said slowly, “to extort men.”

  “Yeah?” Kim asked. “And?”

  Silence.

  “Well,” Chris said brightly, “this is awkward.”

  * * *

  Deb watched comprehension fill her daughter’s face.

  “He did?” Kim said softly.

  Deb nodded.

  Kim stood, walked away from her mom toward the opposite wall. Deb wanted to do more, reach out to Kim and comfort her, but so much was happening. Her mind felt like a pile of papers tossed in the air, and she wanted to catch each one as it fell. But there were too many—she couldn’t. Deb couldn’t understand everything that was happening.

  Levi Price had lied to her about everything.

  Followed her.

  Watched her.

  She’d barely escaped his house. Not only that, but she’d had to escape his house.

  She’d been in gunfire.

  She and Kim were with two strangers in a motel room.

  It was too much, and Deb wanted to tell Kim everything was going to be okay. But that was a lie, one Kim would see through. One Kim would feel in Deb’s arms, hear in her words.

  “How’d you end up with Levi Price?” Cessy asked.

  “He introduced himself to me,” Deb said. “He told me he was investigating Grant’s death with the FBI.”

  “Levi, the man who was at our house?” Kim asked. “Why?”

  “Because he was stalking me,” Deb replied, her voice quieting as the sentence ended.

  She looked down, felt guilt. As if she had somehow led Levi to do the terrible things he’d done.

  And wondered why she felt it.

  Why she was compelled to take blame for his actions.

  “He told me a lot of stuff,” she went on. “Told me he was working for someone named Scott Temple.”

  “Scott Temple?” Cessy asked.

  Deb nodded.

  Cessy and Chris glanced at each other.

  “The Jews,” Chris said solemnly.

  “That’s not what this is, dummy,” Cessy told him.

  Deb ignored them. “He even took me to the prostitute Grant was with.”

  “He did?” Kim asked.

  “Where is she now?” Cessy asked.

  “She’s dead. I think he killed her.”

  “Oh no,” Kim said softly, and the soft words broke something inside of Deb. She wanted to comfort Kim, wanted to say the right thing, wanted to keep her safe.

  And didn’t know how to do any of those things.

  * * *

  “Plenty of people associated with those men have that in common,” Cessy said. “Being dead, I mean. Probably us soon, too.”

  “Do you mind?” Deb asked, and gestured at her daughter.

  Cessy took her response as a challenge. “Not at all. They burned down a group home I was in, just to get at me. Killed four people, including my friend Rose. They killed my husband, your husband, and they almost killed you. I have nowhere to run, no place to hide, and no way to defend myself. But, hey, sorry for being negative.”

  “What about the cops?” Kim put in.

  “No cops,” Chris said.

  “Why not?”

  Now it was Cessy’s turn to feel uncomfortable.

  “Probably for the best that the cops don’t look into me,” Chris offered.

  “Jesus,” Deb said. Cessy watched her rub her eyes, stare down into her hands.

  “So what do we do?” Deb asked. “Stay here, wait for those men to find us?”

  “I mean,” Cessy said defensively, “we just saved your ass. I haven’t really had time to think of something since then.”

  “Also I’m hungry,” Chris put in. At another time, Cessy would have probably felt the urge to snap at Chris, tell him to calm down with the non sequiturs, but she was too stressed to care.

  Fortunately, both Deb and her daughter seemed content to ignore him.

  “Okay,” Deb said, and stood. “We don’t know the two of you or anything about you. I appreciate you getting me out of Levi’s house and bringing us here, but my daughter and I are going to the police. I won’t tell them about you, won’t say a word, but someone needs to tell the cops.”

  Cessy considered that.

  “If you want to leave,” she said, “you can leave. We won’t stop you.”

  “And we can go to the police?” Deb asked.

  “I don’t care where you go,” Cessy said. “Just don’t tell anyone about us.”

  “Really? I take off and go to the cops, and you’ll just let me walk out that door?”

  “Yeah, but I’m going to the cops with you. I want to make sure you keep my brother’s name out of it. He’s done some shady shit in his past and doesn’t need the police looking into him. Or knowing where he is.”

  Cessy and Deb locked eyes, neither women backing down.

  “Okay,” Deb said, and she stood.

  Cessy followed suit, put on her jacket. Looked at Chris standing against the wall.

  “I’ll bring you something to eat,” she said.

  He nodded, smiled.

  Chris’s smile … he was enjoying this. And, for some reason, given everything that had happened, his smile worried Cessy.

  She wondered if she should tell the cops everything.

  Everything, including how she put Barry in the hospital. The body she helped bury in Arizona. The bodies Chris had buried.

  Tie all the violence together, like loose threads, and then snip that complicated knot away.

  “Let’s go,” she said.

  CHAPTER

  36

  DETECTIVE STEVE ROBECK was exhausted. He was pulling a double, covering the midnight Manassas shift for a buddy on vacation, and the slot was brutal. Most of his nights dealt with drunks—drunks driving, drunks pissing in public, drunks fighting outside bars. He could deal with that, but what got to him were the most serious cases, the shootings, the robberies; the mothers and children occasionally showing up, running in the night from some abusive asshole, scared and quiet. During the day he was called out to investigate the aftermath of a crime; during night, there was more immediacy, an urgency to his work, the disruption of sleep leaving people even more unsettled. Crime was never predictable to the victims, and the more their natural order was disturbed, the more unraveled their lives became.

  And then there were the crazies, people following crime like it was a wave sweeping them along, making up stories, putting their lives in newspaper narratives. Stories that fell apart the moment they were touched, like a house made of dust.

  Like the three women sitting in front of him at one in the morning.

  “That sounds insane,” he told them after they’d finished their story. Not the kind of thing Robeck would usually say, but again, this wasn’t his usual shift.

  “What sounds insane?” one of them asked, an older Asian. “Which part?”

  “All of it.”

  The Asian looked at the two women sitting next to her, her daughter and a Hispanic friend.

  “But it’s the truth!”

  “So a group of pimps killed your husbands,” Robeck said dubiously, “and now they’re trying
to kill you too?”

  “We don’t know if they’re all pimps,” the Hispanic said. “Just some of them.”

  “Sorry,” Robeck said, and he did regret getting that piece of information wrong. Hard to be dismissive when you’re inaccurate. “It’s been a long day.”

  “You saw that they were both killed on the same night,” the older Asian said. “Our husbands. Both shot.”

  “I did,” Robeck acknowledged, but he didn’t say more. He didn’t tell them that it wasn’t unusual for people dealing with grief to clutch at strands, to find answers wherever they could. No matter how crazy.

  Particularly women.

  But he couldn’t say that.

  Just think it.

  Robeck stifled a yawn. “Do you have the name of the man that’s been threatening you?”

  “Levi Price,” Asian mom said. “He told me he was an FBI agent, but he was lying.”

  Robeck rubbed his elbow. False identity usually meant some sort of financial scam. Someone targeting vulnerable widows. Not a surprise.

  And this late at night, given how tired Robeck was, not much of a concern.

  “Are you sure Levi Price is his real name?”

  “Oh. No, I guess not.”

  “I can make some calls,” he offered. “Check to see if anyone’s come across this man. Do you have anything else you can give me?”

  “I don’t think so,” Asian mom said, and she glanced over at her daughter and the Hispanic. Daughter didn’t move; Hispanic shook her head again.

  “Let me have your number,” Robeck told her. “I’ll look into this and—”

  “What?” Mom Asian said. “No, we need protection. We need help right now!”

  “Sorry?”

  “Those men are after us.”

  “I don’t have evidence of a crime, just your word.”

  “But we’re telling you the truth!” Asian mom leaned forward, hands on the table, a cresting wave of worry poised to crash.

  “I told you,” he said, his voice level and patient, “the most I can do right now is look into this. If you feel you’re in immediate danger, call me. I’ll give you my cell number. But we need time to investigate. Does that make sense?”

  “Not really.”

  “There was a shooting in Virginia,” the Hispanic said.

  “When?”

  “Earlier tonight. We were there. He shot at us.”

  Again, not uncommon for people to find a crime and link themselves to it. Especially if they were working some angle. Robeck thought again about his scam theory and wondered if these three were in on it. Maybe setting up some long con.

  Going to the cops now to make their story plausible later.

  Robeck pressed a button on his receiver. “Ericson, any word on a shooting in Northern Virginia earlier tonight?”

  A few moments passed. “None reported.”

  “Maybe it hasn’t been reported yet,” Asian mom said.

  Robeck wouldn’t have believed they were involved even if it had. At this point, he was sure this was a scam. Or some weird manifestation of grief. Or both.

  Hard to imagine the best when people constantly showed you their worst.

  “I promise I’ll look into it,” Robeck said. “But for now, that’s all I can do. And if you have any problems, call me directly.”

  The women glanced at each other, and the fear in their expressions almost broke his resolve. Nearly made him doubt himself.

  Something occurred to him.

  “We actually have a human trafficking task force set up,” Robeck said. “It’s a new thing, interstate, working with Virginia, DC, and Maryland. Specifically relates to prostitution.”

  “Okay,” the Hispanic said.

  “If there’s something to this, then we’ll find out. I’ll report what happened, see if the name Levi Price rings any bells, see if his name or this network of pimps shows up.” Robeck noticed the lack of hope in their faces. “I know it doesn’t seem like much,” he pressed, “but they’re taking this seriously. It’s being spearheaded by the DA up in Baltimore County. Temple.”

  Now there was a change in their expressions, but it wasn’t what he expected. Fear, different shades of it across all three women.

  “Temple?” the Hispanic asked. “Scott Temple?”

  Robeck nodded, now convinced this was a con. He’d seen this before, the fear in amateur scammers the moment their story was going to be vetted.

  “Temple wants all incidents of human trafficking, especially prostitution, brought directly to his desk. And I can give him your names and numbers. How’s that sound?”

  As he suspected, they didn’t want to pursue the matter.

  But he’d still report it to Temple’s task force first thing in the morning.

  Just in case.

  CHAPTER

  37

  “WHAT HAPPENED TO you, anyway?” Levi Price asked the burned man.

  Seth didn’t respond, didn’t even look up from the map he was staring into.

  Price sighed. Temple had called Price on his way to Temple’s office, told him to head to some apartment instead. Work with a man named Seth. But he didn’t tell him Seth was a walking scab.

  Seth had opened the door after Price knocked, glanced at him, walked back over to his small dining room table, and stared down into a map. Price didn’t see much else in the apartment—a recliner in front of a television set, a couple of closed doors that presumably led to a bedroom and bathroom, a small outdated kitchen. An out-of-place movie poster showing two people sitting on a bench, staring at a bridge.

  “I’m guessing you live alone?” Price asked.

  No response.

  Price squinted down at the map, saw that it detailed Maryland, DC, and Northern Virginia. A couple of spots had been circled in red.

  Price pointed at one of the circles.

  “What’s that for?”

  “Smith was found here.”

  “Smith’s dead?”

  Seth grunted.

  “You think it was the same people who came to my place in Virginia?”

  Seth grunted assent, placed a discolored finger on the map. “Cessy Castillo was in the hospital here. She lives here. Over in Baltimore. You see a Panamanian woman at your place earlier tonight?”

  “No.”

  Seth stared at him, his blue eyes peering out from a pale, typographical map of flesh.

  Price stared back coolly. Felt that killer rustling inside him. That other person he could just give way to, like a costume slipped on and off.

  “You said the people who came to your place were professionals.”

  Price wasn’t sure if it was a question. “Yeah.”

  “Smith was taken out cleanly. Caught and dropped off a high floor. Whoever got him questioned him, found out about the next person to attack, then went there. It’s the same people. Now they have Deb Thomas. What does she know?”

  “What does she know?” Price repeated.

  Seth’s voice lowered, turned menacing. “What did you tell her?”

  Price was very conscious of the gun on his hip, the weight of it against his side.

  “Look,” he said, “Deb doesn’t know anything she didn’t know before. Like I told you, she started asking questions. I did what I could to close her off.”

  “She knows you. Knows your real name. Temple may decide to kill you for the lines you’ve crossed.”

  Price rested his hand on the table, just inches from his hip. He tried to make the move look natural.

  “But I think we need you alive,” Seth added. “They may try to find you.”

  “So I’m bait?”

  Seth didn’t respond, just kept staring at him.

  “Wait,” Price said, an idea forming. “Her daughter, Kim. She has a friend, a girlfriend, in college. Name starts with an “R.” Rachel, maybe? If Kim and her mom are hiding somewhere, this girl might be able to found out where.”

  “Where is she?”

  “I’m not sure, bu
t I can find her.”

  “Do it.”

  Price nodded.

  He’d checked out Seth when he came in, didn’t see any sign of a weapon on him. Even so, he had a feeling Seth could kill him.

  That other person inside Price, the bloodthirsty one, the one who occasionally emerged with a howl, the killer who had gleefully caved in Maria’s skull … that man was just a part of Price.

  But he could tell it was all of Seth.

  Temple had told him that Seth never failed. Even fire hadn’t stopped him, a fire that must have ravaged him, a fire like his body had been thrown into hell’s flames.

  Price recognized something in Seth, the kind of recognition animals in the wild experience, not kinship, not hate. Wolves watching each other across a field, before turning and disappearing back into the wild.

  Death didn’t come for Seth.

  He brought it to others.

  Price knew he’d bring it to Deb Thomas.

  “Be back,” Price said, and went to the bathroom.

  He locked the door behind him, gripped the sink with both hands, stared hard into the mirror.

  He’d fallen in love.

  He’d fucked up.

  All he was supposed to do was look into Grant Thomas’s financials. Make sure the money Grant had given them—and the money he’d given Maria, which she’d dutifully given them—couldn’t be traced. Break into his house, run through statements, search for desperate letters Grant may have left his family, explaining everything he’d done. But Grant had left his family lost. Price hadn’t found anything.

  That is, anything other than love when he first saw Deb Thomas. Something about her, the way she had a foot in two worlds. Grieving, but comforting her daughter. Devastated by her husband’s death, but determined to press on. Overwhelmed by concerns about money, but desperate to find a way to stay in her home and keep Kim in college. That duality; Price loved her struggle so much his eyes stung.

  It helped, of course, that she was beautiful. Through cameras, he’d watched Deb after a shower, a towel flashing between her legs as she bent to dry herself. Watched her run a tired hand through her thick hair, imagined that same hair through his fingers. And then, when the distance from a camera was too much, he’d sneak into her house and watch her sleep at night, his face inches from her own. Her lips so close to his.