They're Gone

by E. A. Barres

  Price looked at the mirror, realized he was smiling.

  He’d watched the way Deb walked into the building where Maria lived, clearly lacking confidence but pressing on. Watched Deb cry on the ride back home from that apartment, turned away from him, her body a ball, staring at the half-hearted rain as it splashed the window. Watched the way Deb answered the door, a questioning expression on her face, and then that mix of relief and worry when she recognized him. Laughing at dinner with her daughter and her daughter’s girlfriend (Roxanne, Renae?) after that bitch had finished grilling him, when the evening had relaxed. When Deb had briefly looked at him and must have momentarily forgotten everything that happened at Maria’s and smiled, and her smile swung his heart like a hammock in summer sun. The way her fingers reached between his at Ruth’s Chris (was the girl’s name Ruth?).

  Price knew where love’s path ended, where it always ended with him, because the killer inside could never allow him to be with anyone. But Price wanted to have the chance to walk that path with her. After the last bullet was fired, after the blood was wiped away like it had never existed, after the bodies were buried and forgotten, he wanted to hold Deb. Kiss her tears, her lips.

  Press his head to her chest and listen to her heartbeat slow.

  CHAPTER

  38

  CESSY, DEB, AND Kim filed back into the motel room.

  “That was quick,” Chris said.

  “Cop didn’t believe us.” Cessy collapsed on one of the beds like she’d been thrown on it. “Pretty much thought we were crazy.”

  “So now what?” Chris asked.

  “Now we go the hell to sleep,” Cessy said, and yawned. “This night has lasted way too long. What is it, three in the morning?”

  “I don’t know what to do,” Deb said. She stood against the wall, nervously rubbed her hands. It had been a quiet drive back to the motel, the three women each deep in her own thoughts. “Kim and I will be okay if we just don’t say anything, right?”

  Cessy could hear the panic beating under Deb’s words, the desperation and exhaustion and fear that led victims to break and beg for help from their captors.

  “I mean, I’ll tell them myself we don’t want anything to do with them,” Deb went on. “I’ll tell them we just want to be left alone.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Cessy said. “Not if they’re not comfortable with you knowing what you know.”

  “Spoiler alert!” Chris exclaimed. “They’re not comfortable.”

  “Then what do we do? Try different cops? The FBI?”

  “You could,” Cessy replied, “but you’ll catch Temple’s attention. And Baltimore doesn’t exactly have the best rep for witness protection.”

  “So what do we do?” Deb asked again, that panic coming forth like shark fins breaking through the surface of the water.

  “We sleep,” Cessy said, and stretched. She saw that Deb was close to breaking, could see her composure unraveling, but didn’t offer consolation. She was thinking about her own options.

  There weren’t many.

  These men were tied to the police. Chris had already killed one of them (and Cessy fervently hoped Smith hadn’t been a cop), and they’d probably left fingerprints and DNA all over Price’s house. She and Chris would eventually be caught if they ran, caught if they didn’t.

  The only thing they could do was go deeper into the web, try to find the spider. Catch and expose him before he caught them.

  Scott Temple.

  * * *

  The sound of the bathroom door closing woke Deb.

  She couldn’t believe she’d actually fallen asleep.

  She lay in bed, confused, wondering how much time had passed. The heavy curtains did an effective job of keeping sunlight out, so much so that Deb was surprised when she looked at the alarm clock and saw it was one in the afternoon. Chris and Cessy were snoring in the room’s other bed, alternating like jazz horns trading fours. Kim had been lying next to her, but now Deb was alone in bed.

  Deb walked over to the bathroom, knocked quietly on the door.

  “Yeah.” Kim’s soft voice.

  Deb walked in, closed the door behind her. Her daughter was sitting on the toilet’s closed seat, hands clasped between her eyes, looking down. She glanced up at Deb, and her eyes were scared and wet.

  Her face looked so young and so helpless that Deb felt a rush of pity. And strength. She knelt before Kim, placed her daughter’s forehead on her shoulder, held her.

  “Are you worried?”

  Kim nodded stiffly.

  “We’ll be okay. I promise you. We’ll be okay. I’ll find a way to …”

  Kim pulled away from her mother.

  “Why’d you lie to me?”

  “What?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me the truth about Dad?”

  Deb sat back on the cold floor. “What do you mean?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me about the prostitute?”

  The prostitute.

  The word seemed so serious, so mature, coming from her daughter.

  The pain from what Grant had done returned, the rawness, like a red canyon tearing open inside of her.

  “I didn’t know if I should tell you,” Deb said. “And I just found out. I didn’t know anything about this until after he’d died.”

  “Really?”

  “Honestly. And I didn’t want to change anything in your feelings about your father. Some things need to stay inside a marriage. I thought this was one of them.”

  “Yeah, but not anymore.”

  “Not anymore,” Deb agreed sadly. She looked down at the blue and white tiles. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry that we’re in this mess. If I hadn’t asked any questions, we wouldn’t be in a gross motel room bathroom with two complete psychos outside.”

  Kim smiled through the tears on her face. “It’s kind of funny when you put it like that.”

  Deb allowed herself a small smile. “I promise you, honey, we’re going to find a way through this. We’ll keep our heads down until we get somewhere safe. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  “We need to tell Rebecca, Mom,” Kim said, urgency returning to her voice. “That Levi Price guy met her. He knows what she looks like, knows where she goes to school. He might go after her to find us. He might hurt her.”

  Deb pursed her lips.

  Kim was right.

  Rebecca was in danger.

  And so was Nicole.

  So was anyone Price had met.

  It was hard for Deb to think with any sort of precision in this panic. Any time she tried to focus on a thought, it squirmed away.

  The only thing that seemed like it would immediately make her feel better would be to leave this motel room, get as far away from these people as possible.

  “Let’s go find Rebecca and Nicole,” she decided. “We’ll tell them, and then I’ll deal with everything else.”

  Kim looked relieved, but the shadow hadn’t entirely left her face.

  “What?” Deb asked.

  “Mom, do you think those two out there will just let us leave?”

  Deb thought about it.

  “Stay here,” she said. “And lock the door. Do you have your phone?”

  Kim nodded, eyes wide.

  “I’m going to talk to Chris and Cessy. If you hear something happen to me, call nine-one-one. But don’t do it until then. Just be ready.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  “I don’t want to put you in any more danger than I already have. If we’re safe, I’ll knock.”

  Deb hugged her daughter, felt Kim’s head press against her shoulder. Then she rose and stepped outside.

  Chris and Cessy were still snoring.

  Deb waited for Kim to close and lock the bathroom door. Once she heard the lock click, she said:

  “Hey guys.”

  Louder.

  “Excuse me.”

  A moment passed.

  “Hey!”

  The siblings started, woke simultaneo
usly, sitting up and blinking in confusion.

  “My daughter and I are leaving,” Deb said. “Her girlfriend isn’t safe. Levi knows about her, so we need to get to her before he does. We’re going to get her and then figure out our next move. But I can promise you we won’t say anything about you. I promise you.”

  “Okay.” Cessy stretched. “Bye.”

  Chris waved.

  “You’re not going to try and stop us?” Deb asked, incredulous.

  “Does that hurt your feelings?” Cessy asked.

  “No, it’s not that. I just, I just thought …”

  “You’re not our prisoner,” Cessy said, “and you don’t know a thing about us. And we won’t be in this motel for that long.”

  That sounded vaguely ominous, but Deb decided to let it go.

  “So then, goodbye?”

  “We’ll miss you,” Chris said. Cessy was already lying back down.

  Deb knocked on the bathroom door.

  * * *

  “Should we have just let them go?” Chris asked sleepily once Deb and Kim had left.

  “I was serious,” Cessy replied nonchalantly. “They’re not our prisoners. They’re free to go. Besides, we could use their help.”

  He yawned. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean they’re going to end up drawing those men back out in the open.” Cessy sat up, reached for her jeans on the floor. “Let’s follow them.”

  CHAPTER

  39

  “YEAH, I KNOW,” Price said into the phone. “Yeah, I know.” He sighed and glanced over at Seth in the driver’s seat. Seth stared through the windshield, his damaged skin hidden behind sunglasses, a baseball cap, a black hoodie.

  Price turned his attention back to the phone call from Harris.

  “This entire mess needs to be cleaned up,” Harris was saying. “You understand that, right? How far did this spill reach?”

  “I told you. Everyone. Her, her daughter, her daughter’s friend. Some other woman I can’t remember, I think her name was Natalie or something …”

  “No names. Just contain the spill.”

  Price smirked. Harris was so scared of saying anything incriminating that he always talked in some pseudo-coded language. This despite the fact that no one was investigating them for anything, and they—unofficially—worked for the DA.

  Then again, maybe his family relation to the DA had relaxed Price too much. He and his cousin, Scott Temple, had grown up with each other, played together like siblings because they were both only children, never more than a town or two apart. They’d gone to the University of Maryland’s University College together, studied criminal justice, both with the hopes of following in the footsteps of Temple’s father, a career cop who was a father to them both (Price’s father had disappeared right after his birth). Those goals changed after four long years. Temple studied law, and Price went to work for Homeland Security, dealing with immigration and customs.

  Price lost touch with his cousin when he went to work in DC, spent a few years mired in paperwork and boredom, and then a few years in raids. That’s when he found an attitude developing inside him, an “us versus them” mentality. A superiority complex when he’d bust through doors and see people living like savages. Treating each other like garbage. Children, naked and shivering, standing near open ovens just to stay warm, looking quiet and scared. He imagined they were grateful to be led away from their ill-equipped, terrified, gibberish-speaking parents.

  And that’s when the killer first emerged, the whispering presence that had been inside him all his life, the side he’d never showed anyone, the part of him that always wanted to push boundaries further. Happened after some foreign father threatened them with a knife, his wife and children wailing behind him. Cut Price’s arm, not bad, but enough for a few stitches. They arrested the father, took the children.

  A day later—still angry, seething at what these “savages” had done to him—the killer returned for the wife.

  A couple of guys in Security told him about places they went to relieve stress, to do things their wives and girlfriends wouldn’t. Massage parlors. Apartments. The back of an Asian market. Price went to those places pent up, left relieved. Price didn’t think much about the whores he was with, just knew it was a way to keep the killer calm, a way to dissipate that red rage.

  Then the sweep happened. He and about a dozen of his fellow agents, arrested for soliciting prostitutes, unceremoniously kicked out of Homeland. It was in all the papers, although, because of their jobs, no names were mentioned.

  And it was about a week later when his cousin reached out to him, a year into his term as the district attorney of Baltimore County, and swore him to confidence. Told him about a side scheme, using prostitutes as a form of blackmail.

  Price signed up immediately.

  “Do you have any sense of the direction the spill is headed in?” Harris asked now.

  This stupid code. “We have a couple of ideas.”

  “And you can stop it before it spreads? Or do you need help?”

  “We’ll stop it,” Price said.

  “Well, it reached Manassas,” Harris said tersely. “Like I told you, one of our offices there.”

  “And like I told you, Manassas is a big town. That doesn’t help much. Keep looking, but Seth and I are trying a better angle.”

  “No names!” Harris exclaimed, and hung up the phone.

  Price did the same. “That guy. He make you talk in a code too?”

  “I don’t talk to him.” Seth drank from his coffee.

  “Who do you talk to?” Seth didn’t answer, and Price didn’t expect him to. They’d been together a day, and Seth barely spoke, which in turn made Price speak more. Just to fill the silence. It made him feel foolish.

  “I wanted to help Deb,” he said, “but I don’t see what I can do now. She probably thinks I killed her husband, and I guess I can’t blame her. No reason for her to trust anything I tell her.”

  Seth stared forward.

  “It was a mistake on my part,” Price went on. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  But he thought about Deb and still felt that sorrow of unrequited love. The love that confused him, overwhelmed him. The unceasing thoughts, the way her face burned into his mind, a powerful iron cattle brand pressed and seared into his brain. Price hoped it was different this time, but his love only ever ended in one place, in one way.

  All the women he’d loved were dead.

  Seth scratched the side of his scarred neck. Stayed silent.

  “I’d like another chance to talk with her, another chance to clear things up, but I know I won’t get that. The only thing I ask is that you end it quick for her if you’re the one to do it.”

  Price watched Seth and thought he saw Seth nod. It was almost imperceptible, but Price figured that was the best he was going to get from the burned man. He settled back in his seat, picked up his coffee, let the hot, dark liquid warm his tongue and throat.

  And he stared at the entrance of the dorm building on the other side of the parking lot and waited for Kim Thomas’s girlfriend, Rebecca Blake, to emerge.

  CHAPTER

  40

  KIM WATCHED HER girlfriend walk through the doors of the Silver Diner, look around, spot her and her mother in a back booth.

  Rebecca waved, sauntered over in that casual unhurried way she walked, like she was determined to experience the world on her terms. When she reached the table, Kim abruptly stood and buried herself in Rebecca’s arms. Kim wanted to kiss her, wanted to cry. But she felt the stares of the customers around them. She returned to the seat next to her mother.

  “Wow,” Rebecca said as she sat across from them. “Are you two okay?”

  It took Kim a moment to realize what exactly Rebecca was referring to, the contrast between them. Rebecca was wearing a white sweater and jeans with calf-high suede boots, looked perfectly put together. Kim and Deb were disheveled, hair messed, wearing day-old clothes. Faces tightened
by tension.

  “It’s been bad,” Deb said, staring at two men eating by themselves.

  “Why? What’s up?”

  “So,” Kim started, “we found out that that guy named—”

  “Here’s the thing,” Deb interrupted. “We can’t tell you much. Okay? It’s not safe for you.”

  “Um, okay.”

  Deb’s voice lowered. “You know that Kim’s father died. We found out it wasn’t random, like we thought.” She cleared her throat. “And the men who did it may be after us.”

  “What?”

  Kim watched Rebecca’s face change, eyes widen, mouth open. She looked at Kim for confirmation.

  Kim nodded.

  “Are you two serious right now?”

  “It’s not safe,” Deb said, “and there’s a chance they may come after you.”

  An emotion Kim had never seen filled her girlfriend’s face. Something raw. Terror.

  “Do you remember that man named Levi?” Deb went on, as if she hadn’t noticed the panic overtaking Rebecca. “The one who had dinner with us? He works with them.”

  “It’s blackmail,” Kim said. “They—”

  Deb interrupted her daughter. “The less you know, the better. Don’t say anything until this is all straightened out. Can you do that?”

  Rebecca’s voice was so quiet Kim had to strain to hear her. “I’m home for finals. My family—”

  “The less you know,” Deb repeated herself firmly, “the better. They won’t hurt you if you don’t know anything.”

  Two tears streamed down Rebecca’s face. “Are you sure?”

  Deb nodded. “It’s us they’re after.”

  Kim wondered if her mother really was this certain or if she was simply trying to calm Rebecca down. She reached across the table and held Rebecca’s hand.

  Rebecca took her hand away, held it in her lap and rubbed her hands together, the way she always did when she was nervous. Kim remembered when she had first noticed that habit, the night she told Rebecca that she loved her, the two of them sitting in her dorm room on her bed, having just kissed after hanging out together for weeks. Rebecca had smiled that lovely, shy smile and asked, “Really?” in such an unconfident, uncertain, heartbreaking tone.