“Would you ask your friend to get out of the car, please?”
“Sure,” Zachary said agreeably. “But can I ask… if something is wrong? We have a thing that I’m supposed to be getting them to, and I didn’t want to be late.”
“I want to talk to him.”
Zachary bent down to talk to Rhys, inside the car. “He wants to talk to you. It should just take a minute.”
Rhys’s eyes were wide and worried. He wanted to know what was going on. Wanted to know why Noah was there and what had taken Zachary so long. He knew enough to be worried about talking to the cop. He had grown up knowing that cops could stop him at any time, and they wouldn’t like the fact that he was black and was refusing to talk to them.
As Rhys got out of the car, his hands raised to his shoulders to show that he was unarmed and wasn’t planning to attack anyone, Zachary stepped back from the car, walking a couple of steps around the hood to have an unobstructed view of him. But he stopped there, not wanting the cop to think that he was being pincered between the two of them.
“You should know that Rhys is selectively mute,” he explained calmly. “That means that he won’t be able to talk to you out loud.”
The cop didn’t like this. He looked at Rhys suspiciously. As if he might be some kind of monster or predator and was trying to keep the cop from figuring it out. “How does he communicate, then? Does he use sign language?”
“He uses a combination of gestures and text or pictures on his phone. He’s not going to cause you any trouble; you just need to know that it is going to take longer than usual to establish communication. And we do want to be getting on our way.”
The cop ignored the last part of Zachary’s statement, making no indication that he would move things along.
“Can we get into the car?” Madison asked. “It’s kind of chilly out here.”
She wasn’t wearing a coat and the cop was. So was Zachary. The car would be warmer, and sheltered from the breeze. The cop looked at Madison, his hand at his hip. He looked her over, and his eyes spent even longer on Noah.
“You, I know,” he said, looking at Noah.
Noah stared down at his feet, nodding.
“You pimping them out?” the cop demanded, eyes going back to Zachary. “I’m not going to put up with that on my watch.”
“No. No sir. I’m trying to get them out of here. Away from all that. That’s why we’re here.” Zachary looked back toward the apartment building. Peggy Ann and Jorge could be coming out the front door any time. “And why we need to get on our way. Soon.”
“Turn out your pockets,” the cop told Madison and Noah. “Put the contents on the car. Then put up your hands.”
Noah obeyed. Madison didn’t have any pockets. She looked at the cop for a moment, then slid a couple of fingers down into her bra and pulled out her phone. She put it on the car. They both raised their hands.
“Stay there,” the cop told Rhys. He went over to the other two and felt their pockets and other key areas to satisfy himself that they weren’t carrying any weapons. He opened the back car door and used his flashlight to check the back seats, footwells, and under the front seats. He ran one hand along the crack in the back of the bench seats. He finally nodded. “Fine. Get in. But if you cause me any trouble, believe me, you’ll never get a break out of me again.”
Madison and Noah got quickly into the car, bumping over each other and getting settled into place. The policeman looked at Rhys.
“Are you okay?”
Rhys nodded.
“Did he bring you here?”
Rhys hesitated, looking at Zachary, then nodded his head.
“Why did he bring you here?”
Rhys pointed at Madison.
“To get her?”
Rhys nodded again.
“Are you two turning tricks? Is he taking you to some party to make some money?”
Rhys shook his head violently, eyes wide.
“Why, then?”
Rhys frowned. He pointed at Madison, then he made a roof-and-house motion with both hands.
“To take her home?”
Rhys and Zachary nodded. Zachary was itching to explain the whole situation himself in a couple of brief sentences so that they could get into the car and get out of there before Peggy Ann and Jorge came looking for Madison and Noah. Madison and Noah were ducking down, making themselves as invisible as possible. Sheltering behind the seats where they wouldn’t be as easy to see. Peggy Ann and Jorge would come out of the apartment building, and see the cop there with Rhys and Zachary. Maybe they wouldn’t get close enough to see that Madison and Noah were there too. They wouldn’t connect the two incidents.
But he knew that if he tried to help the conversation with Rhys along, the policeman would just view him as more suspicious. He couldn’t speak for Rhys, but had to let him explain himself without interruption.
“How do you know her?”
Rhys considered. He pointed to his pocket and made a ‘telephone’ hand-shape beside his ear.
The cop nodded. “You can get out your phone.”
Rhys nodded and lowered his hand slowly to take his phone out with two fingers. He held it up, making sure that the policeman could get a good look at it before changing his grip on it. Rhys tapped and swiped his phone to find a photo, then held it up for the cop. Madison sitting at her desk. One of the photos he had shown to Zachary.
The cop looked at it. “You know her from school.”
Rhys nodded. He looked at the apartment building, and tapped his wrist where he would wear a watch. He looked back at the car where Madison and Noah were sitting. They were hunched down out of sight, which was good, but it would be better if they were out of there.
But the policeman wasn’t sure he wanted to let them go yet. He wanted to be sure of what was going on before he let them take off. Better not to be the guy who had let a pimp operate right under his nose. That kind of thing never looked good when it hit the papers. People didn’t understand that the police couldn’t just arrest someone on a gut feeling.
“I want your name and contact information. ID if you have it.”
Rhys nodded. He indicated the cop’s pen and notepad. The officer handed them over. Rhys put the notepad on the car to write his information down. He handed them back when he was done and pulled his student bus pass lanyard out of his shirt. Turning it over, he displayed his student ID card. The policeman compared the information Rhys had written down with what was on his card.
“You can get back in the car.”
Rhys got in. The cop went through the contents of Noah’s pockets, which were still on top of the car. He wrote down detailed notes. Zachary was sweating with his anxiety over getting out of there. They had been there much too long. Peggy Ann and Jorge were probably watching the drama from inside the apartment building. Maybe making phone calls to have Zachary followed or to call in hired guns. He knew the cop was just doing his job, but if it ended up with Madison and Noah being retrieved by their cartel and Zachary and Rhys in the crosshairs of some criminal intent on making sure that they didn’t interfere again…
The officer handed Noah his possessions back, other than his phone, and didn’t give Madison’s phone back either. He left them side by side on the top of the car, face up, keeping an eye on them.
Then he turned his attention back to Zachary. “Now I want your information. And I want ID and your car registration and insurance.”
Zachary nodded. He glanced along the street again for any signs saying he wasn’t allowed to park there. He still didn’t spot anything. If there was a sign, it was out of sight and he could challenge it in court. The cop wanted him for more than just a traffic violation, but if that were all he could get, Zachary was sure he would go for it. Then he would have an official record of who he had stopped. He would be able to show his superiors that he had done everything in his power to curtail any criminal activities.
36
Zachary slowly removed his wallet fro
m his pocket and removed the items that the policeman wanted to see. His hands were shaking violently. The adrenaline was having an effect on him. Walking into the apartment not knowing what situation he was going to face, being confronted by Noah, trying to make a run for it and trying to avoid Peggy Ann and Jorge. Trying to deal with the cop when every fiber in his body was telling him to get out of there.
Closer to the cop, he could see his name bar. Burkholdt.
“Tell me how you got involved with this,” Burkholdt said. “This is exactly the type of situation that we don’t want civilians caught in the middle of. You shouldn’t be here.”
Zachary swallowed and looked down. That was probably true. He had considered whether to call the police before going to see Madison, but he had been afraid that she would just refuse to cooperate if he showed up with officials. And in retrospect, he was sure that instinct had been correct. He wouldn’t have been able to make any kind of progress if he’d shown up there with the police, or if the police had gone there without him. Madison was not the one who had sent the message asking for help. She would have just looked blankly at them and refused to go. She would have denied knowing anything about that message. She would say that she hadn’t sent it. Because she hadn’t.
He told the cop about being a private investigator. About Rhys coming to him to help with finding Madison, and then returning for more help when he’d received her message asking for help. He left out the details about Madison not being the one who had sent the message or about Noah’s involvement in the whole thing. He hoped that if he kept it simple, the policeman would finally agree to let them go.
“She was reported as a missing person?” Burkholdt asked.
“Yes.”
“So if I called in asking for confirmation, I would be told that there was a report made?”
“Yes. Joshua Campbell was assigned to the case. I spoke to him.”
“You did, did you?”
“Yes. I always let law enforcement know if I’ve been retained on a case that the police have had some involvement in. Or if they should know about it. I always cooperate with local law enforcement.”
“Sure you do.”
“You’re welcome to call him. I have his numbers if you need them.”
Burkholdt studied him closely, considering this. Eventually, he nodded. He wrote down all of Zachary’s information.
“How is the other boy involved in it?”
“Noah?”
For a moment, the policeman looked blank. Then he shrugged. “Whatever name he gave you. He’s been around here for a long time. I know him. Just how is he mixed up in this?”
“He was just… helping Madison out. Took her under his wing. Felt sorry for her, I guess.”
“Figured he could turn her out, more likely. You can’t trust him. If I was you, I wouldn’t take him with me.”
Zachary nodded. “I know… but I need to. I can’t explain all of the details right now, but I think it’s safer to have him with me than not.”
“Don’t count on it. He’s more likely to call his pimp with her new location than he is to help her out. People like him don’t change. He’s not going to suddenly go from being a hooker to being the savior of a runaway. He’s just looking for a higher paycheck. A way to move up in the organization. As soon as he knows where she’s going, he’ll tell them.”
Zachary swallowed back the acid that rose in his throat at this suggestion. He had to admit that Burkholdt had a good point. What were the chances that Noah was really looking to help Madison out, after putting months into getting her established in the business? What were the chances that even if he had altruistic feelings toward Madison, or was feeling guilty for what he had done, that they would last?
Joss had talked about walling off her feelings. Compartmentalizing. So that she didn’t have to think about the things she was doing. She could keep those parts of herself separate and not have to acknowledge them.
He was sure Noah would rather not admit what kind of person he was and the things that he had chosen to do to get the money or drugs that were dangled before him like a carrot. He would rather think of himself as a fair and compassionate person. The kind of guy who would help a teenager get back to her family. But when it came down to it, who was he more likely to be loyal to?
He started to regret having insisted that Noah come along. He had been affected by Noah’s story and his tears. But Noah probably had a hundred different stories and could turn the tears on and off at will. He was playing them. Getting Zachary and Rhys right where he wanted them. Once he’d confirmed their intentions and found out everything he could about them and lulled them into a false sense of security, they would turn back to his supervisors. To Peggy Ann and the rest of them. That was what he had been trained to do for the past five years. If that part of his story was true.
The cop handed Zachary’s ID back to him loose, leaving him to put everything back into his wallet. Zachary shivered with cold while at the same time, sweat dripped down his back.
“Listen to what I tell you,” Burkholdt said again. “Leave the boy here. Don’t take him with you and trust him not to report everything he sees.”
“I can’t leave him here.”
Burkholdt looked into his face, lips tight. “You need to leave him here.”
Zachary took a deep breath. “Are you arresting him?”
“I don’t have any cause to arrest him. But I know this kid. I’ve arrested him before and I know what he does around here. You should listen to someone who knows.”
Zachary nodded. He looked at the driver’s seat of the car. “Thank you for your concern. Am I free to go now?”
The cop’s jaw muscles stood out as he clenched his teeth. He nodded. “You’re free to go.” He handed Zachary the two phones.
Zachary’s knees wobbled. He tried to keep himself together. Keeping tight control over his body, he managed to walk back around the car and to get into the driver’s seat. He was looking around, charting his escape route, before he even got into the seat. The keys were still in the ignition. Before he even had his door shut or his seatbelt on, he was shifting into gear. He put it into reverse, backing up over the curb onto the sidewalk and then throwing it into drive and performing a tight U-turn to get them turned around and heading back in the direction they had come. The cop had jumped back out of the way when he had backed up onto the sidewalk. Madison gave a little shriek as they were thrown unexpectedly around the car. None of them had been braced for Zachary’s maneuver. But he was desperate. His body was throwing up all kinds of signals that he was in danger and he wasn’t going to ignore them. He wasn’t going to sedately perform a three-point turn or drive forward until he came to an intersection where he could get himself turned around properly. If the cop jumped into his car and came after him, then Zachary would deal with it. But not until he had put some distance between him and the people who were after them.
Noah swore, hanging on to Rhys’s seat in front of him and trying to stay upright. “Who taught you to drive? We’re going to have that cop right back on our tail!”
“I’m getting us out of there,” Zachary snapped. “I’m not staying around to see if they managed to get a tail on us while we were trying to get away from that cop. We were sitting there way too long.”
He looked in his rear-view mirror, watching for any suspicious vehicles. He was going fast enough that they would have to make themselves pretty obvious if they were going to keep up with him. He was aiming to put as much space between him and any pursuers as possible.
When he got to a straight stretch of road, he opened and slammed his door to make sure that it latched properly, and pulled his seatbelt around himself and clicked it into place.
“You might want to put on your seatbelts too,” he told his passengers.
Rhys was already pulling his out, grinning. Madison and Noah complained as they put theirs on.
“Do you want to get out of there safely, or not get out at all?” Zachary d
emanded.
He had a bad feeling. He’d missed something. He knew that there was a problem, but he couldn’t think of what it was. Something had been off. His ever-vigilant PTSD brain had caught it but hadn’t passed the message to his conscious brain.
“We need to go somewhere safe,” he told his passengers.
He waited for the suggestions. First on the list, of course, was to Madison’s parents. But he immediately discarded that idea. There were others in the organization who would know how to find Madison’s family. They knew what school she went to. They knew her name. It would only take a few minutes to find out her address, if they didn’t have it already. Her home was too dangerous. He was going to have to convince her parents to leave their home and make massive changes in their lives if they were going to be able to keep Madison alive and out of Peggy Ann’s stable. He didn’t know how he was going to approach that. How he was going to convince them of anything.
He needed to take Rhys home and to make sure that he was safe. Vera was sure to be wondering where he was and worrying over him. But he didn’t want to take Noah to Rhys’s house either. Though he supposed that Rhys’s grandmother was just as easy to find as Madison’s family. His only hope was that Noah and Madison hadn’t told anyone who had come after Madison and how he knew about her. If they didn’t know that Rhys had asked Zachary to look into it, then Rhys would be safe. If Peggy Ann and her crew knew who Zachary was, he was going to have to plant enough disinformation for them to believe that he had been hired by Madison’s parents rather than by Rhys.
“We could stay with someone,” Madison suggested. “What about Jeff? Or Roxanne?”
Noah shook his head. “Can’t be anyone in the organization or known to it.”
“But they’re not part of… they’re just friends.”
“No.”
“They’re just people we hung out with. Friends.”
“I don’t have any friends, Mad. Anybody we’ve hung out with. Anyone we’ve partied with. They’re all part of it. Or they’re known. Clients or prospects.”
She Told a Lie Page 18
