by Tracy Sharp
Will swallowed. “Yeah.”
“Why don’t you just stay with Sharon and the other woman?” Cal asked him. “If you’re that intimidated by the gun, you’re going to end up shooting yourself or one of us.”
“No.” Will shook his head. “I’m helping. I’ve never really done anything worthwhile in my life. This is it. This is where I step up to the plate.” He nodded. “I’m going with you.”
Jack looked up at the shack, then back at us. “Okay, then. Let’s go.”
I stepped up beside Will and touched his arm. “Hey. We’re all scared. Only psychopaths and other assorted nut-bars aren’t shaking in situations like this.” As if people were confronted with such situations on a daily basis.
“Yeah,” he said. “It’s cool.”
I looked up at the shack, just as Jack had moments earlier, and fear clutched at my stomach. I smiled then, fighting down what I knew would be a bad case of the giggles. “Okay. Thanks for being here. I really appreciate your help.”
Will saw something in my face and it was his turn to touch my arm. “We’ll get Jesse back, Leah. Might be a little messy, but we’ll get him back.”
“Oh, it’ll be messy,” Jack said. “It’s going to be really messy.”
“Let’s go.” Callahan’s arms were crossed over his chest and his eyes still held that wild look. He couldn’t stand still, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He was wound up tight but he was maintaining his cool.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s rock.”
Crouching low, we started our way up to the shack.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The shack was an old camp. It was built completely of old wood, and was leaning visibly to the right. It wasn’t safe for anyone to be in, let alone a bunch of illegal Asian women, two sociopaths and my brother.
We kept low, making our way up to the side of the old shack which was facing the road. Jack and Patrick went around the other side.
We had to case the place before we went bursting in. Time was short. I wanted to go in right then. “Hurry.”
There were four windows, two on the second floor and two on the first. I carefully peeked into one of the bottom ones while Callahan peered into the other. Music blared from within the house. Even from where I stood outside, I could barely hear myself think.
There were about ten Chinese women sitting on the floor of the room with their hands and feet bound with rope. Some were moaning and crying but there were others who seemed resigned to the same fate of the ones who’d been murdered. They were waiting to die.
Jesse wasn’t in the room. I felt a mix of relief and fear twisting my stomach. Where was he? I hoped to God he’d escaped.
Callahan came up beside me and I almost screamed. I hadn’t seen him move.
“Jesus!” I hissed at him. “You scared the hell out of me!”
“Sorry. That window is open. The woman who escaped must’ve somehow gotten loose of her binds and crawled through it.
“Why aren’t the others following?” I looked through the window again. “Why are they just sitting there?” I already knew the answer to my question. They were paralyzed with fear. Too terrified to move. “We’ve gotta get in there. He’s killing them one by one in another room.”
“Go get Jack, I’ll get the other women through the window,” Cal said, making his way back to the open window. “Hey,” he stage-whispered into the room. I could see the shock appear on the women’s faces as I moved away from the window. Just before I took off to find Jack, Patrick and Will, I could hear Callahan gently coaxing the women to come to the window.
“Come on, it’s okay. Can you hop over to the window? Be careful. We’re going to get you out of there.”
As I made my way around the shack, I felt a quick jab of shame for the way I’d been treating him. He was a gentle person who was willing to risk his life for me. Or at least for the women and Jesse. And as thankful as I was to have him there helping me, I felt that I didn’t deserve him.
Jack and Patrick were moving around to the back of the house when I found them. Will stood outside one of the windows, pacing back and forth. “Oh, shit,” he said. “Oh, shit.”
“Will!” Jack whispered. “Get a grip!”
I was about to look into the window when I heard Jack whisper my name. I looked over at him. In the shadows I could see him slowly shaking his head, no.
“Don’t,” he said.
A vise gripped my insides. “What?”
“Don’t look in there. It’s where they’re dumping the bodies.”
My stomach turned.
He motioned with his hand. “Come on. There’s no time.”
I grabbed Will’s arm and we followed Jack and Patrick to the back of the shack.
There were no windows at the back of the building. We rushed around back to the other side where Callahan was helping one of the women through the window. His hands were wrapped around her shoulders and he was lifting her out easily. Like the other women, she was severely underweight. Woodard and Finn had obviously given them only enough food to survive. Two women sat on the grass watching us.
“How many are left?” I asked him.
“Seven.”
Jack cursed under his breath. “We’re not waiting. He could kill a couple before we get them all out of there. Let’s go.”
Will hesitated. He looked nauseous.
“Stay here,” Jack said to him. “Cal needs help. Cut those ropes off, okay?” He motioned to the women on the grass.
“With what? I don’t have a knife.” Will’s voice was shaky.
I reached down and grabbed my knife from where it was strapped to my lower leg. I walked over and handed it to him. “Be fast.”
He nodded quickly, seeming to get a hold of himself. He had a task to do. He could handle it. “Okay.” He moved to one of the women, squatting down to start on the rope tying her ankles together.
Jack, Patrick and I ran to the front of the house, guns ready.
“There’s no basement. They’ve gotta be killing them in that other room,” Patrick said.
“I didn’t look in the other window. You didn’t see anything?” I asked.
He shook his head. “They have something over it. A blanket or something. It was ripped but it was hard to see. I saw a hand and black hair.”
“That’s all you need to see.” Jack’s face was somber.
Numbness began spreading over me. “Oh, God. Come on, let’s get in there.”
Jack didn’t hesitate. He kicked he door in easily. The wood splintered and fell inward. It had obviously been rotting for some time. Jack walked quickly into the place and Patrick and I followed, guns held in front of us. I could feel a sense of dread in the air all around me. It soaked into me, through my clothes and into my skin until I felt it inside of me.
The place smelled like terror. The smell of sweat, copper and mold filled my nostrils, but beneath all that there was another smell. Sweet and fetid. When I realized what the smell must be, I gagged, placing the back of my hand over my nose. I wondered how many bodies were stashed around the place. I thought of the two missing girls whose cars were found abandoned on the highway.
There was a set of decrepit stairs going up to the second floor. Many of them were sagging and some had fallen in.
“I’ll check it,” Patrick said.
I nodded. “Careful.”
He began his way cautiously up the staircase.
Jack had gone ahead of me. He was further up the hallway, kicking a door in. I came up beside him. It was a bathroom. My breath caught in my throat. The scene was gruesome.
Blood was spattered on the walls and covered the tub, dripping slowly into the drain. There was darker, dried blood beneath it. This was a slaughterhouse.
“Jesus Christ,” Jack breathed. “What in hell is going on here?” Then he was gone, back down the hall to the next closed door. He kicked it open.
The room was empty except for a man with a gun crouched on the flo
or. He aimed for Jack. Jack and I already had our guns trained on him. We pulled our triggers simultaneously. The man’s body jerked several times. He fell onto his knees and lifted his arm, pointing his gun at Jack again. I aimed for his head and shot him above the right eye. He fell sideways onto the floor, eyes staring blankly at us.
I heard footsteps coming down the stairs. Patrick came down the hall toward us. “There’s nobody up there. Looks like they’ve been sleeping up there though. There’s old mattresses and blankets on the floor.” He looked into the room and his eyes fell on the dead guy on the floor. “Oooh. Head shot.”
“Where the hell are they keeping Jesse?” I said.
“We’ll find him,” he told me.
I kept hearing those words. I hoped they were true.
Jack headed down the hall again. We crossed the room the women had been in, which had once been a living room. I stopped and looked in to see how many women were left. There was only one. She was standing near the window, hands bound behind her, waiting patiently for her turn to escape. I saw another woman’s legs go through the window. The woman standing turned to me as if she were asking permission to go. No wonder. I had a gun in my hand. I dropped my hand to my side and used the other to motion toward the window. “Go. Hurry.”
She turned and calmly moved her head and upper body through the opening for Cal.
I headed down the hall toward where Jack and Patrick had gone. The room was a kitchen area. There wasn’t much there. An old table surrounded by three chairs. A porcelain sink, which had long ago rusted into brown, held dishes covered in a substance which I hoped had once been food.
Off the kitchen were two rooms. One with an open door, the door to the other was closed. That was the room with a blanket covering the window. A long streak of blood ran along the floor from this room to the other. This was the room where the bodies were stacked. A high-pitched shriek rang out above the music, freezing us all to the spot for a moment. Every hair on my body stood on end.
Jack ran to the closed door and kicked it in. He stood in the doorway for a moment, obviously shocked. Then his shoulders started shaking. At first, I thought he was crying, but when he turned his head to look at me, I was surprised to see that he was shaking with laughter.
The music was so loud I wanted to cover my ears. I came up beside Jack and looked into the room. At first, what I saw didn’t quite register.
Finn was standing over one of the women with his pants down. His hands covered his crotch, his fingers covered in blood. I looked at the woman. The only blood on her, stained her mouth and chin.
When I finally understood, I laughed out loud, the sound foreign and hysterical to my own ears.
“Didn’t you hear the racket we were making?” Jack yelled at Finn above the blaring music. “Doors being kicked in? Gunshots?” He walked over to the stereo and shut it off. Two huge speakers stood on either side of the stereo.
Finn shook his head.
“Well no wonder you’re flipping’deaf, idiot,” I told him. “Been to a lot of rock concerts in your youth?”
He ignored me. I turned to Patrick. “Would you check the other room?” I didn’t have to tell him why. Jesse was nowhere else in the place. If he were in here anywhere, it would be in that room. I didn’t want to see it yet.
He nodded and walked through the kitchen to the other room. I tried to swallow the large lump in my throat. I watched the doorway, holding my breath until he reappeared shaking his head. “He’s not in there. He’s not in this house.”
“Thank God,” I said. “Thank God.”
“Where’s Jesse?” I was standing over Finn while Jack tied his hands behind his back. I was about an inch from his face. He spat at me. I calmly wiped my face with the back of my hand, then stood back and kicked him square in the forehead. His head snapped back. When he faced forward again, his eyes were wide.
“I said, where is Jesse?”
“You’re real tough when I’m tied up, aren’t ya, bitch?”
“I don’t need you tied up to kick the piss out of you, moron, believe me, but I want you to feel just as helpless as those women you snuffed out while they were tied up. Now tell me where my brother is because I’m just getting warmed up here.”
“You’d better tell her, asshole. She’s not screwing around.” Jack walked to Finn’s feet. He squatted down and began tying them tightly together.
“Screw you!” Finn screamed, spittle flying from his mouth.
Jack winced at him and slowly shook his head. “That’s going to cost you.”
I punched him hard on the side of the nose. The crunching sound was loud in the room. He screamed, ducking his head as blood poured from his nostrils. “You dirty bitch.” His voice sounded wet and nasal. “I’ll kill you.”
“Oh, you won’t be killing anybody else, Finn. That shit’s over.” Jack stood up straight, looking satisfied with his work.
Finn looked up at Jack with pleading eyes. “She’s crazy!”
“Yeah, I’m crazy, you dimwit psycho.” I was an inch away from his face. “And I’ll pull every tooth out of your head if I have to. You will tell me where my brother is because you’d better believe that I’m enjoying the hell out of this.”
He stared at me with a seething hatred I recognized within myself when I stared back at him. “He’s obviously with Woodard,” I said. “So why don’t we start there. Where’s Woodard?”
Patrick stood in the doorway. “All the women are untied and sharing blankets from upstairs. We need to find them some clothes. Those blankets are rank. We can’t fit them all in the Jeep and Sharon’s car. What are we going to do?”
Jack thought for a moment. “I know of a shelter that will send somebody to come and get them, no questions asked. They’ll bring clothes and take care of them.” He looked down at Finn as if he were looking at a pile of cow shit. “I’ll call them when we’re finished here. It won’t take long.”
And it didn’t.
It took fourteen minutes for him to tell us where Woodard and Jesse were. You can do a lot of damage in fourteen minutes.
We took care of Finn so that he’d never hurt another living soul. We took care of him so that he wouldn’t be going to prison, eating three square meals a day, having access to a weight room and most of the luxuries, if not more, than a person not living in prison would have.
We took care of him.
Afterward, Jack called his contact at the shelter and told her a fast version of what had happened to the Chinese women. Then we sat on the grass and waited for Jack’s friend from the shelter to come to pick up the Chinese women.
Jack had known Meagan for a long time. It turned out that he does a lot of work for the shelter. Then I always knew that Jack had a good heart. Its just not a fact he wants spread around.
Meagan hugged him when the women were safely in the van. “Thanks for calling us, Jack. At least we can start some kind of process to get them to Immigration. If they were just handed over to the police, they’d probably be going back to China. All of this would’ve been for nothing.”
“Couldn’t let that happen,” Jack said.
“We’ve had trouble with Finn many times before,” Meagan said. “You’ll take care of him, won’t you? Set things right?” There was a gleam in her eye.
“Already taken care of,” Jack said.
Meagan nodded, silent for a moment. “Good,” she finally said. “One down.”
After Finn had begun his begging, he told us that Jesse was being held at one of Woodard’s buildings. It was an old warehouse on Cherry Street. I’d seen the place before. It was usually occupied by squatters and homeless drug addicts. Finn had said that Woodard allowed them to stay as long as they didn’t tell anyone about what went on in there sometimes.
Will left with Sharon. He’d had enough for the evening. Jack asked him to stay with her at the shop. Even though Will was obviously not the bravest and most ferocious man on the planet, Jack didn’t want her being alone. I was certain
Jack was aware of how tough Sharon actually was. He’d probably taught her to fight, just as he had me. And he’d most likely been the one to teach her about firearms. She could definitely take care of herself. When you love someone, you always worry.
I let them take Buddy, just as an extra precaution.
“At the very least, I’m sure Will could out-scream Sharon if it came right down to it. That’s liable to get someone to call 911.”
“He’s a good guy, he’s just not cut out for this,” Cal said. “I don’t know if anyone really is.”
“Oh yeah, Finn was. Woodard is,” Jack said.
“Yeah, but they shouldn’t be.”
Despite my jangling nerves, I had to smile at Callahan’s innocence. He really believed that everyone was born innately good. I didn’t know if this was true or not. All I knew at the moment was that there were a lot of bad people out there. Too many. You almost can’t throw a rock without hitting one, it seems. I didn’t know what made bad people do what they do. I didn’t know what turned the man who took my sister into the kind of man who would snatch a small child off the streets and drive away with her. Stealing her away from her family and snuffing her life out like a match in the wind.
I shuddered. I didn’t want to think of that. I didn’t want to think of it. No. Not at all. I shook my head to clear it and focused on the road as I drove the Jeep toward Cherry Street.
Nobody spoke. We were all so tired but still on edge about finding Jesse. I prayed that he was okay. But I was aware of how Woodard liked to play his little games. He’d left Amanda on Cherry Street for any and all predators in the area to prey on. I had no doubt in my mind that he’d left Jesse in the warehouse for any of it’s occupants to have fun with. I pushed my foot harder on the gas and hoped that we got there before anything happened to him.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Cherry Street was as it had been earlier in the night. Now the first purple light of dawn was rising and the same druggies and prostitutes were wandering the street the same way they had been before. Like zombies caught in this world, unable to pass on to the next. I kept my foot on the gas. I wasn’t slowing down for anything. Again, I had the creepy sensation of being watched. Hair was prickling on the back of my neck and on my arms. If the Jeep died for any weird reason, we were in deep shit. I looked at the gas gauge. There was quarter of a tank left. We’d be fine if we didn’t have to engage in any long, high-speed chases on this night.
