Cut So Deep: A dark second chance romance (Dark and Deep Book 1)

by Jax Colt

  The wealthy victims in New York are predominantly ‘old money’, from families with more affluence than most people have ever seen. Some flash it around, some give it away. There’s a whole sector of society living the kinds of lives people make movies about. They know how to be low-key when they need be, like late at night or near their mansions. The contradiction is it all goes on while in other parts of the big city, single moms like Brenda are working in coffee shops to make ends meet.

  It’s not that I don’t like rich people. Most of them have no say in the matter, especially old money. I just don’t like the way some of them behave when cases like this come into the precinct. Some of the flashy daddies show up in here with black Amex cards, thinking money will solve the problem. When their little girls get taken in Midtown, we often receive a crying video where the kidnappers make the young woman hold up a newspaper to prove the date, and claim they’re going to kill her if they don’t get their ransom.

  Daddy will storm into the Lieutenant’s office with their proverbial guns a-blazing, credit cards and checkbooks ready, demanding the best of everything and threatening our jobs if we don’t find his little precious. It happens way too often now. Daddy finds out all he has to do is pay the money and daughter will be returned and restored to her former life. Of course, there will be years of extensive therapy to help her deal with the two traumatic days she went without food.

  Then, after picking up on the story, the media usually has a field day, glamorizing the story and the victims to lengths that border on ridiculous. This tends to frustrate me because every day I see how scarce our resources are for the real victims of kidnapping. The chance of finding a safe place and a warm bed for girls and little boys once they’ve been taken is almost nonexistent. There are only a few thousand beds in the whole country that are dedicated to helping the sex trade workers who are lucky enough to survive their experiences. They’re lucky because they lived even if they were forced into the dirty business thirty or forty times each day.

  Instead of the recovery of their uptown counterparts, most young victims of kidnapping are dumped back into the foster system, sent to group homes, or with their troubled pasts, they end up in juvie. There’s no therapy or time to heal, and they’re stuck there. The choice is either to run away again or wait out the time until they turn eighteen, and can finally try to make sense of the world on their own.

  As I wonder which group the woman upstairs belongs to, my frustration builds. As many as one in three girls on the street will become a prostitute within twenty-four hours of leaving home. Pimps know where to find the girls, too. They track them down in the all-night diners where they sit on one coffee for hours and try to make a plan, knapsack tucked between their feet. The young ladies usually have make-up smeared from crying, but whatever they’ve been running away from will be nothing compared to where they end up.

  Lack of real-world instinct or plain old desperation causes so many young women to fall into this trap. Despite years of ‘stranger danger’ training and kidnap movies, thousands are still snagged and introduced to the business. Sometimes it’s by force, and sometimes they willingly follow whatever bait is being offered.

  Pimps are skilled to. They usually dangle a carrot for these soon-to-be victims, like an approachable looking young guy who promises to look out for them, or the compassionate ear of another young woman, who offers them a room of their own in a supposedly ‘cool warehouse apartment’.

  Of course, whatever their new and exciting living option is, it comes for astoundingly cheap, and it’s music to the runaways’ ears. She would perk up immediately without even thinking to get more details. I guess in those moments the logic is drowned by relief that she’s been lucky enough to land on her feet. Then off she’ll go, with no idea the nightmare is just beginning.

  Once they’ve got the girls, pimps are experts at turning them. Breaking in a new girl takes deceit, manipulation, and sometimes straight-up violence. He’ll give her drugs and romance her. He’ll play on her insecurities, treat her like she’s special, and then the work will begin. He’ll make sex work seem glamorous. She’ll be given new clothes and sexy shoes. If she’s lucky, she’ll have a moment where she thinks, ‘this isn’t so bad’ before the first nasty John beats her. If she’s unlucky, the beating and gang rapes will begin on day one. And these are the Americans. It’s a hell of a lot worse for foreign nationals who come in by boat, plane or land border each year. There are truckloads of human cargo heading to lives most people can’t imagine.

  This is the job, though.

  Through the wall of the shower cubicle, I hear the men’s changing rooms filling up now. I need to get a move on. The faster I get a handle on how serious this situation upstairs is, the sooner I can get to it, and maybe I’ll get some time to make it home and get some rest.

  7

  Blake

  The station is just starting to pump as I hit the top floor. There’ll be a changeover briefing starting soon, and officers are milling around in the halls waiting. Nobody wants to be late for morning briefing, and the pack of blue uniforms is swelling rapidly. So many cops in one place. This is the main reason I work nights. There may be more thugs out in the hallways wreaking havoc, but at night, for the most part, the Detective’s cage is empty and I can keep to myself. It’s not just the focus I like, though. I guess I’m not really much of a team player. Everything’s so much easier when I’m alone.

  Stopping at the cage, I ditch my gym bag at my desk and pick up my files and recorder. It’s five forty-five. I head down the hall, nodding at people and saying hi, but I hope my stance makes it clear I’m too busy to chat. It seems to work as people clear the pathway toward interview room two. I look through the window before I head in and see a huddled figure sitting at the center of the table. She’s been given a blanket and a coffee, but she’s still shaking, so I switch off the air conditioning that’s blasting the room before I open the door.

  I’m still waiting for her file from the receiving officer, but I’m tired, so I decide to jump right in. “Hi, how are you feeling, ma’am?”

  She looks up at me and I get my first glimpse of her swollen face. There’s a gash on her forehead covered by a patch. Big, pale blue eyes look out at me from under the white gauze, and I’m taken aback by the severity of the beating she has received.

  “I know you’ve already done this once, but I need you to tell me the story again, okay?”

  She looks back at me and I see she wants to say something, but doesn’t.

  “Are you warm enough? Can I get someone to bring you more coffee?”

  She stays silent, so I launch into my spiel. “I’m Detective Anderson. I’ll be taking care of your case. Can you tell me exactly what happened last night?”

  “I’m Carrie,” she says, holding her neck, her voice throaty. “It hurts to talk, ’cause he strangled me.” I see the purple marks on her face and jaw, and I almost wince but remain professional.

  “Have you had some pain relief?”

  She nods in answer, and in a shaky voice begins to tell me about how the night began. Listening to her, I note that her accent sounds familiar, and I realize she’s from Iowa, not a New Yorker after all.

  “We went to a bunch of places. We’re on vacation, we needed a night out.”

  She looks defensively at me as if I’m going to tell her off for having fun. Instead, I keep my gaze steady and nod, waiting for her to continue.

  “We were dressed up and having the best time. By two in the morning, April was done, but I wanted to go to Caliber so I dragged her along.” At this, Carrie looks down at the recorder between us.

  “It’s not that she didn’t want to go,” Carrie says. “April just didn’t want to see anyone she knew. There’s some family thing going on there. Her uncle owns it, and I think she doesn’t want to seem like she’s angling for free drinks.”

  Making note of the family connection, I prompt her to continue. She tells me about the dancing and the guys wh
o were hitting on them. She speaks quietly, holding her neck the whole time, and I start to regret my earlier assumptions. This woman really is a victim. Her face is pale, the white of the dressing and the angry bruises a contrast with the sweep of dark hair that falls around her shoulders.

  She looks strong despite the injuries, and I wonder what she does for a living back in Iowa. The story continues, but when she gets to the abduction my chest starts to tighten. She talks me through it in a lifeless voice, each event unfolding between her lips and making me wince. There are no dramatics. She’s not playing ‘poor me,’ just telling me what happened step by step. That’s what’s making me react to this woman.

  I ask her to show me the grazes on her hands. They need to be cleaned properly or she’ll get an infection. I look more closely at the marks on her neck and see the pressure he applied was more than significant. These guys weren’t messing around. Her collarbones are so delicate underneath the blanket. The hollow at the base of her neck shines with a small gold chain. As she continues to talk, I’m thankful for the recorder because I can’t seem to keep my stare from returning to that spot at the base of her neck.

  Carrie may be beaten and scared, but she’s totally beautiful, and I’m willing to bet that no man could ignore that. Taking stock, I see that her skirt is short but not too revealing. Those curves must be making some lucky bastard happy back in Iowa. God, she’s all woman, round and supple. Even now, she smells amazing, and I resist the urge to lean forward and inhale. If she has any idea what I’m thinking, she doesn’t give it away. Her body language is more open than before. The lack of air conditioning has allowed her to slide the blanket off, revealing curve lines of the most luscious breasts I’ve seen in a long time.

  As I listen, my eyes can’t help sliding down farther. Her stomach is flat, defying the curves above and below it. This girl is fit. She’s a runner or something; the core strength is obvious in the way she holds herself, and by the muscles in her arms. Her voice gets a little shaky as she starts to cover the details of the attack, and I think my jaw drops to the desk when I hear she fended off four guys. How the fuck did this little thing make that work? She must be in training for something, so I interrupt her to ask how she managed to overpower them.

  “Well, I’ve been practicing Judo since I was sixteen,” she says. “I couldn’t help April, but I got away okay.” Her eyes meet mine, and there’s no ego there. None of that show phony stuff with this woman, just the relay of direct information from one human to another. When we get to the part where she was hiding under the car, I get a real sense of how different this girl is from anyone I’ve ever known. She shows me the cuts and grazes on her calves and knees, and I can’t help but notice that her toes are painted a gold color. The cuts on her feet have been wrapped by the nurse but they need to be washed. For a moment, I picture how her petite foot would look in my big hand. I’d wash it gently and rub lotion into the soles of her feet until she couldn’t keep her hands off me.

  Taking a deep breath, I know I need to get my shit together and focus. Her story is coming to an end, and I have some questions, but right now all I want to do is look at those lips. White teeth peep through her lipstick stained and swollen mouth. Her skin is flawless, glowing and healthy. That forehead wound may not need stitches, but it’ll sure as hell be sore. Again, my respect for her jumps another notch. She finishes her account of the evening, in tears at the fate of her friend.

  “Look, Detective. April doesn’t deserve this, she’s not a bad person. Everyone loves her. You have to help me find her.”

  I reach over and take her hand. We’re usually advised not to make contact with any witness, but my compassion for her outweighs my regard for the rules.

  “Hey, hey, it’s going to be okay,” I say, wishing I could hold her small frame to me. “I’m going to ask you some questions now, then we’ll make a plan, all right?”

  She nods and seems to calm down a little as we begin to talk through April’s situation. The recent death of her parents was an accident and seems unconnected. Picking up on something Carrie said earlier, I ask again about her uncle’s association with Caliber. After all, if the guy had proper security at the club to make sure his niece and friend got home, none of this would have happened.

  “Well, her Uncle Jessup is kind of weird.”

  My heart pounds at that name, and I almost fall off my chair. Uncle Jessup and April Lee—this has to be my main suspect’s niece we’re talking about. If April Lee is the niece of the man who kidnaps and traffics more women than any other criminal in the country, then maybe someone is trying to teach Jessup Lee a lesson.

  I don’t believe Carrie notices my reaction, but if she does, she doesn’t give it away. I decide to keep the connection to myself for now, and do some more investigating. I knew Jessup had a sister, but the file says nothing about any nieces or nephews. This could be a whole new avenue, and it also sheds new light on Carrie’s situation.

  Excusing myself, I leave the room for a moment and scribble a note to Lieutenant Jacobs, telling her to send a car over to the scene of April’s kidnapping before she does anything else. They’re all in morning briefing now, but I tell the desk officer to make sure it’s a priority.

  8

  Carrie

  Officer Anderson comes back looking pleased, and something inside me pings as he smiles and sits down. I have a feeling I know him from somewhere but I can’t put my finger on it.

  He leans in closer and starts talking about the next steps of the case. I look into his eyes as it comes to me.

  “Oh my God. You lived in Cedar Rapids, didn’t you?”

  He flinches, and I’m taken aback, thinking I must be wrong. Then, he nods.

  “Yeah, the family moved there for a few years when I was in high school. Is that where you grew up?”

  “Yes. We totally went to school together!” It’s fascinating to see what time does to change people, but I immediately regret my enthusiasm when it’s not returned. “Don’t you remember me? I was Carrie Bonner back then, but a few years ago I ditched my stepdad’s name when he and Mom broke up.”

  He shakes his head, looking astounded. “No, not Carrie. Is that really you?”

  Then he does that big open-mouthed laugh and I’m reminded of everything we once shared. He leans forward and pushes a lock of my hair away from my forehead.

  “I can’t believe how different you look!”

  It’s like his whole face changes, and I feel that same familiar pull in my stomach. He is glad to see me. The relief I feel annoys me a bit, but I push it away. I used to have a wicked crush on this guy, and from the way he looks now, I have to hand it to myself. My teenage self, had pretty damn good taste.

  Blake arrived at Cedar Rapids High in the middle of tenth grade, and I couldn’t keep my eyes off him. He just showed up and walked into the classroom like he owned it. He was smart, too. I noticed that right off the bat. I was the teachers’ pet back then, and more than fierce about prospective competition. After I realized he wasn’t planning on using those brains for good, I started to really notice him.

  Honestly, at first I thought he couldn’t help it, the amount of times he was sent out for being argumentative in history or philosophy. But then I got to know more. The guy had a desire to get noticed, and a major problem with authority. Becoming a cop was the last career I would have expected him to have. It’s crazy that he’s here. Shit! It’s crazier that he’s the one taking my statement about April.

  Jeez, I was so obsessed with the guy. I remember looking at the back of his neck in math class, and desperately wanting to reach forward and touch it. His hair was so blond and soft, and his body looked so delicious under those stupid ripped shirts he wore. Blake was totally moody back then; sporting a sour face most of the time, then laughing and friendly on the occasional precious day. There were two different people inside him. I couldn’t get enough of the happy Blake; he had this way of making me feel like I was the only person in the room. But
on his bad days, I felt like he wasn’t into me at all. It was a painful time. I never had the guts to actually ask him out, all I did was think about him constantly. He never made a real move, but I know he felt me looking. We were nothing more than friends, and that killed me.

  How crazy to be sitting across from him ten years later. We are eye to eye for the first time since we nearly kissed, and now Blake’s looking at me differently than he did back then. Again, I feel a warm rush that I don’t agree with. He had his chance but never took it. I called him twice before we left on vacation that year, but he didn’t call back. That was his choice, not mine. There’s a flush on his neck now, and I wonder if it’s guilt or embarrassment. The guy disappeared from my life at a time I needed someone to protect me the most. I can see by the way he holds himself that he’s trying to stay professional. I guess I can respect that. A lot went down back then, but so much water’s under the bridge. There’s nothing I can do now about all those years ago.

  I wonder what he’s been doing for the last ten years.

  “So, what happened?” I ask, “How come you left?”

  I say it evenly, making sure there’s no inflection of hurt in my tone. I figure it was because of his family. It always is when you’re in high school. Teens have no control over anything, no decisions to make and no power.

  “Yeah, my family moved, it was…”

  He looks down, and I know there’s more to it, but it’s not my place to ask. I’m not exactly offering up the details of my life, either.

  Cedar Rapids holds bad memories for me. Everyone I know says high school sucks, but I’m not sure if it actually did for them, the way it was for me. I always felt like a reject. I was too good at schoolwork, and too focused on sports. I had my mind made up so early about journalism, and I’m sure I ran the school paper with an iron fist. I wince a bit, thinking of the cool kids and their sneers. I don’t think of that as a happy time, but I do wonder what would have happened if things had turned out differently that summer after the state try-outs.