Familiar Lies

by Brian J. Jarrett

“Through that club.”

  “The Hustle?”

  Vanessa nodded.

  “Who’s Julie?”

  “I think they were together.”

  “Before or after he met you?”

  “Both.”

  “Julie’s gone. Disappeared.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Someone told me, someone who knows her. Someone concerned that something happened to her.”

  “She might have run. I hope that’s what she did, at least.”

  “Tell me about Gabe Harris.”

  “I don’t know much about him,” Vanessa said. “He manages that strip club, though.”

  “He doesn’t own it?” Max couldn’t remember if Ruby had told him that or not. It was becoming hard to keep all the facts straight in his head.

  “No. Somebody else owns it.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know his name, but I know that I never want to see him again. He scared me.”

  “You met him?”

  “If you want to call it that. He showed up at my work with two of his goons and a manila folder.”

  Max thought of the man in the white suit who’d shown up at the house where he’d found the DVD. “He didn’t wear a white suit, did he?”

  “Maybe. I don’t remember.”

  “What was inside the folder?”

  “Pictures of my family. My husband at the building where he works, getting into his car. And pictures of my son at his school. My son! Can you understand how frightening that is?”

  “Did he threaten them?”

  “He didn’t have to. He just stood there, holding the photos and looking at me with eyes that were just…cold. Empty and black, like a snake.”

  “Did he know about you and Josh? Or Josh and Julie?”

  “He must have known something. Why would he have shown up, otherwise? Why would he threaten me like that?”

  “So let me get this straight,” Max said. “You had no ties to this club or Gabe outside of Josh.”

  “Mr. Williamson, I’m a middle-aged housewife who went through some kind of midlife crisis or temporary insanity or whatever. I had a lapse in judgment and I did something unforgivable with your son. Believe me when I say that there’s not a day that goes by when I don’t hate myself for that. But I can’t change what happened and now I can’t seem to get away from it.”

  She took the glasses off and Max could see she’d been crying on the way over to the diner. “Do you want to know what I think happened?”

  “Of course.”

  “I think your son got caught up with a girl who was in way over her head with some very bad people.”

  “So you do think they had something to do with his death?”

  “I don’t know for sure, but it’s possible.” She cast a furtive glance out the diner’s front picture window. “You said you found a DVD. What did you mean by that?”

  Max relayed what he’d seen on the video. He watched Vanessa’s face register increasing levels of disgust as he recounted each detail of the scene. She seemed truly shocked.

  After Max had finished his account of the DVD, Vanessa sat silently for a few moments, processing the information. “What did you do with the DVD?”

  “It’s safe.”

  “You kept it?”

  “Of course I kept it. It’s evidence.”

  “If you get caught with that—”

  “I won’t.”

  “You need to take it straight to the police.” She thought for a moment on that. “But they’ll ask questions…”

  “I won’t tell them about you.”

  Vanessa nodded, but she seemed less than convinced that she’d be able to get out of this mess without being implicated. “What you found in that basement and that DVD…it sounds like one of those prostitution rings that you hear about on the news. Human trafficking.”

  Max agreed that it appeared so on the surface. “Clearly Gabe and this Caldwell person are involved in something for sure.”

  “Maybe Julie found out,” Vanessa said. “Maybe she knew something and they shut her up.” The realization set in fast. “Oh, god. What have I gotten myself into?”

  “You need to calm down and think this through,” Max said. “We both do.”

  “If Julie knew what Gabe and Caldwell were doing then Josh surely knew too. She would have told him.”

  “I think we can count on that.”

  “This person you said you talked to, the one who was concerned about Julie…how are they involved?”

  Max told Vanessa about his meeting with Ruby and the details of what they discussed in the car.

  “You shouldn’t get involved with anybody from that club,” Vanessa said. “You don’t know if you can trust her.”

  Max hadn’t considered that. “I think she’s on the up and up.”

  “You don’t know that for sure,” Vanessa said. “If she’s involved with them, maybe even a part of whatever they’re up to then you’re putting yourself at risk by sharing anything with her.”

  “Possibly. Or it’s possible she’s telling the truth.”

  “I hope she is,” Vanessa said. “If not, we’re both already dead.”

  * * *

  Max pulled into his driveway and parked, his thoughts given over to Ruby and the details of the conversations they’d had. Vanessa had planted the seed of doubt about her and now Max found he couldn’t stop the questions that were growing from it. He replayed the conversation they’d had after their first meeting in The Hustle’s parking lot, searching for any indication that he might be getting the runaround.

  Ruby had seemed genuinely concerned about her friend, but the more Max thought about it, the more possible it became that she might be hiding something. She’d been the one to make contact with him, letting herself into the car that night. However, she’d been forthcoming with information about Gabe and Julie.

  Unless, of course, she’d been lying. That could change everything.

  Max retrieved Josh’s letter from his pocket and read over it again as the engine cooled. Josh mentioned a cabin in his letter, but no one Max had spoken to thus far had said anything about a cabin. And, according to the letter, Josh had been convinced that Gabe knew about this cabin and two other things: the girls and the money.

  The girls…more girls like Amanda? Could Vanessa be right about Gabe and Caldwell? Were they running some sort of human trafficking ring? But Gabe had gone to that flophouse with the awful basement, so wouldn’t he already know about “the girls”? In that scenario, what Josh said in his letter didn’t make sense. Were there other girls, girls that Gabe didn’t know about?

  And the money…Max could only speculate.

  Gabe Harris and a man named Caldwell had both been perceived by Josh as threats. It seemed the next logical step should be shining a spotlight on these two men, something beyond Max’s power. The police needed to get involved for that to happen and the DVD could be the catalyst for that. He’d take it to the cops right away and tell them everything he knew. Then he’d be rid of it. He was getting in over his head now; better to involve the pros and bow out before he screwed things up.

  Max got out of the car and headed toward the door.

  He froze when he found the lock busted and the door ajar.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Max opened the door slowly, his heart pounding as adrenaline flooded his system. Butterflies fluttered in his stomach and he swallowed hard. Something told him not to open the door, to just turn around and walk out. To go to the police and tell them everything now, while he still could.

  But he had a sneaking suspicion. He had to know.

  He stepped inside the house and found it had been thoroughly tossed. The recliner had been turned upside down, the couch cushions had been removed for someone to search beneath them. Every drawer in the kitchen had been opened, their contents rifled through.

  Bypassing the mess in the living room, Max stepped slowly and carefully toward the master
bedroom. Alarm bells rang in his head telling him again to leave, that the person or people who did this were very likely waiting inside for him, but he ignored them.

  Again, he had to know.

  Max stepped into the bedroom and looked around. The bed had been stripped, the mattress removed and leaned up against the wall. The closet door stood open, the contents spilling out and into the room. Shoeboxes opened, clothes torn from the rack and tossed carelessly onto the floor.

  He turned to the dresser. It sat against the wall, the drawers open, the clothes inside removed and tossed to the floor. Max walked toward it, feeling a sense of dread wash over him. At the dresser, he knelt down and reached behind it, feeling for the DVD.

  It wasn’t there.

  Max pulled the dresser away from the wall in order to get a look behind it and his eyes confirmed what his fingers had already told him. The disc was gone, taken by whoever tossed the house.

  Max’s heart ratcheted up a notch, beating harder than before. He turned, expecting to see someone there in the room with him, probably with a gun. He wondered if he’d feel it when they put a bullet in him and left him lying on the floor of his bedroom in a pool of his own blood.

  But the room was empty as he stood there, thoughts racing and head buzzing from the shock of it all.

  He had to get out of the house right away. He couldn’t stay there. He left the bedroom, still half-expecting to find someone waiting for him elsewhere in the house.

  But the house proved empty; violated, but empty.

  Max went to Josh’s room and found the door open and the contents scattered about. Anger surged inside him as he looked upon Josh’s bed, the sheets stripped off and the mattress lying on its side. Whoever did this had disturbed the sheets Josh had made up the day he’d died. They’d ruined everything, Max found as he looked around the room. Max had left everything as Josh had left it and now it was all destroyed.

  He glanced at Josh’s desk and found they’d taken his son’s laptop as well.

  He left the room quickly and retrieved a duffel bag from his closet. He stuffed it with some of the clothes that had been tossed onto the floor and slung the bag over his shoulder before grabbing his laptop and power cord on the way out to his car. He threw the items into the back seat, glancing furtively around for the perpetrators to arrive.

  Seeing no one, he slid in behind the wheel and started the car. He shifted the transmission into reverse and paused, foot on the brake. Where would he go? He had his credit cards; he could get a hotel room for now, until he had time to think. Time to figure out what to do next.

  He took his foot off the brake and allowed the car to drift backward down the driveway and into the subdivision street. He shifted into drive and pulled forward. As he did his phone buzzed in his pocket, the text tone chiming softly. He retrieved the phone, unlocking it and staring at the screen. There he saw an unknown phone number and a single sentence:

  They’re following you

  Chapter Nineteen

  Max nearly dropped the phone as he read the words on the screen. Questions lined up for roll call in his mind, sounding off one by one. Who sent the text? Who ransacked his house? Who took Amanda’s DVD?

  He wasn’t sure, but the last four digits of the number looked familiar. The same person who texted him in the basement of that flophouse? Possibly. But he didn’t have time to check now.

  Now, someone might be following him.

  Max glanced in the rearview at the street behind him. A small, red Camry trailed a reasonable distance behind. Max had no idea, however, if the car was following him. And how could he? What had he expected to see, another black Lincoln Towncar bearing down upon him? He supposed that’s exactly what he expected. Truth was, he couldn’t assume anything anymore.

  The Camry pulled off after a mile, leaving Max to the two-lane road on which he now traveled. He found himself continually glancing behind, his eyes now locked on a black Nissan Altima. Did Russian human traffickers typically drive Nissans? Did they typically drive Lincoln Towncars? What in the hell constituted typical with people like this?

  Max didn’t know the answers to any of those questions. He’d never before felt so out of his element, so in over his head. His mind kept going back to that severed rope in the garage, the cut that looked a little too clean to be accidental. He’d hit a nerve with someone; that much he knew for certain.

  Max held the phone in his hand, waiting for another text as he drove with the other hand on the wheel. The black Nissan remained behind him, but its driver seemed to have little interest in keeping close. He’d drop off for a while and then reappear. If Max hadn’t known to look for it, he’d never noticed the car in the first place.

  Maybe that’s the way these guys did it; follow behind so lackadaisically that the act of being followed went completely unnoticed by the target. It made sense.

  He continued to drive until the Nissan pulled off, but Max didn’t know if he’d shaken his tail or if the tail had even existed at all. He didn’t receive a follow-up text from the mystery texter, but a quick scan of his call history confirmed that the person who texted him outside his house was indeed the person who texted him in the flophouse basement. Someone was following him, but he began to wonder if that person might very well be the same one texting him.

  After another few miles of driving in circles, Max decided to hole up for the evening. He seemed fairly certain he hadn’t been tailed, but not certain at all as to who might be contacting him and whether or not they could be trusted.

  After another few miles, the brightly lit sign of a Best Western came into view. He welcomed it. He was going to need some time to think things through. As he pulled into the hotel parking lot he felt the phone buzz in his hand, the twinkly little text tone echoing inside the car. He glanced at the screen.

  Ruby.

  Max got out of the car, grabbed the duffel bag and made his way to the front desk, the phone with the waiting text message tucked into his front pocket.

  Chapter Twenty

  Max got a room for a reasonable rate and carried the bag there. He locked the door behind him and then thought better of it, propping up a desk chair against the handle. It felt like a paranoid thing to do, but considering the current state of his house it didn’t seem so far-fetched.

  He still hadn’t read Ruby’s message, so he kicked off his shoes and laid down on the bed with his phone. He unlocked it and opened the text.

  Can u talk?

  Max thought about his response. Vanessa’s seed of doubt was quickly growing.

  Yes, he replied.

  Where are u?

  Why would she want to know where he was? Was that a normal question or was it suspicious?

  Out, he typed.

  Good. Can u meet me?

  Why?

  ???

  Max paused. Maybe he’d pissed her off. He moved his thumbs to type a response when another came through.

  Because I have info, thats why

  He did piss her off. Did that mean she was telling the truth? Incredulous for real?

  He tried to smooth it over. Ok, sorry. Just being careful.

  Good idea, Ruby replied. Theres a dennys a mile or so from the club. Meet me there at 6 k?

  Max read the words, considering his next move. He didn’t actively distrust Ruby, so he decided to meet. He wouldn’t tell her about how he’d found the house or that he was in a hotel now. And not about the missing DVD. Better to keep that information close to the chest for now.

  Okay, he replied. Maybe it was his age, but Max didn’t use texting shorthand. Josh had, which seemed to drive Max nuts to no end. Now the memory just made him sad.

  Make sure you’re not followed, Max added.

  A pause then the response. Um, ok

  Max tossed the phone onto the bed and looked at the clock. It was nearly four-thirty. He had maybe a half-hour before he needed to leave, so he decided to spend it thinking of what to do next.

  He had a sinking feelin
g it wouldn’t be nearly enough time to sort things out.

  * * *

  Ruby showed up ten minutes early. In the light of day he could see that she was prettier than he originally thought she was. He wasn’t even sure why that mattered; the male species seemed to never stop considering that kind of thing as important. He made a mental note to himself to remember that when he began to trust a pretty girl too much. He wouldn’t be the first man in history to get taken down by a pretty face.

  She sat across the table from him and a waitress showed up right on Ruby’s heels; a chubby thing with thick fat gathering around the eyes and a weak double chin. Ruby ordered coffee and toast with butter. Max said he was fine.

  The waitress headed off for the grill and Ruby got started. “You have any luck with those pics I sent over Thursday night?”

  Max thought of his answer but held it. Instead, he asked a question. “You didn’t give my number to anyone else did you?”

  Ruby looked incredulous. She shook her head. “No. Why would I do that?”

  Max studied her face. Her response had been that of surprise, he felt confident at that. The problem was that Max didn’t know if she was surprised because he’d suggest such an untrue thing or because she knew he was on to her.

  Either way, she now knew he was suspicious of her. He could see it in her eyes. “I’ve just been getting some weird texts, is all,” Max said.

  “No, I wouldn’t give your number to anyone. And I keep my phone with me all the time.”

  “Does it have a passcode set?”

  “Yes, and it has the fingerprint thingy.”

  Max nodded. “We just need to be careful.”

  “What did the texts say?”

  Max ignored her question and returned with one of his own. “What do you know about Gabe? I mean, what do you really know about what he does outside of work?”

  “Not much.”

  “Where does he go? Does he have another job? Maybe he runs another business on the side?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Who owns The Hustle?”