I returned the keys to Emily in the kitchen, where the kids were lined up on the bar stools of the island counter to eat their lunch.
“Did you find anything?” she asked.
“Nope.” I sighed. “Thanks though. I should go. I promised my aunt that I’d visit her today.”
Emily deftly wrapped the spare sandwich in plastic and handed it over the counter. “Take this. You look like you need it. And tell Ani I said I hope she’s doing well.”
“I’ll let her know. Take care, Emily.”
For once, Aunt Ani had ventured out of her private room at the assisted living facility. While the rest of the residents had retired inside to take shelter from the rain, I found my aunt on the massive back porch of the resort-style building, staring up at the steady rain from the relative comfort of a wheelchair. A nurse’s aide lingered nearby, far enough away to give Ani her privacy but close enough to respond in case of emergency. For a minute or two, I studied my aunt from afar. Like always, she made barely any movements, stiller that the statue of death from that morning’s postcard.
Finally, I drew up one of the wicker outdoor chairs to sit beside her. “Hi, Ani. I brought you the Sunday paper. Thought you might like to read the comics.”
Gently, I set the newspaper down in her lap, along with two pens. The nurse’s aide glanced over the top of her magazine then returned her attention to whatever article she was reading.
“Can we talk?” I murmured, uncapping one of the pens.
At a glacial pace, Ani’s fingers clasped the other pen. She drew the newspaper toward her, hunched over it, and circled two letters. Hi.
“Hi,” I whispered back.
She tapped the newspaper, a silent instruction. I leaned over her chair and began circling my own set of letters. I can see and hear Holly.
Ani’s blue eyes, identical to my mother’s, widened ever so slightly. Her pen chugged across the page. Where is she?
I don’t know, I wrote back. The connection isn’t good. That’s why I’m here. This happened to you too, didn’t it? With Mom?
Her pen hovered over the newspaper, uncertain.
“Please,” I whispered, glancing over my shoulder to check that the nurse’s aide was still ensconced in her magazine. “I don’t think you’re crazy.”
The pen settled against the paper. What do you need to know?
I scrawled hastily back. How do I find her when I need her?
Concentrate.
I tried that already.
Try harder. She’s weak. She can’t reach you as well.
I sighed, scratching my forehead with the end of the pen. I need more than that.
Ani set down her pen and pushed away the newspaper, returning her gaze to the steady drip of rainwater from the roof of the building.
“Ani, I know you’re scared,” I said softly. “I know that this is one of the reasons you got stuck in this place to begin with, but I need your help to find Holly—”
“All set, Annette?” The nurse’s aide, having finished her magazine, had snuck up behind us. She pried up the brakes from the wheels of the chair.
I swept the marked newspaper from Ani’s lap. “Actually, do you mind? We weren’t quite finished.”
The aide smiled apologetically. “I’m sorry. She’s been out here all morning. She’s late for lunch. You can join us if you like though.”
I looked at Ani. She gazed through me, her eyes vacant again. “No, that’s okay. Thank you.” I leaned down and brushed a kiss against my aunt’s cheek. “Bye, Aunt Ani. I’ll visit again when I can.”
Ani didn’t reply, and the aide rolled her away, boosting the wheelchair over the threshold of the facility with a practiced lift. I stepped off the porch, the newspaper tucked under my arm, and embraced the rain. Without further help from my aunt, there was nothing left to do but wait for the next postcard and hope that Holly found the strength to contact me again.
When the wind picked up and the rain started to blow sideways, there was only so much the umbrella could do. Eventually, it flipped inside out, so I fought down the spokes and folded it under my arm. Within minutes, I was soaked from head to toe, shuffling through puddles as thunder rumbled and lightning flashed overhead. By the time I made it back to the motel, I looked like a drowned, harassed rat. As I took refuge under the overhang, Grant stuck his head out of the reception office.
“I guess the umbrella didn’t work out too well for you, huh?” he asked.
I handed the bent device to him. “It broke.”
He grimaced, shaking out the excess rainwater. “I just wanted to let you know that I asked the manager about the security tapes. Turns out the camera in your hallway is busted.”
“Of course it is.”
Grant squinted up the tempestuous sky. “What can I say? That’s Belle Dame for you. We don’t usually need the security cameras. It’s not like people are cooking meth in the rooms here, you know?”
I squeezed water out of the end of my braid. “So there’s no footage from the last week at all? Do you know how long the camera has been down?”
“We have the video from your first day here,” Grant answered. “Or most of it anyway. From the looks of it, the camera died in the middle of that night.”
What a convenient coincidence. Whoever was dropping off the postcards had thought ahead. They knew I’d check for the security footage and disabled the cameras.
Grant caught my irritated expression. “I’m really sorry. We’re doing our best to fix it. Is there anything else I can help you out with?”
“No, Grant. Just let me know when the camera gets fixed, okay?”
“Will do.”
I left him to it and shuffled along the outdoor hallway, ready for a nap, but someone waited outside my room. Emmett leaned against the wall, his brow furrowed as he typed a message on his phone.
“Hey, stalker,” I greeted him.
He pushed himself upright and slipped the phone into his jeans. “Hey. Wow, you’re soaking wet.”
I swiped the keycard at the door and beckoned him inside. “It’s been a hell of a day.”
He followed me into the room, where I wasted no time in stripping off my dripping shirt. Emmett cleared his throat and averted his eyes. I was less bothered. He’d seen it all before. Of course, roughly ten years had passed since then, but I had never been uncomfortable in front of him.
“There’s soda and power bars in the mini fridge,” I called as I rinsed the gritty feel of rainwater off of my face in the bathroom. “If you want something.”
The fridge door squeaked, and I heard the pop-hiss of a soda can as Emmett helped himself. I grabbed a towel and joined him at the two-person table in the kitchenette. He sipped his soda while I wiped down my arms and back.
“Everything okay?” I asked, unraveling my braid to let my hair dry out. “I wasn’t expecting you to drop by.”
“Everything’s fine,” he said. “Well, it would be if Holly were here.”
The towel slipped out of my grasp and dropped to the floor. Emmett picked it up and placed in on my lap, his gaze lingering around my exposed abdomen.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t mean to keep reminding you about it.”
“No, I need to be reminded,” I assured him, pulling loose threads from the towel. “It keeps me going. Do you know what they say about missing children? That the first forty-eight hours are the most critical in terms of finding and returning a child to their home. I wasn’t even here for the first forty-eight hours after she disappeared. It’s been over a week, Emmett.”
“Hey.” He reached across the table, pried the towel out of my grasp, and took my hands in his own calloused ones. “Don’t give up yet. They’re going to find her.”
I rested my head against his shoulder. “She’s still alive. I can feel it.”
“Of course she is. Holly’s a fighter.”
He turned slightly, so that we fit more comfortably together, and nuzzled his chin against my wet hair. “You s
hould grab a shower before you catch pneumonia.”
“Emmett, it’s eighty-five degrees outside.”
“I don’t want you to get sick.”
I smiled into his shoulder. “You haven’t changed one bit, you know that? You’re still a goofball, still a muscle head, still a worrier.”
His fingers danced along my arm, tracing delicate patterns across my skin. “I like to think I’ve made some improvements.”
I closed my eyes, letting the rise and fall of Emmett’s chest lure me into a comforting doze. “I’m sure you have.”
“Hey, Bee?”
“Hmm.”
He stroked my hair, gently untangling the damp strands from one another. “I know you said yesterday that you’re focused on finding Holly, but I don’t think camping out in this crappy motel room is good for you. You should get out of here. I was thinking…There’s a really nice restaurant down the street from The Pit. Would you like to go for dinner there sometime? Maybe tomorrow night?”
I sank into a sleepy haze at the lullaby of Emmett’s deep voice. “I’ll think about it.”
5
Pawns
After a year of working for Fox, the abandoned resort that he ran his business out of—or L’hotel Douloureux as I referred to it in my head—began to reveal its secrets to me. With its wandering halls, high ceilings, and dusty gold accents, it wasn’t hard to see the once-extravagant lure of L’hotel Douloureux, but the girls in the corridors and common rooms wore sallow skin and vacant-eyed expressions, and the pained whimpers that echoed from behind locked doors served as a sick reminder of the hotel’s true nature. It was clever really. A crime in plain sight. The hotel rested just outside the Paris city limits. Were it not for the “fermé” signs posted all over the doors and windows, passersby might have stopped into the first floor cafe for a drink or booked a room in the luxuriously carpeted lobby.
The bath in Fox’s deluxe suite on the top floor was one of the only ones with hot water. One evening, after a particularly rough encounter with a high-paying client, I filled the tub to the brim, flicked the vanity lights off, and slid into the warm soapy haven. In the dim flicker of tea lights, the bruises—some fresh, some fading—were less noticeable. I dabbed gently at my skin with a cotton washcloth that I’d pilfered from the toppled stacks in the industrial laundry room downstairs and wiped away the fear and the anger and the shame. Or some of it anyway. At L’hotel Douloureux, my mind played host to a constant whir of thoughts. Disconnecting from reality was the simplest method of coping. It blurred my squalid existence into a haze of confusion. Every man who paid for “the key to paradise” wore the same face. Every encounter was a repeat of the first. It was easier to give up any semblance of mental presence than confront the inhumane conditions of Fox’s business.
I dreamt of simple things to keep myself running. Blooming roses on a bedside table in the pale sun of morning. A white glistening blanket of fresh snow to quiet the bustling noise of a big city. Secret tunnels in the basement that led to the other side of the world, where it might be possible to forget the atrocities committed between the fleur-de-lis wallpaper of L’hotel Douloureux. But the delusions never rescued me from my role in Fox’s king-sized bed every night.
The water rippled. I kept my eyes closed as another body lowered itself into the bath, spilling lavender-scented bubbles over the lip of the tub and onto the floor. Fox slid toward me, lifting my legs so that they rested on top of his, and wiped the soap from my arms to examine the skin underneath.
“Merde,” he muttered, running his fingers along the yellow and purple markings. “I keep telling them not to damage the product.”
“The product.” I drew my arm away from his touch and leaned against the warm porcelain. “Is that all I am to you?”
Fox lay back, his knees bending so that he could dip his head under the hot water. When he rose again, he whisked his dripping hair away from his face and flipped around to rest his weight on top of me. His lips brushed against my ear. “Of course not. You’re my favorite.”
I tilted my head away from him. “I need more.”
Fox drew back, annoyed. “More? What more could you want? You eat four-course meals every day and sleep in fresh sheets every night. You have the freedom to walk these halls whenever you please. The other girls here would kill to have the perks of your position.”
“If I’m your favorite, why do you rent me out to others?” I challenged.
Fox flicked bubbles from the tips of his long fingers. “Profit.”
I suppressed a shudder, but the tiniest shake sent wavelets across the surface of the bathwater. “If you truly cared for me, you would consider the things I want.”
He lifted a hand to stroke my cheek. “It would be unfair to the other girls if I were to give you special treatment. Everyone pulls their weight here.”
I fought against the heave of my stomach as I leaned closer to him, lowering my voice to a purr. “Surely there must be something else I can do. Some other way to contribute.”
Fox’s eyes drifted to my parted lips before he captured them in his own. “I suppose I have a few ideas.”
“What kind of ideas?” I whispered between kisses.
“We lost three girls today,” he said. My stomach dipped again. Lost was code for dead. And fewer girls in the hotel meant picking up the slack for the others. “We’re falling behind this month. Less girls, less money.”
“So we need more girls.”
“Hmm. See, the problem is that not so many of them are as trusting as you.” Fox smiled into the backhanded compliment. “These women don’t come willingly anymore.”
“How frustrating for you,” I drawled.
He either missed or chose to ignore the bite of my reply. “Quite. That’s where you come in.”
“Me? What am I supposed to do?”
Fox trailed his nose across my cheek and down my neck, where he lightly bit down. “All you have to do is make friends with the targets. After all, who would mistrust a beautiful girl like yourself?”
Realization dawned on me, and I jerked away from his touch. “You want to use me as bait?”
“More as a lure,” he replied. “It would be so easy for you. Those eyes—” He placed a kiss on each eyelid. “—that smile—” Another kiss on the lips. “Every girl wants a friend in the City of Lights. All I’m asking of you is to be that friend. Take them for espresso. Show them the sights. Share a baguette. Then bring them to the hotel.”
I squeezed his cheeks in one hand, forcing his face away from mine. “You’re asking me to condemn free and innocent women to this fate.”
He jerked out of my grasp. Then, quick as a switchblade, his fingers enclosed around my throat and pushed. With a gasp, I slipped beneath the water. Soapy residue clouded my vision as I grappled for purchase on the side of the tub. Fox held me fast, but lifted me ever-so-slightly, so that my mouth and eyes cleared the water.
“Don’t forget your place,” he snarled.
“Fox,” I coughed. “Please.”
He released me and climbed out of the tub, water pouring off of his skin. I sat up, gulping air as I massaged my throat.
“Think of this as a promotion.” He shook his head like a wet dog. The action soaked the exquisite bathroom, but Fox paid no mind. Later, one of the girls would clean up his mess for him. “You would be free from your obligations to the other customers, and I would have a reliable source of creating new income. We both get what we want. Do we have an accord?”
I wiped soap from my eyelashes. This was a lesson in vicious circles. If I did to others what Fox had done to me, I might not be able to live with myself. If I refused, I might not live at all. I glared up at the beautiful man in the bathroom doorway.
“Oui, monsieur.”
The third postcard—once again deposited to my room through the crack at the bottom of the motel door—boasted a picture of the Petite Ceinture, an abandoned railway line that circled the city of Paris. The stretch of vandaliz
ed concrete and the reach of overgrown greenery were familiar to me. The Petite Ceinture was home to one of the easiest entry points to the Paris Catacombs. I’d been there multiple times, procuring chattel for Fox’s business.
Accept Emmett’s invitation to dinner, Holly’s message read. Convince him that you’re falling for him.
A knock on the door jolted me out of my stupor. I peeked through the curtains. Mac waved through the window, so I flipped the jammer to let her in.
“Got your message.” She latched the door behind her. “What’s up?”
I raised the postcard. “Third one in three days.”
She pulled an evidence glove from the pocket of her uniform pants and used it to take the postcard from me. She read the back. “What does Emmett have to do with any of this?”
“They’re toying with me,” I told her. “First Bill, then Emily, and now Emmett. I get the feeling they’re setting me up to ruin every relationship I have in Belle Dame.”
She frowned, studying the postcard. “But why?”
“Revenge is the first thing that comes to my mind.”
“Okay, you gotta tell me what happened in Paris,” Mac said. “Whatever you did there can’t be that bad. Besides, we’re neck deep in this already. Any extra information that I can bring into the station—”
“No,” I said firmly. “They’ll kill Holly as soon as I get the cops involved.”
Mac gestured to the embroidered badge on the chest of her polo shirt. “Um, hello? The cops are involved, Bridget. If you know something—”
“It isn’t pertinent information.”
“In a kidnapping case, everything is pertinent information,” she shot back. “Do you want to find Holly alive or not? I hate to break it to you, but time is running out, and you don’t know who these people are or what they’re capable of. If you just let me run all of this by Officer Scott—”
Little Girl Lost: A Riveting Kidnapping Mystery- Book 1 Page 6
