“Stay cool, Simone,” she told herself. She had watched enough true crime shows to know that it was the people who stayed calm and used their brains who had a better chance of getting out alive.
She listened at the door. What sounds was she hearing? A distant banging, she thought. And something that sounded like the thrumming of a loud machine. Or maybe a freeway. Had she been brought to a storage unit facility? She heard that criminals sometimes used them. But why? Was this about Suda? Or was this a fluke because she was out alone and someone grabbed her for the money. But then why take her somewhere? Her heart raced. If she was going to die, she hoped it would be quick.
“Stop it,” she whispered. “Be strong. Figure it out.”
Think about what you know, she thought and then mentally listed the little she could glean from her exploration of the space. It was ridged. It was metal. What else? It was cold. And then Simone stopped—her mind refusing to acknowledge what she suddenly but certainly understood.
She was in a shipping container and the door was sealed from the outside. A ship’s horn blared from afar as if to confirm her realization.
“No!”
She banged on the side and yelled for help. She hit the side wall over and over until her palm felt like it was on fire with pain and she couldn’t take it any longer. Her shoulder pain intensified as her body jarred with each blow of the door with her good hand.
What time was it, she wondered. How long had she been there?
She tried to discern the noise in the distance, but she couldn’t tell what it was. Machinery maybe? She wasn’t sure. Was she at the docks? The cold realization that she could be anywhere hit her. Perhaps she was on a ship and wouldn’t be found until she arrived at another port, dead. No, she told herself. She would be able to feel the motion if she were on a ship and took small consolation from that. She tried not to panic, but terror sliced through her like a dull hatchet working the trunk of a tree.
She felt dizzy and lay back down, but the cold metal chilled her. She switched to her side and tucked her knees up for warmth. Her teeth began to chatter, but she couldn’t tell if it was from her body temperature lowering or from the fear coursing through her. Maybe it was already evening. Maybe she’d been gone for a while. She got back to her feet and, crouching, methodically felt around the floor again in case she missed anything. In the corner, her hands found a bucket, and the thought of Chai’s description of Suda trying to throw the bucket of waste at him flashed across her mind. How had it come to this? Now she was in a shipping container and would soon need to use the bucket. She was both horrified at the thought and relieved that there was at least a bucket inside to use. But there was no water and no food. She wondered whether that meant that she would be moved quickly or simply left to die.
She tried to remember what had happened, but her mind was blank. One minute she was walking to the bank, and the next she was locked inside this cage with a fierce headache, a back that felt bruised and battered; a shoulder that felt broken. Had she been dragged to a car? Was it Aanwat? It must have been, but why would he grab her instead of Suda?
She tried to think. When she didn’t come back from the bank and the farmers market, it would be noticed. Claire would have told Grace, and Grace would have called Chai. Chai would get help. She would be all right, she told herself, and tried to do some deep breathing.
“Help me; help me,” she implored God. They would find her. She had to believe that.
She sat with her back to the wall to think. The more she thought about it, the more sure she felt that this had to be about Suda. The question was whether her assailant was Aanwat or whether somehow Chai’s cover had been blown and they had come for all of them. But again, why? Were others hurt? Were they in nearby shipping containers at that moment? Or was she wrong, and it was just some random psychopath? Not knowing was more torturous than the pain. She hadn’t been there to protect them. That was the most important part of her job, and she’d failed. Were they fighting for their lives? Were they being whisked away never to be heard from again? She felt useless and angry. She tried to remember how long people live without water and recalled three days was the limit. Would she still be locked in here in three days?
She was grateful she’d dressed warmly against the foggy morning chill—but even with a sweater and jacket, she was cold. She wrapped her good arm protectively over her left arm, which she’d tucked across her stomach to try to keep it immobilized. And she prayed. She asked for help. She wished she’d been better about memorizing Bible verses, so she had something to get her through this moment, but she’d never been good about that. She tried to focus. She thought about God saving Daniel from the lions, but then again, Stephen was stoned to death, so this situation could go either way. She decided to just pray for peace and remember that, no matter what happened, God would be with her the whole way.
Aanwat
Aanwat had bolted the door, sealing Simone in not long before she regained consciousness. He leaned his back against the shipping container’s outer wall. He was breathing hard; his heart racing. He was sweating profusely in spite of the chill air and had to bend over, hands on knees, to ward off nausea.
Simone was as tall as he was and probably weighed more, so getting her in and out of the car had been a struggle. It had taken all his strength to pick her up and hoist her onto the back seat. He’d then had to shove her farther in and tuck her legs up so he could close the car door. Once she was in, he went around to the other side, opened the door nearest her head, and tied her wrists together in case she came to while they were driving. But, to his surprise, she was still out cold twenty minutes later when they arrived at the very end of the dock, the most deserted section he could find, where the freight containers were loaded and unloaded at the Port of San Francisco.
Once there, he’d opened the car door and tried to lift her out, but he didn’t have the strength. He stood up and frowned as he peered into the car and contemplated his next move. He tried lifting her one more time by sliding his hands behind her back and pressing upward. He grunted, but got her only a couple of inches off the back seat. Her body was annoyingly floppy. He scratched his head, thought about his options, and then took her by the bound arms and pulled. She thumped to the ground harder than he’d intended, and he cringed at the sound he was sure was the snap of a bone when her body hit the cement. At that moment, he was grateful she was unconscious, but the fact that the pain didn’t wake her shook him. He’d never hit anyone at all, let along hit someone on the temple with a gun. He’d been afraid one blow wouldn’t be sufficient, so he’d put all his strength into it. He realized now, maybe that had been too much, given that guns are surprisingly substantial.
To get her into the container, he’d again pulled her, this time by the legs, taking care to be as gentle as possible with her head as her body bumped over the transom and across the floor until she was all the way inside. The woman was breathing when he left her, he told himself. She would be fine. People hit their heads all the time and didn’t die. Besides, he could do nothing to help her now. He’d had to do it, he told himself, because she was somehow connected to Tea, and he couldn’t risk having her at the bakery when he went in. He would just have to keep going and hope the rest of the plan worked.
The important thing was that he needed to get her away from Suda, and he had done it! And, he’d been lucky. As far as he knew, the only person who saw him was a vagrant, and he hoped that even if the guy reported it, the police would be skeptical if they believed him at all.
Having never planned a kidnapping before, he was pleased with how things were progressing. Next on his list was grabbing Suda, and then finally, he would get that smug annoying thug, Tea. He would especially relish that. He wished he could get to him first, but he wasn’t sure where he would be until later that afternoon, and he wanted to get to Suda soon, before anyone realized something had happened to the bakery woman and becam
e suspicious. The trickier part was how he was going to get Tea, given that he was always on alert, but he had a solid idea of how he would do it. He just hoped it worked because that guy was big and terrifying. If it did work, though … Aanwat smiled at the thought.
His eyes darted furtively around him before he moved away from the container and back toward the car. His hands shook as he opened the car door and got back behind the wheel—adrenalin still coursing through his body.
Claire
Claire ran her finger across the screen of her phone as she scrolled through Craigslist looking at apartments in San Francisco. Everything was so expensive; she couldn’t imagine being able to afford anything, but it was nice to imagine for a while that she could someday live in one of the light-filled apartments in the Marina with bay windows and built-ins. She would paint everything a clean, breezy white. She would walk along Chestnut Street with all the rich people and along the walking path with the view of the Golden Gate Bridge.
She sighed and put down her phone, allowing the present to intrude on her reverie. The dingy, beige, threadbare apartment she had shared with her mother had bordered the Tenderloin and had been about as far away as a person could get from the architectural beauty of the houses she dreamed of. She loved living in Hope House—the windows were large, and the old Victorian definitely had charm with its odd hodgepodge of industrial and comfortable farmhouse style—but it wasn’t, and would never be, her own. She was passing through on her way to somewhere. The problem was that she had no idea where to land. Where was she on her way to? She didn’t know.
Grace was always getting on her to go back and get her diploma, which she fully intended to do, but the thought of going to some dreary night school felt too bleak. She had to figure out another plan. Maybe there was some online school she could attend. That might be better. For now, she just kept her nose in a book, usually with her lanky, faded-jeans-clad legs curled up on the window seat in her bedroom, wrapped in a light blanket to ward off the chill. Her dark framed glasses on, baseball cap pulled low, or hair twisted into a messy blond bun on top of her head. It was her most peaceful place.
When the police had allowed her back into her apartment to gather her things after Nick had “fled the scene,” as she liked to think of it, she had boxed up all of her and her mom’s books and had unpacked them in her bedroom at Hope House.
Simone had taken pity on her piles and stacks of teetering books and had picked up two used bookshelves she’d found at a secondhand furniture shop to hold them. Together they had chosen a light powdery gray paint for the shelves, which anchored the colorful book spines. Still, they overflowed, and she had extra piles here and there, including a double-wide pile she used as a nightstand by her bed. It gave her comfort. And she sometimes felt that at least she’d gotten something from Nick. After all, she and her mother had bought most of their books with the account Nick had foolishly opened for them at the bookstore before everything turned to shit.
She shook her head thinking about it. He had no idea how much damage two serious booklovers could do in a short time. At least she had her mom’s books to remember who she was deep down. Of who she could have been if she’d never started drinking and taking pills. It was a cautionary tale. She felt she was getting to know her mother a little bit better from the books she had chosen, and she felt a link to her when she opened the covers and immersed herself in the stories. Her mother definitely loved mysteries and thrillers. Claire pretty much liked any good book with a smart heroine who knew how to handle herself in a sticky situation.
She especially loved the book Across the Nightingale Floor by Lian Hearn. In one satisfying scene, the heroine saves herself from being raped by jabbing a needle into the eye of her attacker. When Claire had read that scene, it had stopped her in her tracks. She wondered if she could have done that, even if she’d known to. It was both horrifying and empowering to think so.
She wondered what her mother would think of the attempts she’d been making lately at writing poetry. It made her sad that she had no idea. Still, they shared the love of reading, so maybe her mom would have liked poetry, too. Claire remembered that she often sang songs when Claire was little—usually badly and off key—but still. Claire recalled the song lyrics she had sung most often were the ones that told a story. Claire mused, probably of love betrayed.
Claire suddenly grabbed for a scrap of paper and a pencil and then scribbled the word preternaturally. She had no idea what it meant, but she had heard it somewhere and liked the sound of it. It sounded a little creepy to her ear. Next she reached for her phone and opened the dictionary app and keyed in the same word. Beyond what is normal was the definition that came up. Claire snorted. That was certainly fitting for her life.
She had a poster on her wall of a colorful Matisse print she often stared at while she daydreamed. She desperately wanted to go to France so she could see the world Matisse, Picasso and the Lost Generation of writers had lived in. She loved the beauty and color of Matisse’s art, but felt more as if she were trapped in a world created by Salvador Dali.
Hope Bakery had been unusually quiet in the morning but had picked up as lunch approached. She’d expected Simone back already, but since she was nowhere to be found, she called up to Grace for some help, only to find that she was out with Hailey at a therapy session. Claire was happy Hailey had started back toward recovery. She was in a more restricted home for now, but maybe someday she could come back to Hope House.
Claire sighed in frustration as the line for service grew, but there was no way she was going to let Suda come up front, so—annoyed—she determined to get the job done on her own.
She tried to keep up with business and at the same time contemplated this Aanwat character who had come into the store to look for Suda. She wondered how he compared to Nick. Had he hit her? Beaten her into submission as Nick had done with her? Had he forced her to have sex with him as Nick had taken to doing to Claire when he was drunk or in an especially foul mood? Claire had learned to ignore her body during those times, fixing her mind somewhere else, often running through math equations until it was over. (x + 5) / 4 = (x - 3) / 2, 4(x -3) - 3(x + 2) = 5 + 2(x + 2). Over and over to push away her reality. She tried never to think about her favorite words, or about books she loved, when that was her reality because she didn’t want to taint her favorite things by mixing them in her mind with what was happening to her body. Instead she stuck with numbers: they were utilitarian, necessary even, but not beautiful.
She wouldn’t let Suda be subjected to being prostituted again, just as she wouldn’t allow herself to. “Solidarity,” she told herself. It had been one of her favorite vocabulary words as a kid. That and pandemonium. She had no idea why she had especially liked those particular words, but she had. Something about the cadence of them. She had learned both words in third grade—Mrs. West’s class. Back when things were easier, and her mother was alive. Back when being a hungry girl with an irresponsible mother was the biggest problem she had.
It was during the first lull in early afternoon that he came for Suda. Claire looked up from restocking the display case to find a gun trained on her chest and realized the knife she had folded in her pocket wasn’t going to provide the help she needed.
“Suda, run!” she screamed.
She heard footsteps running toward her and realized the error of her plan. Suda’s English wasn’t strong enough to understand that she was telling her to flee. Instead, she rushed up front to see what had happened to Claire and then stopped short at the sight of Aanwat.
“No!” Suda gasped, imploring him to leave her alone.
Aanwat yelled something Claire couldn’t understand, and gestured toward the door with his gun, making it clear to her that he wanted Suda to go with him.
“Don’t go,” Claire told Suda.
She looked from Aanwat to Suda and back. He was yelling at Suda, but still pointing the gun at her. Claire realiz
ed Aanwat couldn’t keep the gun trained on both of them and acted quickly—and in hindsight, recklessly—thinking she could hit the gun out of his hand. When he turned back to Suda, heart skipping a beat in her chest, Claire lunged across the counter.
The commotion startled Aanwat, and he jerked his head back toward Claire. His eyes bulged out in surprise, and before he realized what he was doing, Aanwat fired.
The bullet hit Claire in the thigh, and she screamed in pain as she hit the worn wooden floor hard.
“Fuck that hurts!” she yelled at him but wasn’t about to give up. She tried to stand but he walked to her and pointed the gun at her forehead.
“Do what I say if you want her to live,” Aanwat said in Thai, his calm voice chilling Claire in spite of her lack of understanding. Suda nodded. She believed he would kill Claire as he said, so she slowly walked toward the door when he gestured again in that direction. She wouldn’t be the cause of Claire’s death. She would go with him.
“You, too,” he said to Claire in English. In truth, he wasn’t willing to kill her, but he also wasn’t willing to let her stay to tell what happened. But he couldn’t let Suda knew that. If she thought he would kill her friend, he had leverage. So with them she would go. That way, he figured, he could point the gun at her head whenever Suda even hinted at resisting.
Claire gritted her teeth against the pain and tried to get up. Aanwat took her by the top of her arm and yanked her to her feet. Claire frantically looked around. Where was everyone when she needed them? Where were the customers? He made them go out the back door into the alley instead of out the main door. There were people down the street and others across the street, cars passed, but no one registered a problem. The three of them just looked like people getting into a car, and Claire was too afraid to scream for help, having already been shot once.
Across the Deep Page 19
