by Coulton, JC
I look a little closer at the corner where we’re parked. There are two tired-looking girls leaning against the wall. Neither of them are facing us. I’m about to tell Jason to keep driving when I notice something about the way one of them moves.
Is that? No it can’t be. My mind must be playing tricks on me. One of them looks like April. It’s not the April I know. It’s a skeleton; a shadow of the person I know, with the same bone structure as my friend.
Before I can speak, I’m out of the car, walking towards her. I don’t hear Jason jump out after me. I just need to look closer.
“April?” I say in a soft, trembling voice. “Is that you?”
Chapter Thirteen
Carrie
The girl who looks like April and moves like April, and who was once my best friend freezes at the bottom of the brownstone steps. We meet eyes and for a second I see a glimmer of recognition in her sunken face. Jason makes it to my side and pulls me away. His strong arms wrap around me before I get to say another word. He has me in the car and half way down the street before I know what’s happening.
I’m kicking at the locked car door now. “Let me out, now!” I scream.
He refuses and the look in his eyes instantly shuts me up. There’s something wild there. Something that makes me stop and think about what I’m doing. It’s an authority that puts me in my place. For now, it silences my struggle. I don’t know what I was doing getting out of the car like that. I could kick myself; instinct just took over.
“Shit! Did I just blow it?”
“I don’t know if she recognized you. I hope she didn’t because right now we need more time. Just because you’ve found her doesn’t mean you can take her back to the hotel, Carrie. Snap out of it. Neon owns her now. And we need to stop Neon. That’s how we end this longstanding criminal. We need Blake to connect Neon to April, understand? Removing her now won’t stop the problem, and we’re so close.”
I burst into tears. I’m sobbing and shaking uncontrollably. My best friend. My beautiful friend. I weep for her. For everything that’s happened and for the way she looks now. I’ve never seen her so thin and sick and vacant. It’s been less than two weeks, and she looks like a different woman. The desire to go running back there and grab her is overwhelming. I feel so powerless.
The tears keep coming and I feel Jason’s hands on me, stroking my hair and comforting me as I sob through my fingers. His hand comes to rest on my shoulder. I wish I had more to help to make the pain go away. We say nothing for a moment and I hold myself gently during this most recent meltdown.
I’m aware of everything awful that’s probably happened to April, but somehow, I feel it will be okay soon. There’s a plan in place. I trust this man’s team is going to make it happen. He must feel the change in me, because he releases my shoulder and smiles gently.
“Carrie I need you to be brave. Can you do that?”
I can’t speak, but I nod my head. He takes a moment to tuck a strand of lose hair back behind my ear. It’s the gesture that counts—one human restoring the façade of another. Maybe there’s more to this man than I think there is; who knows.
“I’m going to take you to a café up the street to wait while we monitor the area for Blake. Most of her thugs have left the area, so you’ll be fine in there. You’ve done your part. It’s essential we keep you out of danger now. I still need you to be aware of your surroundings, but I’ll be back to get you within a half-hour. Will you be okay?”
I nod again and he drives about a hundred feet down the road. He lets me off and waits for me to find a spot inside. I pick a table where I can just make out April through the front window. I watch her carefully from the distance. It breaks my heart to see her walk up to a car window, attempt to negotiate a trick and get rejected. There was a time when every man in our home town wanted to date that woman. Now she’s a shell of her former self, and the scum of the earth don’t want her.
I try to put aside my own feelings. The way to help April is to wait.
Jason must have decided to go back on foot. I see him walk from the side of the café and make his way up to the other corner, past April. I would never have guessed it was him under that disguise, but his butt still looks the same when he walks—lean and powerful.
It’s warm here in the café. The clerk must think the same thing. She walks over to the front door and props it open with two door wedges. It makes no difference. I get up and buy a bottled water from her, and go back to my seat to watch. Nothing much seems to be happening. A few cars cruise past, and another girl comes down the brownstone steps and picks up a job. She nods at April and gets into the car.
April’s body language tenses and she shrinks back into the brick wall. I look around the surrounding area. There are a few parked cars, an abandoned apartment complex, and a Laundromat that’s open. If someone wanted to attack her they could, but there must be someone bigger and tougher watching her. Today, she has Neon’s thugs and at least two of the FBI team. The locals probably wouldn’t dare mess with Neon’s girls.
I sit back for a second and wonder what I’d do if she were attacked again. I don’t think I could restrain myself. I’d have to do something. This whole thing makes me want to throw up. I sigh and lean forward, resting my head in my hands. My gut wrenches to tell me none if this is okay.
A faint voice filters through the front door of the café. It gets closer. My head’s in my hands, but I’m listening. It’s someone talking loudly on a cell phone as they walk down the street outside. I close my eyes to listen for a while, and I’m about to tune out when something the person says makes me look up. The voice is familiar. I squint through the coming darkness, peering out to see who it is.
I immediately duck my head back down in my hands. It’s Neon. She’s right there! OMG! Any second now, Jason is going to walk back from the where he is, and possibly get seen. There’s nothing I can do, but hide my face and sneak a peek through my fingers.
She looks exactly like the pictures Jason showed me back at the field office. Her lipstick is bright orange. I figure it must be her trademark. Her skin is pale and sickly. Her hair is jet black. It’s literally midnight black. She’s bone thin—so leathery and tiny. The woman must have to buy her clothes from the children’s department. I don’t know of any store sells that sort of street clothes to kids, though!
With her high heels and long straightened hair, she reminds me of a cross between Elvira and a Pit bull. There’s something rabid about the way her mouth forms around the words that are spewing into the phone. I am repelled and equally fascinated.
I keep my head down and listen to her finish her conversation. She had a deep, throaty voice. She is unmistakably the same person who phoned the other day to warn me off Blake. She may have told me to mind my own business, but I didn’t listen. And now she’s busted. I know it with a hundred percent certainty now. This must mean she’s the one who has April. My heart drops in my chest. I assume it also means she’s got Blake.
Two things happen as I watch the scene unfold. First, Jason exits the store but walks the other way to come around the block. Next, Neon stops beside April, hangs up the phone and starts saying something that doesn’t look friendly. Is April in trouble for something? It looks like it. I can’t hear what’s happening anymore.
Jason pulls up in front the café and waves for me to get back into the car.
“Look who’s here!”
“I know, I saw her on the way out, it’s rare for her to be out on the street like this, it means she got word of your mini-investigation from Blake or someone from her crew.”
“Can’t your team arrest her now?”
“No, Neon will be checking in on earnings for the night. We need to see her taking money from April, or giving April drugs. There has to be a transaction.”
I gulp a little at that. This is worse than I thought. Why can’t they just arrest her and get April away? Why does April still have to be a pawn? Anger comes over me. It kills me. They expec
t me to leave her here so they can catch Neon?
“There has to be more we can do.”
“We can’t. We have to wait.”
“I can’t believe this. We can’t leave her here if Neon doesn’t engage in a transaction. That’s just—well it’s crazy. Is there anything we can do at all?”
Jason shakes his head and then reaches up to touch his ear. He’s also wired and starts talking directly to someone on his team. I can’t hear what they’re saying, but his eyes dart to me and anxiety rises in my gut.
I look back at the street and instantly understand. His team was alerting him that Sergeant Blake Anderson is on site. More than on site; he’s here. He saunters around the corner and joins Neon in a blatantly intimate conversation.
Their body language is close. She’s angry at him for something, and he takes her repulsive verbal abuse. The man is clearly pussy-whipped, and pays not an ounce of attention to the victim of the crime standing right next to his girlfriend.
I turn away and throw up in my mouth a little at what it all means. The bile is bitter on my tongue and I manage to swallow it back down without vomiting all over Jason’s lap. The betrayal is physical, gut wrenching. This isn’t my heart breaking; it’s the insides of my gut burning and clenching in pain. I can’t look again. I don’t want to see the lies play out in front of me. I also can’t help myself.
Blake has obviously come from our earlier meeting. He’s gone from telling me to trust him to the vipers’ nest he’s been trying to hide from me. I wish I knew what he was saying to Neon. Just the fact he’s here means he knows about April. He’s probably known the whole time.
I wish I had a camera. If I did, I would pull it out and take photos. I’m sure Jason has someone from his team doing video surveillance, but I would capture the closeness of their body language, and the way April shrinks in the background. My shutter would be clicking multiple times to capture the contrast between his healthy brown skin and her pale, pasty body.
I would get a close-up of the cold sore on April’s lips and the way she’s scratching her arms and neck. Her breast jiggle visibly with every flick of the scratch in the tacky red moneymaker style dress she’s wearing. The camera would also put some much-needed emotional distance between us. I want to know what’s going on for personal reasons, but I would also capture every detail for the story later.
There’s no way that slimy bastard Blake is going to get away with this. I want them to take his badge, and throw his corrupt two-faced ass in jail. I would make the exposé with a personal edge. I’m already picturing the big and bold title on our website. A warmth settles over me. I’m going to save my friend, and happily nail him to the wall. It’s time to end my sorry-ass hang-up with Blake, and remove him from my life for good.
“It’s time to take you back to the hotel,” Jason says. “My team will keep watch until I get back later this evening.”
“Will you get April out of there?”
“Leave it with us. We’ll do what we can.”
I’m so sick of watching, I nod. I just want to get out of here. He starts the car. He speaks to one of the FBI team members stationed nearby over his headset, and we pull off without a word. Now is the time for me to get my story down, and document every piece of evidence against the man I love. After it’s done with, I can work out my next moves, and process this anger.
“This is a coming to a positive good resolution, Carrie. I know it doesn’t feel great yet, but we’ve made more progress bringing Detective Anderson down than we could have ever hoped.”
There’s something about the way he says it that puts me on edge. He’s so satisfied, yet April is still someone’s street-walking slave. I press my hands on the dashboard.
“Is this about April at all?”
“Carrie, you’re angry, it’s okay. Be angry. Be angry at me, be angry at the world but don’t mistake my desire for justice as anything but that. I’m here to help you get your friend back. I’ll get you to your hotel and if you want, we can talk after you calm down. And you can ask me anything you want.”
I’m not sure whether it’s his calm tone that cracks me, or the words I just spewed out. Or maybe it’s the sheer pressure of everything that’s happened. I slump down in my seat, look out the window and try to stop the tears from falling. Just minutes ago I was angry as hell, and now I feel like nothing is ever going to be ok again. The reality of it all is too much to bear, so I close my eyes.
“Carrie, it’s going to be okay. I’ve got you. Just rest up. We’re nearly there.”
Chapter Fourteen
Carrie
We drive back to my hotel without saying another word. I like that—he respects me enough to offer silence. There’s nothing to say. I’ve just found out that the man I thought may be my Mr. Forever is in fact a liar and a criminal. What is there to say in this situation? Nothing; that is the answer. No words, only time will heal this feeling. Time and work.
I clearly need to reassess myself. The way I judge men is and has always been flawed. Either that or I’m a fool. There’s one good thing about the operation. They have plenty of video footage. Blake is not getting away with any of this, and the FBI team is still in New Jersey watching the action.
There’s a horrible feeling at the pit of my stomach about his demise, and an elephant in the room about the lack of resolution with April. Still, I feel closer to the end. I just wish we hadn’t left April behind.
A part of me is relieved we left the depression of those slums. I needed to be gone from it and for an unknown reason, I’m glad it’s with this man. I look over at Jason. He’s calm and confident, driving with one hand on the wheel and the other relaxed on his lap. Occasionally, he looks over at me as if I’m going to explode. The grenade that is Carrie James. How much betrayal can she take?
I look out the window and watch the city go by, the streets look busy today. People doing their thing, being busy, being flawed, being human. It’s not like I’d be the perfect girlfriend, but at least I’m mostly honest. I feel a sense of moral outrage—that’s what it is.
More than anything, I feel Blake did me wrong. I feel righteous, like he has broken the rules of my already busted-up heart. I want to set him straight and make everything ok again. But I won’t. I’m done with him. This sort of deception needs more than the ego boost of telling him off.
He must be telepathic—my phone rings and it’s him. Crazy, fucked-up bastard, I wonder what line he’s going to feed me now.
“Blake.”
“Carrie, where are you?”
“I’m driving. I need to ask a really big favor of you.”
“Sure.”
He agrees without hesitation, and I realize he has no idea that I’ve seen him with Neon or how angry I am.
“I need you to hang up the phone and never call me again. Do you hear me? Never.”
There’s silence on his end. I think I’ve been clear enough so I hang up before he can respond. It feels good. I left him no chance to argue. I’m done listening to his excuses. I don’t care what history we have. Enough is enough.
We arrive back at the hotel. Jason is careful as he ushers me out of the car. I just want to get into my bed and disappear, but I’m starving hungry too.
“I’ve got a food order reserved already,” I say, gesturing at the restaurant on the second floor of the lobby.
“Do you want me to come with you?”
“Not really.”
He nods and tells me he understands before showing me to the elevator. I am mesmerized by the lights as we move up the floors. He grasps my shoulder gently when the doors open, to let me know I’ve arrived on my floor. I pretty much stagger down the hallway beside him—it feels that way, but the mirror I pass tells me I look completely normal.
He makes sure I am safely in my room. Suddenly, I don’t want to be alone.
“Will you have dinner with me?” I ask.
“I have to get back to my team. Once we have what we need, I’ll be back to ch
eck in on you. I’ve got you covered, okay?”
His kindness is a relief. I need it right now. I need to feel like someone cares.
He leaves and I lean against the wall beside my room door. I can’t believe how sore my legs are. The exhaustion is overwhelming. So much has happened today. Now I’m alone in my room with my thoughts.
I climb into the bed with all my clothes on. I need a shower and a good night’s sleep, but I need to eat more. Instead, I close my eyes and wait for room service to knock at my door. When I hear it, I get up to answer it. I’m ridiculously pleased to see it’s Jason who’s arrived. His disguise is now gone, and he’s carrying cheeseburgers and cokes. Thank God!
“Change of plans with going back to your team?” I ask as he sets down the food on the small table.
“Blake stormed off and Neon left without taking anything from April. The team will keep up the surveillance and see how the night progresses.”
I’m so disappointed. I can barely eat. He assures me they’ll keep monitoring April, now that they know where she is. It’s a small comfort, but it helps me to relax.
He sits in the chair across the room. I take a seat at the edge of the bed with my food. I spread some napkins in front of me so I don’t seem like such a savage, but I don’t pay another moment of attention to him or anything until at least half of it is in my tummy. This kind of activity can really work up an appetite!
There’s no need for talk. I do glance up occasionally to see what he’s doing. I’m disappointed when he doesn’t meet my eyes. Already I want his affirmation, but he seems to be fixated on something out the window. It’s dark now, and the city is alive below us.
“How are you feeling, Carrie?”
“Full,” I say.
It’s true. I’ve eaten and now my stomach, eyes, mind, heart and soul have had enough of everything.
We remain in a compatible silence for a while.
