Hart of Darkness

by S. B. Alexander

  “What makes you think she’s here?” I asked, even though I had an idea.

  He cocked his scruffy head, stumbling closer. “I followed her this morning.”

  Against my wishes, Angel, one of my guests, had gone back to her house to get some clothes. I’d counseled her that it wasn’t a good idea, but I couldn’t stop her. She’d said Norton always left for work at dawn so he wouldn’t be home.

  I lowered one arm and stretched out the other as I inched two steps closer. “Hand me the gun, Norton. You’re not a killer.” I didn’t know that for sure. I knew he’d beaten Angel until she was black and blue.

  His hand began to shake more as he swayed before he lost his footing on the curb. I lunged at him, more to catch the gun than him. Once the twenty-two was safely in my hands, I tucked it in the back of my jeans, quietly blowing out a breath, relieved that neither one of us had gotten shot.

  Sweat trickled down Norton’s temple as he stared at me with glossy eyes, reminding me of my old man and how he’d done wild things when the liquor overpowered his senses. One time, he’d stumbled into the kitchen with a steak knife pointed at me. Luckily, a chair had saved me that night during dinner.

  “Man, get clean,” I said. “Take a shower. Get off the alcohol. If you want, I can give you an address where you could get help.” Manny, a guy I’d met from checking shelters around the city for Grace, would take Norton in. He had a sore spot for alcoholics since he had been one himself. Now he gave his time, effort, and money to helping men like Norton.

  Norton pivoted on his heel, staggered, then darted down the street.

  Rafe cleared his throat behind me.

  I handed the gun to Rafe. “I would like to say he’s harmless, but I’m not sure.”

  “Never assume, dude,” Rafe said.

  I marched up to my car, my pulse slowing. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. I suggest you call in Josh. Norton will be back.” I was certain about that. He’d been a pain in the butt the last two nights, and if he showed up with a gun again, we were in for some trouble.

  2

  Maggie

  I stretched my arms over my head, yawning. The newsroom was as dead as it should be at midnight. I’d been burning the candle late every day for the last month, trying to verify my sources and chase down leads on a local gang, the Black Knights, who were known for their stronghold on the sex-trafficking market in Boston. But I’d come up empty on every lead I’d chased. I even checked the morgue regularly for women who had died because they’d been abused or violated, and still no cigar.

  The gang task force had no leads either, according to my contact within the gang unit.

  Then three nights ago, as if the planets had aligned, my source on the street had found out that some guy named Cory had messed up one of the girls working a street corner. I’d asked Misty, a nightwalker, if she had heard Cory’s name.

  Her response had been, “Yeah. Rumor is he’s with the Black Knights.”

  Elation, rage, nervousness, and so many other emotions, like the need to kill Cory Calderon, had bloomed strongly. If I could prove he was part of a sex-trafficking ring or anything illegal, then I could exact my revenge on the man who had beaten, raped, and left me for dead when I was fourteen.

  I was striking out, though. Cory didn’t have a police record according to Rick, one of my sources at the police department.

  I flipped through web pages on Harold Calderon, CEO of one of the largest investment firms in the country. The picture on my screen showed the gray-haired Harold at a benefit for one of the local children’s hospitals in the city. At his side was his son Cory.

  I gritted my teeth. Cory stood with his barreled chest puffed out, his thinning black hair styled back with lots of gel, and an innocent grin on his chubby face. The man was anything but innocent. Sure, he could’ve grown out of raping girls. He could’ve gotten his act together. But I didn’t think so. I believed once a rapist, always a rapist. I shifted my gaze to the elder Calderon, wondering if the man beat his wife, wondering if Cory took after his father. Cory had to have learned how to prey on women from someone.

  I kicked myself in the butt each time I replayed that night. I’d run from my seventh foster dad when he’d hobbled into my room, slobbering all over himself and me. At first, I thought he’d been too drunk to find his own room until he whispered my name and put his hands all over me. I’d shoved him off me, which wasn’t hard, considering the alcohol had made him wobbly, and I’d run as though my life depended on it.

  And I’d run right into another monster.

  The city street was dark, barely a light anywhere around. I jumped over bushes, tripping in the process. My knees connected with cement, pebbles, and rocks. I looked over my shoulder through watery eyes, pushing to my feet as fast as I could. I didn’t think my foster dad would follow me, but I couldn’t take the chance.

  Once on my feet, I ran, my breath labored, my lungs burning. I had no idea where I was going.

  The sound of a car engine filled the air.

  Run. Run. Run, my inner voice supplied.

  I pounded the pavement, grunting, crying, and dizzy. I mopped tears from my eyes as the car drew closer.

  Please let it be a policeman.

  I braved a look as my legs kept going only to plow into a trash bin. I wobbled, my heart sprinting like a horse racing to the finish line.

  The car slowed. A boy’s voice, deep and commanding, said, “Hey, sweetheart.”

  The hairs on the back of my neck shot up.

  The boy whistled. “Want to have some fun?”

  I had no business taunting him, but I wasn’t thinking clearly. I started to run again but not before throwing him the finger.

  He wolf-whistled. “Seems to me you want to fight.” He banged on the car door. “Stop, Jerry.”

  Fear, strong and powerful, gripped me. I searched for life in any of the houses on the street, but every home was dark.

  My legs burned. My chest hurt. My vision was compromised.

  When I got to the next block, which was as dark as the one before it, footsteps slapped on the sidewalk behind me, and the only light was from the car that was still on my heels.

  My legs were giving out.

  Hands went around my waist.

  “Put me down,” I screamed. I wailed. I kicked. I even threw my head back, and it collided with the boy’s forehead and nose. A bone cracked.

  Chills ran down my spine as pain exploded in my head.

  The boy yanked my hair then dragged me to the car and threw me in the back seat.

  I tried to plead with Jerry, who had wild blue eyes. But he only focused out the windshield and gripped the steering wheel, while his friend climbed in next to me.

  “Drive, Jerry. Get the fuck out of here.”

  Blackness seeped into the sides of my vision as houses sped by outside the window. The boy and car were saturated with booze and cigars.

  He somehow got me on my back as he straddled me.

  I squirmed. I kicked. I screamed at the top of my lungs to no avail. He was so much stronger.

  He pulled out a switchblade from his pocket. “Shut the fuck up.” Then he dug the point of the blade into my neck.

  I saw my own death. At that moment, I realized no one would miss me. No one would even care that I’d run, not even the foster home I’d run from.

  “Cory, man, put the knife away. Your old man won’t get you out of a murder charge.”

  I whispered his name, repeated it in my head, promising myself that if I lived, I would hunt this boy down and kill him.

  Cory ignored his friend as the car moved at high speeds.

  My body bounced as the car sped over the uneven streets, but that didn’t stop Cory from ripping my clothes off and violating me over and over again.

  My vision blurred. Tears poured out. But I was a fighter, always had been. So I turned my head slightly, and my lips came into contact with his ear. In one quick move, I bit down on his earlobe as if I were the ani
mal and not him. I bit so hard that I was tasting his blood.

  “Bitch.” He spat in my face before he shoved the knife into my neck.

  Pain, hot and burning, flew through my body. My vision was on the verge of going dark.

  His friend shouted, “Calderon, what have you done?”

  Then I lost consciousness.

  The police scanner crackled, bringing me out of my morbid memory, one that plagued me night after night.

  I adjusted the volume.

  “We have a robbery in progress,” the lady on the scanner said.

  My desk phone rang. I jumped a mile out of my rolling chair. “Marx here,” I answered.

  “Mags, I tried your cell phone several times. You okay?” Ted asked.

  I moved file folders, looking for my cell. “Um… I think it’s dead.”

  “Glad your phone is and not you,” he said in a relieved tone.

  I warmed, knowing someone cared about me. “I know how to protect myself. How many times do I have to tell you that?”

  I’d learned how to physically fight from my former gang leader, who had saved my life. Lou Ruiz had found me crumpled against a dumpster, on my deathbed, after Cory had thrown me out with the trash. Sadly, Lou’s life was taken from him in a drive-by shooting not long after he’d rescued me.

  “Just because you’ve been in jail and in a gang doesn’t mean you’re immortal.” Ted chuckled, his cigarette-laden voice coming through loudly.

  “Don’t remind me.” I’d been in jail for petty crimes several times. My police record had raised a red flag with the paper, but Ted had given me a good reference. “Anything going down tonight?” He occasionally threw me a bone for a story, but his bones were stories about robberies or something vanilla where I wouldn’t get hurt or into trouble with the wrong people, like a gang or drug lords.

  “Nothing you need to worry about.” He sounded as though he were hiding something.

  I cracked my neck, clenching my teeth. “Does it have something to do with the Black Knights? Have you connected Cory to them?”

  Ted knew about what Cory had done to me. He’d asked me why I hadn’t called the cops that night. I had a couple of reasons. I’d been too afraid of going back to my foster parents, which would’ve happened since the cops were mandated to return runaways to their foster families. Even Ted had confirmed that. If I hadn’t been put back in the foster home I’d run from, then I would’ve been sent to another one, and I couldn’t, nor wouldn’t, go back into the foster system. I’d also been frightened out of my mind that if I ratted out Cory, he would find me and kill me.

  Despite that, Ted knew I wanted revenge. He also knew what Misty had relayed to me about Cory and the Black Knights.

  Silence reigned over the line.

  “Ted?” I snapped like a rabid dog. “Where?”

  “Go home and get some rest. We’ll talk in the morning.” He hung up.

  I snarled loudly.

  I punched in Rick’s number on my desk phone. Rick worked for Ted, and on one or two occasions, he had given me a small opening behind Ted’s back. I didn’t know if he felt sorry for me or wanted to get in my pants. His line rang three times before he picked up. “I can’t talk, Maggie.”

  “Come on, Rick. Ted won’t share.”

  “Sorry, Mags, Ted’s orders.”

  I liked Rick and didn’t want to put his job in jeopardy.

  The scanner lit up with chatter, blaring in the empty room. “We got possible gang activity at Bleven and Third.”

  Bingo! I hung up faster than the speed of light and tore out of the building.

  3

  Dillon

  I rang the buzzer on the door behind the hospital. A cat meowed somewhere nearby, and the stench of piss drifted up my nose as I rang the buzzer again. The late August weather was hot and humid, and with it came all kinds of odors that made my stomach churn, especially in the alleys of Boston.

  Eddie answered with his white lab coat draped over his small shoulders. He peered out as though he didn’t want anyone to see him letting me in. Then again, he would get into trouble if his boss found out I was there. I had no official business with the morgue, especially not after hours. I’d met Eddie at some point during my search for Grace when I started visiting morgues. At first, he’d been reluctant, but he had a distant family member that had gone missing years ago so he had a soft spot for me. Although I did slip him some cash when he called.

  Once inside, the sound of the clicking lock echoed. Eddie flicked his head toward the double doors before he hurried his short legs into a dimly lit hall then into the glaring lights of the morgue.

  A chill curled up my spine as I followed him in. No matter how many times I’d been around dead people, I always got queasy, and not just from seeing dead people, but from the stainless-steel compartments on the side wall. I might have been crazy to think that those drawers would shoot out and a dead person would sit up and scare the fuck out of me. A psychiatrist would have told me that my fear stemmed from finding Grace in a similar position.

  I sucked in lots of air when my gaze landed on the body laid out on the table in the middle of the room, covered by a sheet. I wanted to find Grace, but not in a morgue.

  Sweat began to bead on my forehead as I got closer. Please don’t let her be Grace. As I took one step toward her body, acid swished in the pit of my stomach.

  Eddie slipped on latex gloves. “I called you down because the girl has a birthmark underneath her ear.” He ponied up to the table across from me and pulled down the sheet.

  My knees wobbled as I scanned her body with fine precision. Her brown hair was caked with blood. She was wearing jeans with holes up and down the legs, blood-coated tennis shoes, and a ragged T-shirt.

  When I’d left for the merchant marines, Grace had been twelve years old with porcelain skin, silky brown hair, and a look of pure innocence. I’d sworn I would know her the minute I saw her, but eight years and puberty certainly could change a person’s appearance. I guessed this girl’s age to be about twenty, the same age as Grace.

  Eddie turned her head. “Here’s the mark.” He moved her earlobe out of the way.

  The light-brown spot was definitely a birthmark, but it was small and not the shape of Grace’s. My heart rate slowed. “Grace’s birthmark is lower on her neck and on the right side not left, and its shape resembles a broken star. Where’s the picture I gave you of Grace?”

  “Sorry, someone cleaned out the desk,” Eddie said. “I can’t seem to find it now.”

  I took a deep breath then let it out. “How did she die?”

  Eddie lifted her T-shirt. “I would guess from this. I suspect she was a mule. I’m sure my examination will find traces of drugs in her stomach.”

  I pressed a fist to my mouth to stave off the nausea that was a minute away from gushing out at the sight of how the girl’s stomach was sliced open.

  Eddie ripped off his gloves. “I need to get to work on her. I’ll let you know if any other girls matching your sister’s description show up in here.”

  The problem was that by then it was too late. I didn’t want to find Grace in a morgue or learn she’d been a drug mule. “Do you know who within the police department is working this case?” It had been over a year since I probed the cops, and with other morgues in the city, maybe they’d seen someone who resembled Grace.

  Eddie shoved his hands in the pockets of his lab coat. “A Detective Hughes. He’s head of the gang force. He called earlier. He wants us to alert him when the autopsies are done. I doubt he’ll tell you anything.” He got a faraway look in his gray eyes. “We’ve also had a reporter snooping around. She’s working on a story about sex trafficking.”

  Holy hell. I certainly didn’t want to think that Grace had been sold to some fat fuck.

  Eddie loped over to a small desk in the far corner. “Who knows? This reporter might have seen or even talked to a few girls along the way.” He picked up a card. “She works for the Boston Eagle. A Maggie
Marx.”

  The name Maggie conjured up a memory of a girl I’d known in my gang days—wild blond curls, pretty, shamrock-green eyes that sucked a person in. She’d been the only girl in one of our rival gangs. Despite her beauty, she was a hard girl to forget with the six-inch scar on her neck. Ogling her from across enemy lines was as far as I’d gotten. Her leader, Lou, would’ve shot me dead if I’d gone anywhere near her, and I’d been tempted a time or two.

  “You look like you know her?”

  I lifted a shoulder. “I knew a girl by that name once.” There was probably a ton of Maggies in the city. “What does she look like?”

  “Curly blond hair, dark-green eyes, and a scar on her neck that she tries to hide with a scarf.”

  I traced a line at the base of my throat down the center of my chest. “Here.”

  Surprise swept over his face. “Yeah.”

  Wow! Small world. “I know her.” I was curious if she would remember me.

  Eddie wolf-whistled as he handed me her card. “Man, she is sexy as hell.”

  If it was the same girl, and the scar was a dead giveaway, I would bet she was even more beautiful now.

  I pulled out my phone, tapped in her cell phone number, then handed the card back to him.

  “You’re calling her now?” Eddie sounded horrified. “She’s probably sleeping.”

  He should have known that finding my sister took priority over anyone or anything.

  The line rang four times before Maggie’s voice mail picked up. “Hi, Maggie. I don’t know if you remember me. Dillon Hart?” I proceeded to give her my number and the address of the shelter, where she could find me. “I would like to talk to you when you get a moment.”

  Eddie motioned to the door. “I’ll walk you out. Hopefully Maggie will return your call.”

  I wasn’t worried. If she worked for the paper, I knew where to find her.

  I handed Eddie a Benjamin as I always did when he called me down to the morgue.

  He slapped me on the back. “Oh, and I wouldn’t contact Detective Hughes this time of night. He’s kind of a prick.”