by Rawlin Cash
He looked at the woman. She was still for a moment, then nodded.
“And do you have any idea where I might find the men he sold them to?”
The woman shook her head.
“Other than that email, I don’t have any idea.”
“You think he knows?” Hunter said, nodding toward the bar.
“I doubt it. They probably just come for the women and give him the cash.”
Hunter put the scrap of paper with the email address in his pocket and went back into the bar, followed by the woman.
He knelt down next to the man and tried to rouse him. There was something wrong. His tongue was lolling out of his mouth. Hunter looked in his eyes and they were rolled back in his head. He checked for a pulse and there was none.
“He’s dead,” Hunter said.
“He was quivering a few minutes ago,” one of the women said. “Spasming.”
“How hard did you kick him?” another said.
“I’d have done it a lot more to him if he was still alive,” Hunter said.
He stood up reached in his pocket, found the key for the pickup the customer had given him.
“What are you ladies going to do after I leave?”
“Call the police, I guess.”
“You going to have trouble?”
“What, with pimps and shit?” the woman who’d shown him the computer said.
Hunter nodded.
“Everyone’s dead,” she said. “You took out the whole operation.”
“Guess you’re out of a job,” Hunter said.
“We’ll live.”
He looked at the women. They didn’t look overly upset that he’d just put them out of business. He wasn’t surprised.
“Where do you live?” he asked them.
“There’s a house a few miles down the highway. They keep ten of us there.”
“The others will be at the house?”
They nodded.
“Okay. Tell the police what happened. Leave out the parts about helping me and showing me things. Ask for Dana Lawson. She’ll make sure you’re looked after.”
Hunter left them and went outside. He gathered his bag and rifle from the brush across the road and then went to the pickup and got it started. It had a full tank of gas. He revved the engine and pulled out of the parking lot, trying to think what to do next. He was less than a mile from the brothel when he turned around and drove back.
Ten
He pulled back into the lot and shut off the engine. When he entered the bar he saw the women sitting there. They were having a drink. Hunter figured it was a ritual they performed every night after their shift, and the death of their asshole pimps didn’t seem important enough to break the habit.
“Didn’t expect to see you back so soon,” one of them said.
“Did you call the cops yet?”
The woman behind the bar nodded.
“Shit,” Hunter said.
His only hope was that it would be Dana or the chief who showed up. Otherwise there’d be trouble.
He went back to the computer and opened the email the girl had shown him.
He read it again.
“Got two for you. Mother and child. 10k each.”
Those were the words that had resulted in his wife and daughter’s mutilation, torture and death.
He clicked reply. Judging from the tone of the previous email, he didn’t have to be chatty.
He typed quickly.
“Cops are all over me here. Said they’ve got a warrant. I’m worried they’ll find our emails once they start digging in the hard drive. There’s a guy I can turn them on to. A drug dealer in Tacoma. I want another 10k for my risk.”
Hunter read over the message. He knew it was a long shot, but even if they didn’t fall for it, it might get them to respond. He hit send.
Then he went back out to the bar. The women were still sitting there. They offered him a drink.
“I’ll have a shot,” he said.
The girl behind the bar poured him a large scotch and he downed it with a single motion. Then he grabbed the BMW driver by the ankles and pulled him back behind the bar, through the storage room, and down the steps to the basement. The head bounced grotesquely off each step.
When he got back upstairs he saw Dana, standing in the doorway, her hand on her pistol.
“Officer Lawson,” Hunter said.
She gave him a thin smile.
“Chief made sure I was the one who responded,” Dana said. “What have you gotten yourself into?”
“He’s been doing a little housecleaning,” the woman behind the bar said.
Dana came inside and shut the door behind her. “I don’t doubt it,” she said.
“I’ve got a little more cleaning to do,” Hunter said. “Can you give me some time?”
“What sort of time?” Dana said.
“I just sent an email. It would be helpful if this all stayed off the radar until I get a reply.”
Dana shrugged. “Depends how long it takes to get the reply.”
Hunter nodded. He thought about the bodies round back and wanted to get them into the basement with the other one before the smell attracted wolves.
“Maybe you could wait in your cruiser while I finish tidying up,” he said, not wanting to put her in the compromised position of watching him clean up a bunch of murders.
Dana nodded at the bar. “Don’t see why I should be out in the parking lot while you all sit in here in the warm.”
Hunter smiled, despite himself.
Dana’s eyes flashed at him before she turned to the girl behind the bar and made a circle with her finger. “Hit me,” she said.
The woman poured her the same scotch Hunter had just had.
Hunter went outside and grabbed one of the bodies by the ankles. The women weren’t disturbed in the least when he dragged the man through the bar. They turned to look at him when he first entered, then went back to their drinks.
Dana was asking them what they wanted to do next. One of the women asked what she thought their options were and Dana said there was a not-for-profit in the city that would help them start new lives. She said she’d put a lot of women into their hands and they had an excellent record. It was run by a group of Indian women who’d seen it all and knew what it took.
When Hunter had put all the bodies in the basement, he locked the door and went back out to the bar. He left the key on the counter next to Dana and told her the longer she could wait before calling it in, the better chance he had of hooking whoever it was he’d sent the email to.
He went to check the computer. Still no reply.
Back at the bar he had a beer with the women.
As they drank, they talked.
Eventually, one of them, the one who had been in the first room when he entered, still wrapped in the blanket he’d given her, spoke to him.
“I’ve got something for you,” she said.
He put his drink on the bar and looked up at her.
“Whatever you’ve got, I’d be grateful,” he said.
She was silent for a minute, gathering her words. Her dark eyes looked around at all the other women before returning to Hunter.
“It was about a year ago,” she said, her voice frail but steady. “I never told none of you about it.”
They waited for her to go on.
“Jenson woke me up in the middle of the night. He was angry. Stressed. He put me in the back of the Escalade and I saw the boss in the passenger seat. He didn’t look back at me. Neither of them said anything. I asked what was going on and they told me to shut up.”
Hunter felt his spine tingle as he began to guess where she was going.
“I knew it wasn’t good,” the girl said. “They drove me toward town and turned right at the drive-thru. Along that windy road that goes into the mountains.”
Hunter looked at Dana. She nodded to show him she knew where that was.
“There’s a mansion up there. A big white house. Lo
oks like the house in Gone with the Wind.”
Dana nodded.
“They went inside and left me in the car. There were other cars there. Big, black ones with tinted windows. The kind that have chauffeurs.”
“Limos,” one of the young girls from the camera room said.
“Not limos. More like town cars. Lincolns maybe.”
“I know the kind you mean,” Hunter said, picturing the official looking cars.
“There were lights on in the house. Some people were in there. I figured it would be some sort of party. I began to steel myself for going inside. I didn’t have fancy clothes or make up or anything. I was nervous.”
“Did they take you inside?” Dana said.
“They were about to, but before they came back, another car arrived. Two men pulled a woman out of the back seat. She was crying.”
“Did you see who she was?” Hunter said.
“I didn’t know her, but she was a native girl. She had long, straight black hair. One of the men pulled her by it. She was about my age. The men brought her up the steps and into the house. She cried and struggled all the way.”
“A year ago, you said?” Dana said. She was writing in her notebook.
The girl nodded. “I began to shiver. I realized it wasn’t a party. Somehow, I knew it was to do with the disappearing women. I didn’t know in my mind, exactly. But I knew it in my heart. I felt that that woman would never be seen again.”
“What happened?” one of the girls said.
“Jenson and the boss rushed back to the car. They were pale. Frightened. The boss told me to shut the fuck up when I said something. Then he reached back and pushed me down onto the seat. No one knew I was in the car and he didn’t want me seen. We drove back to the house and on the way in, he told me never to mention what I’d seen. He’d said people would die if I ever said anything.”
“And was that woman ever seen again?” Hunter said.
The woman shook her head. “A few days later I saw in the newspaper about another disappeared woman. There was a photo. I hadn’t seen the face too clearly but I knew it was the same woman.”
Hunter got up and asked Dana to follow him.
“You going up to the mansion?” Dana said when they got out to the parking lot.
“Yeah, you know it?”
“I can give you directions. It’s almost always empty. My bet is it’s empty now.”
“Who owns it?”
“I’m not sure,” she said. “Never looked into it. I can find out for you.”
“Can you do me another favor?”
“The women will be okay. There’s a community organization.”
“Can you keep an eye on the computer in the office? I need to know if someone replies to the email I sent.”
Dana nodded. “I’ll take it down to the station and see what else we can pull off it.”
“Thank you,” Hunter said.
Dana wrote down an address on a page of her notebook, added a quick sketch of the way to get there, and tore out the page. She handed it to Hunter.
He took it and was about to turn toward the pickup when he hesitated. He wasn’t sure what caused him to stall, but when he did, Dana grabbed his arm at the elbow. He turned to her, their eyes locked, and before he knew it, her hand was on his cheek.
He leaned back instinctively, breaking the embrace.
“Oh,” Dana said, color rushing to her cheeks. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Hunter said and strode toward the pickup.
He started the engine and pulled out of the lot in the direction of the mansion.
He didn’t know how that had happened with Dana. Had he given her the wrong signal? Fooling around with her hadn’t entered his mind. He was still married as far as he was concerned.
He opened the piece of notepaper she’d given him and followed the instructions, reading it by the glow of the dashboard.
Eleven
Dana had no idea what had just happened. That was so unlike her. She never made a move on guys. She was shy. Insecure. She’d been teased in high school over her weight and had never recovered. She stood there in the parking lot and felt her eyes fill. She hadn’t ever had a serious relationship and her experience with sex was limited to a few drunken mistakes outside dive-bars in the town she’d gone to college in.
And Hunter had only just seen the mutilated bodies of his wife and child.
It was madness.
She could have kicked herself for being so stupid.
She went back into the bar and asked the women if they’d meet her at the police station in the morning. They said they would and that they’d bring the other women from the house.
She had one more drink with them before they got up to leave. She watched them go.
The brothel suddenly felt a lot more lonely.
They’d left her the keys to lock up. She freed the three customers who were still locked in the room and told them to shut up and go home or their wives would find out where they’d been.
Then she went and found the computer Hunter had told her about in the office. The email inbox was still open but there were no new messages. She checked the sent mail folder and read what he’d sent.
She saw his plan. It was simple, but it might work. Given the lack of time and the circumstances, it was about as good a chance as he’d get of finding the next link in the chain.
She had the password for the computer and she logged out and then logged back in to check it. It worked. She unplugged the computer and disconnected it from the monitor and keyboard. Then she hauled it out of the office, through the bar, and into the back of her cruiser.
At this hour the place was utterly deserted. No cars at all on the forest road.
A slight breeze brought some air into her jacket and she shivered.
She went back to the door to lock up. She had to make the place look as normal as possible until Hunter met up with whoever was on the other end of that email address.
The only thing out of place was the smashed windscreen on the BMW by the side entrance. She doubted anyone would notice that.
When she got to the door, instead of locking it, she stepped inside. She wasn’t sure what was driving her, not curiosity, but she went through the bar to the storeroom behind it. She saw the metal door and found the key for it. She unlocked the door and swung it open.
Her heart was pounding. There was no reason for her to go down there now. There was nothing that wouldn’t wait until the comfort of morning, when she could come back with a team of officers and they could make their report together. But something pushed her to keep going. She wanted to face it. She’d been hearing about the disappearances her entire life and she wanted to look that evil in the eye.
She hit the light switch behind the door and started down the stairs.
The stench was overpowering. She forced herself to the bottom of the stairs where she found the bodies of the men Hunter had killed. That wasn’t what she was there to see though. She wanted to see the cages.
They were there.
Knowing what they were used for, the women who’d spent their last hours or days in them like animals, she suddenly felt a blinding rage. What kind of a world allowed that to happen? What kind of men? What kind of God?
She heard a sound, like the rustle of leaves, and suddenly felt very afraid. She turned and fled back up the steps, slamming the heavy door behind her. She locked it and hurried through the bar out to the porch. She locked the front door and got into her cruiser. A moment later she was gone.
On the highway she looked in her rearview mirror. The red glow of the closed sign was all she could see. She remembered that she’d left the lights on in the basement. It didn’t matter, it couldn’t be seen from outside, but the thought of it, the bodies of those men and the cages, and the dirty plates and dishes, the whole scene bathed in light until someone went back there, it disturbed her. The thought remained with her when she got home and went into her own apa
rtment.
She pictured it when she put on the kettle for tea. When she took a quick shower and got into her pajamas and housecoat. When she sipped the tea, sitting alone at the table in her kitchen, watching the clock strike two in the morning.
When she got up the next morning she felt like she hadn’t slept at all.
Her dreams had been unsettled and a number of times she woke up, not knowing where she was. She dressed for work and left the house early. She wanted to be at the station before the women from the brothel got there, not that she expected them early. If she wasn’t there, someone else would hear the story and Hunter’s chances of getting a reply to his email would drop to zero.
She went through the drive-thru and bought coffee and a six-pack of assorted doughnuts. She was at the station by seven.
The first thing she did was plug in the computer from the brothel. She booted it up, connected her own monitor and keyboard to it, and opened the inbox.
There it was.
Interstate 5. Get off at Nisqually Cut Off Road. Drive into the wildlife refuge and wait at the end of the road. Someone will meet you at noon.
She heard a knock at the door. It was still before eight so the reception was unmanned. She saw Hunter at the door and felt a pang of shame at what had happened the night before. She let out a breath and swallowed her pride.
“Good morning,” she said.
“Did they email?”
She nodded. She went back to her office and printed a copy of the message. Handed it to him.
“I think I can keep what happened at the brothel quiet until noon,” she said.
“Thank you,” Hunter said.
He stood there awkwardly and she cringed at the thought that he was trying to think of something to say to put her at ease.
“There’s doughnuts,” she said. “And let me get you some coffee. I doubt you slept.”
“I slept down the street in the truck.”
“What did you find at the mansion?”
“You need to get some people down there,” he said. “I found a lot.”
“Anyone there?”
“No, but the place is decorated like a frat house. There’s a bar with old style beer barrels. A huge fireplace. Animal heads on the walls.”
