Misplaced Innocence

by Veronica Morneaux

  “You fuck this up, you die.” Dom said with a brutality and severity that ended the conversation.

  Tentatively, Freddie asked, “What about Frankie?”

  “Shut up! You both die!”

  “I’m not concerned,” Frankie scoffed, shifting Charisma’s weight in the crook of his arm.

  There was another phone call, announcing that they had the groceries, but this time it was followed by a “see you soon,” that frightened her. She had no desire to meet this Benedict fellow. She was farther away from the phone this time, and she had only the vaguest of notions where the phone was located in the room.

  After nearly two hours of sitting around trying to develop a plan, Charisma had come up with only very farfetched possibilities riddled with faults. But they were all she had and she was anxious to do something before she encountered the boss. He did not seem like he was one to grant mercy, let alone take pity on her poor self.

  She needed to balance waiting for the right moment with not waiting so long that she lost her opportunity. Her stomach was left in knots and her mouth became even dryer than it already had been, not helped by the fact that she couldn’t accurately remember the last time she’d had a drink of water or a bite of food.

  She listened intermittently to the asinine conversations of the men for a few hours, and when Dominic finally announced he was going out for another pack of cigarettes, Charisma decided it was time to act. Not that she could overpower two of them anymore than three, but she just might be able to outsmart the two left behind. Dom seemed graced with a few more brain cells.

  After she had heard the door close with a soft thud she turned to Frankie, still sitting in a chain in front of her with today’s newspaper.

  “I need to go to the bathroom.”

  “You just got here.”

  Charisma wasn’t sure that made a lot of sense, but she decided not to point that out.

  “Yes,” she said cautiously, “but I’ve been in the car for quite a while.”

  “Right.” He rolled his eyes, as if this was a totally ridiculous request. “Alright. Let’s go,” his hands were reaching for her bindings as he said the words.

  “Maybe we can tie my hands in front me, this time. I mean, I don’t want to be a bother, you can put them right back after, but it takes a really long time to get my pants down, you know, in the stall.” The words tumbled out of her mouth in a hurry, she relished the feel of her hands free from their restraints, wanted to pull them in front of her and rub the raw wrists.

  “I’ll help you,” he smirked, “like I told you last time.”

  “Dom ordered you to stay by the phone, Frank,” Freddie piped up with way too much enthusiasm in his voice.

  “Shut up.”

  “Just looking out for you,” he sang in a voice that clearly ate at Frankie. “What if he called and I answered?” Freddie clucked his tongue in mock dismay. “He would kill you.”

  Frankie seemed to think about this for a moment and determined there was some logic in Freddie’s words. Of course, it must have been Freddie’s first shot at being right in his whole life.

  “I’ll do it,” Freddie ventured, again with an enthusiasm that made Charisma want to die.

  “No, we’ll tie her hands in front, retie them when she gets back,” Frankie said, more to irritate Freddie than to spare Charisma the experience.

  Charisma could hear Freddie sputter, furious at having been robbed of the opportunity to lower her pants. He narrowed his eyes at Frankie, but didn’t dare say anything, much to Charisma’s relief. He placed one hand on her shoulder, as he had seen Frankie do the day before. His grip was light, felt barely there with little strength in his fingers. With both hands free, and desperation on her side, she thought she might be able to take him on. He stood only a few inches taller than she was, but was so slight he looked like his growth might have been stunted by some unfortunate malady. With her hands tied, though, she would need to stick with her plan, even though it fell pathetically short of what she had hoped.

  She peeked beneath her blindfold as they made their way toward the bathroom. She knew it was in the same direction as the phone, but she saw no visual evidence of it. It was possible they wouldn’t pass the phone on their way to the bathroom – the voices had sounded farther away during those brief, and uninspiring, phone calls. Then again, she was getting barely a fleeting glance at each room, so she couldn’t at all be sure.

  In the bathroom, Freddie seemed not to know what to do. He pushed her inside and blocked the door.

  “Thanks,” she said, with what she hoped was a sassy saunter that would leave him confused. When she was finished she made her way to the sink and awkwardly washed her hands in the rusty water.

  Freddie came toward her to resume his position behind her shoulder. But as he got within reach, Charisma let her mouth split into a smile she had spent hours practicing in front of a mirror. If he could see her eyes now, the lashes would be batting, their depths twinkling. She knew every trick in the book; she had learned from the best.

  “You seem pretty nice. The kind of guy I’d really like to get to know.” She twisted around, away from the mirror where she imagined he was watching her reflection raptly, until she was facing him.

  “Yeah?” Charisma hated the way his voice took on a bedroom edge, the way she knew he was imagining her without her clothes on, performing all sorts of totally inappropriate acts for him.

  “Yeah,” she repeated, desperately trying to keep the mocking sound out of her voice. She swallowed the distaste down and pressed into him, moving forward until his lips pressed hungrily into hers. They tasted like tobacco and mornings before you brush your teeth, and she tried not to grimace. She turned away slightly, biting back the gag, but Freddie was clearly a man of little willpower, among other things, and he yanked her back around jerkily, planting a big, wet kiss on what was intended to be her lips. He missed, and his mouth pressed against her face, but she didn’t care, she kissed him back with what she hoped he would mistake for lust. She backed herself into a wall behind her, feeling up and down his skinny little torso with her tied hands, as best she could. She turned her face away and he began scraping his teeth on her neck and groping her breast with grabby hands. His teeth and hands hurt, but she pretended with all her might that she was loving it, even moaning occasionally. She was sure she would never be an actor, but the effect was good enough for Freddie. This was probably the most Freddie had ever gotten.

  Suddenly, she used her body to rotate thier positions, pressing him into the wall and taking control of the action. She figured he would prefer it that way anyways, since he didn’t seem familiar with what to do. She kissed him forcefully, running her hands up his chest, to his neck, where she stroked him as seductively as she could muster for a few moments before tightening her grip around her neck.

  He murmured something unintelligible against her skin.

  “It feels best this way, handsome.” She didn’t need to force the huskiness to her voice, though it was certainly from anything but lust or desire.

  He relaxed for a minute, but her hands tightened more and more. Suddenly Freddie seemed to realize he was suffocating and tried to fight it, but it was too late. He tried to scream, but his voice was caught in Charismas mouth. She let him fall when he passed out. She didn’t want to kill him, though she was sure he wouldn’t do her the same courtesy. She breathed heavily for a minute. She hoped he wasn’t dead. Then she felt a heave in her stomach as the combination of the sickening kissing and her attack on another human hit her and she dry heaved into the sink.

  Then she ran. She ran quietly down the hall, hearing Frankie’s voice calling out to Freddie, trying not to run into unmovables, like the walls.

  She didn’t have much time. She peaked into the first room past the bathroom. No phone there. Panic rose in her chest. This was her once chance. She heard the scrape of a chair on the floor. She stuck her head in the second room and scanned it. No phone.

  Stea
dy footsteps echoed down the hall. She ran into a third room. There, before her on a counter sat a phone, plugged into a wall, like a holy Godsend.

  She ran to it and shoved her hands into her pocket, hoping she had some number, any number there. She meant to check while she was in the bathroom but had forgot in her anxiety. If she didn’t, she would call 911, but if they found her doing that, she was a goner for sure.

  She might be anyway.

  She pulled out a crumpled piece of this paper, it had been though the wash, but the paper hadn’t deteriorated too much, it was still legible: Jared’s business card.

  She dialed his cell with the speed of panic and the precision of only having one chance, despite the rope tying her hands together.

  The phone rang once

  “Pick up, Dammit.” She said under her breath. “Pick up pick up pick-“

  “Jared Williams” his voice came though the line, tired and laced with defeat.

  Frankie’s voice shouted from the bathroom. She could hear a trail of expletives in his wake. His footsteps quickened as he jogged down the hall

  “Jared, it’s Charisma. They have me; I don’t know where I am.”

  “Oh my God!” he said. “Do you know anything? Who has-“

  “I think they’re from—”

  Suddenly, she dropped the phone as she was yanked backward and thrown into a corner. Frankie lunged for the phone and slammed it down on the receiver.

  “What the fuck did you do to Freddie?” he snarled, turning towards her. “Bitch, that was a bad move.”

  She swallowed. She didn’t try anything; she didn’t know what to try. She’d used up her only partial plan.

  He grabbed her arm in his strong hand and pulled her up on her feet. Then he slapped her across the face with a brutality that made her head turn. Tears flooded her eyes.

  “That’s just the beginning,” he growled.

  They moved back to the bathroom where Frankie flung her onto the cold tile floor, the door slamming behind her and the sound of something heavy coming to rest against it.

  “You’ll wish you were dead.”

  She let herself melt into the coolness of the tile. She knew there was no ways she could ever prepare herself for what was to come now. She only hoped her call, and its punishment, would not be in vain.

  ~*~

  Papers littered the desk, spilling out of manila folders in an organized chaos. A single desk lamp illuminated the papers in its yellowed glow. Behind the desk, computer software monitored the phones of nearly 50 suspected locations. Alex sat at his desk, head in his hands, staring at the latest crime scenes photos. The lamp began to flicker erratically, and Alex subconsciously reached a hand forward without taking his eyes from the scene pictured in his other hand and fiddled with the wire.

  “You’re still here, Alex?” Marguerite asked, coming up behind him. Alex didn’t respond, his face set in a deep frown.

  “Alex?”

  “Hmm?” he asked, startled, realizing he was being addressed.

  “Alex, you should go home.”

  “Yeah; I will. Just going to stay a few more minutes.”

  “You’re not going to see anything now that we didn’t see before.”

  “I know.” He sighed, returning his focus to the black and white massacre in his hand. “But I’ve got to try, right?”

  “Go home.” There was an edge to her voice, but she smiled at him and let her hand brush his shoulder.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow.” He tried to smile back at her.

  Alex leaned back in his chair. His replacement monitor would arrive any minute, and there was no way he would be leaving before then. They had the girl, the girl he had been after for almost a year. It had been a race against time, and a race against the mob. And they had won, they had beat the FBI to her. He couldn’t imagine why she had run from whiteness protection, opted to try and disappear from life instead of staying and being protected. If she had asked him, he could have told her that would never work, that the only way she could disappear without their protection was if she were dead.

  But she hadn’t asked him. Instead, she had run from him, forced him to chase her in a wild goose chase across America. Every time one or the other got close to her, she had evaded them, relocated, and the search would begin again from square one.

  “Jesus.” He sighed again, running a hand through his hair. There was nothing here, nothing in this picture, nothing in this case that drew a solid conclusion. These men were good at what they did. They were professional information extractors, specializing in torture and intimidation as their primary modes of operation. And yet there was nothing that linked them directly to the crime. Alex closed his eyes.

  He shuffled the photographs in his hand, pausing at each one and staring at it, devoting his full attention to every detail. About half an hour later, he returned the pictures to the open manila folder and opened another file. These pictured were much older, each labeled “Candace Ackerman,” in the bottom right hand corner, dated and coded.

  Alex tugged on his coat after reviewing the file for the thousandth time, flicked off the light, and locked the door behind him. He walked though the empty halls, the echo of his footsteps ringing in his ears. He stuck his hands in his pockets and realized he had forgotten his gloves. He rolled his eyes at himself.

  “Damn, not again.” He said with exasperation, turning around and heading back toward his office.

  He opened the door and reached for his top desk drawer. His hand lingered in the air above the handle, then moved suddenly towards the file again. He was obsessed, he knew it. Everyone knew it. Behind his back they said it was because he blamed himself for her escape, he should have gotten to her before she ran. And now, he should have gotten her before they did. He had the full power and resources of the FBI behind him for Christ’s sake.

  He debated turning the light back on and sitting down, resigning to the fact that he wouldn’t be able to tear his eyes away from the file now that he had reopened it.

  No, he had to go home, feed his cat. Toby would be waiting for him, meowing at the door. His dog-like nature weirded Alex out sometimes. Toby was going to have an identity crisis one day, Alex was sure. But until then, he appreciated the cat’s loyalty – unlike his ex-girlfriend’s – and how he made Alex feel needed.

  He checked for the tenth time that the computers were recording the selected phone lines, but he wouldn’t get his hopes up that there would be something tomorrow for him to listen to. There never seemed to be. These guys seemed to know where the FBI was looking, and kept uncannily quiet.

  He turned to the door again, but with his hand on this doorknob, he heard a voice from within his office

  “Jared Williams,” a man’s voice said from his computer. Alex turned around sharply.

  “Jared, it’s Charisma. They have me; I don’t know where I am.” A woman’s voice hissed in a panic-stricken whisper. Alex ran to the screen, listening intently. Were they going to get a location? Who was Charisma? Was “they” the mob, holding her in one of the suspected locations?

  “Oh my God!” the male voice said, rising in panic, “Do you know anything? Who has—”

  “I think they’re from—” and then the line went dead.

  Alex typed into the computer, extracting the location and picked up the phone, calling his team in at the same moment. This was it; this was what he had waited 16 months for. He was going to get these guys, and it was going to reek of victory.

  ~*~

  Jared clutched at the cell phone in his hand. His face had drained of its color, his eyes widened and his breathing came in rapid bursts. He couldn’t believe what he had heard. It was his worst nightmares come true. He didn’t even know where to begin. He felt somehow that snapping the phone shut, replacing it in his pocket, would be destroying evidence. He wanted a recording of what he had heard, and a way to trace that call.

  And more time.

  Then he realized that he was wasting what little t
ime he had. He snapped the phone closed and flipped it back open immediately, jamming his free hand into his pocket and pulling out the business card the FBI agent had given him. “ALEX LANSING” was embossed at the top followed by multiple numbers.

  He dialed the first, hoping someone would be in the office.

  “Detective Lansing.”

  “Detective, Its Jared Williams, from-”

  “Mr. Williams, get over here immediately. We need to speak with you, obviously.” Lansing’s voice was hard, rough, all the things Jared thought a good detective would be.

  “I’ll be right in.” Jared had a fleeting moment where he wondered if Lansing had known he was in town.

  Jared was out the door in a matter of moments, the door to his rental car slamming shut, his foot already falling on the accelerator. Tires screeched out from under him and the car jolter forward from its parking space and shot towards the office. He tapped his hand against his jean-clad leg and gnawed on his lip. He’d been aboard the first available flight to New Jersey, and now was more than thankful he’d hightailed it out here on nothing more than a whim.

  As he drove, he could think of nothing but Charisma. He couldn’t bear to think of what they might be doing to her, how helpless and scared she must be. How much he longed to hold and comfort her, rescue her like her very own prince charming.

  He was such an idiot, he kept telling himself. Why had he ever tried to deny the way he felt for her? This was his fault; he had driven her from his house with his stubborn refusal to admit how much he needed and wanted her, how special she was. And now, it might be too late. He might never get to tell her how he felt.

  He chastised himself for even having those thoughts. He slammed on the brakes, skidding into the intersection. He would be lucky if he didn’t get pulled over for what would be generously referred to as reckless driving. In truth, he was driving maniacally, and he wondered briefly if it was worth the time he might save.

  He pulled the car into the parking lot and hurried into the building. He met Detective Lansing on the ground floor, was ushered into the office where, at past eleven o’clock at night, FBI agents moved with purpose and focus, barely looking up from their work as he entered.