The Last Friend

by Harvey Church

  “I’m sorry, Monica,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t understand how you’ve managed to track down this man when the FBI hasn’t even had a decent lead in my daughter’s case in fifteen years.”

  She shrugged. “I can’t speak for the FBI, but I can tell you that the gap you mentioned? That entire time, all I did, day and night, was hunt for the man who raped and tried to kill me over your daughter’s grave. From the moment I walked out of that forest as a survivor, I dedicated my life to seeking justice. And delivering on my promise to Lizzy, of course.”

  “Of course.” He felt an eye roll was called for but held back. She was clearly delusional.

  Another shrug, no big deal. “So I hitchhiked. I spent full days in the library doing research. I found work cleaning motels, stocking the library shelves, waitressing—whatever I could so that I had a roof over my head. I didn’t need anything else; I’ve slept on gym mats over a concrete floor for the previous four years. And I hunted him down.” She tilted her head forward, frowning as she scrutinized him. “I did a lot of the same things you did, Mr. Glass. I made friends online. I found out who some of the key players were.”

  He thought of RodgeDam, the name of a man in one of the obscure, off-limits chat rooms he’d stumbled into. The man’s avatar was a Dodge Ram truck, tricked out to appeal to the most absolute of rednecks. He’d claimed to have access to some serious child pornography, and for the right price, he’d produce it. A few PayPal transfers later, and Donovan had been in tears. Disgusted and ashamed. Heartbroken, most of all. But in the interest of getting Elizabeth back, he’d maintained the relationship with RodgeDam, every two weeks sending a few hundred dollars via PayPal. Every two weeks, asking for more and more, hoping for an introduction to someone higher up the food chain. But then RodgeDam had made it sound like he was the big man, the one who could arrange a half-hour session with a prepubescent girl.

  Except RodgeDam had turned out to be an informant.

  “Mr. Glass? Are you okay?” Monica’s voice whipped him back to reality.

  Wiping at his tender eyes, he nodded. He checked his sleeves, because the things he’d seen from RodgeDam could never be unseen. They were the types of photos that made him dry-heave and feel like his eyes were bleeding.

  “So can you help me?” she asked, her face back to doe-cute and pleading. “And in return, I’ll show you where Roger lives.”

  “You need to tell the FBI, Monica,” he said. “If you really know where this man lives, the authorities need to—”

  “Not a chance,” she said, cutting him off. “Are you listening to yourself? With all due respect, Mr. Glass, the FBI hasn’t done a thing in the fifteen years Lizzy was abducted. Even longer, in fact, because she was just one of many.”

  “But what can I do?”

  She chuckled, and her facial expression reminded him of the look he’d seen in Leo’s eyes the previous night. Crazy. “Do you want this man to go to some poshy prison after what he’s done to Lizzy? Hell, do you want the FBI to protect him from the justice he deserves? Because that’s what they’ll do, assuming they don’t fuck up the case. You realize that, right?” She paused, watching him.

  “I don’t know . . .”

  “Tell you what, Mr. Glass. Once you know where he is, it’s up to you to deliver the justice you think is appropriate . . . or you can spare him and tell your FBI friends where to find him.” She raised an eyebrow. “Does that work?”

  It didn’t take long to think about it. What Monica had said made sense. Just a few days ago, Agent Klein had complained about his caseload; Monica, upon her escape, had been able to dedicate more time in a single day than Klein had spent in the past five years alone.

  And although Donovan wasn’t blind to the possibility that the DNA match would come back negative later in the week, he didn’t want to pass up the potential of meeting—at last—the man who had not only taken his daughter from him but his wife and his own drive to live.

  “Mr. Glass?”

  At last, he nodded. “Okay,” he said, wincing as he pushed himself out of the reading chair and headed to the front closet for a pair of shoes. “Let’s go to the bank for this cash.”

  “Oh, and something else,” Monica added, wincing as if she knew he would not be a fan of what was coming next. “I need to borrow your car.”

  CHAPTER 27

  While Monica waited in his Impala outside the high-tech, no-teller Second City branch, Donovan marched past the virtual receptionist toward the back of the building where Brenda’s office was located. He saw that her door was mostly closed to ward off interruptions but open a small crack so as to not scare off everyone. Having worked with Brenda all these years, Donovan hoped the crack meant he was welcome to interrupt her, so he stepped up to the door and peeked through.

  He saw Brenda smiling and nodding on the other side of the desk. She was a good listener, he observed. If he angled his head a little to the left, he could make out the leg of a woman wearing nylons in the customer seat across from Brenda. Or maybe it was another bank employee. Donovan didn’t know, couldn’t possibly know, so he took a chance, knocked on the door, and simultaneously pushed it open.

  When Brenda saw him, the friendly, good-listener smile was quickly replaced with wide eyes and shock. She stood up and stepped out from behind her desk.

  “Donovan, what’s happened to you?”

  Lifting a hand to his face, he remembered last night’s beating courtesy of Leo Fletcher’s hands and boots. “I need money,” he said, noticing the two people in the customer chairs—one was the woman wearing those nylons, the other was a man wearing a golf shirt and khakis. They weren’t Brenda’s coworkers; they were her customers.

  Brenda turned to them and smiled, her cheeks turning red with embarrassment. “Excuse me, I’ll be right back.” She grabbed Donovan’s arm and steered him to an empty office two doors down.

  “I’m sorry, Brenda, I’m really sorry,” he said, feeling bad about misreading the cracked-open door and interrupting her customer meeting. He sat in the empty chair and delicately massaged his eyes.

  “What happened to you, Donovan?” She sat in the chair on the other side of the desk, her face a mix of concern and annoyance. “You look like you’re homeless. Or worse.”

  Donovan glanced down at his clothes—a pair of jeans, his old Nike running shoes, and a shirt that, he thought, was meant to be worn wrinkled as a matter of style.

  “And you want more money?” She angled her head sideways as if trying to get a good read of his state of mind.

  Gulping, Donovan confirmed her question with a nod. “I need another ten thousand. Or nine thousand.” He snapped his fingers, remembering the paperwork and alarms he could avoid if he asked for nine instead of ten. “Yes, I need nine thousand cash.”

  Shaking her head, Brenda sat back in her seat and crossed her arms. “Donovan, I’m worried about you. I’m genuinely worried, and I don’t know that ten thousand—”

  “Nine,” he corrected her, motioning with his hands as if that could keep him focused and hide the desperation from his voice. “I know you’re worried, but you need to trust me on this, and I just need nine.”

  “Whatever the amount, I don’t know that I’ll be doing my job or being a good friend if I let you walk out of here with that kind of cash.”

  Nodding, Donovan said, “I understand, Brenda, but it’s my money. And I need it.”

  She shrugged. “Why?”

  He paused. Not because he didn’t want to tell her—he trusted her, given their history—but because he didn’t know where to start. Or how to start.

  Brenda sighed. “I need to know what you’ll be doing with the money, Donovan. And based on the bruises on your face, I know it’s not for renovations.”

  He said, “There’s this girl. She says she knew Elizabeth, my daughter—”

  “I know who Elizabeth is, Donovan. And this girl, she says she knew your daughter?” Now she sounded a little horrified, shocked.
r />   “Yes, she says they were together, held captive, enslaved, and trafficked, and—”

  “Donovan, slow down.”

  He took a deep breath, slipped his moving hands under his thighs to keep from losing focus again. There was just too much to tell her, and the longer he spent at the Second City branch, the more time he was giving Monica to change her mind about all of this. He couldn’t risk that, not now, not when he was this close.

  “Brenda, listen. I’m helping out this old friend of Elizabeth’s. That’s all. She needs a fresh start, and I’m loaning her the cash.” He didn’t think this version was too much of a stretch; clearly, if Monica had no intentions of “starting fresh” without Leo, she’d have communicated with him. Plus, she said she’d get the money back to him, and while it all sounded like a bunch of lies, she’d been right about delivering on all her other promises so far, hadn’t she? “It’s a short-term loan. I’ll have it all back in the next . . .” He hadn’t received a repayment commitment from Monica, so he took a good guess. “It’ll be back in the next two weeks.”

  Studying him through her narrowly slit eyes, Brenda unfolded her arms and stood up. “I’ll get the money, but I also have to get back to my appointment.” She started to leave the office, stopping at the door. “Donovan, I want you to know something.”

  He turned in his seat so that he could see the hurt in her face.

  “Everything that’s happened, I want you to know that I’m still here for you, okay? Whatever trouble you’re in, I want to help, I really do, but I can’t do anything when you’re like this.” Her face twisted, concern morphing into hurt.

  “Brenda,” he started, trying to ease her pain with a smile that sparked agony in his bruised face, “I’m really not in any kind of trou—”

  “Stop, Donovan.” She raised her hand and closed her eyes, taking a deep breath, as much to calm herself down as to demonstrate her frustration with him. “I’m going to make sure you get your nine thousand dollars, but I don’t want to see you again until you can be honest with me.” She opened her eyes. “Okay? I think I deserve that, don’t you?”

  Without wasting another second, Donovan nodded. “Yes.” He meant it, too. After Amelia was gone, he’d spent a bit of time with Brenda. There’d been a good reason for Amelia to be jealous, for her to worry about their banker, but Donovan hadn’t believed his wife until after she was gone. Those few dates had confirmed a lot of what Amelia suspected about Brenda and the way she spoke to and looked at Donovan.

  They stared at each other for a while in the office before Brenda allowed a nod and then backed out, closing the door and leaving him by himself. He waited there for a good ten minutes, five minutes longer than he’d waited the last time.

  When there was a knock at the door, he half jumped in the chair. A woman just barely out of her teens entered with a canvas bag in her hand. Her Second City name tag said her name was Hailey.

  “Mr. Glass?” she asked, her voice quiet. “I have your money. Would you like to count it with me?”

  He nodded that he would. Hailey sat where Brenda had been sitting eleven or so minutes prior, and they counted the cash.

  Nine thousand dollars.

  Once Donovan signed the appropriate withdrawal forms and, once the money was placed back inside the canvas bag, he grabbed it, left the office, and stepped up to the bank machine. He withdrew another $1,000 and tossed the twenties into the bag with the money he’d counted with Hailey, and then he left the weird branch—the virtual receptionist wished him a fantastic day—and hurried around to the parking lot where Monica had moved from the Impala’s passenger seat to its driver’s seat.

  When she saw him approaching the vehicle, she lowered the window.

  “I was starting to think you were robbing the place,” Monica said, half smiling to show she was joking.

  “They certainly made me feel like a criminal,” he told her, gesturing at her position behind the wheel.

  As if in response, she turned the key in the ignition to get the engine started. There was something else in the way she stared back at him.

  “What’s going on, Monica?”

  Holding out her hand, she motioned at the canvas bag. She obviously knew the money was inside it, as if she’d done this a hundred times already. Maybe she had. “I’m sorry to do this to you, Mr. Glass, but would you mind taking a cab home?” She checked her watch. “The person who took the last ten thousand dollars is expecting me, and I’m afraid I could be late.”

  Noticing how his grip tightened on the canvas bag, Donovan wondered what Eric would say about this scene: Donovan having handed over the keys to his car and another $10,000 and this potential con artist not even having the manners to drive him home.

  Nodding as if she could read the uncertainty at war inside his mind, Monica flashed her big eyes. “I know it’s hard to trust me, Mr. Glass. But so far, I’ve done everything I’ve promised.” She glanced at the bag again. “I’ll be back tonight, I swear. And then I’ll show you where Roger lives.” This time, when she glanced at the bag, her eyes lingered and she made that same motion with her fingers for him to hand it over to her.

  With a tentative reluctance, Donovan gave her the bag. She didn’t exactly snatch it out of his grip, but she wasn’t shy about taking it, either. When she gave him a smile, he watched her close the window and shift into reverse, backing out of the parking spot. As the potential con artist started driving off, Donovan rotated on his heels and watched her.

  He wondered if he would ever see her or his car again.

  CHAPTER 28

  Donovan Glass spent the entire night sitting in his reading chair, clicking through his Apple computer in an attempt to stumble upon a secret society of child abductors and molesters. He even searched for RodgeDam, but the results yielded little more than a yawn.

  At eight o’clock on Tuesday morning, the computer shut itself off because the battery had drained.

  Plugging it in on the breakfast bar in the kitchen, Donovan glanced into his quiet backyard. His body felt incredibly tired, but his mind continued to race with worry over what had happened to his money and car. He felt torn between trusting Monica and believing she was a con artist.

  Tired like this, he knew he wasn’t doing himself any favors, so he climbed upstairs and slipped into bed to engage in a staring contest with his ceiling.

  Sometime around noon, the ceiling won, and he fell asleep.

  CHAPTER 29

  Donovan knew he’d been sleeping long. When he heard the frantic knocking downstairs, his eyes came open slowly, the kind of molasses sluggishness that he’d known in the days before he stopped sleeping well. And they were dry, his eyelids having the feel of sandpaper whenever he blinked. It reminded him of when he used to attend parties in college where everyone was smoking.

  More frantic knocking.

  It was dark. The alarm clock displayed a time of 3:02 a.m. He didn’t know what day it was, so he fumbled for his phone and saw that it was Wednesday.

  More knocking.

  Noticing that he hadn’t changed into his pajamas, Donovan flicked on the bedroom lights and quickly assessed just how wrinkled he looked. The pants were bad, but the shirt had always been wrinkled as part of its style and appeal.

  As he took the stairs, Donovan remembered that he’d gone to bed around noon yesterday. He remembered the trip to the bank, too, and then handing over a bunch of money to Monica Russell before she ran off in his car, leaving him stranded.

  More knocking, faster and harder than previously.

  At the door, Donovan glanced into the peephole and saw her.

  Monica.

  She’d been crying according to the smeared, dark makeup on her face. And when she raised her hand to knock again, he saw that she was bleeding, too. A lot.

  Knock, knock, knock.

  On the front porch, she seemed to hop impatiently on her feet. Donovan wondered why she was so panicked.

  At last, he opened the door.

&
nbsp; “Jeez, it’s about time you answered, Mr. Glass!” She hurried into the house, reached around him, and locked the door. “I’ve been banging on the door like a crazy woman for an eternity.”

  She looked worse up close and without the disarming effect of the peephole’s fish-eye view. In fact, there was blood all over her thighs and forearms and some on the bottom of her shirt. Donovan imagined the worst kinds of things happening to her, so he reached out and took her shoulders to slow her down.

  “What happened, Monica?” he asked, keeping his tone soft and empathetic.

  Yanking her shoulders out of his grip, she deliberately and dramatically studied her forearms, the bottom of her shirt, her pants. And then she hiked a thumb over her shoulder, indicating the street outside. “Well, I got your money.”

  When Donovan reached for her again, she shook her head. He understood the gesture, and the wild stare in her eyes, to mean he should keep his hands to himself. So he did. Although he was happy to have his $20,000 returned, he hated to think of what she’d had to do for it . . . the sight of the blood seemed as good an indication as any that she’d suffered for the money, and that made him feel a little guilty.

  “Monica, I’m so sorry—”

  “Oh, and I also killed someone.” She flashed a smile, but it was difficult for Donovan to determine whether it was genuine or sarcastic. Probably the latter. “Wasn’t the man I was hoping for, but he deserved it. The world and every parent alive will thank me, but for now, there’s a dead man floating down the Detroit River with his balls shoved so deep down his throat that his Adam’s apple has company.”

  Although Monica started laughing hysterically at what she’d just said, Donovan wasn’t as easily tickled. “You killed a man?”

  The laughter turned into tears. She raised her hands to her face and sobbed, and when Donovan reached for her shoulders again, she slapped his outstretched hands—hard. “Don’t touch me,” she said, her voice hissing from between her lips with the kind of venom that stopped most men in their tracks. “I’m a murderer. I’ll be wanted by the end of the week, at the latest.” She groaned. “Oh God, I have to get out of here, Mr. Glass.”