Quicksand

by Carolyn Baugh

  She took a breath, continuing, “Sand nigger. Towel head. Osama. The kids knew all about me because of what happened to my dad.”

  Ben looked slightly guilty. “Burton told me he had been arrested. Accused of plotting to bomb some buildings. Never charged. But it was pretty public.”

  Nora nodded. “I wasn’t very strong. The one time I decided to stand my ground I got a pretty bad beating.”

  Ben took a sharp breath, unblinking.

  “The next time,” Nora continued, “I decided to run. And I found out that I was fast. I was really fast. I just took off, I dropped my backpack and ran. And from then on that’s what I did, even if it was the middle of the day.”

  Ben was watching her speak, transfixed.

  “The teachers were really great, you know, they didn’t want to see me get hurt. One day, after this one kid had been on my case, saying a lot of—well, the gym teacher had heard the shouting and was just coming out when she saw me take off. She tried to catch me and she couldn’t. I didn’t even hear her when she called out my name, because I was just…” Nora flattened her hand and slid it across the top of the blanket, “… gone. So she came over after school and had a talk with my parents. She said they really needed me on the track team.”

  Ben’s face relaxed into a smile. “I’m sorry that’s what it took.”

  Nora looked down. “It helped me get hired as a cop, I think, the running. And this is what I’m supposed to do.”

  “Why? I mean, I’m glad, but why?”

  “Because, Ben, my mom asked me to take care of my brother,” Nora said. And she told him how she had promised to take care of Ahmad and sworn to keep him safe. She told him how Ahmad had cried so long and so hard after his mother’s death, that he actually ended up needing glasses. And how Nora had become his mother in every way. All through her high school years and throughout college, she kept Ahmad close, determined that he would never be bullied as she had been. She would read to him, study with him, and cook for him any meals he did not take from the restaurant. She waited for him after school almost every day, and he would ride his bike alongside her as she ran. He had come with the team to track meets, and even traveled with her to the NCAA regionals, bundled into her red sweatshirt and hunkered over a book as he waited for her races. Nora called him her luck charm as her feet flew ever faster. Knowing nothing of biology and chemistry, she held endless flash cards for him as he fought his way into the right high school that would lead to the right college that would get him into medical school.

  “And because of what happened to my dad, and because of who we are, I will always be scared that some anonymous tipper can make my brother disappear. But I figured if I’m here, if I’m part of the system, then I won’t have to just stand on the sidelines and watch, hoping that the ‘process’ will work itself out.”

  Ben listened in silence.

  Nora continued, “So now you know. I don’t have some big noble goal like you—In the end it’s just selfish. I want to take care of him the best I can, because I need him so much, because I can’t lose him. If I can do some good along the way, well … that’s good, too.” She studied his face. “Do you … you know, think less of me?”

  Ben leaned closer, “I have never thought more of you, Nora Khalil.”

  She closed her eyes, feeling the warmth radiating off his skin, inhaling the scent of his aftershave; she wanted more than anything for him to lean even closer and brush his lips against hers.

  A rapid knock sounded against the door, and John Wansbrough walked in with a stack of papers, followed by Burton, who held his own stack. Both halted abruptly, taking in Ben’s proximity to Nora’s bruised face. Wansbrough cleared his throat slightly, then asked, “Nora, how are you?”

  She felt a blush enflame her face. “I’m good, fine. Better,” she said, feeling slightly confused, fighting for clarity. “Well, come on, guys, gather round. I see you haven’t come empty-handed.”

  “Our version of Arab hospitality,” John said. She saw he had brought from her desk the file of photographs of the crime scene that she had compiled. “We can do this later, if you want. I don’t want to push you too hard. But we know that time is of the essence here.”

  She answered him by reaching for the file. “John, I’m fine. It looks way worse than it is.” She shifted herself slightly in the bed, spreading some of the pictures out across her blankets.

  “A one-eyed Somali with an empty magazine, huh?” John said, leaning over her from the opposite side as Ben in order to investigate the nasty bruise on her cheek. “I had one of those in my third year.”

  “A one-eyed Somali?” Ben asked, winking at Nora.

  “Empty magazine. Gun pressed to my chest. Trigger pulled. Scary as hell,” he said, and he patted Nora’s shoulder before seating himself in the chair next to her bedside.

  Nora winced, remembering the stain on Basheera’s chest.

  “You okay, Nora?” John asked.

  She shook her head slightly. “I—I don’t know what I should have done differently, guys.”

  Ben said, “Nora, you did everything you could. You pursued an assailant across tough terrain—with what turns out to have been a bruised rib from the other day. You got shot—twice, and your face is totally messed up!”

  “I got a witness killed. I should have taken her directly into custody.”

  “You are not the problem, here,” John said.

  Burton offered, “The slugs they pulled out of your vest were .22 caliber.”

  Nora looked at him blankly.

  “They match the bullets that hit John’s car.”

  “And the one that hit John,” Ben added.

  Nora shook her head. “I’m not following. Kevin Baker was behind the drive-by that got John shot. This wasn’t Kevin Baker.”

  John said, “Kevin Baker’s official story is that his car was stolen and used in the drive-by.”

  “Well, if Kevin didn’t kill the JBM kid, and Dewayne didn’t kill Kylie, then what’s going on?”

  Burton nodded at his pile of papers. “This new direction with the Somalis is a good one. While you were with Basheera, Rashid Baker answered the invitation to come in.”

  “And?” Nora asked, sitting up a little higher in the bed.

  John answered, “That whole line about Kevin being a victim of the neighborhood fell through. Rashid admitted he’s angry with Kevin because he’s involved with the drugs and the sex and the money and yet ignoring his mom’s health, not taking care of his own. I guess while Rashid was in jail, they had a hard time, days when they went hungry. Rashid is working part-time in a grocery at Forty-fifth and Walnut, reporting to his probation officer, and trying to stay away from his brother—which is easy because Kevin moved out while Rashid was still locked up.”

  “And the mosque? What was he doing there?”

  Eric Burton answered, “He said that it’s an obligation to pray in the closest mosque. When he’s nearby, he prays there. When he’s not, he doesn’t.”

  Nora was nodding. “Sure, okay. You checked the grocery thing?”

  “Yes. And Rita Ross’s characterization of Kevin Baker matches what Rashid said about him. So it seems a dead end there—but these Somalis … based on what you told us over the phone, I compiled some information on Somali gangs. It’s the first time we’ve found any in Philly, but they’ve been really active in the Midwest, especially Minnesota, and also in Jersey. The sex trafficking isn’t new, either. There was a case in the Twin Cities and Ohio where they were shipping girls across state lines…”

  “Little girls? Minors?”

  “Some as young as thirteen,” he confirmed.

  Nora shifted in the bed, thinking. “I was up close and personal with this guy. He had a really heavy accent.”

  “He spoke English to you?” asked Eric.

  She nodded. “Yes. But when he swore at me, he swore in Arabic. Sounded kind of like Yemeni Arabic to me.”

  Burton confirmed, “Arabic is spoken in n
orthern and coastal areas of Somalia. The rest of the country speaks Somali—some Swahili in the south.”

  “Basheera said Hafsa was trying to help someone.”

  “You think there’s a girl involved?”

  “According to Basheera there are multiple girls right here in the city, right now, a group. But it was clear from our conversation that Hafsa had some sort of interaction with one of them. At the mosque.”

  “And Hafsa’s intervention might be what got her killed?”

  “Maybe?”

  John nodded. “It’s as plausible an explanation as any so far.”

  “And maybe her body was meant as a lesson? To keep the girls from running away?” Nora’s stomach was twisting as she leafed through the pictures again. “John, we have to look at these houses more closely—especially the abandoned ones. We have to get inside. What if there’s some kind of brothel prison right under our nose?”

  John nodded. “Yes. Yes, we’ll take another look. But we need to talk about one more thing. You had said something about drugs?”

  Nora inhaled, remembering the flash drive and Jane Doe in her hospital bed. She tried unsuccessfully to still the urgency she felt about finding the young girl Hafsa had tried to help. “Yeah, Basheera said the Somalis were aiming to get more into drugs, somehow use the girls to leverage them in or something.”

  Her three colleagues exchanged glances. “You have to have territory to do that,” Ben said.

  Burton stood suddenly and began to pace. “Of course. Classic, really. They’re playing both groups off against each other. And we’ve been helping, rounding up all the gangsters from both sides, leaving the playing field open for the new guys.”

  The other three sat in silence, soaking this in.

  Nora felt a chill take hold of her. “All they would have needed was Kevin Baker’s Escalade … What if—” Nora found herself meeting Eric Burton’s gaze, and they both seemed to arrive at the same conclusion simultaneously. “If the Somalis gave us Kevin Baker, it would eliminate a huge chunk of the competition.”

  “Why didn’t they just kill him?” Wansbrough asked.

  “So he can lead you to Los Zetas, eliminating them as suppliers as well,” Burton answered, a note of respect entering his tone. “If this gang has their own suppliers then they are positioned to take the whole pie.”

  * * *

  After they left, she tentatively stood, gripping the bed rails, and found her legs. Slowly, cautiously, she crossed to the small bathroom.

  Flicking on the over-bright light, she came to stand at the wide mirror over the sink. She peered at the bruises on her cheeks and jaw. She had never been struck before. She played the whole scene back in her mind, over and over again, until she could hear the click of the empty chamber without flinching and recall the way his fist connected with her flesh without recoiling physically. She pulled the hospital gown away from her chest and stared at the marks where the bullets had tried to penetrate the vest—one contusion lay above her right breast, the other nearer her left shoulder. She envisioned the way his finger would have depressed the trigger as he aimed for Basheera, silencing her forever. She constructed his every step, and how the intent to harm them had settled in his mind.

  “I’ll find you,” she whispered into the mirror, tracing the bruises on her cheek with her fingertips. “I will never stop looking until I find you.”

  As she walked back to the bed, her eyes came to rest on one of the pictures now littering her nightstand. She seized it, then pulled a picture out of the file and studied them both intently. Then she grabbed her BlackBerry. “John,” she said urgently as soon as she heard his voice. “Remember when we stopped back at the crime scene—after talking to the hairdresser?”

  He replied slowly, “Yes, what?”

  “There was an upstairs window in one of the houses that’s supposed to be abandoned.”

  John was silent, waiting for her point.

  “In one of my pictures, the window is broken!” Nora’s voice was rising excitedly.

  John asked drily, “Isn’t that typical for an abandoned home?”

  Nora waved the other photo in the air, as though he could see it. “When we went the next day it was boarded up. The next day! Someone’s in that house!”

  * * *

  It was barely two hours later that the call came. “No one’s in the house,” John was saying through the phone.

  Nora wilted. “Nothing at all?”

  “Oh, plenty. But no people. Someone had a home generator up and running. It was hooked up wrong; any longer, and whoever was here could have died of carbon monoxide poisoning. It was also used as a storage facility; dust patterns in the basement show there were a lot of bottles, boxes, that have recently been moved. We have a tech crew trying to pull prints—the place is wiped down, but I’m sure they’ll find something. I mean, it’s wiped down but these people moved out very, very fast. Someone had to have made a mistake somewhere. Some faucet, some banister.…”

  Nora was nodding to herself, clinging to this hope, but devastated all the same. She clutched the phone in silence.

  John’s voice went on. “We have some powder, too, traces on the bed in one room. Ben is thinking probably some form of heroin.”

  Nora had swung her legs over the side of the hospital bed and was listening intently.

  John continued, “I think it was just the sort of prison we were worried about. Four bedrooms, and it looked like the dining room was converted for that use, too, there was a mattress on the floor—same goes for the living room. In each area there were hair and bodily fluid traces. And … signs of struggle.”

  “Don’t let them out of there until they find a solid lead, John. We have to find those girls.”

  “Nora—don’t worry. We’re close. You just get your rest so you can get back out here.”

  * * *

  Everything ached, her limbs, her soft, secret parts, even her jaw from struggling to keep it closed as he would yank it open to shove in his pills.

  She had begged him to leave her alone, but he kept saying she was his now, his property, to do with as he pleased.

  And now that he was done, now that he was satisfied, all she could think of was to slip away, to run away, to get away, anywhere, anywhere. He slept on his right side, his back to her. He was snoring deep, ugly snores, and she moved carefully, slowly, slowly, slowly, not breathing, not making a sound,

  no sound,

  no sound,

  no sound …

  She dropped her bare feet to the floor, fearing the floor, hating the floor that seemed to be mined with tools and cans and small, creeping bugs. He had constructed a makeshift bedroom in that cold, dark basement. Only the palest filtered light found its way into that tomb. The door to the upper floor seemed beyond reach, for it lay on the other side of the heavy, creaking door; she knew there was someone up there—could hear the footfalls even when her captor was with her below.

  If only she could reach that upper floor, but it was far,

  so far,

  so far …

  She gathered the abaya from the chair and wrapped it around herself as she took each timid, terrified step, not breathing, not making a sound,

  no sound,

  no sound,

  no sound …

  Her body ached, how it ached now even more with the effort of walking so carefully, all of her muscles tensed and knotted and coiled in fear. If he hadn’t made her swallow the pill she would be steady on her feet, confident that what she saw on the floor was where she saw it. Her pointed toes gingerly explored the freezing cement before taking each step, putting a little weight, just a little, and then more, a little more, and then stepping and feeling out the next step, and the next,

  careful …

  careful …

  But with nothing to hold onto, she could not keep her body from swaying. A false step sent an aluminum container skittering across the floor, and in an instant he had turned, and seen her, and he was on her
in two strides, his arm encircling her and slinging her across the room, back onto the bed, sweat-stained, as he cursed her in a furious but hushed tone, cursed the plotting of women, cursed and cursed as he pinned her, forcing open her already-bruised thighs and plunging into her again and again; one rough hand clamped against her lips, as the floorboards creaked overhead.

  CHAPTER 9

  Nora awoke, startled to find Ahmad staring down at her.

  “What is that on your face?”

  She put her hand to her cheek, squinting against the light of the desk lamp he’d turned on. “What time is it?” she asked, her voice low to match his.

  “Three o’clock. I saw your shoes on the rack, so I knew you were home. I was expecting to find you with a hickey or something, not bruises—”

  Forty-eight hours in the hospital had been more than Nora could handle. When her doctor had made his rounds on the second night, she badgered him until she and her internal and external contusions ended up with a prescription for plump ibuprofen and her release papers. Now she sat up, adjusting the pillows behind her, eyes narrowed. “What do you know about hickeys, boy?”

  “Enough to know I’d prefer you have one to what you’ve got there. Tell me Special Agent Colleague didn’t do that to you,” he said. His brown eyes were wide and filled with concern.

  She smiled. “Special Agent Colleague didn’t do that to me.”

  “Then what, Nora? Were you even with him?”

  “His name is Ben, Ahmad. And no, I wasn’t with Ben. I was in the hospital.”

  Ahmad clapped his palm to his forehead, his eyes wide, but Nora raised a hand. “It’s okay, habibi. Really it is.”

  “Can you talk about it with me?”

  She wanted to more than anything else in the world. She missed talking to Ahmad. It used to be that she told him everything—well, almost everything. He had known more gossip about her four by 400-meter relay team than the team itself. But something had changed. There was too much, now. Where could she start? The details about Hafsa’s death? The drive-by and her bruised rib? The leads that brought them to Basheera and her story about the Somalis? Could she really tell him about the exploding window at Manakeesh and Basheera lying dead on Walnut Street? Or how she’d pursued the man on foot, and the sound of that trigger clicking—? She realized with a pang that she really wasn’t a rookie anymore. Too much had happened. And she could no longer take her work stories to her little brother for processing. She needed a friend.