The Girls They Lost

by J H Leigh

  “Apparently, your mother.”

  Shock dropped my jaw. “Are you sure? My mother doesn’t give two shits about me.” Another thought came to me. “Maybe Madame Moirai had someone pretend to be my mother.”

  To that, Kerri produced her cell and pulled up a video. Carla appeared on a grainy, recorded feed from social media, playing the distraught mother, pleading for her daughter’s return or for information on my whereabouts.

  Dylan peered at the video, saying, “You kinda look like her.”

  I glared. “Fuck you.” I returned to the video. “When was this recorded?”

  “Yesterday. She posted on Facebook Live.”

  “My mom doesn’t use Facebook,” I said. “The woman can barely operate her cell phone,” adding with a derisive snort, “She’s usually too drunk.”

  “Well, she seems to have figured it out now,” Kerri said. “There’s also a GoFundMe page for her.”

  “What? Why?”

  “According to the page, she lost her job because she was spending so much time searching for you and now she needs money to cover basic expenses.”

  I knew it was all bullshit. My mom wasn’t out there looking for her lost daughter. This was her new con and she was using me to make a buck.

  I didn’t know why it hurt. I should’ve seen it coming but I guess I hadn’t given Carla much thought. Dylan took the cell out of my hand and gave it back to Kerri. “I take it back — you don’t look anything alike. That bitch is ugly as fuck.”

  And there it was, that sudden, fierce support that Dylan was famous for and in that moment, I needed it so bad. I nodded and spoke around the lump in my throat. “Yeah, well, Carla has always been looking for her ten minutes of fame. I guess she figured this was it.”

  “You’re not going to tell Carla where Nicole is, right?” Dylan asked in a sharp tone. “You know her mother’s a piece of shit. Madame Moirai could’ve easily gotten to her, offering up a fat payout for Nicole’s head on a platter. We can’t trust anything that comes out of that whore’s trap.”

  “I’m not telling her anything,” Kerri calmed us both. “But it does complicate things. An official report will put you on everyone’s radar. You’re going to need to keep an eye on your surroundings.”

  “Same story, different day,” I quipped, finding my footing again. “Are you going to question Carla?”

  “Yeah, I want to see what she knows, poke at her a bit and see what pops out,” Kerri said.

  “I’d do anything to be a fly on the wall when that happens,” I said.

  “Not a bad idea,” Kerri said, surprising me. “I could wire up and give you a headset to listen in. Might be useful to hear with your own ears the story she’s peddling.”

  “That’s fucking brilliant,” Dylan said, grinning. “Like real spy shit and everything.”

  Kerri smiled. “Yeah, something like that. All right, buckle up, we’re going on a road trip.”

  “I hope you brought snacks,” I said, leaning back and clicking my seatbelt, noting that the entire time, Hicks hid from the sunlight behind pitch-black sunglasses, resting his head against his fingers and his elbow propped against the windowpane. I was pretty sure he was asleep already.

  Kerri nudged him awake, gesturing to his seatbelt. “Safety first, motherfucker.”

  “Jesus-fucking-Christ, Kerri,” he grumbled but grudgingly pulled the strap across his chest, clicking it in place. “Satisfied?”

  There was a fascinating dysfunction between those two that was hard to look away from. Seeing as I’d never had a mom and dad present, only Carla, I imagined this was what having parents felt like.

  Not in a normal situation, of course. My guess was that normal parents weren’t alcoholics or workaholics with intimacy issues but maybe I was way off and that was normal because the whole world was a mixed bag of fucked-up colored candy.

  We cleared the city and hit the freeway heading upstate. Everything looked different in the day, when you weren’t running for your lives.

  I mean, still running, but I felt a smidge safer with Kerri and Hicks both packing heat. I wish we would’ve had the foresight to grab the gun from Badger’s place but we’d hightailed it out of that place so fast I think we left our shadows behind.

  Speaking of…I leaned over to Dylan, asking, “Have you heard from Badger lately?”

  “No.”

  “Seems kinda weird, doesn’t it?”

  She shrugged. “He’s not really a talker. Besides, life doesn’t stop for him just because of a few bodies lying around.”

  That was a terrible thought. I regarded Dylan with curiosity. We had time to kill. Kerri was listening to classic rock and Hicks was snoring.

  “Tell me about Nova,” I said.

  “Like what?” Dylan asked, wary. “Like what she looked like and shit like that?”

  “Whatever. Tell me what you liked about her. What made her special?”

  “I already told you. She took me in when I had no one.”

  Dylan wasn’t an open book on anything personal. She guarded that stuff like a dragon hoarding gold.

  “You loved her,” I said.

  She shrugged. “Maybe, yeah, I guess so. I mean, she was family. She was all I had.”

  For the girl who believed in no one and didn’t trust easily, Nova had become the one person she would’ve died for. Why else would she have knowingly chased after Madame Moirai to find her?

  “You know, I realized something the other day…each of you took the deal for noble reasons, except me. My decision had been purely selfish. I just wanted to get away from Carla and start fresh.”

  “I did it for the money,” Dylan corrected me but I didn’t buy it. I already knew Dylan better than I had a right to know anyone. Trauma had a way of bonding people with super glue but it also laid bare all the tender spots we tried to hide. Dylan exhaled, looking away. “Well, the money would’ve been a bonus, I guess. I just wanted to bring Nova home.”

  “It wasn’t your fault,” I told her. “I know you blame yourself for not telling Badger about Nova’s deal but how could you have known how badly it was going to go? None of us had a clue. We were duped. Your only crime was ignoring the same voice we all ignored.”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  “Badger said something to me a few weeks ago…that he’d hoped Nova would go to college, get out of the life they were in. Did he ever mention that to you?”

  Dylan shook her head but didn’t appear hurt. “College was never for me.”

  “Why not? You’re pretty damn smart.”

  “Too many rules. Too many expectations. I don’t like feeling caged in.”

  I never would’ve known just to look at her that Dylan was an anarchist free-spirit with a hidden heart of gold. Loyalty was infused in Dylan’s DNA. She’d die for anyone she considered part of her inner circle.

  A lot like Jilly.

  And Jilly had died for us both.

  God, I missed her annoying voice. I missed her laughter at weird moments and the strange, slightly sociopathic bent of her logic that always made me a little worrisome about her mental health.

  I chuckled, only to stop the tears from starting. Dylan sensed my energy change and somehow knew it was about Jilly.

  “I miss her, too,” she admitted, staring down at her hands, interlacing her fingers together and fidgeting. “I mean…as much as you can miss a stranger, you know?”

  True, we’d only known each other a short time but our circumstances had accelerated our bond to an almost psychic level. Shame pricked my thoughts when I realized I felt closer to Dylan and Jilly than I did to Lora who I’d known since I was a little kid.

  What I knew to be true, was that I would die for Dylan if I had to…and she would do the same for me.

  And neither of us had seen that coming.

  19

  Since Dylan drove the car when we bailed she gave Kerri instructions where to turn and what off-ramp to take. Before too long we were out of the city and flanke
d by tall trees, snow covering the ground from the recent storm. The air had a bite to it, like a meat locker on turbo freeze, reminding me of the night we ran from the auction house.

  We ran without shoes for our feet, just those stupid, thin, house slippers that hateful bitch Olivia had given us along with our pajamas. Knowing what I knew now, I wondered if they recycled the pajamas after they snuffed out the girl in them.

  I tried to remember how many slabs were in the morgue. All I could distinctly remember was Tana’s battered body beneath the sheet. Actually, no, that wasn’t true. I could still smell the sharp chemical scent from the embalming liquids as if that smell were permanently lodged in my nose.

  “There,” Dylan said, pointing between Kerri and Hicks to the house that provided us sanctuary when we needed it most. Her voice sounded thick and strangled. “That’s the one.”

  The house was exactly as we remembered. Not that it’d been all that long since we were there but it also felt like a lifetime ago. The last time we were here, Jilly was with us.

  Kerri slowly pulled into the driveway, motioning for us to wait in the car while she knocked on the door. We held our breath. My heartbeat painfully against my chest. The front door opened and a woman appeared — older, probably retirement age — wrapping her cardigan more firmly around her shoulders, peering at Kerri in question. We couldn’t hear what Kerri was saying but the woman seemed to relax.

  Hicks removed his sunglasses and his gaze roamed the sleepy neighborhood. “Mostly vacation homes, looks like. Bunch of boomers looking to supplement their retirement.”

  “Do you think that’s the homeowner?” I asked, feeling bad for the money we stole and basically everything we took from them. “She looks nice.”

  Hicks shrugged because he didn’t know and didn’t want to speculate. Kerri finished and headed back, the woman returning inside.

  Kerri climbed back into the car to report what she heard. “Someone reported the break-in. The homeowners are staying temporarily until they can hire a full-time caretaker for the rest of the winter until it’s time to start renting it out again.”

  “She looked nice,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Kerri said, distracted as she pulled out of the driveway and back onto the road. “She said they had to do some renovations because of the damage. I thought you said you just took essentials?”

  I frowned. “What damage? We were careful not to break anything. We just took clothes, cash and food. That’s it. And we slept in one bed because it was freezing and we showered in the bathroom. What kind of damage did she say was done?”

  “Holes in the walls, trashed furniture, broken glass.”

  “Fuck, we didn’t do that,” Dylan said, indignant. “What a bunch of fuckers, claiming we did that shit for the insurance money. They’re getting a whole house makeover and claiming we did the damage.”

  “We also stole their car,” I added, but agreed with Dylan. “They’re fucking opportunists. Now I don’t feel so bad about stealing from them.”

  Kerri smiled but she seemed to be chewing on something else in her head. “So, you found this place in the dark and ran on foot from the auction house so the auction house can’t be far from this little neighborhood.”

  “Yeah, but like you said, it was dark. I wasn’t exactly looking at landmarks. We were just running like our lives depended on it because it did,” I said. “I couldn’t even tell you what town this is.”

  “According to GPS, we’re in Esterdell, a very small, sleepy historic town without a lot of permanent residents but it’s a booming tourist trap during the summer months, which explains the clump of vacation homes,” Kerri said. “But seeing as it’s so small, there ought to be someone who reported a mansion on fire. We need to swing by the local police department and see if I can get some professional courtesy.” To Hicks, she said, “You can drop me off and then you take the girls around and see if something doesn’t jog their memory.”

  Hicks offered up a grim agreement but he looked as sour as a curdled stomach. They pulled up to the police department, a quaint place that looked like something plucked from a movie set as if no real crime happened around here, and Hicks took the driver’s seat. Before leaving us, Kerri revealed a rare show of support, grasping Hicks’ arm, saying, “You got this” and left.

  I waited until we were driving away to pepper him with questions. “What did that mean? You got what?”

  Dylan agreed, interested as well. “Sounds personal. What’s going on?”

  “You’re right — it’s personal.”

  “As Badger would say, that doesn’t sit well with me. You gave up ‘personal’ when you agreed to take this job,” Dylan said. “What if whatever this secret of yours puts us in danger? Ever think of that?”

  I squared up my gaze, agreeing with Dylan. Secrets had a bad way of biting us in the ass and we weren’t about to take chances.

  When Hicks realized neither one of us was going to let him off the hook, he relented with his signature bad humor. “Jesus fucking Christ, you’re like a pair of hound dogs on a scent. Relax. It’s nothing like that.”

  “Yeah? So spill it if it’s no big deal,” I said.

  He exhaled with a growl, “I used to live around this area. Hard being back.”

  I blinked in sudden understanding. “Does your kid live here?”

  “Close enough.”

  “Man, I don’t know why I just assumed that they lived in the city. So, you kept your family in Quaintsville while you roamed the hard streets, huh? No wonder you’re an alcoholic. Hard to keep those worlds apart,” Dylan said, shaking her head as if amused by his pain. “Must suck being back.”

  “It does.”

  “But that means you know the area pretty well?” I asked, moving onto information that benefited us.

  “Well enough.”

  “Good. You might’ve mentioned that point earlier.”

  “Why do you think I came along? For fucking funsies? A lovely day trip with three bossy as fuck females and no fucking booze to calm my nerves? Yeah, not my idea of a good time.”

  “I thought you came to hang out with Kerri, actually,” I said, being honest. “You seem to have a thing for her.”

  “Bullshit,” he muttered. “There ain’t nothing between Kerri and I so don’t go trying to play Matchmaker, got it?”

  I ignored him. “Not for nothing, I think she likes you, too. Did you have a thing or something when you were working together? An office affair?”

  “No, we did not,” he said pointedly.

  “But you wanted to,” I said.

  “Drop it, kid.”

  I smiled at his quick defensive tone. I knew people pretty well. I could tell when they were trying to hide something. Well, usually. The whole situation with Madame Moirai had thrown me from my game. Speaking of…”Why would Madame Moirai go to all the trouble of embalming the bodies of dead auction girls if she’s just going to get rid of them somewhere?”

  Hicks, relieved to talk about anything not related to his feelings, ruminated on my question, finally agreeing that it was odd, answering gruffly, “Embalmed bodies are preserved. Typically, murderers like their victims to be unidentifiable. Are you sure it was embalming fluid and not a lye solution?”

  “Positive. I remember a few things from school.”

  “Maybe there’s a graveyard somewhere filled with auction girls,” Dylan said.

  “Again, why preserve the bodies? Even if they had a dedicated area for their victims, it doesn’t make sense that they would preserve them. Preserving the bodies is for several purposes, containing the spread of disease from the dead bodies, and providing the option for loved ones to do a final viewing before burial.”

  “Something tells me Madame Moirai ain’t holding funerals for the girls she kills,” I said.

  “Not likely,” Hicks agreed, shaking his head. “That doesn’t add up.”

  “Maybe that’s why they’ve been getting away with killing girls…because they’ve found a
way around the obvious,” I said.

  Dylan nodded. “Ain’t no one saying that Madame Moirai ain’t smart. She’s probably the best damn con artist and businesswoman I’ve ever seen. Except no one has ever actually seen her.”

  “How do you know Madame Moirai is a woman?” Hicks asked.

  “We don’t,” I admitted. “All we know is that everyone who works for her or him fears their wrath if they screw up. Even the sociopathic guard had enough sense to back off when threatened with Madame Moirai’s displeasure. It’s like Madame Moirai was the evil queen of human trafficking and no one was going to dare cross her or else risk ending up in the ground, too.”

  “Takes time to build a reputation like that,” he mused. “And lots of money to start up the operation with connections like she’s got.”

  “She’s got all the right connections. Corrupt motherfucker,” I muttered. “She sent real killers to take us out. She wasn’t taking any chances. The only thing working in our favor is that she keeps underestimating our will to survive.”

  “At first glance, seems a bit of an overkill, sending assassins to take out three teens,” Hicks said. “She must really think you’re a liability if she’s willing to go that far.”

  Except we didn’t all make it out. Maybe when it was all said and done, we didn’t make out alive either.

  It was a sobering reality. I shared a look with Dylan. We didn’t want to die. I needed to focus on something other than my own demise. I focused on the road, the landscape, anything that might jog our memory of that night.

  But after a good forty-five minutes of driving up one road and down another without success, I sank back against the seat, chewing on the bitterness of inevitable defeat.

  “Who the fuck are we kidding?” I said. “It was pitch black outside when we ran and it’s not like we were paying attention to anything but surviving. Nothing looks familiar to me.” Dylan nodded, agreeing in frustrated silence. I pinched the bridge of nose to keep from crying. “It’s like pushing a fucking rock up a hill wearing roller skates. There’s no way to win.”