by Callie Hart
I freeze for a second, giving myself a moment to quit panicking and think. Think, Sloane! Blunt force trauma to the head. Diclofenac. How much time do I have here? Could be five minutes. Could just as easily be five seconds, too. I don’t have time to run upstairs for clothes, but I figure I do have enough time to run inside the house and grab my purse from the table by the front door. Once I’ve snatched that up, I hurry to the parked Volvo by the side of the house, retrieve the key from my purse, pop the hood, and then—
Then I come to a halt.
A car won’t work without spark plugs, I know that, but faced with the engine I have no idea where the spark plugs are. Or what they look like. Gasping in exasperation, I grab ahold of one of the thick black hoses feeding into the engine block and I yank it free. A bolt and a washer come loose, skittering to the ground. I pick both up and throw them as hard as I can into the dark, scrubby undergrowth, praying that the car can’t work without them.
Enough delay.
I run back to the sedan to find Lacey shaking uncontrollably in the rearview. I also find the keys already in the ignition, just waiting to be cranked. They obviously wanted to make a quick getaway. Thank fuck. “Why are we taking their car?” Lacey’s teeth chatter together as she speaks. I’ve seen shock before, can recognize its early stages. I need to get her some sugar and soon otherwise she’s gonna crash. Hard.
“Their people know my car. They might be out looking for it when these two don’t check in or something. We’re better off taking this and dumping it, then getting a rental car.”
Lacey’s eyes contain distant pinpricks of awareness. She nods slowly, pulling her knees up under her chin, hugging her bent legs to her chest. I drive into the night, speeding away from my house and the bodies of the two strangers who came to do us harm.
It turns out it was vital that I grabbed my purse. The gas tank is running on vapors by the time we hit the freeway—who doesn’t fill up the tank if they’re planning on a good ol’ kidnapping? I immediately leave the city limits and find myself on I-5 South without even making the conscious decision. The road stretches out in a never-ending expanse of blacktop now, a vast ribbon of roadway that will carry us for roughly seventeen hours in the same direction until we hit upon Los Angeles. I could have gone to the hospital. I could have gone to Pip, too, but the thought of dragging trouble to her doorstep is one I can’t entertain. Same with my workplace. All I know is that the only person capable of keeping us safe now is probably going to be annoyed at our presence. And I literally have no idea how to find him once we reach L.A.
Lacey eventually falls asleep after we stop at a gas station and I grab her an overly sweet soda and a couple of power bars. Once dawn hits, weak and bleary, a pale pink color washing over the cloudy sky, I find a Wal-Mart off the freeway and wait for it to open. Lacey remains asleep in the car as I go inside and grab us each a couple of changes of clothing. The cashier glances down at the fresh, purple bruising on my forearm where the guy grabbed me earlier and shakes her head, as though the state I’m in, the early hour, and my hastily grabbed stash of jeans, T-shirts and shoes tells a story all of their own. She clearly thinks I’m on the run from an abusive boyfriend or something.
It’s amazing the difference a pair of jeans and some ballet flats can make to a flight of escape. I certainly feel less vulnerable than I did in my PJs, either way. Lacey wakes a solid eight hours later, is conscious long enough to tell me that she doesn’t know how to drive, before I decide enough is enough and we need to dump the car. We stop in Jackson County, Oregon, and abandon the vehicle in a liquor store parking lot with the keys still in the ignition—someone’s bound to steal it given the neighborhood—and then we traipse five blocks over to a Rest Eezy Motel, where I promptly check us in under a false name and then pass the fuck out.
*****
“What the fuck do you mean, the place was empty?”
Callum, one of my boys, cautiously words the information he needs to tell me, knowing full well how much shit he’s in. I set him the task of checking in on Sloane’s place through the night and the unbelievable little motherfucker is only calling me now, at eleven fucking a.m., to tell me that the house was empty when he got there. “When did you last go by the place?” I demand.
He’s silent for a long time. And then, “Midnight.” I can hear the wince in his voice.
I hope he can hear the murder in mine. “Say again? Because I swear you just said midnight, when I told you to go by every two hours.”
“I know, Zee. But the place is miles from anything, man! Took me an hour just to find it. I figured no one else was gonna be headed up that sketchy road in the dark. It’s fucking dangerous!”
“You know what’s fucking dangerous?” I growl in a low voice. “Me. I’m fucking dangerous, and right now I’m close to flying back to Seattle so I can personally fuck you up. You feel me?”
“I’m sorry, Zee! Seriously, I’m gonna find them, I swear.”
“No you’re not. You’re gonna tell me what you found when you went up there.” My voice grows quieter and lower with each and every word; anyone who knows me well enough knows this is not a good thing.
“There were deep tire tracks. Not from the doc’s car, though. That was all fucked up, still parked by the house. And there were a lot of footprints and skid marks in the mud. Guess it looked like something had been dragged or some shit.”
“Dragged or some shit? You’re really filling me with pleasant thoughts right now, Callum. Do you know what it feels like to have your fingers broken one by one? ’Cause the prospect of showing you is sounding more and more enjoyable by the second. Where. Are. They?”
“I don’t know, boss. I’m gonna find out, though. Right now!”
The phone goes dead. I grit my teeth together, screwing my eyes shut and clasping my hands around the thing until it creaks under the pressure. I take a moment. Swallow hard. Inhale a deep breath.
Today has not started off well.
An unsettled, frantic twisting has my stomach practically boiling. What the fuck is wrong with me? My palms are sweating like crazy and my heart is thundering so fast it almost feels like it’s battling to get away from me. I stand up, feeling slightly lightheaded.
Breathe, for fuck’s sake, I tell myself. Fucking breathe. But it doesn’t seem to help. The last time I felt like this was when the bars on my cell in prison slammed shut on the first night in Chino and I realized I was fucked. Totally vulnerable. At the will of another man. I hadn’t lived like that since before, with my uncle. And I’d sworn I would never again. I’d let myself panic on that first night, and then I had shut everything down. Decided that they could put me behind bars and tell me when I could eat and when I could shower and when I could exercise, but there was no fucking way they were gonna tell me how I was gonna feel about it. After that I’d walked around with my head held high, daring anyone to try and test me. To try and push me. There had been no obligatory fight with another inmate to prove how tough I was when I began my stint in Chino. I’d been a walking invitation, an open offer for anyone to be stupid enough to try. None had. Not once. The feeling of helplessness had vanished after that, and I realized I was in control in a few small ways, even inside prison.
But not now. The feeling wrenches through my insides, knotting everything together into one painful gathering of intestines, organs, muscle and blood.
Completely fucking unacceptable.
I don’t know where they are.
I don’t know where she is.
I don’t know how to get to them.
There’s nothing I can do.
But I need to do something. I have to. I snatch up my jacket, testing the weight to make sure the Camaro keys are still inside. I’ll drive all day and all night if I have to. I’m going to find those girls. My girls. My girl.
On the other side of the door, Julio and one of the guards from the entrance the other night, the tall one, are already heading down the hallway, serious looks firmly plastered
onto their faces. A serious look on a Mexican gang lord is a bad sign. When Julio is suspicious or considers himself threatened, he acts to the contrary; he smiles. When he suspects someone is playing him for a fool, taking liberties, spying and generally fucking around in business he has no right to be fucking around in, that’s when the smile disappears.
“Going somewhere, ese?” Julio asks. There’s no brother here now. Only a mild contempt that lets me know I’m truly screwed. Ese’s the kind of name reserved only for other Hispanics. Julio’s using it ironically, pointing out that I don’t belong here. That he knows something is seriously up. The guard at his side is carrying a gun tucked in the front of his waistband, thumb hooked obviously in the belt alongside it.
I shrug. “Not much, man. Just going out to pick up a friend. You said I could bring someone to this event, right?” It’s not for another two days, but I have to risk it. It’s the first excuse that comes to mind.
“Sure, sure.” Julio nods. He scratches at his chin, eying me up and down. “Before you go, come chat by the pool a while, huh?” This isn’t the kind of request a man says no to. The fact that he’s even disguised it as a request gives me a glimmer of suspicion that he might not know as much as I think he does. Not yet, anyway. I nod, narrowing my eyes at him. Julio gestures in front of himself, signaling that I should go first. After three days casually wandering the halls, hoping to randomly bump into Alexis, I’ve gotten a pretty good lay of the land within the compound’s villa. I head straight for the pool. Outside, a fruit platter has already been set out along with fresh juice and beer. Julio sits down on his sun lounger, the guard taking up position standing behind him. I chuckle at the ridiculous punk, who glares back at me in return.
“Gonna shoot your dick off with that thing,” I advise him, raising my eyebrows at his gun. I reach for a strawberry, which I chew slowly, smiling a dark smile at him.
Julio makes a tsking sound at the back of his throat. “Come now, Zeth. Be nice to my friends. I’m always nice to yours, true?”
I eat another piece of fruit, rocking my head from side to side—a non-committal gesture, even though I say, “True.”
“I just wanted to ask you something, my friend.” Julio makes a waving gesture toward the guard, who produces a folded over thin manila envelope from the back of his waist band this time. Julio accepts it and pulls out a piece of paper, which he places face down on the table between us. “I was wondering if you could explain a little further about your business here in L.A.? You said you were catching up with some friends on your way to visit family, no?”
“That’s right.” I reply instantly, not blinking at his line of questioning or at the piece of paper he’s pulled from the envelope.
“I see. What kind of friends you got here in Los Angeles, Zeth?”
“All kinds.” Another piece of fruit. I gesture toward the ice bucket filled with beers and raise my eyebrows again. Julio nods, giving his consent. I twist the cap off one and take a long swig. Julio follows suit, though taking only a small sip instead. “Visited an old high school buddy yesterday. Grabbed some lunch,” I tell him. I was careful to make sure I wasn’t being followed, but fuck. Sometimes people are sneaky motherfuckers. Julio could have had me tailed when I went to meet Rick. Better to admit to seeing him before confronted with photographic evidence, if that’s what he’s got on that paper.
“Uh-huh.” Julio rests a hand on his grotesque bulge of a belly, balancing the beer alongside it, too. “This friend of yours. He has a name?”
I give him a confused look. “Yeah, his name’s Rick. Why?”
“Because we found a guy taking pictures of the girls yesterday from outside the compound. He refuses to give us his name or why he’s here. We thought perhaps he might be a friend of yours?”
Fuck. A guy taking pictures of the girls from outside the compound? That sure as hell is someone I know, but it ain’t Rick. It’s Michael. I shake my head, smiling ruefully. “Sorry, man. No idea. Probably just some perve trying get his dick wet, surely?”
With a scowl the guard behind Julio makes a disbelieving grunt in the back of his throat. “You seriously listening to this, boss? The guy’s full of shit.”
“Shut your fucking mouth, Andreas!” Julio snaps. His drooping jowls wobble at his sudden spike of rage. Face almost purple, Julio casts a look over me that would make lesser men falter. Not me, though. I’ve dealt with much worse and come out the other side smelling of fucking daisies. The other guy usually comes off reeking of sweat and his piss-stained pants. Julio knows this about me.
“I’m not accusing you of anything, Zeth,” he reassures me. “I just want to make sure that this man is no friend of yours before I let Andreas and his friends get a little more inventive with their questions. I’d feel bad if I were to hurt someone in your employ?”
If Michael is somewhere in this compound, then he’s keeping his mouth shut tight—one of the reasons I hired him—and I know they have no reason to suspect he’s one of mine. From Julio’s angry reaction to Andreas’s insistence that I’m somehow to be suspected here, I get the impression that he was the one who whispered the suggestion in Julio’s ear in the first place.
“Sorry, man. Like I said, I can’t help you. Makes no sense anyway. Why would I have someone watching the place when I’m already inside?”
Because he can take photos of you fucks when I’m gone. Because he can see into the girls’ area of the compound from where he was hiding. Because I need to act cool while I’m here, and not get caught snooping around like a goddamn spy. There are more reasons, but those are the most important ones. Julio’s dark eyes laser into me, maybe trying to ascertain the truth of my comment, and then he thoughtfully rocks his head up and down.
“I thought as much, hombre. But you know how things are with Charlie, huh? We are good friends now but it wasn’t always that way. I’m a careful man, Zeth. I always like to be careful.”
“Me, too.”
Julio casually flips over the piece of paper on the table, musing over it for a moment. When he puts it down again, it’s the right way up, and I can see the damage they’ve already done to my second in command. Michael’s ordinarily flawless appearance is gone, replaced by dust-encrusted jeans and a blood-stained, white singlet shirt. The muscles in his arms are strained, bulging awkwardly as he pulls against the bonds tying his hands behind his back. Blood on his forehead, his temple, his shoulder, running from his mouth. He’s already been worked over pretty good.
I let it all wash over me. No time to panic or worry about the man; this isn’t his first time at the rodeo. He can take care of himself; I know that from experience. That knowledge doesn’t stem the pure rage I feel, though. That I have to grab hold of with both hands and shove down inside me. I’ll have to deal with that later. I smirk, raising one eyebrow at Andreas still standing with his itchy trigger finger begging to be set loose on the gun at his hip. “No se te puso dura, Andreas. They say a guy who can’t get a hard-on has to make himself feel like a man in other ways.”
“What the fuck you implying, puto?” he snaps, stepping forward. Julio holds up an impatient hand, stopping him in his tracks.
“I really wish you would play nice, boys,” he says tiredly. “Andreas, go see if this guy’s ready to tell us what he’s doing here please. Zeth, I know you said you were going to collect a friend, but perhaps you’d do me the honor of spending this afternoon with me? I thought maybe some entertainment from the girls perhaps and a few beers in the sunshine?”
For fuck’s sake. He wants to keep me close. He may not believe Andreas right now, but he also doesn’t necessarily believe me either. I arrange my face into my best imitation of an apology. “Sorry, Julio. I really do need to grab this chick. Maybe tomor—”
“You wouldn’t leave me to drink alone, would you?” he breaks in. He places a firm hand on my shoulder, pushing me back into the sun lounger. “No, Zeth, man. I don’t drink alone. I’m afraid I really must insist.”
W
hen I finally wake up, Lacey isn’t in the motel room. The place, dilapidated and threadbare, has an aura of abandonment that gives me chills. Feels as though I’ve been on my own here for a long time. I instantly panic, wondering where the hell the girl has gotten to. Straightening off the bed and hurrying barefoot across the darkly stained, slightly tacky carpet, I fling the bathroom door open fully expecting to find the girl floating in a dark red bathtub full of her own blood. The overhead lighting is stark as it lights up the off-white tiles and yellowing sink basin, but there’s no red in here. No blood. My heart rate drops a little. That is, until I realize the motel is right on the side of a busy road and there’s more than one way to kill yourself besides slitting your wrists in a tub of lukewarm water.
“Lacey? Lace!” I dash out of the room, surprised to find the sky overhead a glorious wash of pale blue instead of grey and weighty with rain clouds. The blonde girl stands thirty feet away, back to me, at a payphone cemented into the concrete of the parking lot. The handset is pressed to her ear. I make sure she hears me as I approach behind her.
“…night. Two of them.” Her large, intensely dark eyes widen as they register me standing to her left. She gives me a brief nod. “Yes,” she says into the phone. “I know. I will, I promise. But right now I just need the address.” She bites on her lip, her body tense as she apparently waits for whoever is on the other end of the phone to respond. The rigid stance evaporates a second later; she closes her eyes for a scant moment, exhaling a long breath, and then rummages for a piece of paper in her pocket. She quickly scribbles down a set of numbers using a Rest Eezy pen she must have found inside the motel room. “Thank you, Georgio. I’ll come and see you, I promise.” She slams down the handset, holding the screwed-up piece of paper in her hand triumphantly. “I got it. I got the address of the compound where Zeth is right now.”
