by JB Salsbury
“Mercy!” Shit, I sound frantic.
I slow my jog and take a few deep, calming breaths before calling for her again. I turn the corner to the back wall of the property where the bougainvillea grow, fully expecting to see her at her shrine. Blood drains from my face when I find it empty. Matter of fact, it looks as though it hasn’t been touched since I found Mercy here last night.
Frantic footsteps come from behind me. “The guards have seen nothing,” Maria says in Spanish before stopping next to me. “What is all this?” Her cheeks are pink and there’s a light sheen of sweat on her forehead.
“Some kind of altar, I guess. Mercy said she found it. She was here last night, praying.”
“Emilio, this wasn’t here before.” Maria crouches and inspects the candles. “She must’ve found these in the pantry.”
I lock my hands at my head and breathe past the fear that pinches my lungs. “What do they mean?”
“Each candle has a saint on it and is meant to petition God on our behalf.” She picks up one. “Saint Jude is the saint of desperate causes.” She picks up another and inspects it. “The Archangel Saint Michael, for protection.” And another. “Our Lady of Guadalupe.” She picks up the last, studies it, sets it back down, then stands and meets me eye-to-eye.
“What is it? What’s the last one?”
“Saint Christopher for safe travel.”
“Fuck!” I take off running to the front of the house, my pulse pounding in my throat. I burst through the door and jog up the steps to Esteban’s room. I don’t knock but throw open the door to find a woman, startled, in his bed. “Where’s Esteban?”
She rambles that she doesn’t know, and I head to his office below the stairs. Again, I forgo knocking and push inside to find him sprawled out on his couch, resting a glass of amber-colored liquor on his gut.
“She’s gone!” I stomp up to him, but I’m too anxious to sit still so I pace the length of the room. I fist my hands in my hair. “How the fuck did she get off grounds unnoticed?”
I should’ve seen this coming. Her depression over the last few weeks, her sudden flip last night when we made love. She had all the warning signs, yet I ignored them. Why didn’t I scoop her up and take her home when she first asked me to?
Because I was hell-bent on revenge.
“Can’t say I’m surprised. The girl was miserable.”
I freeze and glare at him. “How can you say that? You never even spoke to her.”
“Didn’t have to, ese. She looked miserable.”
Fuck off! “So what now? I need to get some guys on this. We need to search every possible hiding spot between here and the US border. She has to be close.”
“She’s your problem, not mine.” He sips his drink and his head lolls to the side. “Let her go. You’re better off without her,” he slurs and chuckles into his drink.
Fuck him. I need to think. Where would she be?
I head to the garage, throw myself into the El Camino, and tear out of the parking space with a squeal of tires and smoke. Dammit, Mercy! I told her to stay fucking put!
“Think logically, Milo! Think!”
I squeeze the steering wheel as I slam on my brakes, waiting for the guard gates to open. The moment I’m able to get through them, I step on the gas and skid onto the highway.
“She left on foot, which means she couldn’t be too far, unless . . .” Fuck! Unless she hitchhiked. But how the fuck would she get past the guards and the twenty-foot walls?
I pull out my phone and dial the house. Maria answers after one ring.
“Have someone check the walls for some kind of . . . I don’t know, a ladder or some way she would’ve gotten over.”
“They already are, Emilio.”
“Call me if they find anything.” I hang up before she has a chance to say goodbye.
I rub my eyes and search the desolate roadside. It has to be close to ninety degrees. She’d never survive a day out in this sun.
The road gets blurry. I blink to clear my vision and curse my tired eyes when they only worsen. It isn’t until the first drop gathers in my eyelashes that I realize . . . I’m fucking crying.
Mercy
“BLESSED MOTHER, FORGIVE me . . .” I can hardly hear my own voice as I push the words from my aching throat. “Mother Merciful.” Hot tears warm my eyes and fall from behind my closed lids.
Milo will come for me.
Eventually, he’ll find me.
I rebuke the voice in my head that whispers he doesn’t even know that I’ve gone. He believes I am at home, asleep in the bed we share, safe behind the walls of the compound. Hours will pass before he realizes I’m missing. He won’t be able to find me if he doesn’t know where to start.
I squeeze my eyes shut and pray. The words run together and my teeth chatter, but it’s not from cold. It’s fear. I know the possibilities of the fate that awaits me, and none of them are good. This is what I get for my impatience. My punishment is damnation or death—if I’m lucky.
With my knees pulled tightly to my chest, I turn and tuck deeper into the concrete corner as voices echo down the hallway. “Pleasemothersaveme, protectmeblessedmother, keepmesafeIpray . . .”
I whimper at the squeal of metal on metal followed by an argument between men in Spanish. I focus on their words, trying to decipher what they’re saying, but the few words I can pick up give me nothing.
A firm hand grips my upper arm and sends a stabbing pain through my shoulder as I’m yanked to my feet. The man with a thick strip of hair on his upper lip and foul breath barks in my face. He slams me against the wall and releases my arm. I cradle it to my stomach as a powerful force knocks the side of my face and sends me slamming to the floor. I cry out as every bone in my body screams in agony.
He laughs, obviously getting pleasure from my pain, and the metal door slams with the squeal of a rusted lock. The aches in my body become too much and I pass out.
“WHY ARE YOU doing this?” I mumble into the dark space of my prison.
I don’t know how long I’ve been lying here. Days, maybe. I’ve been drifting in and out of consciousness, only waking when the men who took me came down to stand me on my feet and strip me to my bra and underwear.
I fought them as best I could, fearing they’d hurt me with worse than a slap to the cheek, but they only slammed my hands above my head and held me there to take my photo. The act should’ve been humiliating, but I was so grateful they didn’t hurt me that I couldn’t find it in me to be embarrassed.
Even now, as they stand outside my door and bicker in Spanish, I don’t know what they intend to do with me. I curl deeper into myself.
“Please. Just . . . let me go.” I doubt they can hear me. I can hardly hear myself.
There’s a blinding pain behind my eyes. I can’t remember if I hit my head recently or . . . I lick my dry lips and swallow what little saliva I have left in my mouth.
I finally slip back into the darkness and hope to dream about a freedom I may never have.
A groan rumbles in my chest but turns into a holy plea for release just as the tears come again.
It’s hopeless.
This is where my life will end.
Milo
SIX HOURS, FOUR hundred miles, and no sign of Mercy.
I stopped at every town and asked if anyone had seen an albino girl. Going against everything I’ve been practicing since we got here, I had no choice but to show her picture.
That gorgeous smiling face looking up at the sun, arms outstretched as if absorbing its rays gave her energy. Her skin and hair lit up like she was plugged into an electrical socket.
She’s not the type people see walking around Baja on any given day. The good news is that if anyone has seen her, they’ll remember. The bad news is no one has.
I pull into the garage and hope Maria has better news, although it’s probably unlikely. I’ve been checking in every few hours and she has nothing new to report.
I slam the car door and pock
et the keys as a wash of grief has me sagging against the El Camino. I brace my hands on the edge of the truck bed and push back the emotion that threatens to burst free.
“Stop it.” I can’t think clearly if I’m a fucking mess.
I spent the majority of the day hating myself for not searching for her once I noticed she wasn’t in bed this morning. Maybe if I had gone looking then, I would’ve found her before she took off.
I prop my elbows on the side of the car and bury my face in my hands. “Where are you?”
I rub my eyes then blink to focus when something catches my eye. I squint into the truck bed at a screw head sticking out where the bed liner is attached.
And hanging off that screw is a cluster of pure white hair.
I pull the tender strands off and bring them to my nose. The scent is faint, but it’s there. “Orange blossoms.”
What was Mercy doing in the back of the car?
I look around and see the different ways of getting in and out of the underground garage. There’s the main ramp where cars come and go, the entrance that leads directly to the kitchen, and one more on the other side of the large space. A single door, a service entrance that leads to ground level at the back of the structure. As far as I know, it’s always locked. Only servants and security have access to the keys.
I jog to the door, and I’m surprised to find it cracked open. Not only unlocked, but ajar. I push through it and climb the steps. When I reach the door at ground level, I expect the knob to be locked—it opens.
I step out into the cool evening air and do a slow spin, my gaze going to the ground for any sign that Mercy was here less than twenty-four hours ago. I cross the lawn to the house, searching for footprints, but there’s nothing. I stop just below the balcony to our bedroom and think back to all the times I looked up there to see Mercy gazing helplessly at the ocean.
My chest tightens when I think I may never see her face again, and my knees threaten to give. Rather than fight it, I allow myself to fall into a crouch then drop back to my butt on the grass.
“Emilio! Any luck?” Maria emerges from the front door, her eyes urgently searching.
I shake my head.
She slows her pace and tucks her hands into her apron pockets as she makes her way closer. “No?”
“No.”
She mumbles a long string of prayer, but I’m hardly paying attention as my mind splinters with what to do next. Is it possible she was in my car last night? I would’ve seen her, right? Surely I looked back there if for no other reason than my every day paranoia.
“What happened to the flowers?”
I blink at Maria because what a weird fucking thing to say when I’ve lost my soul to God knows what. “Who fucking cares?”
She steps in front of me to the row of purple and yellow flowers that pepper the soil. “Crushed. Those stupid dogs.”
I want to tell Maria the dogs don’t give a shit about the flowers but notice the trampled bushes are just below our balcony. I allow my eye to make a path from the flowers up to our bedroom, realizing then that the only thing between them is a gigantic vine.
“Oh shit.” I step on the already ruined flowers and reach inside the vines and fuck me . . .”Fuck. ME!” I whirl around on Maria. “She snuck out of our room and hitched a ride with me last night!”
“That’s crazy—”
“I found her hair in the back of the El Camino. I drove the El Camino last night!”
“Okay, that’s good! So where did you go? She’s probably still . . .”
Her words dissolve in an onslaught of static between my ears.
“Son of a bitch!”
Zona Norte.
I HIT THE Mirabonita parking lot in a cloud of dust and throw the El Camino into park. At close to six o’clock at night, the place isn’t as crowded but it’s busy enough that I have to weave through cars to get to the club entrance.
I don’t give my eyes time to adjust to the dim lighting and run into a couple people on my race to Arturo’s office. Almost there, I slam into a solid wall of his security team.
“I need to see Arturo.” Shit. I repeat the words in Spanish and try to shove past them, but they hold me back.
“He doesn’t get in until nine,” the big one answers in Spanish and shoves me back.
Dammit. I weave my fingers together on top of my head, trying desperately to get a full breath as I pace the small hallway. I need to talk to Arturo. Nothing happens at Zona Norte without him knowing about it.
If anyone here saw Mercy last night, they’d remember. I step back out into the club and scan my surroundings, my heart longing for a glimpse of pale hair. Working girls hang on men as they sway on the dance floor, and a few are coupled off in corners. The bar is mostly empty except for two men drinking alone and a few working girls who’re hanging at the end of the bar and looking bored.
The bartender is changing out old bottles for new ones, probably getting ready for the rush that comes after dark. He doesn’t look as though he’s been working all day, his shirt clean and wrinkle-free, his eyes alert. Maybe he just got here for the night shift. Maybe he was here last night.
Pulling my phone from my pocket, I make a beeline to the bar. I get Mercy’s photo ready and call the bartender over to me.
“What can I get you—”
“Have you seen this woman?” I shove the screen into his face so quickly it makes him flinch. “I’m sorry, I need to find her. She may have been here last night.”
He cautiously steps forward and leans in to inspect the photo. His eyes snap to mine. “Yeah. She was here last night.”
“You saw her. Did you talk to her? Did she say where she was going?”
He’s already shaking his head. “She didn’t. She was only asking for the exit.”
I look around the mostly empty space and see several neon signs that read Salida.“Do you know which door she left from? Did you see her walk out?”
He points at the exit door just behind my left shoulder. “I showed her that one, but no, I didn’t see her leave.”
I whirl around toward the door and jog to it, bursting out into a long alley.
The pavement is lined with paraditas, prostitutes standing in doorways to small, dingy rooms with nothing inside but a bed. I imagine Mercy stumbling into one of those rooms. I picture her seeing the dirty streets, smelling the acrid air, and wondering what the men and women here were doing. Would she have stopped and asked for help?
I cross the street to a girl who looks as though she can’t be a day over eighteen and I hold up the image of Mercy on my phone. “Have you seen her?”
The girl’s eyes are caked with black and blue makeup, and she stares at the image then shakes her head. “No, but if you want to pretend I am her . . .” she purrs in Spanish and slides a hand up my ribs.
I stop her movement at my chest. “No. Thank you.”
I move on to the next girl and the next, showing them all the image of Mercy and getting the same response.
No one has seen her.
At the end of the alleyway, I drop my hands to my hips and stare blindly at the brick wall in front of me. A dead end. Just like my search.
Where the fuck could she have gone?
I turn back to the door she must’ve left from.
Maybe she took a different exit. I need to go back inside and ask the bartender if any regulars were in last night. If he saw her, surely others did too. I’ll wait for Arturo. He’ll have security footage.
I jog back toward the club when I hear a woman yell, “Oye, señor!”
I stop and turn to see a woman waving me down from the doorway of her room. She’s with the young girl I spoke to first. “No gracias!”
“Wait!” She sends the young girl away and runs to me in bare feet and a short, tight dress. She’s older than the first girl I spoke to. If I had to guess, judging by the soft lines around her eyes, I’d say she’s in her forties. She could be younger, it’s hard to tell, because the lines on her
left eye are accentuated by a nasty pink and purple bruise. “I heard you were looking for a girl. A güera.”
My heart pinches so painfully that I grip my chest.
She motions toward my phone that I didn’t realize I have gripped as firmly as if it’s Mercy herself and I’m trying to keep hold of her.
“Right! Yes.” I show the woman the picture. I didn’t talk to her before. She must’ve been . . . busy. “Have you seen her? I believe she was here last night.”
“Si.” She nods then looks around as if she has eyes on her from every direction. “Come.” She hurries back to her room and invites me inside.
I stick to the doorway, unsure if this is a ploy to get business or if she genuinely has information about Mercy.
She must understand because she motions around the room. “No cameras in here.”
I do a quick check of the mostly empty room and find no sign of cameras. “There are cameras out there?”
She nods and slips on an oversized T-shirt, which makes me feel more comfortable about being alone with her.
I step inside and close the door but lean back against it. “Did you see her last night?”
“Yes.” She sits at the foot of the bed, her hands gripping the front of her shirt. “She was lost.”
I push up from the door and cross to her. “Yes. Yes, she was. I need to find her. She could be hurt or . . . are you okay?”
The woman wipes tears from her eyes and winces when she touches her bruised face. “I should’ve stopped them—”
“Stopped who?” Rivers of tears mixed with black makeup stream down her face, and my pulse is throbbing so hard, it’s making me dizzy. “Tell me who!”
“I don’t know their names.” She sniffs. “They were here, with me.” Her cheeks flush pink, and she points at her eye. “They were rough and . . .” More sniffing. “They left. When they did, I went to tell security and I saw them with her.”
“What do you mean you saw them with her? How?” God, I’m going to be sick. I’m going to lose my stomach all over this poor prostitute’s floor.
“They were . . . harassing her, I think. I should’ve said something, but I was scared. I ran to get security, but when I came back, they were gone.”
