by T. R. Ragan
She had denied any wrongdoing, telling anyone who would listen that she was no less a victim than any of the girls being held at the farmhouse. Unfortunately the police were able to arrest her since they had found a single crack rock and pipe in her purse. She was being held on possession charges. According to one of the investigators who had interviewed her, she could end up serving life without parole, but she was pretty sure they were just trying to scare her into giving a confession. She remained tight-lipped, and her state-appointed lawyer confirmed that her assessment of the situation was correct.
Desperate to talk to her brother, she picked up her pace. She needed to tell Eric to keep the McMann girl safe until she could figure out how the hell she was going to get out of this place.
Up ahead, two women wearing the same orange prison garb as she was mopped the floor. One of them stopped working and nudged the other. The two women watched her closely as she approached. Diane’s face was bruised and battered from the beating she’d taken at the hands of Faith McMann. Dumb bitch was as good as dead if she ever saw her again.
Diane fixed her one good eye on the inmates, refusing to show weakness as she passed them by. The woman on the left was big-boned and more than six feet tall. She had white, spiky punk-rocker hair and two teardrops tattooed below her left eye. The other woman was half her friend’s size. Wide-set eyes and a small mouth were framed by a bad case of acne and scabs. She looked familiar. Had they met before?
According to her lawyer, 30 percent of the inmates had been convicted of a capital offense—murder, conspiracy to murder, and kidnapping were the most common. At this point in time, she had no idea how long she would be staying.
Shoulders set back, she passed the women without incident.
The phone line stretched all the way around the corner. Standing at the back of the line, she crossed her arms and waited with everyone else. If not for the McMann bitch, she wouldn’t be here. Her eye wouldn’t be swollen shut, and her front tooth would still be intact.
But Faith McMann wasn’t the only person she blamed.
Aster Williams never should have let it come to this. He was in charge of one of the biggest trafficking rings in Sacramento. He knew every recruiter in the business. Aster saw to it that his pimps used lies and threats to train the victims to become perpetrators in the ever-growing world of trafficking.
Aster had all the power, and yet he’d merely stood by and watched as Faith McMann gathered strength in numbers, spreading the word through the media, storming the farmhouse, and wreaking havoc. Aster should have taken care of the schoolteacher right from the start.
After Phoenix, the boy who worked for her, told Diane that a suspicious-looking woman had been on the road asking for directions, her instincts had kicked in, telling her it was time to move the girl, especially with all the public interest and intense media scrutiny over the McMann case.
Looking back, if Diane had had more time to process her next move, she would have taken the truck and left town. Sweet little innocent Jean would have been returned to her mother, and maybe they all could have moved on.
Instead Diane had seen dollar signs. The McMann kid was young and blonde and untouched. She was worth a lot of money, which prompted Diane to call her idiot brother Eric and ask him to take the girl for a while, figuring she could make a quick sale and pocket the money herself. After sending the girl off, she’d hired a couple of extra men to guard the farmhouse. Even so, she’d never truly expected Faith McMann to come charging onto her property with a half-dozen misfits loaded down with firing power.
Who the hell was this Faith McMann anyhow?
Diane had been recruiting young girls for years. She couldn’t remember one time when the parents of a child had decided to grab a pitchfork and take matters into their own hands. The McMann woman was insane. She obviously had no regard for her own life.
For the next thirty minutes, as she shuffled an inch forward in line at a time, she thought about her life and how it kept going from bad to worse.
The youngest of eleven children, eight of those boys, she’d had to work hard to garner attention. The best way to do that seemed to be getting in trouble. And trouble was easy to find. Hanging out with the bad boys at school and then experimenting with drugs got her attention all right. She’d spiraled downhill fast, and it was all a blur. Her family disowned her, and it wasn’t long before she found herself in Aster Williams’s bed. Young and pretty at the time, she’d become his mistress. He’d treated her well until the crow’s feet around her eyes deepened and no amount of makeup could hide her disappointment and age. A younger woman took over from there, a newer and younger version of herself.
Out with the old; in with the new.
By the time it was Diane’s turn to make a call, she was seething with anger. She was angry with her family, with Aster, and mostly with herself for making so many bad choices. Her hands shook as she dialed her brother’s number. The phone rang. Once. Twice. Three times. “Come on,” she muttered. “Answer your damn phone.”
There was a click and then an automated message from the California Correctional Facility letting whoever answered the call know that it was a collect call from Diane Weaver.
“Hello?”
She recognized her brother’s voice. “Eric, it’s me, Diane.”
“You’re in jail?”
She rolled her eyes. “It’s a long story, but it could be a while before I can get to your house and pick up what I left with you.” She closed her eyes and prayed he’d understand. The calls were recorded, and therefore she couldn’t say Jean’s name.
“Trista can’t handle this. The animal you left with us hasn’t stopped making a racket. I think it wants to be with its other family.”
“Jesus. Smack it across the mouth and teach the damn dog a lesson. It’s not that difficult.”
“You know Trista would never hurt a fly.”
Diane looked around to make sure nobody was listening before she growled into the receiver, “Grow a fucking pair, Eric. Knock some sense into that wife of yours. Do you have any idea how much that dog is worth on the outside market? It’s like a fucking pedigree.”
“I get it. I get it. But Trista isn’t like you. She’s sensitive. She doesn’t want any part of this.”
She closed her eyes as she attempted to summon some control over her emotions. She’d never liked Trista. Sensitive, my foot. The woman was dumber than mud, the kind of female who needed to be hit across the head to make her understand. “Listen closely, little brother. Trista might be sensitive, but she likes money. Money makes her happy. That little bitch you have is worth a lot of money.”
“How much?”
“Close to a million. She’s young, blonde, white, and she hasn’t been touched.”
She could hear him breathing as the wheels turned slowly inside that tiny brain of his. “Tell Trista you’ll both be rewarded for helping me out. I just need the two of you to hang in there for a few more days until I get things in order.”
“What about the police?”
“What about them? The trailer isn’t in your name, right?”
Silence.
“You have nothing to worry about.”
He sighed.
“Did you hear me?”
A guard used his wooden stick to tap the wall next to the phone. “Time’s up.”
“Eric! Did you hear me?”
“I heard you. Just hurry it up, sis. I don’t know how much longer either one of us can take this.”
She hung up the phone and headed back to her cell. She needed to think, needed to find somewhere other than her brother’s place to hide the girl away. Lost in thought, she forgot all about her precarious surroundings.
“Where’s the girl?” the woman with the mop whispered close to her ear.
The inmates she’d passed earlier had been waiting for her. She kept on walking. Said nothing. They were on both sides of her now, their elbows locked around hers.
She struggled t
o get loose.
“Don’t worry,” the woman with Billy Idol hair said. “We’re not going to hurt you. Just want to have a little chat.”
They ushered her to a closet door half-hidden beneath the stairs.
The smaller one pulled out a key on a chain from around her neck and unlocked the door.
They pushed her inside and locked the door behind them. It was a small area, musty and dank. There were brooms, mops, and a couple of garbage cans. With all three of them inside the tiny room, it was a tight squeeze. The bigger woman reached up and pulled a chain, filling the room with light.
Diane looked around for a way out, but there wasn’t any. No windows. Nowhere to run.
“Name’s Frisco,” the big girl said, “and this is Oreo. We’re not going to hurt you.”
“What do you want?”
“Aster asked me to find you.”
Shit! Diane’s stomach dropped. She lifted a brow, tried to play it cool. “Why?”
“He’s my cousin. He asked me to personally thank you.”
“For what?”
“He told me he owes you for helping him hide the girl away. Obviously my cousin has a soft spot in his heart when it comes to you. The problem is, he can’t help you unless you help him.”
She tried to think, but didn’t know what to say. “Help him how?”
“He wants to know where you hid the girl.”
Ah, so that’s what this is all about. Of course. Aster thought she’d moved the McMann girl on his behalf. Maybe if she played along, she could get out of here in one piece. “I didn’t have time to talk to Aster about the situation,” Diane said. “Everything happened fast. I knew I had to move the girl before it was too late.”
“Brilliant thinking on your part.” Frisco looked at her friend. “Don’t you agree?”
“Yeah, sure. Makes perfect sense.”
Aster might be her one chance at getting out of this place. But she didn’t want to risk her brother being harmed. As far as she was concerned, he was all the family she had left. “The McMann girl is staying with a friend of mine,” Diane lied. “Robert Arias. He lives in Vacaville.”
Frisco smiled, revealing two rows of small, yellow teeth. “My cousin is going to be pleased.”
“How soon can he get me out of here?”
The younger one, Oreo, clamped a hand over Diane’s shoulder. Diane tried to shrug her off, but the ugly bitch held tight and said, “You don’t remember me, do you?”
Her grimy fingernails dug through her uniform and into her skin. Diane jerked away, pivoted on her heels, and grabbed hold of the doorknob, but it was locked. Oreo jabbed a bony knee into her spine, then kicked her hard in the side.
“I was your first recruit, Mother.” The toe of her boot connected with Diane’s ribs, again and again, sending jolts of excruciating pain through her entire body until she let go of the doorknob and sank to the floor.
“You changed my name to Bella. Remember me now?”
Diane did remember her. How could she forget? She should have seen through the scabs and sores and tormented sneer. Diane hadn’t wanted to be Aster’s recruiter, but she hadn’t been given a choice. Within a week’s time she’d gone from wearing furs and diamonds to befriending young girls like Bella. She’d taken out all her frustrations on the girl, making sure the princess understood her new role as a whore. Sixteen-year-old Bella had been a quick learner, eager to please, and Diane didn’t like it one bit. She preferred to see the girls squirm and cower. If Diane wasn’t happy, nobody was going to be happy, which was why she’d been quick to offer Bella to every denizen of the night who had a few extra coins in his pocket.
Oreo bent down, jabbed a skinny but sharp elbow to her throat, then left her lying there.
Diane’s head pounded, and her lungs burned. Black dots blurred her vision as she clutched at her throat, grasping for breath.
The light went out. The door opened and closed.
She gasped as air filled her lungs. She closed her eyes then and concentrated on breathing. Moments passed before she was able to struggle to her knees and reach for the doorknob.
FOUR
The first thing Faith noticed when she walked into Detective Yuhasz’s office was how exhausted he looked. The lines in his brow appeared deeper, and dark shadows framed his eyes. He gestured for her to have a seat in one of the wood chairs in front of his desk. “What’s going on, Faith?”
He sounded as tired as he looked. She took a seat. “I can’t get Diane Weaver out of my mind.”
He said nothing, merely waited patiently for her to continue.
“Is there any way you can set something up so I can talk to her?”
“No, not likely, not while she’s in prison. She was arrested on drug possession charges. Her bail was set high, and it’ll be weeks before formal charges are filed against her.”
Before she could protest further, he shook his head. “I do know she’s pressing charges against you. She said you’re the one responsible for messing up her pretty face.”
“Ridiculous. I never touched her,” Faith lied. “Ask anyone who was at the farmhouse.”
“Your word against hers.”
“That’s right,” Faith said with a shrug before she put both hands on the top of his desk and leaned closer. “Talk to her. Please. She knows where Lara is. All the answers are right there in prison with that woman.”
“It’s not that easy.”
Her insides twisted. She couldn’t let it go. “Please. I’m begging you to find a way.”
Silence hovered between them, stifling and thick as her gaze settled on a framed picture on his desk.
Yuhasz rubbed the back of his neck. “I’ll talk to a few people and see what I can do.”
“Thank you,” she said as she stood.
She turned toward the door and then stopped and walked back to his desk. Her brow furrowed as she pointed at the picture. “I’ve seen him before.”
Yuhasz followed her gaze. “That’s Holly, my youngest daughter, her husband, David Hofberg, and their two children.”
She felt the blood rush from her head as she recalled where she’d seen him.
“What is it?”
She swallowed. “It’s nothing. Never mind.”
“Faith,” he said, prompting her to say whatever was on her mind.
“Remember the nail salon?” Faith asked. “The place where Rage and I found those young girls being sexually abused?”
He nodded.
“He was there.”
Yuhasz picked up the picture and handed it to her. “Take a closer look. Are you absolutely positive it was him?”
“I’m certain. That’s the man I saw exit the back door. The same door I snuck through before I found the pervert on top of that young girl.”
“OK,” he said, rubbing his jaw. “Thanks.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. I need to think on it a bit.”
She wanted to tell him she was sorry, but sorry didn’t seem adequate, so she said nothing. She just walked out the door, leaving him standing motionless and looking more than a little concerned.
Prior to raiding the farmhouse, Faith had received a phone call. The caller had described both of her children in detail, down to the mole on her son’s right ear, before threatening to kill her family if she didn’t back off. Because of those threats, Faith was determined to do all she could to fortify her parents’ house.
Her friend Beast, a monstrous-size man with meaty hands and a neck as thick as the trunk of a large oak tree, had agreed to help her. The wires they were installing would alert them by beeping if anyone came within three yards of the house.
“I talked to Samantha Perelman this morning,” Faith told him as she secured wire around the top of the metal post he’d just hammered into the ground.
Beast stopped what he was doing and looked at her. Sweat trickled down the side of his face. “I thought Samantha’s parents asked everyone for patience
and understanding.”
“Time is not on my side,” she told him. “You know that. I had to try. She didn’t look well, it’s true, and I was about to leave when she awakened and called out my name.”
“And?”
“She heard Diane Weaver talking on the phone the same morning we attacked the farmhouse. She said it sounded as if the woman was trying to move Lara to another location. So I went to see Detective Yuhasz about the matter, hoping he could pay Diane a visit. He said he’d do what he could, but he didn’t sound hopeful. After I left his office, though, I thought it would be a good idea to do some investigating of my own—find out everything I can about Diane Weaver. Does she have family? What about close friends? Anyone at all who might have an idea of what she’s done with Lara.”
Beast was about to say something when loud voices emanated from inside the house. They both turned and watched Rage come rushing through the back door. She gestured toward Faith.
She’d met Rage the same day she’d met Beast. Everyone who attended anger management was asked to choose a nickname. Rage had chosen her name because she was one pissed-off young woman. Faith didn’t know her exact age, but she guessed her to be in her late twenties. Rage had been dealt a bad hand when it came to life. It was Beast who’d found her in a ditch on the side of the road and taken her to the house in Roseville where he lived with his dad. Although Beast and Rage were merely friends, they were inseparable.
“You might want to get in there before someone gets hurt,” Rage warned. “Your sister-in-law is threatening to take the kids and leave before your brother gets back from his latest haul. Jana and your mom are not happy about it.”
Faith left the gloves and pliers on the ground and headed that way. From where she stood, she could hear more than one raised voice. What the heck was going on?
Bri stood in the living room, holding her two daughters, one on each side, close to her hips, as she smoothed their hair in an attempt to comfort them.
“What’s going on?” Faith asked.
