Painted Skins

by Matt Hilton

  ‘Well, you going to keep me in suspense all night?’ he finally asked.

  Tess wiggled her eyebrows. ‘Daryl Bruin came up through the same system as Jasmine. After his father booked out, his mom began turning tricks to make ends meet. She fell into hard drugs, died of a heroin overdose when Daryl was seven, and he entered the system, was made a ward of the state. He was a foster kid, in and out of various homes, until he was adopted at fifteen by the lovely Bruin family. Oh, and you were right about him not being as old as he looks.’

  ‘It’s that stupid moustache and old-guy clothes,’ Po said. ‘So Bruin isn’t his original name, huh?’

  ‘No. His adoption files were closed, but you know me—’ she tapped a finger to the side of her nose ‘—I have my ways and means. I only know about his former life because I discovered he’d been adopted. I was able to follow his trail back from there, and found the names of the families who fostered him. Back then he still used his mom’s name.’

  ‘Don’t tell me: Reed?’

  ‘If only it were that easy, huh? And no, it wasn’t Norris either; he’s no relation to Margaret or to Jasmine’s mom, Ellie.’

  ‘Jasmine’s dad?’ Po offered.

  ‘I did wonder, but it came back negative on them being siblings. Jasmine’s mother didn’t name the father on the birth certificate, so I met a dead end there.’

  ‘Margaret Norris could tell you who Jasmine’s father is.’

  ‘She might be able to, but I’m not sure it would help. See, I found out who Daryl Bruin’s father was, and he died before Jasmine was even born. Before she could even have been conceived. No, their fathers are two different guys.’

  ‘So how does knowing any of this help?’

  She shrugged. ‘Like I said, it gives Bruin a genuine reason for wanting to help find Jasmine. Maybe he is the kind-hearted philanthropist he made out, and he genuinely does want to help because of their similar backgrounds.’ She screwed up her nose, showing she didn’t believe a word of it. ‘Or there’s something I’m still missing.’

  ‘I vote for the latter,’ said Po.

  ‘I second the motion.’ She grinned. ‘But I did find something interesting: you didn’t ask me the name of Daryl Bruin’s biological father.’

  ‘Trojak,’ Po stated.

  Tess’s grin faded. ‘Talk about stealing my thunder …’

  ‘It was the only other name I could think of,’ Po admitted. ‘So what’s the deal? They’re brothers?’ He asked the latter with a hint of trepidation in his tone. They’d just got off the back of a case involving brothers, and Po was still carrying the scars from that conflict.

  ‘No, they’re not brothers. Cousins. John Trojak’s father is Bruin’s uncle.’

  ‘Trojak’s the elder of the two? Why’s he following Bruin’s instructions like a lap dog?’

  ‘Bruin’s the brains of the outfit; Trojak’s the brawn. Not unlike our relationship when you think about it.’

  Po grunted in laughter.

  ‘Maybe his wife’s not the only one pushing him around,’ Tess said, and realized their conversation was back on thin ice. But Po had apparently moved on from whatever had disturbed him earlier.

  ‘Or maybe he gets to do neat stuff for Bruin that his wife doesn’t allow.’

  ‘Could be it.’ It was all conjecture, and did nothing to help find Jasmine. But Tess hated a mystery. No, that was untrue. She hated loose ends. She actually loved solving a mystery, and the inclusion of Bruin and Trojak had added extra layers to the conundrum surrounding Jasmine Reed’s disappearance.

  ‘So …’ Po went on. ‘You learn anything about your visitor?’

  She’d told him about the man peering in her front door earlier, and how she’d initially suspected that it was Trojak sniffing around for clues.

  ‘Not a thing. All I have is a brief description of him and his car. I can’t do much with either, and maybe I’d be wasting my time doing so. For all I know it was just some random caller who has moved on.’

  ‘Or a prospective client,’ Po suggested.

  ‘No.’ Tess shook her head. ‘My home address isn’t listed alongside my business. Clients wouldn’t come to my house, they’d contact me through Emma’s office, or via my website.’

  ‘Unless it’s someone who knows you personally. An old friend or colleague?’

  ‘I don’t know. Why be so tight-lipped when Ann Ridgeway spoke to him?’

  ‘Perhaps he had personal reasons and didn’t want a busybody knowing his business.’

  ‘Well, there is that. Mrs Ridgeway does like to gossip.’

  Po shrugged. The mystery guy was unimportant. But not to Tess. She didn’t like loose ends one bit.

  ‘What’s the plan?’ Po asked.

  ‘I’ve set an alert on my computer; if it gets a hit on Jasmine I’ll get a message on my cell. You about done here?’

  He nodded. Charley, the manager and chief mechanic – and unbeknown to most, Po’s employee – had already left for the evening. All that was left to do was to shut up the shop. ‘What’s on your mind?’

  ‘We do a bit more digging,’ she said. ‘Maybe knock on a few more doors. I really can’t sit around waiting for a text message.’

  ‘And there was I thinking of grabbing a pizza and going to see a movie,’ Po sighed.

  ‘Ha! The last movie you watched in a cinema was Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.’

  ‘Actually,’ Po said, ‘it was Biloxi Blues, but I can see how you made the mistake.’

  ‘Y’know, it’s a weird thought: the last time you graced a theatre was before I was even born.’

  ‘If it’s any consolation I was still a kid myself. My taste in movies has matured since then.’

  ‘I’ve seen your DVD collection,’ she said, and got up to follow him from the office. ‘The Goonies is a positive sign of your continuing maturity.’

  Po smiled in good humour, but shooed her towards the exit. He’d already dropped the roller shutters over the repair bays, so the only way out was through a scarred old door in one corner of the building. He doused the few remaining lights as she pushed out the door. Her Prius was parked alongside the near kerb, while Po’s Mustang dominated one of the parking bays in front of the shop. The only other car in sight was parked on the opposite corner, and its colour immediately caught Tess’s attention. It was aquamarine. Its headlights were on, and the engine running. A guy peered at her from behind the steering wheel.

  She glanced back, checking on Po’s progress, but couldn’t see him. Electronic bleeps indicated he was setting the alarm panel. She looked back at the car, her attention alerted by a change in the engine’s grumble. The car began crawling towards her. ‘Po,’ she called, ‘get out here.’

  ‘What’s up?’

  Tess wasn’t sure if anything was up, but she knew enough not to trust coincidence. The appearance of an aquamarine-coloured car so soon after having a similar vehicle described to her couldn’t be ignored. She stepped out past the front of her Prius and stared through the windshield at the driver but couldn’t make out any detail. One hand came up, as if she intended hailing him. The driver hit the gas, and the car powered towards her. Tess lurched back, fearful of being smashed against her own car, but the move was overkill. The car didn’t come near hitting her, or the Prius, but it was obvious the driver wished to get away before she could get a good look at him.

  Breathless she watched the car streak away, and wasn’t aware of Po until his hand fell on her shoulder.

  ‘What was that all about?’ he asked.

  ‘Don’t know. But I think it’s the man who was at my house earlier.’

  ‘So if he’s looking for you, why not stop and state his business?’

  She was at a loss.

  Her mind was busy with other matters. One of them was committing to memory the car’s licence-plate number.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘And I don’t mind admitting, I don’t like it.’

  NINE

  ‘Any luck, si
s?’ asked Alex Grey, leaning from the window of his patrol car. He’d drawn the cruiser parallel to Po’s Mustang, so he was alongside Tess in the passenger seat. They were on a public jetty on the bayside trail, facing out to where the lights of moored boats bobbed on the inky water of Back Cove.

  ‘You mean in finding Jasmine Reed?’ Tess replied.

  ‘Unless you’ve another job on I don’t know about?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘On both counts.’

  ‘I tried getting somebody in missing persons interested in Jasmine again, but …’ He shrugged. ‘I’m sorry, it’s a case of the girl who cried wolf too many times.’

  ‘Yeah. I’ve already been down that track.’

  Alex clucked his tongue in thought, and Tess heard Po’s chuckle. He found her habit of clucking both endearing and frustrating in equal measures. When she glared at him he said, ‘Must be in your genes.’

  Observers often commented on the resemblance between Tess and her brother. Sometimes people thought they were twins, despite the difference in height, age, and Alex’s obvious masculinity. They were both fair of hair and complexion, but their eyes were different colours. Alex came off the better in his sister’s opinion; he had the startling pale blue eyes of their father while hers were a dowdy shade of brown, an inheritance from her mom, but at least without the sour squint. There was no denying their familial connection, and it had been exaggerated when they were in uniform. However, Tess’s Sheriff’s Deputy uniform had been relegated to mothballs while Alex still wore his Portland PD duds with pride. They had an older sibling, Michael Jnr, but he’d moved out to Dayton, Ohio, with his new family, though he too was a law-enforcement officer, a state trooper. Michael Jnr was as dark as his siblings were fair.

  Tess loved her brothers equally, but the connection she had with Alex was special, not simply through how alike they were but because they’d recently worked together in a fashion that meant they were indelibly linked through their mutual friends. Alex and Emma Clancy were an item, and it was Alex who’d convinced his girlfriend to hire Tess when she’d required the services of a trustworthy investigator, and also Alex who’d introduced her to Po when she’d sought a guide to travel with her to the bayous of Louisiana. She owed him, but then she wasn’t beyond asking him for another occasional favour.

  ‘There’s one thing you might be able to help with …’ she said and offered him a puppy-dog flash of her big brown eyes.

  ‘Uh-oh. Why’d I know there was going to be a catch?’

  Tess had hailed him to a meeting with a promise of coffee and donuts, which she had held on to: he’d get them once he agreed to her request.

  ‘No such thing as a free dinner,’ Po said. ‘You should know that, buddy.’

  ‘What do you want?’ he asked, in a weary tone.

  ‘How’s about running a licence plate for me?’ she asked.

  ‘You can’t do that yourself?’

  ‘I could if I was back at Emma’s office, but I’m not. I’m out looking for a missing girl.’

  ‘You know I’m putting my ass on the line every time I do something like this.’

  ‘Of course I know. That’s why I appreciate your help so much.’ She rattled the bag of donuts. ‘Chocolate covered, with candy sprinkles.’

  ‘Yeah. Why worry about my ass when you’re going to make it grow as big as a house?’ Alex reached for the bag, but Tess retracted it.

  ‘Run the plates first,’ she said.

  ‘At least give me the coffee,’ Alex said. ‘I’m so parched the dispatcher won’t understand me.’

  She handed across the steaming coffee. Then recited the number she’d committed to memory as Alex greedily peeled back the lid. He sniffed the contents, sighed deeply. He slurped noisily even as he reached for the mike pinned to his chest. He called in and requested details on the aquamarine car as if he was currently observing it on the street.

  Words were fed back to him, but directly into his earpiece, so Tess had to wait while he thanked the dispatcher and turned back to her. ‘Donuts for details,’ he said, and reached across, making a gimme-gimme wiggle of his fingers.

  ‘You do know how clichéd you look?’ said Tess.

  ‘Clichéd or not, I love donuts. Give ’em over.’

  Alex relayed the details while digging in the bag and pulling out the first of four chocolate-covered treats. The licence tag came back to a late-model Ford, owned by a Jeremy McGuire of Portsmouth, in neighbouring New Hampshire.

  ‘Wasn’t a Ford our guy was driving,’ Po pointed out. ‘It was a Chrysler.’

  ‘You sure you gave me the correct details?’ Alex asked Tess and was rewarded with a scowl.

  ‘No reports on McGuire’s car?’ she prompted.

  ‘None. But that could change. McGuire maybe doesn’t know his ride’s missing its licence plate yet.’ Alex chomped on a donut. ‘I’ll put out a BOLO on this Chrysler, see if we can give the driver a pull. He has some questions to answer.’

  Tess exhaled noisily through her nostrils. If the mystery man was driving around with stolen plates on his car he was definitely up to no good. He was now an issue for the police, but it irked her: she wanted to know what the deal was with him before he was thrown in a cell.

  ‘Do me a favour, Alex,’ she said.

  ‘Another favour, you mean. It’ll cost you.’ He shook the bag of treats.

  ‘Jeez, how many donuts can one cop eat?’ Po asked.

  ‘You can bank them for another evening,’ Alex promised, ‘I don’t want to get so fat I can’t get into my uniform.’

  ‘Deal,’ said Tess. ‘Hold off on that BOLO, will you? Give me a chance to get to this guy first, before anyone else pulls him in.’

  ‘You’re asking me to ignore my duty when there’s a criminal commissioning illegal activity on my patch?’ He grinned round a mouthful of dough. ‘Six donuts next time,’ he said, ‘and you don’t tell Emma. She has me eating seaweed and quinoa salads, for God’s sake. She hears about me bingeing out on junk food and I’m history.’

  ‘Your silence for my silence,’ Tess said.

  ‘You got it, sis. But with one caveat: if I do come across this dude, I will pull him over myself.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Tess agreed, ‘but I also have a stipulation. You call us to come speak with him before you take him in.’

  ‘Can’t see any harm coming from that,’ he agreed.

  Po started the Mustang, the engine growling like a big cat.

  ‘Right, so we’ve work to do,’ Tess announced. She reached over and bumped knuckles with her big brother. ‘Don’t eat all those in one go.’

  TEN

  There was only one word to describe her predicament that summed it up precisely: Hell.

  In the dim space where she squatted, she couldn’t tell the passage of time. She’d tried to keep track, timing her days with the number of meagre meals she’d been given, the times she’d urinated and defecated in the tin bucket that had yet to be emptied and spoiled the small room with its rank stench. She’d attempted to number the days by the infrequent visits of her captor, but she had no idea of the potency of his sex drive. Three times he’d come to her, brutal in his need to sate himself, but she couldn’t say if the horrific attacks had occurred daily or if there were longer breaks between them. There were other women here, and she’d heard their screams, their plaintive cries, their gasps of agony, and knew she wasn’t the only one to be visited by their monstrous dominator.

  The cut on her head had scabbed, the bump beneath had disappeared, as had the ache in her chest where it had impacted with the steering wheel the night she was taken, but those aches had been replaced by others, and they continued to pain her, though the abrasions and bruises were nothing to the agony of mental torment.

  Three female voices she’d heard to date. But she couldn’t be certain that the four of them were the extent of the brute’s enforced harem, because she’d attempted to speak to her neighbours and none had replied. They understood the rules.
They must not speak to anyone other than their master, and only when commanded to. She had soon learned that lesson, having been kicked mercilessly into submission, and warned what would become of her tongue if she did not obey the rule of silence. She didn’t doubt her abductor’s capacity to cut out her tongue, but also knew he was reluctant to remove the tissue he’d made her pleasure him with after the beating. She’d been tempted to bite, but a similar reluctance to forcefully remove her teeth was no issue to him. Nobody spoke, nobody whispered; the only time they gave volume to their voices was when he drove them to cry out in pain or terror. There could be other girls secreted in this awful place, but having been held longer, they better understood the folly of disobeying the rules and now remained silent … or he had removed their tongues.

  How far could a person fall into the foggy miasma of terror before they were lost forever? Her early life hadn’t been pleasant, but compared to now she’d been living a dream of relative comfort. If she thought her teenage years had been awful, where she had constantly struggled against anger, frustration and depression, then she’d no concept of what real hardship felt like. How she’d love to step back in time to those days she’d once raged against, because she’d grasp every precious moment as if it was her last.

  It was strange – a tiny part of her wanted to lie down and die, whereas another more significant piece raged against her despoilment and enforced captivity, wanted to flee this place, to breathe fresh air, to run, and run, and never stop running.

  But she was running nowhere.

  How could she when she was shackled to what she’d discovered through the blind groping of her fingers was an old engine block, or other piece of machinery. She could drag it a few inches, but that was the extent of her freedom. She was only loosed from her shackles at visiting time, and then she was placed in leg irons of a different type, while forced to shuffle to another room her captor usually kept unoccupied, her sight taken from her with a rubber hood pulled down to her nostrils, and her voice stifled by a rubber ball wedged between her teeth and held in place by a leather strap. He would remove the shackles, the gag, but never the hood. She had no idea of what he looked like, though she knew he was large, muscular and strong. His slurring voice, alternately delivered at a whisper and in a roar of anger, could be that of an older man, but his virility contradicted it.