by Lumen Reese
His face saddened but he had the courtesy to look at me as he said, “I wanted to let you continue, Stella. But the others say I can't have you running around the Fourth Quarter, alone; not with the fugitive no longer a danger to any of our buyers or citizens, and not with his path and ours leading to the same inevitable end. It would be too much of a liability. I'm sorry.”
I nodded. “We have a few days, at least. We'll just have to get him by then.”
I had thought that I was pressed for time already, and suddenly I was being pushed into deciding before the week's end. I wasn't sure there could be a right answer. If I let them send me back and Anna and Josie were shipped south at tax time, I couldn't live with that. But if I could somehow bring Corso in, and if his sister and the others then disappeared like he had said, I couldn't live with that either. And of course maybe I wouldn't need to, because Corso believed we would disappear with them.
We boarded the train together and I kept my eyes peeled on the horizon line out the window that faced out from the tiny station. Corso would have to take the train, the same as before, but my staring was too obvious and I couldn't keep looking indefinitely. Jericho remembered only then that he had something for me.
“Oh! Stella.” He fished an envelope out of his pocket. “From your family.”
I ripped it open. Joey's handwriting sent a pang of homesickness through me.
Stella,
Be more careful. I know it's more dangerous than you want me to think. If it comes down to it, make sure it's him and not you. Everything okay here. Kids miss you. Corso still MIA. His apartment firebombed. Two others missing from our unit. Something fishy going on. Proud of you.
Joey.
We were not so good with words, the two of us.
I read it twice and felt stronger. The only way for me to make everything right was to find the kidnapped girls before Four Quarters was shut down.
It was a few hours before the train pulled into view of a soaring metropolis, grey steel of skyscrapers bathed in blue and pink from neon signs strung along them like Christmas lights. Even as we road the elevated rail into a gleaming silver station I could see the thick throngs of people bustling in the streets below.
Jericho had given us a list of four people who had gone missing from their roles, in the week before our arrival. The number was a bit higher than a usual week, but not unreasonably so. It was a priest who caught my attention, his role resided at St. Peter's Cathedral in an area called Herring Park, Spades. Henry asked me if I were cynical about religion, but I thought it would be a good cover, and that the place would be big enough to have secrets. I insisted that at least the priest, we had to investigate, of the four missing people.
We walked for about an hour before finding the cathedral on the corner of a city block, with a spacious yard that none of the other buildings had. It was made of gray stone, with stained-glass windows in the front. On top of the massive building, large spikes rose up into the sky, giving it a very Gothic look.
As we climbed the steps, I felt my nerves tighten. When I stepped under the high archway, the air seemed colder, and it just felt wrong. I had never set foot in a religious building of any kind before. Inside the whole place was spacious and their steps echoed off the high ceilings and far-reaching walls. There were intricate carvings in the shelves that held flickering bowls of flame, which I assumed weren't real. Pews lined the ground level, and in the front a stage was elevated above the rest of the place along with an old organ to one side which had pipes reaching almost up to the ceiling.
A man came waddling out from the room in the back, dressed in full white robes. “There's no service today.”
“Why aren't you having a service today?” I asked.
“Father Carolli left.”
“We're with the company,” I said.
“Do you have a badge?”
“I have a gun,” Henry murmured.
The man went red in the face. “I'm Father Clark. I'm with this parish but Father Carolli was the one who gave sermons. I'm not prepared to be on my own, I'm not even a real priest. He left to contact the company. He said he was going to buy out of his contract and go home.”
I exchanged a glance with Henry. Whether the priest could have afforded to buy out or not, he hadn't been in touch with the company.
I said, “Alright, I'm going to ask you some questions, and you need to tell me the truth. Lives are at stake. If you keep anything from us, you'll be an accomplice to any crimes committed.”
“Okay.”
“Over the years, have you noticed anything around here that would lead you to believe Father Carolli was involved with any criminal activity?”
“No. Never!”
“In the past two weeks, specifically, has Father Carolli met with any men who seemed suspicious? Maybe you overheard something, or they were being secretive? It might have been a man you never saw before or someone you were familiar with.”
“No. I haven't noticed anyone new talking to Father Carolli, or anyone acting strangely. -Oh! But one of our regular guys, Daniel Kroger, he usually comes in for confession with Father Carolli.”
“And he didn't this week?”
“No, he did. Twice. No, three times! They met in Father
Carolli's office once.”
Again, Henry and I looked at each other. He said, “Sounds like a few hush-hush meetings to me.”
“And suddenly the priest is gone.”
“This is to do with the reports we've been hearing? Some kidnapped people?” We both turned back to the heavy and twitchy man who was flushed with excitement. “And I helped you guys in your investigation?”
“Sure. Now we're going to need to take a look around. First you can show us Carolli's office.”
He led us further inside, onto the stage and into the doorway that he'd emerged from earlier. There was a small room in the back filled with books and some loose papers. “What are all these?”
“Sermons. He keeps them all, even from years ago when he was a priest in a small parish in Chicago.”
“There could be records of illegal transactions here. We'll need to look through them all.”
“Take 'em, if you want 'em.”
Henry had been leaning in the doorway, letting me do my thing. He called, “Is there a basement?”
Father Clark was a little jumpy. He'd forgotten Henry was even there. “Yes. Well, they're the catacombs. But there aren't actually any people buried there. Just for show.”
“Take us there.”
I first shoved all the papers I could find into a hefty binder and tucked them into my satchel. When the men turned to head out of the room, I stopped a second and loaded my gun with a new clip and tucked it into my jacket pocket. I had to be able to get to it fast, in case they actually did encounter something down in the tomb under the cathedral.
We headed outside of the church, walking around to the back and encountering doors like those on a storm cellar. As Father Clark led the way with a flashlight, I spoke to Henry.
“I didn't think this world would be right for storing a bunch of captives, with so many people around. But if they were always kept underground, and the clients came and went at night, then maybe....”
“We shouldn't rule anything out. If they aren't in the first three quarters, then they must be in Wonderland somewhere.”
We descended down the steps and into the cool underground chamber. The walls were uniform stone, along with the ceiling and the floor, with only a few feet of space for us to walk through. In the faintly lit hall ahead, there were several branches that all lead in different directions. Father Clark led us left first, shining his light in every corner and occasionally jumping when a spider's web brushed by his face. Sweat began to glisten on his sunburned skin. It seemed he wasn't at home in the tomb; I wondered if he'd ever been down into it at all.
With great subtlety the tightly enclosed space began to open up. Soon we were standing in a room with a few dozen little plaques on
the walls, made of the same stone to cover where coffins were stashed in the walls. They held chiseled names of the people who were supposedly buried there. It was a dead end. The air was chilly, and I was shaking. I moved to the opposite side of the room from Henry, and together we combed over the little covers of the graves built into the walls. I ran my fingers along the raised edges, tapped along a few, then stopped.
“This one's hollow.”
“They're all hollow on my side.”
“Not over here.” Father Clark was tapping in the middle.
Henry moved to stand behind me. A muffled noise made me jump back, and I bumped into him. His body was solid, like a wall, and his hands were soft as he guided me to the side, then stepped closer to the grave. It was marked Catherine Hunt, the stone smooth and clear, about a two feet each way. We had all frozen, not sure we had heard what we thought we had.
There was another weak sound that broke the stillness.
“Oh my God!”
I found a small knife in my satchel, running it into the vein between the marked stone and the rest of the wall, trying to pry it away, using the knife as a lever. My hands fumbled , my blood was rushing. Henry drew a knife I hadn't known he had and moved to the other side, scraping away a thin layer of cement that held it in place. I did the same, slamming my palm into the butt of the knife to chip away.
I dropped the knife and wedged my fingertips into the gap, pulling. Henry used his blade, and together we pried the slab away until it gave and crashed to the ground. A puff of warm air rushed out, carrying a stench as bad as the one in the chamber under Sickness Island had been. The girl who flung herself out into the opening was tiny, falling halfway down before I caught her and my legs gave and we both went down. The girl was not crying or screaming but sort of whooping hysterically, gulping down air and then choking it back out like she was trying to speak, “Ah-. I-.”
“It's alright,” I said, but my voice shook. The girl had thrown her arms around me and was burrowing her face into my chest. “Nobody's going to hurt you.”
She was too young, it was my first thought. Her face was still round with youth and she was so tiny. But under the coat of dirt she was naked, and how else could she have gotten down there?
Henry turned to Father Clark, who was staring with wide eyes, and grabbed him, tearing off his white outer robes. Draped them over the girl.
“Nobody's going to hurt you,” I promised.
I was uncomfortable but removed from it somehow and just squeezed the girl closer to me.
Chapter Eighteen
The police precinct was mostly empty as the night came rolling in. It had been a few hours since finding the girl in the catacombs. She was sleeping on a couch a few feet from me, where I stood looking out the window at the starry night sky. The girl had not spoken, had stopped sobbing before the police car arrived to take us all back to the precinct. The girl, Henry and me, and we had brought Father Clark back with us. So far as I knew he was still with the few officers left in the building. Henry had gone back to the crime scene with them and was going to call me if anything important came up.
So for the moment I was waiting with the girl, who had gone from hysterical to catatonic to asleep. She was dressed in a t-shirt and sweatpants, and cleaned up some but her hair was still stringy.
She could be no more than thirteen, I was sure.
I was tired and maybe I should be sleeping, but the whole thing filled me with so much anger I couldn't possibly lay down. And I wanted to be awake, vigilant, if the girl woke up. And part of me, I knew, was still weary of every part of the Four Quarters. It couldn't all be colluding with the evil forces behind the human trafficking, but part of it had to be. Law enforcement would be a shining example of a place to install someone sympathetic to your actions.
I think I felt the girl's eyes on me and when I looked over she had shut them again. But her breath had gotten a bit harsher.
“It's okay,” I said.
She opened them again, they were big and brown.
“You're safe now, I promise,” I said, and the conviction that carried on my words impressed even me. I moved to sit on the coffee table between the couch where she slept and the one along the opposite wall. “I'm Stella.”
“You're the one that found me,” she said. “I'm Anna Goodspeed… Thank you.”
I couldn't tell her that she was welcome, it would be wrong to accept thanks for such a repulsive situation. My next words got stuck in my throat for a few seconds.
“I'm so sorry that this happened to you,” I began. “And I'm sorry I have to ask you about it, now, but I'm sure you know how important it is that we know everything.”
“You're gonna find the others?” she asked. I caught the first bit of emotion I'd seen from her. Just a little foolish, maybe unrealistic hope, and she knew it, and I knew it, and it made my glorious anger even stronger. It made my desire to protect her something almost unholy, and I struggled to catch a breath for a moment.
“Yes, I am,” I said. “How many others are there?”
“Seventeen. Father Carolli left me in the grave because he was going somewhere. The man who was supposed to come and get me didn't show up.”
“Do you know who that was?”
“Probably the same one who had been coming for a few months,” she said. “I know his name. His name is Matthias. He liked me to say it...”
My stomach twisted sickly, I had to look away for a second to force down my revulsion. But when I spoke again I looked at her and asked, “Could you describe him for a sketch artist?”
“Yes. And the other men, too. The ones who kept me in the dungeon.”
“That's really good,” I said.
“Will you stay with me?”
“Sure. And when did they move you from- from the dungeon?”
“Maybe a few days. Maybe a week. I'm not really sure… I'm calling it a dungeon because we thought it was underground. They kept us chained, except for when someone came.”
“Okay. Did you know a woman named Alex? She's about thirty, she has a birthmark on her cheek.”
Anna thought a moment, then shook her head. “I'm sorry.”
“That's okay,” I said. “Is there anything else you can think of?”
She shook her head again.
“Alright. You should get some sleep. I'm just going to talk to one of the officers, I'll be right outside the door.”
Making sure that it was completely shut behind me, I called across the sea of empty desks to the single, baby-faced officer still in the bullpen. “Her name is Anna Goodspeed. Have you heard from Mr. Sullivan or from anyone at the crime scene yet?”
“No ma'am,” said the man, whose name was Woodrum. “I'll look up the girl...”
I had my phone in my hand then, and was turning back around to head back into the room where Anna slept when I saw him, standing at the end of the hall by a side exit out of the precinct. I gasped, and one hand shot to my chest, but then he was holding up a hand and I quietly cursed.
“Damn you!”
Corso wore his jeans and blue sweater again. He was shaved and hugged close to the wall as he approached, the exit door clicking shut behind him. “Need to talk to you,” he whispered.
A phone rang in the main room and made me jump, looking behind me. I moved a few steps closer to Corso and reached around him to push the door to the next room in the hall open. The lights were off but I knew it was another room like the one Anna was sleeping in, with two couches and a table between. He ducked just inside the door and I stood against the wall and listened.
“Alright,” he said, “what's going on?”
“At the church we found a girl left in the catacombs. The priest left her there, he's missing. She's in the next room. She can describe the men who were keeping her and where they were keeping her. She doesn't know your sister. Henry is at the site.”
“Okay… The priest, what's his name?”
“Father Marcus Carolli.”
“Can you get me a picture?”
“I think so...” But I hesitated, looking back into the room where I could hear Woodrum talking on the phone but couldn't make out what he was saying. “Watch the door,” I said, gesturing to Anna's room. He gave a nod.
I marched over to Woodrum's desk, and he put a hand to the receiver, saying, “The girl is twelve, missing out of Queens for about a year. Local police are going to notify her family.”
“Great. Do we have a photo of the priest?”
“Yeah-,” he mumbled, shifting through a stack of several files and finally flipping one open, finding a glossy photo of a smiling man with a square face and sunken eyes.
“Can I keep this?” I asked.
“Sure. -I'm still here,” he said into the phone, and I turned and went back, offering it to Corso.
“That was easy,” he remarked, taking a long look.
“I wasn't sure you made it,” I said after a silent moment. “I watched for you on the train, and I went looking, too.”
“I didn't want to risk it with Jericho on board. I road the whole way on top of what I think was the septic tank.”
“You were below the train?” I was gawking, but smiling a bit, too.
“It was terrifying, if you were wondering.” He had a tiny smile, too, not his smug one like usual. We looked at each other for a moment, and it was so ridiculous, that I puffed out a laugh and his grin grew to show teeth. It made me nervous after a second, and then it made me feel ashamed for laughing, when just a room away, Anna Goodspeed was waiting.
“...I didn't think anything scared you.”
“Everything does,” he said. “I just don't let it stop me.” He reached out to set a hand on my shoulder. “Good job, honey. I'm gonna go after the priest, and I'll find you when I can.”
“Alright. Something else you should know, though. Jericho says we have t wo more days, and then they're evacuating everything, every quarter...”
He considered that a moment. “Either they mean to get their people and the girls out under the radar, or they're hunkered down somewhere we wouldn't find them, even with the place empty. Where could that be? Underground, maybe? Or some other, hidden passageway wiped from their system. I'll take it up with the priest.”
