by L. T. Vargus
“That’s what you keep telling me.”
“Well, it’s important.”
“I know.”
“OK.”
The quiet settles again. Holds strong. It seems to Emily the conversation is over, but Gabby isn’t quite done.
“What I’m saying is that you can do this. If you can get over the fear, you can do this. I’m not saying you won’t be scared. You will be. You will be fucking terrified, OK? But the fear will make you want to quit. It will make you want to freeze. To curl up in a little ball and be done with it. And you can’t do that. Not even for a second. You have to keep fighting no matter how scared you are. OK?”
They’re quiet, but Emily only lets the silence linger for a few seconds this time.
“Look, if there are any other memories you’d like to go over, might as well get them out of your system here and now, right? No point waiting until I almost fall asleep.”
She hears a little smile in Gabby’s voice.
“OK. Remember when we rode the High Roller?”
“I remember.”
“That must have been the first week you got here. You were all excited, still had the tourist look in your eyes and everything. I tried to deflect, but you weren’t having it. You insisted we ride the stupid thing. I told you it was just a big Ferris wheel, but you wouldn’t listen.”
“It was fun. I thought it was fun.”
“Maybe.”
“The view from the top was cool. 360 degrees. What’s it called? Panoramic. Looking down on all the big buildings and everything. All the lights.”
“If you say so. Remember when we took Austin and Sadie to Disney Land?”
“I remember.”
“The kids loved it, but you were paranoid the whole time. Fidgeting. Head swiveling around so you could watch the swarms of people, scan all of the faces in the crowd, and even when you could steady that skull on your shoulders, your eyes were glancing everywhere.”
Emily blinks a few times. Her lips move but no words come out, so Gabby keeps going.
“I knew you were scared. I didn’t say anything. At the time, I mean. I didn’t say anything, but I knew. I knew you were scared that he would find you there. Scared to death. Maybe it was crossing the state line that triggered it for you. Being back in California. The state that belonged to him, belonged to his family.”
Emily licks the back of her teeth. She grasps for something to say — wants to change the subject — but nothing comes to her. Thankfully, Gabby has another memory locked and loaded.
“Remember when you stepped in gum?”
“I remember.”
“A pink wad of goo stuck to your heel. All stretched out and gross. Stringy. Like some strands of it were so thin they looked like pink hair. You insisted on squatting right there on the sidewalk — the streams of people rushing all around you — and picking it off with your fingers. Grossed me out. Still does, I guess. Touching it like that. Getting that juice or whatever all over your fingers. Jesus. I’d need to wash my hands for about six months after that. Scalding hot water.”
Emily considers pointing out that their profession was having sex with strangers — probably grosser than touching chewed gum — but she stops herself. Why let reality ruin the moment?
“Remember the butter lady?”
“Of course I remember the butter lady.”
On another buffet excursion, they’d watched a tourist eating lobster, an older woman with dyed red hair going to town, dipping the chunks of crustacean in a little cup of melted butter, slurping at every bite before she chewed and swallowed. And when all the seafood was gone, she downed the butter like it was a shot of Jägermeister.
“What goes through someone’s mind as they make that choice? That’s what I want to know,” Gabby says.
“Probably wondering what it feels like to clog an artery in record time, looking forward to the rush of it all.”
“Can you imagine what drinking butter would feel like? Grease drizzling down your throat?”
“The way she slammed it, I don’t know if there was any drizzling involved. Straight to the gullet.”
She feels Gabby shudder next to her.
“Coating your insides with butter. It would be all warm, too, you know? Maybe just warmer than body temp.”
Another shudder.
“Do you remember when we first met?”
“I remember.”
“I saw you on the street. Fidgeting. Antsy. Glancing all around like a stray cat.
“Your skin glowed in alternating red and yellow under the lights downtown. And you were so scared. So obvious about what you were trying to do. Even dressed casual like you were, your body language screamed what you were selling, and how scared you were about it. The slope in your upper back. The way your head always angled at the ground, and you looked up at people like that, eyes half obscured by your bangs hanging in the way, with your chin all tucked against your chest. I wanted to tell you to run away from here and never come back.”
“You did. That was the first thing you did. You told me to leave. Offered to buy me a bus ticket to the city of my choice.”
“Yeah. Yeah, but then I took you out to eat. Got you set up, didn’t I? I pulled you in off the street where you’d work for practically no money and get popped by the cops sooner than later, for sure. Took you back to my place. Took a couple pictures. Set up a couple listings for you. And then it was calls all night, every night.”
“Two hundred roses.”
“What about ‘em?”
“I remember when you put that in the first ad. On the website, I mean. I didn’t understand at first. Roses instead of dollars.”
“Right. You know, I doubt that’s any kind of legal protection, using that euphemism. If they’re gonna bust you, they’ll find a way. But I guess that’s the custom. Roses, I mean. Who am I to buck fifteen years of internet prostitute tradition?”
“Two hundred roses an hour. I never thought I’d make that much, to be honest. In an hour? No way. I guess I don’t know what I expected, really. I didn’t know how any of it worked.”
“You don’t have to tell me that. I was there. It was written all over you.”
Gabby pauses for a beat, and Emily hears her swallow.
“Everything in Vegas is a mirage. An illusion. There’s the facade, and then there’s the real motivation lying somewhere beneath that. The lights. The sounds. Even the smells. It’s all some great creation, some great seduction.”
“The smells?”
“Yeah. The smell of the casinos. Each of ‘em manufactures a signature scent and pumps it through their ducts. Didn’t I ever tell you about that?”
“Maybe. It sounds vaguely familiar, but I don’t remember it very well.”
“Every casino has its own scent, special made by experts, tailored to their specific tastes. They have these metal devices attached to the ventilation systems — they’re about the size of a breadbox. The devices vaporize aromatic oil and distribute the smell throughout their resorts. Every vent, every register. You go to one of these places? This box effects you. Gets under your skin — into your bloodstream — without you ever realizing it. It blows this cloud of emotions at you, and you breathe it in. Every single breath, you breathe it in.”
“So it’s like the real estate agent baking cookies the morning before an open house, right? To kind of create a positive atmosphere or whatever? I remember the Mirage smelling like cologne. Reminded me of my grandfather on my dad’s side, actually. Once he got old, he wore too much of the stuff.”
“See? There you go. The scent triggered a memory for you. That’s how powerful this stuff can be. I mean, smells are a funny thing. They’re wired right into the emotional part of your brain. Tied to your memories. They can get really specific with different blends as far as what they’re trying to evoke in their customers. It’s fairly sophisticated. They can trigger people to feel how they want them to feel, which is relaxed, mostly. But they mix in sensuality, a
sense of strength, a longing.”
They’re quiet for a long moment.
“How did you find out about all of this?”
“I read about it on the internet.”
This time, it’s Emily who keeps the conversation going.
“How did we wind up here? In this place?”
She hears Gabby take a deep breath as she ponders a response.
“Has to happen to someone, you know? They always say, It could happen to anyone, but in a way, I think it’s better said, It actually happens to someone. Every awful thing, every tragedy, every nightmare — it happens to someone. A person. A real live human being.”
Gabby pauses and then adds, “This time, it’s us.”
Chapter 49
With a twist of the doorknob, Darger moved out of the clear black night and into the stuffy interior of the house. She held her breath for that first step over the threshold, moving through the doorway into the foyer, the smooth feel of the ceramic tile underfoot.
Inside the house smelled like cedar and ash. Rugged smells. Exotic in some way that only made sense in the desert.
She kept low as she moved. Crouched. Her feet stayed light, nimble and noiseless as she crept onto the carpet and into the living room.
There was a rug behind the velour sofa, an additional layer of fabric to muffle the sound of her boots. She paused there a beat to catch her breath, gather herself.
The adrenaline seemed to hit on some kind of delay, flooding her all at once. Making her chest shake with each breath in and out. Jesus. She’d done it. She’d gotten inside. The screen door out front had been the most nerve-wracking part, she thought. It was like a built-in anti-theft device. Every movement yielded a creak or a moan or a clack that threatened to give her away.
Thinking back on these initial steps of entering Stump’s lair, part of her almost detached from reality, wondered if any of this could really be happening. Was she having a surreal nightmare? Should she pinch herself?
She took a breath. Willed her heart to slow in her chest. Waited. Listened.
She adjusted her grip on the stun gun, thankful to have a weapon, to feel it in her hand. But it still felt wrong to be here, to be approaching this darkness on her own.
And yet she had no choice. She’d watched Stump secure Emily in a box. He could — probably would — begin his ritual soon. Waiting was not an option.
She moved out. Stayed low. Glided into a little dining room area.
A floorboard creaked, and Darger froze, lungs half-filled with breath.
A sharp bang nearby shot ice water through her veins.
She wanted to scream but stopped herself, flinching instead, shoulders shimmying.
By the scraping, chafing sound that followed the more percussive noise, Darger put together that it was a door. One that stuck in its frame, the jamb warped from the years of dry desert air. It was the steel door to the sealed back room, she was sure of it. And it was a good thing to know since she was headed that way sooner or later. Stump would have to be incapacitated or out of the house when she went into the room, or he was liable to hear.
She skittered forward to take cover behind the kitchen island, turning so her back pressed into the wood. She listened.
A metallic clatter told her he was locking the room. Securing the deadbolt in the hallway through the kitchen. He’d have his back to her, then. Should she risk a peek?
Her heart hammered. Shook her ribcage.
She eased her way to the corner of the island. Held her breath. One quick glance and then she pulled back to her hiding spot.
She saw him. A hulking thing. Not bulky but strong somehow. Powerful. Menacing and wiry.
Again she shook a little with jittery energy. Looked down at the stun gun. Soon. Soon.
His keys jangled. Heavy footsteps pounding along with the metallic sound. She could tell by the way the sound went muffled that he’d turned into one of the side rooms.
While she kept track of his movements, she tried to formulate a plan. She’d considered trying to get the girls out before confronting him, but that seemed unlikely now. First, because of the keys. Both girls were locked up — one padlocked into a box, the other deadbolted into a room. But even if she had managed to sneak the keys from him, it sounded like the squawking door would give her away. Beyond that, the girls might not be in condition to move. Emily had been out cold when Stump put her in the box. She might still be unconscious. Nicole, likewise, had been dead to the world when Darger last saw her. If even one of the girls couldn’t walk, they’d be in trouble.
That settled it, then. She had to go for Stump.
She grew aware of the phone shoved into her hip pocket. Fuck, she wished one of those texts had gone through, wished she had backup en route or at least looking for her.
The urge to act now made her arms and legs feel itchy, restless, but it was in her best interest to wait. Wait for him to come to her. Wait for him to go to sleep. Wait for him to make a mistake, to telegraph a moment of vulnerability. Otherwise, she was walking in blind. Not good.
She stayed tight against the island, the countertop of a breakfast nook stretched over her, helping conceal her if only a little.
Minutes ticked by in agony. Stump was doing some kind of clean-up down the hall, from the sound of it. Shuffling things around.
Her eyes scanned the walls. Too bad there wasn’t an old hunting rifle or a shotgun hung up somewhere. She could picture something like that in a place like this, out in the boonies. Even if there were, he wouldn’t keep it loaded. Too dangerous in the event that one of his captives got loose or fought back, like Emily had earlier.
Footsteps. He was on the move again. Darger’s chest grew tight. She pressed herself against the island, as flat as possible.
The footsteps moved further off. Away from her. Away from the rooms where the girls were held.
There were noises she couldn’t quite identify. The jangle of something, possibly the keys. And then a series of soft, scuffing sounds.
And then something she did recognize.
Running water.
He was back in the bathroom. Taking a shower.
A wide grin spread over her face. She couldn’t believe it. The piece of shit was taking a shower. It was perfect. She could get the keys and zap the daylights out of him before he’d even know what was happening.
She had to bite down on her cheek to keep from giggling maniacally.
Get control of yourself, Violet. Time to focus.
She waited until she heard the slippery sounds of the shower curtain being pulled aside, the slight change in the rhythm of the water falling from the showerhead.
She counted to fifteen, and then she took a step toward the hall.
Her first few paces were slow, tentative. She paused and exhaled, still listening to the water.
Emboldened, she quickened her pace. The hallway was dim and unlit, but from the crack of light emanating from the partially-open bathroom door, she could see something hanging on the wall.
The keys. He’d hung the keys on a hook right next to the door to the locked room. He must have set them there before he went into the bathroom.
Again an odd-placed sense of glee swelled in her chest. She was going to do it. She was going to get the girls out alive. The end of this nightmare was right there in front of her, maybe minutes away.
Her eyes locked onto the keys, ears focused on the patter of water hissing off to her left. She moved slowly, with care, waiting for any tiny shift in that watery sound, anything at all.
It felt like a dangerous game of musical chairs. If the water stopped, it was time to fight.
The keys seemed to glitter on their hook. Was that real? Her imagination?
A few paces from the door, she paused again. This was it. With the way the door was open a crack, Darger was visible from the bathroom. She had to be quick.
She could see a thin coil of steam through the small gap where the bathroom door lay open. And she knew Stump wa
s right there. He must be. Just inside that room, the shower curtain forming a thin barrier of vinyl between them.
She turned to the locked room, and her hand reached for the keyring.
Her fingers closed around the jagged pieces of metal, pulled them from the hook. She half-expected them to still feel warm from his touch, but the keys were cool. She glanced down at them, flicked through the nine keys on the ring.
And then there was movement. But not from where she expected, not from the bathroom. From the right and behind, in the darkened threshold of another doorway.
Sensing his presence, she pivoted on the ball of her foot, brought her arm up, pointed the stun gun, squeezed the trigger button on the side.
Blue light arced between the metal prongs on the stun gun and the air filled with an electric crackle.
He slammed into her, his full weight hitting the wrist of the hand holding the stun gun, knocking it from her hand, sending it spinning through the air and out of sight.
She hit the ground. Flat on her back, wind knocked from her lungs. It all happened so fast, she had no chance to try to break her fall. He collapsed as well, belly smacking like a felled tree.
The stun gun was gone. Lost. Too dark to look for.
Forget it. Fight. Fight now.
He sat up. Shit. If the electricity had hit him, it was a glancing blow. He was still conscious, still awake.
She wheeled. Kicked him in the face. Drove the heel of her boot into the side of his head.
He grabbed at her. Hands snaking around her leg and twisting, trying to roll her face down.
No way, motherfucker.
He lunged at her. Bent over her. Tried to pin her down.
She bucked. Stayed on her back. Curled in on herself. Going toward him instead of trying to get away, scrabbling at him like a wolverine, all teeth and claws and rage and hate.
Her legs wrapped around him. Her arms found purchase. She thought of the way a bee latches onto someone it’s about to sting.
And her head leaned in. She bit him. In the web of muscle between the neck and shoulder. Bit him with the full strength of her jaw.
She wanted him to scream. Wanted him to howl.
