In Eleanor’s kitchen, I picked up Madame’s water bowl. But it was already filled. So was her food dish. I could hear a low murmur of voices coming from the living room. Eleanor had company.
And I had no energy for anyone right now.
I tiptoed past the doorway and saw Eleanor. She was stretched out on the velvet couch, eyes closed, ringed fingers folded over her chest. I listened and realized the voices were coming from speakers. And one voice sounded very familiar. No mistaking her trumpeting tone.
I walked over. Someone was remarking that silence only magnifies a thing. I turned down the volume. Eleanor’s eyes opened.
“Hope you didn’t wait up for me,” I said.
“Of course I did. You’re grown woman with a grudge and a gun.”
“I should’ve called. I got stuck in Leavenworth.”
She took her glasses from the side table and put them on. The rhinestones sparked. “Were you alone?”
“Madame was with me.”
Eleanor glanced at the dog, now trotting into the room, licking her whiskers. “I will never repeat this … but I also missed that dog.”
“She’s like that.”
Eleanor pushed herself to a sitting position. “How long were you stuck in the boondocks?”
“Much too long.” I looked away.
“Don’t tell me. You missed visiting hours?”
I could only nod.
“Raleigh, what are we?”
“Pardon?”
“We are human,” she said. “We break things. No matter how careful we are.”
I was too exhausted to play the game, but in some strange way, I still wanted her to ask. “Aren’t you going to ask me, Who said that?”
“You’re tired.”
“Go ahead, ask.”
She pushed herself up further. “Who said that?”
“You did.”
“Correct. I said that.”
“Now you’re patronizing me.”
“My dear, I only patronize the arts.” She reached out and took hold of my hand. “All of us break things. We’re nothing but bulls in the china shop of life.”
“Tennessee?”
“Me.”
“It sounds like something from one of his plays.”
“Yes.” She squeezed my hand. “Because art gets all its meaning from life. And life hurts.” Her rings dug into my skin. “And broken things can be fixed.”
I wanted to say something about that. But the words refused to come.
* * *
Eleanor went to sleep in her room. Madame curled into a ball on my bed. And I stuffed fresh clothes into my backpack. The dog’s keen eyes tracked my movements.
“I’ll be back tomorrow,” I said.
Her ears pricked forward.
“Remember what the playwright said.” I zipped my pack. “Time is the longest distance between two places.”
* * *
An hour and a half past midnight I pulled into the parking lot for the Chelan County Sheriff department. A black truck was parked near the entrance, directly under a security light. Dispatch, I figured.
I drove to the lot’s far corner, closed down the Ghost’s pop-up headlights and shut my eyes, waiting for dawn.
* * *
Five hours later, I sat across from Detective Culliton at his desk, wiping sleep from my eyes. We both drank the cheap coffee. It tasted like a brutal cure for cholesterol, where every sip could scrub your arteries. Culliton gulped it.
“I think there’s a third girl in danger,” I said. He looked at me with utter skepticism. “Kimberly Kegelman. Do you know her?”
He put down the mug of drain cleaner. “Yeah.” He typed on his keyboard. “She’s a runaway.”
“My source says she’s still in the area.”
Culliton’s eyes bore into me. “Who’s your source?”
“Can’t say. But I’ve got some addresses. Apparently she moved around this summer, last seen at the following address.” I shoved a piece of paper toward him.
When Sugarman came to Leavenworth this year for his bi-annual checkup, Annicka Engels was still alive, having won that scholarship to University of Washington. Sugarman gave his 100-percent tip at the Waterhaus, then stopped by the Eiderdown to check on Mrs. Heller in her bunker-basement. But he couldn’t find Kimberly Kegelman, so he paid a Seattle private eye to track her. It took three PIs to pinpoint her locations.
“Your source some kind of drug dealer?” Culliton asked.
I didn’t answer.
“These addresses you got—they’ve gotta be dope dealers. Those people move around like gypsies.”
“My source is not a drug dealer,” I said.
“Your source tell you about Kimberly’s situation?”
I knew this tactic. Whatever I said, Culliton would gather clues about my source. I gave Sugarman my word. “Not really.”
According to Sugarman, the Kegelmans were devoted to a highly conservative strain of Catholicism. It involved daily Mass, near-constant confession, and isolated homeschooling. The family’s only girl, Kimberly, was banned from wearing pants or riding a bike or having friends. At seventeen, she ran away with a migrant farm worker. Sugarman made the difficult decision to stop all financial help. “The money will be waiting,” he told me last night. “But right now, she’s not ready.”
“I don’t get it.” Culliton continued to stare at me. “How’s Kimberly connected to Esther and Annicka?”
“I’ll explain on the way over.”
“Over where?”
“To pick her up.”
“Now?”
“I didn’t sleep in my car for the fun of it.”
“You should’ve called me.” He pinched his shirt. “See what I’m wearing?”
Checked shirt. Jeans. Tennis shoes. “Yeah, so?”
“So I’ve been waiting for this day. We finally figured out who’s running the prostitution ring in the hotels. I’ve got three deputies waiting—”
“Can’t you wait?” I felt a sinking sensation. “Go later today?”
“Later, we lose the element of surprise. Later, they get away.” Culliton watched me. “If you’ll wait just a couple hours, I can send—”
I shook my head.
“What’s your hurry,” he said. “That girl’s been gone for months.”
“She turns eighteen next week.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
The address Sugarman gave me was all the way across Leavenworth, way past Preston Baer’s busy petting zoo, and far down a two-lane road that snaked for miles through apple and pear orchards. But with each mile, the rolling hills turned into craggy cliffs and the soil became a deeper shade of rust. The fruit warehouses that lined the road looked abandoned, their roofs sagging. The road was empty.
I pulled out my phone and called Jack.
“You want me to fly?” he asked.
“I’m already here. Heading for the town of Pehashtin.”
“What for?”
I gave him a quick summary of last night. I could feel him listening carefully. “I’ll explain more later. I was just calling to see if you’re serious.”
The phone was silent. The road sliced through a narrow gap of weathered basalt, so I thought the signal got dropped.
“Jack?”
“I’m here,” he said. “Serious, about what?”
“Taking Madame. To Western State.”
“Oh,” he said.
“If I can’t get back in time.”
“Right.”
“I’m hoping to make it back, but just in case, it’d be nice to have backup. And I promise, I’ll pay you back.”
“You bet you—”
He didn’t finish.
“Jack?”
Silence.
I looked at the screen. Call ended.
I hit redial.
No signal available.
“Terrific.” I pulled to the side of the road, because I’d also lost my GPS. Inside my notebook, I found the addr
ess, and I remembered that the GPS showed the destination was about two miles ahead.
But with each quarter mile, I doubted. Weeds grew around abandoned fruit warehouses. Orchards disappeared and mounds of copper-colored soil smeared the pavement, mudslides left behind by that sudden rain. The Ghost climbed over them, slowly.
When the road shifted downhill, I checked my odometer. It was close to two miles since I stopped. At the bottom of the hill, I drove another quarter mile. Three fruit warehouses were clustered by the side of the road, with some low cinderblock buildings in back. Behind them, the hills held fruit trees so dry their limbs looked like desperate figures waving for help.
I checked the address, and got out of the Ghost.
The morning air smelled sweet, and wrong. Rotting apples. Grass grew through the cracked blacktop. Flies buzzed my head.
I reached back into the car, and took out the Sig Sauer, stuffing it into the waist of my jeans and yanking my shirt over it. I walked around the warehouses. The odor shifted to something rank, foul. The corrugated metal buildings were rusting. I decided the smell was urine.
I found an old Datsun behind the first cinderblock building. It had one flat tire. The building had signs in Spanish, something about hours. And the word prohibo. The first window was blown out. I glanced inside. Trash scattered across a dirt floor. One sink, brown. One toilet, nearly black inside.
I walked the length of the building. It was some kind of abandoned dormitory, probably for migrant fruit pickers. At the third building, another old car waited. Its windshield was covered with road dust, except where the wipers had brushed it away. I wrote down the license plate and heard something like high wind. But when I glanced at the long grass pushing through the pavement, the blades were still. The sound continued. I walked around the edge of the building. And heard it again.
Singing.
It came in rasps and pauses. Like lone notes searching for harmony.
I moved to another broken window and looked over the sill.
A girl sat on a soiled mattress. It was pushed up against the wall, as if thrown there. She wore denim shorts and a tank top and no bra. Her clothes were filthy. Her fingers were playing with her bare toes. Each time she touched a toe, she sang a new note.
“Kimberly?” I said.
She stopped singing. But she didn’t look up.
“Kimberly Kegelman?”
Her face lifted toward the busted window, slowly, like a helium balloon caught on a soft breeze. “I know,” she sang.
“Are you Kimberly Kegelman?”
Her glazed brown eyes stared at the wall across from her. A moment later her gaze found the window. I tried to smile. But she scared me. Not just the vacant eyes, or the skin that was the shade of white before death. It was the blood, dried under her nose. It was the color of the mudslides in the road.
“You’re Kimberly?”
She opened her mouth. Her lips were dry, crusted. “Kim—”
“Yo!”
Her head snapped toward the voice. I pulled back from the window and dropped to a squat.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
“Get up.” His voice sounded rough, disgusted. “Shanae needs you.”
I heard some movement in the room. Then a pause.
The voice roared. “I said, Get up.”
She whimpered.
I stood, leaning against the building, and glanced into the room. His back was to me. Gripping her arm, he dragged her limp body across the dirt floor. I lost sight as they left the room.
I walked the length of the building, following his harsh voice. He was yelling something about Shanae, and someone named Hector. Sunlight burst through holes in the building’s roof, the light flickering across my path. I stopped at what looked like an old entrance. The door hung drunkenly from its hinges.
“You tie it real tight,” he was saying.
I pulled the gun and stepped around the door. The single hallway split the building in half. I looked both ways. More filth on the floor. The man’s voice was coming from my left. I kept one shoulder against the cinderblock wall, and moved in that direction.
“Tight, you hear me?”
I dropped to another squat just outside the room. He was berating her for leaving Shanae like this. I shifted, glancing quickly.
A brown-skinned girl lay on another slumped mattress. Long black hair fell over her face. Next to her, the girl I suspected was Kimberly Kegelmen sat swaying, like she might pass out. In her mouth, she bit a rubber hose. Her hand gripped the other end, wrapping it around the brown woman’s arm, just above the elbow.
The man reached down. He swatted her hands. “Not there, stupid.”
The hose fell on the dirt floor.
“Hector don’t like seeing marks on her arms.”
Kimberly leaned forward to pick up the hose, but lost her balance. Her body pitched into the mattress. The man lifted her by her brown hair.
“Get with it, Kim.”
She fumbled for the woman’s twitching leg. After two tries, she finally wrapped the hose around the woman’s ankle. The man handed her something.
“Between the toes,” he said. “And don’t screw it up. I’m coming back. Hear me?”
I moved into the next open room, crossing the threshold as his shadow fell in the hallway.
I counted to ten, then looked down the hall. It was empty.
I could hear the singing again.
“…yes … I know …”
I stepped into the room. The brown girl was no longer twitching. Kimberly was tugging off the rubber hose, petting the woman’s foot.
“This … I know.” She raised a syringe. A quarter inch of clear fluid remained in the plunger.
“Don’t—”
She stabbed the needle into her lower lip, pushing the plunger. A moment later she pulled the needle out. A drop of blood glistened on the tip. She licked her lips.
“Kim.” I whispered, “Wanna go for a ride?”
She reached over, petting the girl on the mattress.
“Let’s take a ride,” I whispered.
“Can’t leave. Lily.”
I glanced at the girl. Her body was still. Her head turned toward Kimberly.
“That’s her name,” I asked. “Lily?”
“My friend.”
I kneeled beside them. The man called her Shanae. Another runaway, guaranteed.
The mattress smelled foul. “Lily?”
Her head rolled toward my voice.
“Lily, we’re going to take a ride.”
She gave a hazy nod. Kimberly pushed herself up, swaying. I reached under Lily’s arm. She was dead weight. I got her propped against the wall, but her head slumped forward. Lifting her chin, I gently slapped her cheek. Her face felt rough, dry.
“Lily, look at me. I need you to stand up.”
I glanced back at the door. When was he coming back, when Hector got here? I wondered what drugs he gave them, heroin? Or something even stronger. The girl was looking at me like she might be hallucinating. “Lily, can you understand me?”
She rolled her head.
I glanced back.
Kimberly was gone.
Crap.
I looked back at Lily’s dark eyes. Both of these girls had dark eyes. Sugarman never gave me a description of Kimberly. Both young enough to be teen runaways. Which one was—?
I stopped.
It matters to this one.
I lifted the girl, feeling a twinge of pain in the small of my back. I laid one of her arms over my shoulder and hoisted her to my hip. I took three steps. She dragged the injected foot.
“Yo!”
The guy. Yelling. Down the hall.
“Hey—man—you can’t—”
The gunfire sounded like a bomb going off.
I dragged Lily to the the hall. But it was empty. I could hear the guy was yelling again, but farther away.
Another shot fired.
I placed Lily against the wall. Her hands plopped into her lap.
I pulled out the Sig.
The guy was yelling but now it sounded more like frustration. When I glanced into the hall, I saw him pacing the dirty floor. His hands were balled into fists, punching the air. When he spun my way, I raised the gun and stepped into the hall.
“Freeze.”
He froze.
“Hands above your head.”
He lifted both hands, palms open.
“Where’s Kimberly?” I asked.
“I dunno.”
“You want me to shoot?”
“That cop just took her.”
“What cop?”
“Dude in brown.”
In the room behind me, Lily was hiccupping. My mind pinged. Culliton, he sent a deputy. True to his word. But the deputy wouldn’t know I was here, because The Ghost was parked on the other side of the warehouses. Kimberly was the priority. Good. She was safe. But.
It matters to this one.
“Face down on the floor,” I told him. “Keep those hands above your head where I can see them.”
He dropped to his knees. His eyes were mean, haunted. I could see the deception playing in them, the habit of evil.
“Hey, we can work this out—”
“Twitch one muscle, I’ll shoot you.”
“Hey, baby—”
“I’ll shoot you where you can never wipe your own butt again. You got it?”
He laid his greasy head on the dirt floor.
I kept the gun trained on him and reached back with my left hand, grabbing Lily’s elbow. I hoisted her up. She could stand on that foot now, which meant less dead weight for me. I carried her down the hall. As we passed the guy on the floor, I saw a cell phone sticking out of his back pocket.
I pressed the gun’s barrel into the back of his head. “Move and you’re dead.”
I set Lily against the wall, and took the phone from his pocket. The screen said, Missed call. Hector.
Lily hiccuped.
I pocketed the phone. It would help Culliton.
I moved her toward the door.
“You’re going to count to 500,” I told him. “Then you’re going to count to another 500. If you move before 1,000, I’m going to shoot you. Got it?”
He nodded, face in the dirt.
“Start counting. Out loud.”
The morning sun was behind the building. I dragged Lily through the shadows, swiveling my head for threats. She kept hiccuping about every third second and each time my heart jumped. A barren breeze blew through the abandoned buildings. This place felt like the end of the earth. As we passed the dusty car, I shot out the tires.
The Waves Break Gray (The Raleigh Harmon mysteries Book 6) Page 22
