Queen of Humbolt

by Tagan Shepard

  “Boss has known for a while that there’s someone in Chicago pulling your strings.” With a flurry of movement, Jordan was in Sloane’s face again. “Is it you?”

  Sloane held her ground. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  A sly smile crept across Jordan’s lips. “Of course you don’t.”

  Movement behind Jordan made Sloane look over her shoulder. Marisol’s face, which had been a mask of calm, had cracked into something close to fear. If Sloane had thought a black-hearted criminal could feel fear, she might’ve been concerned, but just as quickly as the look arrived, it disappeared.

  Her eyes on Sloane, Jordan ran a hand through her hair and chuckled as she left the room without another word.

  Chapter Eleven

  The hatch slid shut with a loud clang. The lock mechanics creaked as they slammed into place. Marisol listened, trying to determine her chances of breaking through the door. It sounded far too solid, even if she could get out of the chair.

  “What was she talking about?”

  Marisol’s torso was starting to hurt. She clenched her abs and a jolt of pain throbbed through her. Trying to flex rapidly cramping muscles was an orchestra of aches, but she knew her body would feel much worse before this ordeal was over.

  “Why did she think I was your handler? Why would you have a handler?”

  Ignoring the volley of questions from Sloane was easy. Ignoring those rocketing around her mind was much harder. How did Jordan of all people know about The Hotel? Marisol had spent every ounce of her energy over the years to keep it secret. Fear dropped into her stomach as she thought of all the lives she’d put at risk by failing to do just that. The plane rattled around them, bumping through a patch of light turbulence. She jammed her eyelids shut, trying to staunch the flood of innocent, frightened faces passing across her mind’s eye.

  “Are you even listening to me?”

  “No,” Marisol replied, turning back to her racing thoughts.

  It wasn’t just The Hotel. Jordan had mentioned a handler. That implied knowledge which was just as dangerous. If she thought Sloane was her handler at least one person Marisol cared about was safe. Unfortunately, that meant the other was in far more danger than she could imagine.

  “Well, you better start listening,” Sloane said, jumping to her feet. She swayed for a heartbeat, the movement of the airplane sending her off balance. “Because you’re going to tell me what the hell is going on here. Who is that woman? What does she want from you? Why did she think she could get to you through me? Why does she want to know about a hotel?”

  “That’s too many questions for me to answer all at once.”

  Sloane didn’t react to Marisol’s crooked smile, her jaw set and she said, “Go one by one.”

  Marisol sighed and let her head fall back. Her neck popped pleasantly but the strain on her shoulders worsened. “Her name’s Jordan. She wants information and she wants to hurt me. She thought she could get to me through you because, as you no doubt noticed, she could.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m your knight in shining fucking armor.” Marisol tried to inject sarcasm into the statement, but she had the sneaking suspicion Sloane knew it was a bluff. “How should I fucking know what she thinks?”

  Sloane’s eyes bored into her but Marisol didn’t look away. She’d spent countless hours dreaming of gazing into those eyes again, but her dreams were much more pleasant than this reality.

  “You didn’t answer my question about the hotel.”

  “I didn’t answer her question about it either, so unless you’re willing to beat me worse than she did, you’re out of luck.”

  They locked eyes again and again Sloane gave in first. She looked away and screamed, balling her bound hands into fists and throwing them into the air. The outburst was unexpected, but Marisol was happy to see the fight coming back into Sloane. She’d need that fight today.

  “How can this be happening?” Sloane shouted, her voice echoing in the confined space. She clawed fingers through her hair and paced. “This can’t be happening. There are security measures in…”

  Blood drained from Sloane’s face so quickly Marisol thought she might pass out. She stumbled back to the bank of chairs and dropped into them, shaking hands covering her mouth.

  “My guards. Bates and Murphy and… Jesus I never learned his name and he’s dead because of me. They’re all dead. How could I be so stupid? How could I do this to them?” She turned shining eyes on Marisol and spat words across the cabin. “You! Did you kill Rogers? How many State Police officers did you kill? Were you in their apartment before you came to mine?”

  “I didn’t kill any of your guards.”

  The assurance didn’t settle her. “How did you get into my building?”

  “Back door.”

  “How?”

  “Door knob turned, door swung open, I stepped through.”

  “Marisol…”

  “Don’t worry, I shut the door behind me.”

  “Marisol!”

  “What the hell do you want from me?” As Marisol yelled, Sloane’s jaw snapped shut but her eyes hardened to chips of blue ice. “You’re too predictable. You do the same damn thing all the damn time. You leave Springfield every other Friday night between seven fifteen and eight thirty. You send emails to your friends announcing your arrival. You have your secretary schedule brunches. You wake up at five a.m. and spend thirty minutes on the treadmill. You take every meal in your condo and work until ten p.m. unless you have a friend over for drinks. You’re in bed by midnight. You sleep in on Sundays unless your friend stays the night…”

  “Enough.”

  “Brunch is catered by Beatrix or lunch by Bistro Grand. You head back to Springfield in the late afternoon when you have a busy Monday or early evening if you don’t. You don’t let the State Police into your condo after their initial search. There are two entrances they cover and two they don’t know about. I don’t think you even know about them.”

  “I said enough.”

  “You keep your thermostat at seventy-two during the day and sixty-three overnight. You pay for cable but only use the Internet.”

  Sloane leaped to her feet again, stalking across the cabin just like Jordan had moments before. “I get it, okay? You’re stalking me. You probably know what I wear to bed.”

  “I’m not stalking you. I’m trying to keep you safe but it’s goddamn hard. You’re so fucking predictable.”

  “I know it’s my fault!” Tears splashed down her cheeks, but based on the rage twisting her features, they were from anger, not sadness. “I know they’re dead because of me. You don’t have to rub it in. You think I won’t feel their deaths for the rest of my life?”

  Sloane’s tears made Marisol’s anger flare all the more. It was bad enough that she’d nearly gotten herself killed, now she was taking responsibility for those cops’ deaths, too. And Jordan thought Sloane was involved in Marisol’s secret life. The danger of that was only marginally better than the truth. In the end, it probably wouldn’t matter. If Marisol couldn’t find a way to break them free, her attempt to save Sloane would have been wasted.

  “Can’t you just sit in your Governor’s Mansion in Springfield and be safe?”

  “I didn’t realize I was getting myself elected into a cage.”

  “Of course you were!” Marisol roared, her chest strained against her bonds as she fought to fill her chest with enough air to bellow. “What do you think governors do?”

  “Serve the people!” Sloane threw her arms into the air as if it was the most obvious explanation in the world. “Make their state a better place!”

  “Dios,” Marisol breathed, the fight draining from her as her handcuffs bit into her flesh. “You’re even more naïve than I thought.”

  “And just what the fuck is that supposed…”

  The hatch burst open and Sloane whipped around to face it. Her knees bent slightly, putting her in a defensive position. Marisol r
eveled in the flex of her body and the will to survive so apparent in her stance. Maybe the key was to make her angry. Then she seemed more likely to fight back.

  “Need to take a leak, Governor?” Jordan asked, looking them both over. It would be impossible for her to miss the adversarial tension in the hold, but Marisol was sure she’d been trying to listen through the door anyway.

  “I…” The battle was clear on her features. It had been a long time since either of them had access to facilities, but Sloane was right to mistrust the gesture. Still, she wasn’t the type to let her pride rob her of her dignity. She held her head high as she walked to the door.

  “What about me?” Marisol asked.

  “You can piss on yourself for all I care,” Jordan said, slamming the hatch shut.

  Marisol didn’t need to go, but now was as good a time as any to test her boundaries. Even if she could get free, there was nowhere for her to run while they were still in the air. Better to buy time now with the hopes of cashing out later. She had a lot to think about from her chat with Jordan, but she couldn’t help counting every moment Sloane was out of her sight. How long would a trip to the lavatory take? What might happen to her while Marisol wasn’t around to protect her?

  When Sloane returned, shoved into the hold so roughly she nearly tripped, Jordan did not follow. Sloane crossed to the seats and sat as primly as the circumstances allowed. Something had changed in her face, but Marisol was certain nothing too horrible could have happened in so brief an absence.

  She couldn’t wait any longer and she blurted, “You okay?”

  Sloane nodded, then shook her head and buried her face in her hands. “I can’t get their faces out of my mind. I killed them.”

  “No, you didn’t. That assassin killed them.”

  “And you killed her.” There was a steely edge to her words.

  “I did.”

  Sloane looked up and smiled, though it looked like it tasted bitter. “Good.”

  Chapter Twelve

  2005

  Marisol sat with her legs folded beneath her on a bare cot in a bare room. Two days’ worth of sweat stained her shapeless blue pants and matching shirt. Her hands sat lifeless in her lap. The casual observer might think she was meditating. Just a girl in her mid-twenties, practicing yoga to clear her mind. None of the guards watching her through the tiny square window in her door or the security cameras mounted in the ceiling were that naïve.

  What none of them saw was that she was not in this place. Her room was not in a prison surrounded by shouting women. She was in a place of perfect silence. The small rectangular window high on the painted concrete wall held her focus. She stared at the purple-black cloudless night sky and she was there, in that sky, not in her cell.

  Because she was not in the room, the door did not open into her world. The man with skin as purple-black as the night sky did not enter. The little red light on the security cameras blinked out in some other room in some other world. When the man spoke, she heard his words in the far, unknowable distance.

  Marisol wasn’t staring at the sky exactly. She was staring through it. How her mother’s eyes stared through her all those years ago from the floor of a dirty apartment in a dirty city in a dirty life. No one knew who she was. Not even Marisol knew who she was. She laughed the first time her lawyer asked for her full name and Social Security number. A five-year-old running for her life doesn’t know her Social Security number. She doesn’t even know her last name.

  She ignored this man when he introduced himself with an obviously false name. She had nothing to think about anymore. Nothing to care about. Her life held too many hours and she didn’t feel the need to fill them.

  When she didn’t respond, he moved across the room and snatched up the flimsy metal chair. The way he moved intrigued Marisol. He moved how she moved. Like a predator. He brought over the chair that Marisol had never sat in despite her endless days alone in the room, but she didn’t care. His hands were empty. He had nothing to offer her.

  “They tell me you’ve been in solitary a long time.” His voice was higher pitched than she’d expected and quiet. “You don’t want to ride out your sentence peacefully?”

  She ignored his question the same as she ignored his presence.

  “That fits everything I’ve heard about you,” he continued as though they were chatting about the weather. “It must be all you know when you’ve spent so much of your life fighting. But you’re so calm in here alone.”

  She saw the trap he was laying and chose to watch him build it.

  “Maybe you’re tired of fighting?” He posed it as a question but didn’t wait for her to answer. “No, of course not. You love fighting. You were born to fight.”

  The paint on the wall above the sink bubbled from decades of carelessly flung water.

  “Your resume is very impressive. From nobody to Detroit’s most feared criminal all before your twenty-fifth birthday.”

  Marisol knew that saying even a single word would be her downfall and so she was silent. She learned long ago not to trust anyone, especially if they knew anything about her.

  “They caught you for taking out those two idiots,” he said, referring to the fools who’d muscled into her territory and had learned the consequences of crossing Marisol Soltero the hard way. “But you were into a lot more than that. You started with minor theft, from what I can tell. The robberies were very sophisticated and you were quiet about moving the goods. That’s rare for someone your age. Usually people get flashy and stupid. Not you. Most of the weapons moving through the Midwest either start or end with you. Your competitors have a stunning capacity to go missing, too. I count twenty-seven deaths that can be attributed to you. Something interesting in your rap sheet, though.”

  Marisol came back to the room slowly. She could tell by the intensity of his pause that the penny was about to drop. She intended to catch it.

  “You involve yourself in nearly every avenue of crime, but there is one notable exception. No girls. No link to prostitution or…”

  “What do you want from me?”

  Marisol’s voice sounded odd to her own ears. She hadn’t heard it in a long time. It croaked and rasped but it was unmistakably hers. He didn’t seem perturbed by the interruption. Too late Marisol realized that he had expected it. It was another trap he was setting while she was distracted by the first. She tucked the trick away in her mind.

  “You have a set of skills that I need.”

  “I don’t swing your way, Officer.”

  So easy to fall back into herself after all these weeks floating alone. Like putting on a favorite shirt. She let herself smile and went back to staring at the wall.

  “It’s Agent, actually. Agent Anderson.”

  He was enjoying the game now. She could tell by the spark that lit his hooded eyes. He removed a worn photograph from an inside pocket and set it on the cot beside her. He was silent for a long time. Long enough for Marisol to understand that he was taking control of their game. He wasn’t going to speak until she looked at the photo.

  When it suited her, Marisol turned her gaze to the picture. It showed a little girl, maybe six or seven, with brightly colored plastic barrettes in her hair and a wide smile. She was utterly unremarkable, just a small Hispanic girl missing two teeth. It might have been a picture of Marisol when she was young, except the girl in the photo was well fed and happy. Marisol had been neither at that age. She had been on the street by then.

  “She went missing in Colombia three years ago. Her mother took her to the market, holding her hand the whole time. Someone came by and ripped her away and she never saw her daughter again.”

  The photograph was in Marisol’s hands now and she was studying it intently, though she didn’t remember picking it up.

  “She was found dead last month in a ditch outside Chicago. There are lots of them. All girls. All young. All…”

  “What about it?” Marisol asked, cutting off his words before they could make her fee
l anything. Before the image of a girl not much older than this one could fully form in her mind. A skinny girl with dusty yellow Converse High Tops and haunted eyes. She held the photo out to him, but his eyes were fixed on her. “Why are you here?”

  “I work for an organization that cares very much about this little girl and others like her.” He held her gaze and she felt the jaws of the trap snap shut around her foot. “I think you do, too.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  “Am I?” He crossed his arms and Marisol set the photograph back on the bed. “I know the men who did this well enough to know they would’ve approached you.”

  “A lot of people approach me.”

  He continued like she hadn’t spoken, “You aren’t a part of this. That means you care.”

  Laughter escaped before she could stop it. It was without mirth, but it made her chest feel alive for the first time in a long while. “You expect me to go straight.”

  “I expect exactly the opposite.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him, her suspicion making her wary again.

  “We’ve been trying to infiltrate these organizations for years. We can’t get a cop inside and I’m tired of getting people killed trying.”

  A glimmer of his plan showed on the horizon and Marisol tracked it as he spoke.

  “We can’t get a cop into organized crime. We need to get someone in organized crime to be a cop.”

  “I’m no cop.” Images flashed in front of her eyes. Men in blue uniforms beating her friends. Sweet talking the girls. The cops who’d finally arrested her had gentle hands, but their words left wounds she was still licking. “I’ll never be a cop.”

  “Poor choice of words. You’ll be far more than a cop.” He sat forward, his enthusiasm pressing through his calm façade. “You’ll be something entirely new. Unique.”

  “Enough games. What exactly do you want from me?”

  “I want you to go to Chicago. I want you to set up shop there the same way you did in Detroit. I’ll offer you limited help with that, and I will…not notice some of the things you do as long as you stay within certain acceptable boundaries.”