Exchange

by Katherine Rhodes

  “No, Wren. I just ran. Like you said. Emma thought to call the Uber and go to a hotel.”

  I took a deep breath, and tried to steady myself. “Can I talk to Emma, please?”

  She didn’t answer me, but I heard the phone being passed to someone else, and her best friend was on the line. “Doctor Warner?”

  “Emma, darling, thank you so much for going with her.”

  “I had to get her away from him, Doctor Warner. He’s groped me before, but the horrible things he was saying to her...”

  I chewed on my bottom lip a moment and looked over to Miriam. She had moved right next to me as soon as she heard Ellie’s name.

  “We’re going to come get you two,” I said. “Emma, how are you paying for the room?”

  “I grabbed Mom’s credit card. She won’t even know it’s gone.”

  “Do you think the guy will come after you?”

  “He’s Daddy’s best friend. He won’t be able to leave without being noticed. But the barbecue is over at five.”

  I looked at my watch. It was one. We didn’t have time to get from the Philadelphia to the Hamptons in four hours. It was a five hour drive breaking the speed limit. Miriam put her hand on my arm and had her phone on her ear. “Three hours. We can be there in three hours.” She spoke into the phone, “Have the plane gassed and ready. We’re taking off in an hour or less. No, I don’t care about the FAA flight cost.”

  “Emma, we’ll be there as soon as we can. Don’t open the door for anyone. Don't leave the room. We will text you when we land and call you to open the door. If you’re hungry, eat whatever is in the mini fridge, I don’t care. Fischer and I will be there.”

  “Thank you, Doctor Warner.”

  “Thank you, Emma. Can I talk to Ellie?”

  The phone shifted again and Ellie was weeping quietly.

  “Doll, we’re on our way to come get you. Emma knows what to do, and your job is to just stay safe and in that room. Think about taking a shower. It will help you. If there’s a tub, that’s even better.” I said.

  “You’re coming?”

  “Yes, Ellie, Fischer, Miriam, Laxmi, and I will be there to get you, probably about five.”

  “Thank you, Wren.”

  “Baby doll, you got nothing to thank me for. This is what parents do.” I smiled at the phone even though she couldn’t see me. “Fridge is free game. And if you need to call me again, you do, okay?”

  “Yes, okay. Good.”

  “See you soon, Ellie.”

  I closed the connection and grabbed the bag. “Pay. We have a plane to catch.”

  Fischer

  I had killed once, I would do it again.

  Perhaps Ellie wasn’t our daughter yet, but that girl had become such a part of our lives she may as well have been. I was ready to rip the balls off anyone who came near her and tried to harm her.

  “Fischer, you’re going to rip the arm off the seat if you don’t calm down.”

  Wren’s voice in my ear always did the same thing—calmed and soothed me. It was a relief, and she brought me some immediate clarity. I was still hankering for a stab or two at this asshole who dared to try and touch Ellie, but for now I would be happy with the calm she offered.

  “Whose plane is this?” Laxmi asked. “You’ve never mentioned having an aircraft before.”

  “It’s not mine,” Miriam said. “I was formerly engaged to the owner and he doesn’t use it often, so I took a chance on it.”

  Staring at her, my mouth dropped open. “It’s Lincoln Foster’s plane?”

  “It is.”

  I cringed. So did Wren. “Miri, you didn’t have to do this. We would have hired a charter.”

  She shook her head. “Nope. He told me I could use it whenever, because he has his newest plane down in DelCo with him. This plane is a backup.”

  Wren, Laxmi, and I looked at each other. “How many planes does he have?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know, I don’t care. Honestly. I just know this plane was here and ready for us to use to get Ellie out of this situation.”

  “I really hope we don’t owe that asshole a debt after this.” Wren’s concern was genuine, and I shared it. After she basically told him to go suck a dick at the party two months before, I couldn’t imagine he’d take kindly to either of us using his stuff, even for this reason.

  Still, I was glad for it. We’d taken a real chance on letting Ellie go, and apparently it had failed through no fault of her own. I had the feeling the girl was going to stay in a fifty mile radius for a while, and while that sounded like a good idea, I didn’t want her world to collapse too much. She’d spent her whole life in the confines of some of the worst neighborhoods of Philadelphia and now she had the rest of the planet to explore.

  “I hope this was a misunderstanding,” Wren whispered.

  “Me too, little bird.”

  The plane had been in the air for about twenty minutes and I could feel it descending already.

  “There’s a rental waiting?” Laxmi asked.

  “Yes,” I answered. “I called them on the way to the plane.”

  We were all anxious to get Ellie back and away from the whole situation. Miriam had already set up the return flight with the pilot when we got there. We weren’t spending a minute more than we had to in the situation.

  Wren laid her hand over mine.

  ...The man had minions. People to do his bidding and I was sure that they weren’t good people. He was dark and cold.

  “You can’t touch her,” I bit out.

  “She is ours to protect.”

  His head went back and he let out a laugh. “And you care about this pathetic mortal. You and your companions are delightful. Simple and delightful.” He leaned in close. “There is nothing you can truly do to stop me, you know. I will have her in my possession, and I will use her as I will.”

  Wren stepped forward. “You seem to not know who I am.”

  “Another one of the servants of El. Pathetic and lame—”

  “I am Temperance.”

  That stopped the man. “You are...”

  She nodded once, and he clearly balked. A moment more and he shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. You are nothing. I wish to have this child for my own and—”

  There was a crack of blue lightning, and the man stepped back.

  “There are more of us than you can count!” he snapped. “For everyone you strike down, another shall take his place! Over and over and over again! For eternity.”

  Wren raised a flaming sword. “Then we will fight against you for eternity.”...

  My eyes snapped to hers, and she looked pale. I placed a hand on her cheek and turned her to look at me. She was trembling, so I leaned forward and brushed a kiss over her lips. “You looked incredibly hot holding that sword, little bird.”

  The tension drained a bit. “That was kind of a bad ass move, right?”

  “It was,” I said, kissing her hand.

  The pilot announced our descent, and landing time. I liked this whole having a plane thing—at least for now. Because it was allowing us to get Ellie back from whatever disaster she’d been thrust into.

  I looked at Wren, and lowered my voice. “I’m having trouble not calling that girl our daughter, babe.”

  She snapped her gaze to mine, and I could see the astonishment there. But it wasn’t that I’d voiced the words.

  “I feel the same way,” she whispered. “I just want to call her ours.”

  “Why are we able to move so fast with her, but we’re keeping our relationship on the slow and steady?”

  “The visions,” she said, her voice soft. “It has nothing to do with me being in love with you. But there’s…something missing. There’s supposed to be more to us than this.”

  “Ellie?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “No. She’s where she needs to be. Us, we. There’s more, and we’re waiting to see if it shows up.”

  It made a ton of sense. In all of the visions we�
��d had, we’d never stood alone. There were more people around us, behind us, with us. And we could both feel they were supposed to be there.

  “So, does that mean you want to wait to adopt Ellie?” I asked.

  “No. We can both adopt her.” She paused, and then was shocked at her own words. “We need to adopt her.”

  Leaning back in the chair as we made the last of the descent, I nodded. “We need to adopt her.”

  “I’ll get the paperwork started.”

  I leaned over and gave her a hard kiss as we bumped down on to the tarmac.

  The massive SUV was waiting at the bottom of the stairs as we deplaned. The drop-off driver held the keys out to me and Wren grabbed them.

  “He’s the navigator,” she snapped and climbed into the driver’s seat. The valet opened his mouth to apologize but Miriam shook her head.

  “Don’t. You’ll only make it worse.” She signed all the paper for the rental and we all hopped in. I pulled up Waze and punched in the address Ellie had texted to Wren when we landed.

  “Half an hour,” I said, mounting the phone on the dash. “Let’s go get her.”

  The Hamptons had always been such a pretty place to me, but right now, all I could see was privileged assholes who were so rich they thought they could get away with trying to rape a sixteen year old who was in therapy for sexual assault. My gut just churned at the anger I felt. We had worked so hard to get her away and get her safe, and now this dick of a man had assaulted her. Not just her, but also decided to grope her best friend.

  I was glad Emma had left with her. That showed a tremendous amount of loyalty on her part. And for knowing Ellie for only a few weeks, it showed the signs of real friendship and a good sense of right and wrong.

  Wren and I walked to the door of the room, and called Ellie. The door flew open a moment later and the terrified and exhausted girl flung herself into Wren’s arms. I came up behind her and wrapped my arms around the two of them.

  Emma chuckled from inside the room. “You even brought the aunties.”

  “Aunt Miriam had the access to the plane,” Miriam said. “Never knock the Aunties.”

  “Inside, let’s go,” Laxmi said. “We want to be careful so this guy doesn’t come looking.”

  We crowded back into the room, and Ellie would not let go of Wren. I settled them down on the bed as best as I could and grabbed two water bottles from the mini-fridge. I pretend-punched Emma on the arm. “The suite?”

  “It’s dad’s money, and my bestie’s sanity. So yeah, the suite.”

  God, I liked this girl.

  Handing Wren and Ellie the bottles after cracking them open for them, I pulled the chair over to sit in front of them. Emma pulled the desk chair over and sat next to me.

  “What happened, Ellie?” Wren asked quietly.

  She burst into wracking sobs. “It was Mister Arch.”

  “Motherfucking creepy ass son of a bitch,” Emma said.

  Patting her arm, I tossed her a look to tell her to let Ellie talk. She nodded.

  “Tell us what happened, Ellie,” I said.

  “We were having so much fun at the party,” Ellie said, smiling at Emma. “Everyone started showing up at like eleven, and we were helping in the kitchen. We brought the food out to the buffet table, and got the DJ set. It was so nice. Once people got there we were shooed away and told to mingle with the other kids. There were dozens of them, and Emma and I were having fun playing with the really little ones.”

  She sniffled and took a sip of water to steady herself. “It wasn’t long after people started showing up I started to get that...slimy feeling. The one that says I’m being watched. I thought it was just me overreacting, and I did a bunch of those breathing exercises you showed me, and the ‘look around’ Fischer said. I didn’t see anything, so I went back to the party and the kids and just tried to put it out of my head.

  “It didn’t work. I kept feeling it. Someone had their eyes on the back of my head. Nothing I did could get rid of the feeling. I was going to go ask Emma's mom if she needed anything from the store, and that Emma and I would go get it.

  “I didn’t make it back to the kitchen. The guy came out of nowhere and snagged my arm. He pulled me back to one of the guest bedrooms in the back of the first floor. I didn’t see who it was at first, and then he turned around and I gasped, because it was Mister Arch. I could barely breathe.

  “I didn’t want to react to him at all, but I didn’t know how not to. I put my back against the closet door and held myself there. He came over to me and leaned in really close. I know your little pussy, don’t I? Is it weeping for me right now? I think I should find out.

  “Suddenly my body unlocked and I punched him in the sternum. He leaned forward and I kicked him in the nuts, then pushed him on the ground when he curled in to protect his nuts. I ran for the door and jerked it open. Emma was standing down the hall about to knock on another door.”

  Emma leaned forward. “She looked completely petrified and I didn’t know what was going on. Ellie just looked like she’d seen a ghost, and I didn’t like her coming out of the bedroom like that. I grabbed her, found my mother’s purse and took a credit card and called us an Uber here. I had no idea what was going on at all.”

  Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out her phone. “My dad texted me about an hour ago and wanted to know why George Tyrol had a huge bruise on his chest and was blathering about suing the shit out of us.

  “George Tyrol—Mister Arch—is a creepy son of a bitch. I hate him, and he makes me feel slimy all the time,” Emma said. “Ellie told me about everything with her, and I really feel like this guy is totally the kind of slime that would rent little girls and have sex with them. He’s always around the smallest ones at parties and he touches everyone and everything.”

  “Did you answer your father’s text?” Miriam asked.

  Emma shook her head. “No. We were waiting for youse. I knew you were on your way and I didn’t want my dad to show up here and threaten us.” She picked a thread off her shirt. “George is Dad’s best friend. This is going to suck for him because he trusts the man with everything.”

  Laxmi grunted, “Everything?”

  “Everything,” Emma stated.

  “Including financials?”

  Emma looked over at Laxmi. “Everything. Every last thing. Mom had to beg Daddy not to share the vault codes with him. Anything Tyrol needed, Dad would get for him. He never had a key.”

  Glancing over at Laxmi, I saw the look on her face that said she was thinking the same thing I was. “Do you think he would use Emma’s family’s money?”

  Miriam and Wren jerked, and Wren looked horrified.

  “You think he was part of it?” Laxmi was cool and unperturbed by the implication.

  “If he was ballsy enough to come up to my kid at a party full of people,” I said, “and tell her he was going to stick his hand up her—”

  “Fischer!” Wren snapped.

  “I think he’s perverted enough to feed his habits from someone else’s bank account,” I finished. “Yes. Absolutely.”

  “But Haden said Woodall was the ringleader,” Miriam said.

  “That doesn’t mean there wasn’t someone who was ready to step into the position,” Wren answered. “Sociopathic pedophiles who aren’t ashamed of what they are. They can be utterly ruthless, and will do anything to keep their supply of victims available.”

  Wren looked at us and could see we were all confused by her qualification of ashamed. “So, there are three ways to divide pedophiles. The first, the ones who are most able to reform and be part of society are the ones who are ashamed they gave into their base needs and hate they are attracted to minors. They can be taught coping mechanisms and live normal lives.

  “There are others who are driven on pure instinct. They know it’s wrong, but there’s something that just doesn’t work in their heads to stop them from acting on the impulse. These are the repeat offenders who have to be kept away from ch
ildren at all costs if they hope to function in society. Most of the ones who are caught are sent to jail, so in a way that works itself out.

  “And then there are the aggressive sociopathic pedophiles. They know it’s wrong and they don’t care. They actively seek out satisfaction. They help each other. And they will do anything to stay…”

  “Stocked,” Emma said, her eyes going wide. She slowly put a hand over her mouth. “Oh, God. I’ve heard him talking about it. They call it the Pipeline.”

  I turned the chair so I was facing Emma. “Be completely honest with me right now, Emma. Please. Was he talking to your father? Take a second, think.”

  She did. She took a good few long minutes and Ellie’s hand shot out and grabbed her friend’s in a supportive clutch. Eventually, Emma looked up. “No. Dad had left the room to grab some files from his office down the hall. They were at my house for some emergency weekend meeting.”

  I looked over at Miriam. “Your ex-fiancé is the financial genius, right?”

  “You aren’t going to make me talk to him, are you?”

  “We just need an in with him that doesn’t involve my lovely girlfriend here basically telling him to suck a dick.” I grinned at Wren.

  She didn’t look upset at my teasing. Rather, she looked deep in thought, and a moment later, I knew why.

  “Let me talk to him. He’s attracted to me. I might be able to play off that and get him to help us.”

  “You want to play the player?” Miriam asked, her eyebrows shooting up.

  “If it means we can get this pipeline shut down?” Wren nodded. “Yes.”

  Miriam stared straight at me. “This is a bad idea.”

  “Emma, Ellie,” I said, ignoring her. “Are you two okay?”

  Slowly, and after a moment, they both nodded. “Yes,” Ellie verbalized. “I can’t believe he came after me in such a crowded space.”

  Emma threw the lamp, ripping it out of the wall and smashing into the plaster. “My father’s best friend who held me as a baby is a fucking pedophile!”

  She stopped and turned pale as all the blood drained from her face. She raced for the bathroom, and Laxmi was right behind her.