“What? No! No—” He almost shakes his head but the force of the knife stops him. He swallows, his Adam’s apple convulsing. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Where’d y-you meet online? In s-some sick fuck p-place?” I push again and Ellis’s moans, near unintelligible with the fear I’m putting in him. “F-fucking where?”
“It was—was—” He takes a deep breath. “Counterwatch. It’s a—it’s a game, like a, a—an online game! We were on the same team. I don’t…” His eyes frantically search the room and even in all its chaos, and with a knife against his throat, he spots the IDs and the smattering of tags on the floor. He says, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I can feel my body shaking, my hand shaking against his throat and I wonder if I could kill him that way, by accident. Something about the way he said it, I don’t know what you’re talking about, is working through me in a way I don’t like because I can hear a lie a mile away, and Ellis …
Ellis isn’t lying.
“So why don’t”—he takes a shuddering breath—“why don’t you tell me.”
I shake my head.
“You’re hurt,” he says and I keep shaking my head, because I don’t want him to do what he’s doing, talking to me like I’m some wild thing, like I can be talked down with the gentleness he’s dressed his voice in.
“N-no,” I say.
He blinks, several times.
“Are you gonna kill me?”
I press my lips together and feel the tears forming in my eyes.
I’m dangerous, I want to tell him. I have a knife …
The gravity of how fucked I am hits me.
My breath catches in my throat.
“I don’t think you want to do this,” he says.
“Don’t,” I beg him because what’s going to happen to me when I move my hand. He’s going to call the cops, he’ll call the cops and all of this will have been for nothing. “D-don’t—”
“Look,” Ellis says. “Just put the—put the knife down. You’re hurt. Let’s look after that, okay? We’ll just fix up your arm and you tell me … you tell me about Darren, okay?”
“N-no.” I push the knife a little, like a promise to myself. I could do this, if I have to. I can. I will. “You’re his f-friend. You’ll c-call the c-cops and—” No, no, no. “It has t-to be me. I have t-to b-be the one—”
“Let me help you.” He looks like he’s going to cry. “Please.”
THE GIRLS
S1E5
WEST McCRAY:
Langford is an in-between sort of place. In fact, you wouldn’t think it was a town, driving through it. It’s a smattering of houses and a few businesses here and there, no real order to it. Just a stop along the way. The address Cat Mather gave me—the one Sadie was headed to—turns out to be a motel called The Bluebird. The most diplomatic description I can give it is rustic, but really, it’s holding on by a thread, the building doing a slow collapse in on itself. The siding is grimy, the roof badly in need of repair, if not outright replacement, and I spot a few cracked and broken windows here and there. It’s got no avian aesthetic to earn it its name and in sixty days, its owner, Joe Perkins, will hand the keys over to Marcus Danforth, who will begin demolition. Joe will say a final good-bye to the place he’s called home for more than fifty years. So I guess it’s lucky I arrive when I do.
JOE PERKINS:
Well, it used to be called Perkinses’ Inn before I took it over. My parents owned this place, my grandparents owned it before them, and my great grandparents owned it before them. It’s been in the family so damn long, but it just got to the point where it was more’n I could keep up with. It started getting away from me. Maybe it’s more than I ever wanted to keep up with, if you want the truth. It was just handed to me, you know? I was a kid.
WEST McCRAY:
You never really knew what you wanted to do?
JOE PERKINS:
That’s exactly it, man! I mean, I never got the chance to think about it. I don’t want to sound ungrateful … I know it’s fortunate I was never in want of a job for most of my life. It’s just, straight out of high school, I had this and I wish maybe my parents—God rest their souls—had asked me if I even wanted it. I don’t mind it, but it was never my plan.
WEST McCRAY:
Joe Perkins is fifty-five. He has a shock of white hair, a weather-beaten face and tattoos covering both his arms and legs. Each one of them means something, he tells me, but what they mean is between him and the ink.
JOE PERKINS:
I’ll let you in on this one here, though …
WEST McCRAY:
It’s a small bluebird on his left bicep.
JOE PERKINS:
First tattoo I ever got, and that’s how the place got its new name. Everyone asks me, “Where’s the bird?” And I say right here. [LAUGHS]
WEST McCRAY:
When I told Joe I wanted to talk about a girl who might have stayed at his motel about five months back, he told me he’d do his best, but the people who tend to spend the night are like a motion-blur through his life. They never stay long enough to make an impression. Still, when I show him a picture of Sadie, he remembers her instantly.
JOE PERKINS:
Oh, yeah, she was here. She talked a little funny. She was looking for a friend of mine. Both those things are how come I remember her.
WEST McCRAY:
The friend was Darren?
JOE PERKINS:
Yeah, Darren. She came here asking if he was around, but he wasn’t, at the time. I don’t know what she wanted him for. I don’t think she ever said. I only saw her the once, though. I think she stayed one night … might’ve paid for two? I don’t know. I trashed the records when we sold.
WEST McCRAY:
Tell me about Darren.
JOE PERKINS:
He saved my life.
WEST McCRAY:
Did he?
JOE PERKINS:
Yeah. I was thirty-five, driving along the highway here, headed back to this place. Got hit by some drunk asshole. The car rolled a few times, ended up in the ditch. Drunk kept going. Still don’t know who did it but I hope that fucker rots. Well, Darren was right behind me and saw the whole thing. He pulled over … I was out cold and I’d sliced up my thigh. Anyway, the hospital told me later he kept me from bleeding out before the ambulance arrived. We been friends ever since. After that, I said any time you need a room, man, you got it.
WEST McCRAY:
Where is he now?
JOE PERKINS:
I don’t know. He ended up taking me up on the offer about the room. Number ten. That’s his. I didn’t let anyone else stay in it. He was free to come and go as he pleased, and he did. He was rarely here more than a few weeks at a time.
WEST McCRAY:
That’s awfully generous of you.
JOE PERKINS:
Well, my life’s worth more than a room. Anyway, he’d head off for a while, but he always came back. He was a great guy, just never had his shit together. One of those, you know? This is the longest I’ve gone without hearing from him … I’ve been trying to get hold of him to let him know we sold. I can’t put him up anymore.
WEST McCRAY:
You have a number?
JOE PERKINS:
Yeah, I can give it to you, but it’s been disconnected.
WEST McCRAY:
He’s right.
I call it and nothing gets through.
JOE PERKINS:
I’ve had a bad feeling about it, to be honest. Got worse when you called me, wanting to talk. A girl’s looking for him, he’s missing. You’re looking for her, she’s missing. [PAUSE] Who is this girl, anyway?
WEST McCRAY:
She says she’s his daughter.
JOE PERKINS:
[LAUGHS] All the time I knew him, Darren never mentioned no daughter.
WEST McCRAY:
It’s what she says.
JOE PERKINS:
I just don’t … [LAUGHS] If he had a daughter, he shoulda been where she was because he wasn’t the kinda guy … he wouldn’t step out on his family. He saved my life.
Jesus, the more you tell me, the worse I feel about all this.
WEST McCRAY:
Could you show me Darren’s room?
JOE PERKINS:
I don’t know, man. I mean, I gotta pack it up … I been putting it off, but I don’t want to go in there until I know for sure I got no choice. All he asked is we left it alone when he wasn’t here and I respect that but … you really think he’s in trouble?
WEST McCRAY:
I can’t say for sure. All I know is that I’m looking for Sadie and she was looking for him and like you said—now they’re both missing.
JOE PERKINS:
What’s his room gonna tell you about that?
WEST McCRAY:
I won’t know unless I see it.
JOE PERKINS:
[SIGHS]
sadie
“This could use the hospital … stitches, like.”
We’re in the main office, out of view of the window, my arm stretched across a table atop a towel, ugly and open and still bleeding under the fluorescent lights overhead. I can’t look at it for too long without wanting to be sick. It didn’t seem so bad in Keith’s room. Here, it looks bad. Ellis has an ancient-looking first-aid kit between us. He raises his eyes to me, awaiting some kind of confirmation, like yes, a hospital.
“N-no.”
I couldn’t kill him.
It nauseates me, that I couldn’t, because he’s all that’s standing between me and Keith now. I have risked everything for this kindness, or whatever it is, and that makes me worry that I’m too starved, too broken, to do anything right. I know I am. I just thought I could be better than it for once. I close my eyes briefly.
There’s a phone near us. Ellis hasn’t made a move toward it.
In a neat little pile in front of me, the tags, the IDs.
“Didn’t think so,” he says.
He cried when I took the knife from his neck. That’s the comfort I’m clinging to; in his eyes, I looked like I could’ve done it. He feels like he walked away with more than he had before the moment I lowered my hand. I was dangerous. I had a knife.
When we came back into the office, he rooted around under the desk and found a bottle of Jim Beam. He took a shot and offered me none. I want to ask him what he gets out of this. What he’s going to make me do for him so I can finish what I’ve started.
“It’ll h-heal f-fine.”
“It’ll heal ugly.”
But most things do.
He unscrews a bottle of isopropyl alcohol and says, “This is gonna hurt,” and then upends it over my arm, a little bit of revenge in the action. There’s about a microsecond of nothing before all of my skin is on fire, I’m on fire. I press my lips together and scream through them, black dots in front of my eyes and I think I can hear Ellis saying, easy, easy, easy, and I gasp, didn’t even realized I’d stopped breathing. My skin calms down a little at a time, not enough that I stop feeling it. I have to swallow a few times before I feel like I can speak.
“Okay?” he asks.
He doesn’t wait for an answer. He rummages through the kit and I get the feeling he’s just trying to find things that make sense to him but he doesn’t actually know what he’s doing. After a long moment he settles on some butterfly bandages, and puts them where he thinks is right, pulling my skin as together as it’ll get.
From there, he finds a bandage.
“Lift your arm,” he says.
I raise my arms and he wraps the bandage around and around and around it. He does it with just a little more care than he did the disinfecting. And then it’s done. It feels snug.
We stare at each other.
“I’m…” Ellis pauses. “I don’t know what to do here.”
“You said y-you’d h-help me.”
“I just did. You pulled a fucking knife on me—”
“You s-said you were his f-friend!”
“I—” He stops, doesn’t know how to finish. He presses his hand against his forehead. “Look, the only reason I’m not calling the cops right now is because…” He pauses. “Is because you think Keith’s hurtin’ … little kids. And you think I got something to do with that.”
“I kn-know he is,” I say. “You said y-you w-were his friend! S-said you m-met online! What else was I s-supposed t-to think?”
“It was a stupid MMO game! It wasn’t any of the—any of the—” He waves his hands, floundering. “It wasn’t any of the stuff you’re talking about. That’s not the guy I met. That’s not the guy who got me this job. It’s—you know how crazy you look? You broke into his room and trashed the fucking place! The only reason I didn’t call the cops after you calmed some was because out of all the shit that coulda come out of your mouth, for it to be that fucked up … I don’t know. I just don’t fuckin’ know.” He scrubs a hand over his head and then reaches over and pushes his fingers through the IDs. “That’s him, though. But that’s not his name…”
I find the one with KEITH on it, slide it forward.
“Th-that’s who he w-was f-for me.”
He points to the tags. “What are the … what are those?”
“T-trophies. K-kids he’s hurt.”
Ellis turns pale, his hand drifting toward them and just stopping before his fingers can graze those tainted pieces of fabric, those lost girls. I watch him mouth each name, the curve of his lips for each one. I turn my face when he gets to mine.
“How do you know?”
“—” I close my eyes briefly and clench my hands together. “He d-did something t-to my s-sister.”
“Then shouldn’t you tell the police or something?”
“I w-will after I s-see him.”
“No,” Ellis says firmly. “You need to tell the cops now and let them—”
I slam my hand onto the table, the force traveling up my sore, hurting arm. It startles him enough to skitter back in his chair.
“N—no.”
Silence. Ellis grabs the bottle of Jim Beam and gets to his feet, takes a swig. Then he wanders over to the window looking out over the parking lot and laughs.
“Darren, Keith—whoever the fuck he is—he got me this job. He really helped me out. He saved Joe’s life. He’s only ever been decent to me. I don’t … I can’t believe it.”
“Then t-tell me I’m l-lying.”
He doesn’t say anything.
“D-do you know w-where h-he is?”
He tenses and it’s the answer I need.
I am. So. Close.
I get up slowly, carefully. He eyes me warily.
“Ellis, I d-don’t know you and I’m s-sorry about what h-happened in th—in that room, but I n-need you t-to tell m-me w-where.”
“So you can ruin a guy’s life?”
“Or p-put a sick f-fuck where he b-belongs.”
“But if you’re lying to me—”
“W-what’s it gonna c-cost you? You gonna b-bet on some l-little g-girl’s life? You g-gonna risk them?” I wish I’d followed through. I wish I’d cut his heart open. He turns back to me. I pick up each tag. “C-Casey. Anna. J-Joelle. Jessica … S-Sadie.”
“Then let me call the cops!”
“I n-need to see it myself. I h-have to.”
“I just…”
“P-please.”
It makes my stomach ache, how, at a time like this, I can’t make that word come perfectly out of my mouth enough to convince him. I can’t describe how bad it feels, this inability to communicate the way I want, when I need to. My eyes burn, and tears slip down my cheeks and I can’t even imagine how pathetic I look. Girl with a busted face, torn-up arm, begging for the opportunity to save other girls. Why do I have to beg for that?
“If y-you knew what he d-did to my sister you wouldn’t b-be doing this t-to me. You h-have to let me g-go. Tell me where he is. P-pretend I w-
was never here.”
His shoulders sag and he exhales slowly. He squints his eyes shut and squeezes the bridge of his nose and I realize, after a moment, that he’s crying too.
I hold my breath.
I watch him age.
THE GIRLS
S1E5
JOE PERKINS:
Jesus Christ.
WEST McCRAY:
Wow.
WEST McCRAY [STUDIO]:
Darren Marshall’s room looks like it … exploded, for lack of a better term. The air is thick, stuffy, attesting to the fact that he hasn’t been here for a long time. But whenever he was here last, he apparently tore the place apart. There are clothes all over the bed, the floor, every available surface. The bed has been stripped of its sheets and the furniture has been upended and pulled away from the walls. Every drawer in the place is open, except for the fridge. Joe wanders over to it first. When he opens it, the stench of spoiled food fills the room.
JOE PERKINS:
Oh, goddammit …
[SOUND OF A DOOR SLAMMING SHUT]
WEST McCRAY:
What happened here, Joe?
JOE PERKINS:
It looks like a fuckin’ crime scene … Jesus … [SOUND OF A DOOR OPENING, CRUNCHING GLASS] Oh, Christ, don’t step in here! The bathroom window’s fuckin’ broken.
WEST McCRAY:
You didn’t notice that until now?
JOE PERKINS:
You seen this place? How’m I supposed to notice one more broken window? Jesus.
WEST McCRAY:
So this isn’t how Darren usually left the place?
JOE PERKINS:
I hope not … but I honestly don’t know. He didn’t want cleaning in here, and I trusted that he’d look after it and I didn’t have a reason to doubt that, you know? But this … looks wrong. It looks like there was a fight or something … is that blood?
WEST McCRAY:
There are a few suspect stains on the floor, but it’s hard to tell what exactly they might be. I move carefully around the room, taking photographs of it with my phone. The first thing that catches my attention is the matchbook. It’s sitting neatly on the nightstand. I pick it up because it’s familiar to me, but at that moment, I’m not sure why. It says Cooper’s on the front. Before I can think too hard about it, there’s something else:
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