I’d first met him at one of my boyfriend’s local shows. The guys had just hit the small outdoor stage and were opening on a song they’d just finished the night before. I was eager to hear it in front of the crowd that’d gathered in the town park for a day of music, food trucks, and fun times with friends.
Julia, my best friend, was supposed to be hanging out with me, but she was nowhere in sight. I’d seen her half an hour earlier, sneaking off with Malachi Hayes, a sophomore at our high school that has a major crush on her. I knew she wasn’t really into him, and it irked me that she was leading the boy on. I don’t know what she was getting out of it. It didn’t make sense, and it wasn’t right to let Malachi think she was into him when she wasn’t.
I didn’t press her on her motives. In hindsight, I guess I should’ve, but a part of me was relieved. I’d caught her on more than one occasion watching my boyfriend in a way I didn’t like. It was getting to the point that I was going to do something about it, and believe me, she wouldn’t have liked me after that.
“What made you want to become someone who takes girls and sells them for money?” I ask, pushing to my knees after he gets up, taking the medical necessities back to the kitchen. The kitchen looks more like the break room at my dad’s office than it does at my house.
“It’s how I grew up,” he answers, walking back in and coming to sit at the other end of the sofa, the middle cushion separating us.
I lean back against the soft, cold leather as easy as I can, pulling my bare feet up and wrapping my arms around my knees. The coolness of the leather feels nice against my skin. It helps to chill the heat inside the wound on my back. It’s only when I go to stand up or move positions that it hurts when the leather pulls away from my clammy skin.
“No offense, but I think you grew up awful.” It’s the truth, and I find myself getting bolder with my words around him. I don’t know if that’s going to help my situation or make it worse. My parents always told me my mouth was going to get me in a whole world of trouble one day. Maybe that day is now, or maybe that day was three months ago when Josh and I first struck up a conversation.
The memory from that day flashes through my head.
I had been watching the band play from the front of the park closest to the highway where there’s a higher platform with a railing that overlooks the lawn and stage the band was standing on. From up here, there are tables scattered about for picnics and just hanging out. It’s a little far from the stage, but I can enjoy the music without being shoved around by other people. Crowds . . . other people—they have never been my thing, so I prefer it up here.
“Hey, beautiful,” I hear far too close to my right ear.
Before turning my head to my right side, I take a step away from him. With an irritated expression, I finally take in the guy that’s leaning sideways against the worn, wooden railing. He’s good-looking, hot even, and with a pair of stunning light blue eyes that I’ve only seen on one other person. That eye color is what drew me to Julia that day in ninth grade two years ago.
The hot guy smiles, his lips parting to pearly-white teeth.
Yep. Gotta nip this in the bud right now.
“You’re cute and all,” I tell him, offering a smile. “But you see that guy up there?” I lift my arm, pointing toward the stage. “The one singing,” I clarify. “I’m his and his alone, so . . .”—I give him a once-over—”you’re gonna have to find another girl. I’m taken.” I smile again and then turn back toward the stage hoping he’ll get the message and mosey on somewhere else. We’re outdoors after all; we’re in a park with plenty of space. He doesn’t have to invade mine.
I’m caught off guard when he snatches me by the arm, yanking my body flush with his. The guy’s lips crash into mine and his other hand sneaks up the back of my neck and up through my hair, his palm holding my head firm so that I can’t easily break free of his kiss—a kiss I want no part of.
When he’s done, he lets go, releasing his hold on me and stepping away like what he just did was no big deal at all. “What the fuck?!” I yell, momentarily stunned. Did this actually just happen? The nerve of that guy. I’m getting more pissed by the second. He shrugs, ticking me off further, and that move sends me into action. My knee lifts, jamming into his crotch. From the surprised look on his face, he wasn’t expecting that and drops to his knees.
“You bitch,” he spits out.
I don’t stick around to watch him get back up. I race to the center of the park, the place where the stage and heaviest part of the crowd is, thrusting my way to the middle.
Jamie will freak the fuck out and go bat-shit crazy if I tell him about this. His jealous streak is far worse than mine. I glance over my shoulder. When I don’t see the stranger, I sigh, relieved, and then turn my view back to the stage. I doubt I’ll see that douche again, so I don’t think it’s worth getting my boyfriend upset over. That guy just better hope he never comes around me again, or next time it won’t be his balls I go for.
That memory makes me want to laugh and cry at the same time. I should have told Jamie. I should have told my parents. Hell, I should have reported it to any one of the number of police officers that was at the outing that day. I was stupid. A stupid, stupid kid that thought she could handle her own problems on her own.
Guess he showed me.
“My parents raised me in that life—this life,” he says, stealing my attention away from the moment that changed everything. I just didn’t know it at the time. “It’s all I know. I grew up watching teenage girls and boys come and go. My folks would typically have two at all times locked in their own rooms in our big house. When I wasn’t watching and learning how both of them would break each person down, then I was physically or mentally training in one way or another. From the time I was seven, I was in a gym for three hours a day. My mother home-schooled me, but studies were never a focus on a day to day basis. Getting physically stronger and learning every weapon I could get my hands on were my true studies.”
“I don’t get it, Josh. Why did they do those things? Why would they want their son to do them?”
“I can’t answer that question, Cat. I don’t know.” He laughs, though there isn’t a lick of humor in his tone. “The only time I had the balls to ask my father what the girl—I had just witnessed him almost beat to death—had done to deserve to be here, he beat the shit out of me twice as bad as he’d done to her. He eventually told me she wasn’t here because she’d done anything wrong. She was here because she was a girl that no one would miss, no one would care about, no one would bother looking for. And because her life was only worth as much money as a buyer was willing to pay for a piece of property.”
I don’t understand how anyone, good or bad, could view a life, a person, as a piece of property. You don’t own a person. At least, no one ought to be able to. It’s wrong. It’s so wrong. I may be young, but even I know the difference in right and wrong, good and bad.
In the days following the beating the Josh dealt out, we’ve talked some, and I’m starting to think he isn’t as bad as I’d thought in the prior months that I’ve been here. I’m still wary of him, his motives, and what exactly made him do a one-eighty. I know it has to be the other girl he’s mentioned—Jessica. I just don’t know if my suspicions about her are accurate or not and I’m not brave enough to ask that question. At least not yet.
Until that beating with his bat, I’d been pant-less since I first woke up in the barren room. Only now, I have pants but no shirt or bra. Yet, I don’t think he has any physical attraction to me whatsoever. He never looks at me in an inappropriate way, and maybe that’s why I don’t feel modest or even embarrassed at the state of undress I’ve been kept in. With the deep wound I have across my back, a diagonal mark starting from the edge of my back, near my underarm on the right side and down two inches past my spine on the opposite side, I know I couldn’t stand any type of material touching my skin.
“Are you going to let me go?” I ask.
&nbs
p; Swinging his head over to me, he replies, “I don’t know yet.”
The not knowing, the staying in limbo, is what worries me the most. Just because he said he isn’t going to sell me doesn’t mean he won’t change his mind. I can’t afford to let that happen, so if making him my friend is what I have to do to survive and get away from this place, get back home, then that’s exactly what I plan on doing.
I just pray it works.
Present
My fingers pause on the keyboard, hearing someone stomping up the stairs.
“What’s with douche-prick talking with Doc?” Malachi asks from the entryway. “Mallory is all smiles because there is a rock star in the house, by the way.” My eyes shirk away from the computer screen, catching his eyes roll as his bulky frame strides in.
“You mean she thinks someone is hotter than you?” I mock a shocked expression.
“No one is hotter than me and we both know that,” he replies, believing every word of the bullshit that just flew out of his mouth. Though, I’m pretty sure Cole would silently agree with him. I don’t know why those two won’t just give a real relationship a shot. It doesn’t make sense. They are both into each other a hell of a lot more than either will admit.
Plopping down in the plush chair next to the desk I’m sitting at, he arches an eyebrow, waiting for me to explain Jamie’s presence.
“No idea what they are discussing,” I answer vaguely, and frankly, I don’t care. Jamie’s feelings aren’t as high on my priority list as they once were. Besides, I have another pressing matter that takes precedence. “He’s not why I called you, Mal.”
“Yet, you brought him here, so I know there was a reason.” Always pushing me when it comes to the father of my child. Mal knows I’m not over Jamie and that I never will be. He just wants me to admit it out loud and come to terms with it. I don’t think a person has to verbalize something for it to be real for them. At least not to me anyway.
“There is a reason, but that isn’t important right now; this is.” I turn the screen so that he can see it without having to get up from his seat. He doesn’t ask me to explain. Malachi prefers inspecting evidence and forming his own thoughts without other’s input first. His eyes flash and his brows furrow the more he scans the screen.
“Why did you have—”
“I didn’t,” I admit, cutting him off before he asked the question on the tip of his tongue. “This was sent to me.”
“By who?” He leans up, grabs control of the mouse, and scrolls down the screen. His attention both on the document and me.
“A source,” I say, shrugging.
“You mean the hacker?” His dark eyes glance over, his arched brow calling bullshit.
“Yeah. The hacker.” I don’t like divulging my sources, not even to my partner, whom I’ve come to trust more than any other person. You have to in our line of work. My life is often in his hands the same as his is in mine. “Don’t give me that look, Mal.”
“How do you know you can trust this guy?” His head cocks, his eyes roaming in thought. “What was his handle again?”
“A ghost with no soul,” I say, not bothering to add in every underscore. Flicking his hand away from my computer mouse, I click on the chat box, pulling it up on the screen and nodding toward it for him to see for himself. “I don’t know what to do with this information. I need to tell Josh, but I really want to know how he got it in the first place.”
“What if he is a she? What if it’s—”
“It’s not her.” I roll my eyes. “Yeah”—I snort out a humorless laugh—”like that pampered-ass bitch could hack her son’s social media accounts much less evade me.”
“I know you hate her, Jen. I do too, but you can’t underestimate that cunt.”
“I’m not. It’s not her. I don’t know who he is yet, but I do know she doesn’t have the skills to do this.”
This guy is talented—too talented. He silently broke through my firewall five weeks ago when I was researching communications on the dark web and was able to force a chat box onto my screen. He supplied me with valuable information on a case that led my team to a warehouse located at the shipping port where we found Katherine and two other girls half-starved and waiting to board a ship that would take them out of this country. If I’d sat on the information he gifted me, we would have lost those girls forever. Katherine is doing well. It hasn’t been all roses and it’s certainly has been worse for the other two that still remain in a hospital under medical necessity.
“She could have paid someone. You know that just as well as I do.”
He’s not wrong. She does have the means, but what would be the purpose? She doesn’t know I’m here; at least not that I know of. She hasn’t attempted to do anything like she did to me. I’ve kept tabs on her. I didn’t have proof back then, so there was no way I could have gotten her locked up for what she did. I still don’t have proof other than Josh’s word and a still image he showed me once of them sitting in a booth together.
I was wary of his claims for weeks. I didn’t want to believe him. Sure, I was angry at her for sleeping with Jamie. I was hurt that he’d so easily taken her to his bed. At the time I didn’t know she’d made him believe the worst of the worst. It wasn’t until I was back home and Josh was long gone that I realized she was, in fact, capable of such atrocities. I saw the evil behind eyes I once thought of as sweet and innocent.
That bitch fooled me once, she won’t get that chance ever again.
“Trust me, Mal.” I shake my head. “It’s not her or anyone she paid to do it. I’ll find out who this ghost with no soul is.” I laugh, this time, my tone is full of humor. “Maybe even offer him a job. He’s good. We could use him on our team, don’t you think?”
“A ghost with no soul,” he whispers to himself and I can see his mind turning.
“I gotta get going. I need to figure out when I’m going to tell our boss about this.” I push the chair back and stand. Grabbing my keys and phone from the desk, I shove my cell in the back pocket of my jeans and then start for the door.
“Hey, Jen,” Malachi calls to me, stopping me before I walk through the doorway and out into the hall. I stop, wrap my hand around the doorframe, then shoot a look over my shoulder, waiting. Malachi glances at the lit screen, the chat box open.
“Yeah,” I call out.
His eyes flick to mine. “A ghost with no soul,” he repeats, pausing long enough for his words to repeat in my head and long enough for me to wonder where he’s going with this. “Soulless.” His word comes out slow and like a whisper, a secret being revealed.
“What?”
“Who is the one person you—the genius hacker that you’ve become—can’t even hack. Who did you train so well, that you can’t penetrate his walls?” His eyebrow lifts, arching high, his head cocking to the side as chills erupt across my arms, the answer coming to me in a flash.
How did I not realize it before now?
Son of a bitch!
I’m racing down the hall, down both sets of stairs, and I’m out of the house in seconds. Jamie may be on his own if he didn’t hear me leave. I have a seventeen-year-old’s ass to kick and then find out why the hell he had Maggie and Brandon’s DNA analyzed, and why he never once told me himself. It’s not like Danny to play games, so why did he send me that information showing Magdalena and Brandon are first cousins.
Unless he wasn’t the one that took it. And if that’s the case, who did?
27
— Jamie —
She’s been quiet since we left that house, sitting next to me in the passenger seat of her SUV. When we walked out, I asked her if I could drive. She didn’t hesitate handing over her key ring with the key fob on it, and I was grateful. I didn’t want to sit alone in my thoughts. I need some type of control, even if it was only driving us from point A to point B. Now we sit, parked in her driveway behind Cole’s Jeep. Danny’s truck is next to us on the right, but Brandon’s is nowhere in sight. Jenna has been on her smart
phone since I pulled out of that driveway twenty minutes ago, the dash reading nine fifteen at night.
Since Brandon’s truck is missing, I’m wondering if they are even home. Perhaps they both took their grandmother to dinner, but then again, it’s late and Jenna and I were gone a while. I chose not to go back to my rental house for my Land Rover, hoping the more time we stay in one place together, the quicker Jenna will open up and tell me the answers to the questions I begged her for earlier tonight.
My talk with Jessica didn’t help me any. Sure, she said some things that made me pause to think, but nothing helped move me closer toward any semblance of truth. Seeing those two girls, their sad and broken expression helped by giving me insight into what victims look like. I didn’t get to speak to them, but I’m guessing that wasn’t the point of the trip. Jenna just wanted me to see the looks on their faces, the emotions they harbor in their eyes.
I did see them, but I was also grateful I didn’t have to stare at them for too long. They both reminded me of the eyes I’ll never forget—Jenna’s eyes when she walked in, finding me balls deep inside Julia. Between the heartbroken look on her face and the guilt I immediately felt, it was too much to deal with. I knew if I met her eyes again, I’d crash and fall to my knees. At the time, I thought I was doing the right things. I realize now that it was because I didn’t want to own up to my own wrongdoings. If I couldn’t see my faults, I sure as shit wouldn’t have been able to see the truth in anyone else either. And that’s all on me. I did this to us. I am the one that broke us.
“When my parents found out I was pregnant, they honestly thought that was the only reason I came back home. They thought I’d gotten knocked up by whoever I’d been with those three months I was gone and got scared. I kept my pregnancy to myself until the point that I couldn’t anymore. If my mom had thought once that Danny was yours, she probably would have called you herself. I think my dad started to have his doubts, but my mother wouldn’t ease up. Whatever bullshit she was fed, she ate it up, and there was no changing her mind. She is probably still holding on to those beliefs to this day.”
Have Mercy Page 16