The Water

by Nancy Jackson

  Just then Beth came in the door with two girls and sat down with the agents. Alice knew Beth well and what she did. Beth’s grandparents had opened Penny’s Place when they were young, naming the diner after Beth’s grandmother Penny. Then Beth’s father had taken the diner over. The entire staff was protective of Beth and those she helped.

  As Alice approached the man’s table, she noticed that he seemed like a relic from the 1950s. His short-sleeved white shirt and boring brown stripped tie stood out among the colorful attire of those in the booths surrounding him.

  But the pocket protector, thick black-rimmed glasses, and the Brillcremed hair forced her to exercise restraint from her urge to belt out a laugh. But that would be rude now, wouldn’t it, she thought?

  “Yes, what can I do for you?” She asked as she walked up to his booth.

  He swallowed as if almost afraid to talk, then pointed to the few tiny grains of salt on the table. “There. The table needs cleaned.”

  Alice looked at the table and frowned. She wasn’t sure what he was referring to. Could it be those two or three grains of salt? She looked at him with a wrinkled brow. “Are you talking about the salt on the table?”

  “Yes ma’am! I need you to clean this table, it’s dirty.”

  Too tired for his games, Alice sat the coffee carafe down on the table, lifted the salt shaker and with her free hand swiped away the salt grains. She then plunked the salt shaker back down on the table.

  He jumped with a start, and sat rigid in his seat, mouth hanging open. His gaze went back and forth between the salt shaker and the waitress.

  “Anything else?” Alice asked picking up the coffee carafe.

  He shook his head, quite intimidated by her, and asked for a menu.

  She reached into the next booth, picked up a derelict menu and tossed it in front of him. He came in here often to Alice’s dismay. He didn’t set right with her but she could not say why.

  Randy and Carrie had purposely gotten the large round booth in the corner so that there would be room for all five to sit. Randy and Carrie sat on opposite edges so they could easily exit if need be. When Beth and the girls arrived, Randy got up and let them slide in.

  One girl sat on each side of Beth, with Jenny sitting next to Randy.

  Randy smiled at Lisa. “Thank you Lisa for being willing to come and talk to us. I’m Randy and this is Carrie. We are OSBI agents and have been working on finding who killed Cami and Mandy.” He stopped for a moment to gauge her reaction.

  When she didn’t respond he continued. “You lived with Gus and Mandy, correct?”

  Lisa nodded.

  “Were you and Mandy close?”

  Again, Lisa nodded. Randy needed to get a dialog going, so he asked, “Lisa can you tell me about you and Mandy’s life living there with Gus?”

  Lisa’s eyes darted around as if searching for the answers Randy needed.

  “What were your living arrangements? Did you come and go as you pleased?” Carrie asked.

  “Not at first. Then he trusted us a little more. He always had people watching us though, so we were careful where we went and what we did,” Lisa finally said.

  “Was Gus pleased with you and Mandy?” Carrie asked. It seemed Lisa felt more comfortable with Carrie.

  “I think so.” Lisa’s brow was wrinkled as if she wasn’t sure.

  “Did he punish either of you?”

  Lisa looked down at her hands and rubbed them together. Jenny reached over and laid her hand in front of Lisa on the table. “Lisa, it’s okay. They know what we did for Gus. We have to tell them so they can help find who killed our friends.” Jenny pleaded with Lisa, and Lisa nodded in response.

  Lisa took a big breath and looked at Carrie. “We had rules. We went out around nine or ten at night. We were to work our area and then when we came home, we gave him our money. He would give us a little back, but he said because we lived with him we had to pay him for rent and food. As long as we kept doing that, things seemed to go okay.”

  “Did anything at all change in the last few weeks? Did Mandy do something that upset Gus?”

  Lisa sat thinking for a moment. “Well, she didn’t like Gus at all. She got to where when he was saying something to us she would challenge him. I kept telling her to stop. I was sore afraid of him, but it seemed that Mandy just got bold.”

  “What would Gus do when Mandy would challenge him?”

  “He would grab her arms and shake her. He threw her on the bed one time and took his belt off and beat her with it.”

  “Did he ever beat you?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “What made him want to beat you?” asked Carrie.

  Lisa snorted. “What didn’t make him want to beat us? We tried so hard to stay out of his way. We would wait to go to the kitchen to eat until we knew he was out of the house or asleep. We were as quiet around there as little mice.”

  “But that didn’t always work, did it?” asked Carrie.

  Lisa shook her head. “Sometimes he would just come home in a bad mood and find us and take his anger out on us.” Then as if she remembered something… “And sometimes he would say we didn’t make him enough money.”

  “Lisa how did you and Mandy come to be with Gus?” Carrie asked.

  Lisa told the story she had told to the others as Safe At Last about living in south Texas, running away, and then being taken. “Living with Gus was better than living in that house.”

  The conversation lulled as Alice came to fill cups and ask if there was anything else she could do for them. Randy felt a need to break the somber mood for a moment and asked the girls if they liked pie. He knew a diner like this had to have good pie.

  The girls nodded, and they all ordered a piece of pie. The agents were content to let the conversation take a break while they ate. Then just as Jenny ate her last bite, she looked at Carrie and asked, “Have you talked to Pride? Is she okay?” Her eyes were pleading with Carrie to give her good news of her friend.

  “Jenny it was only this morning we left her,” Carrie said as gently as she could.

  Jenny nodded. Had it only been this morning that she’d been ripped away from the only person who had ever loved her? To her it already seemed like a lifetime.

  Once they had devoured the pie, and Alice had cleared their table. Randy and Carrie got back down to the questions. Lisa had become comfortable enough with them by then that she easily answered them all, the best she could.

  Randy jotted down in his notes the last time she’d seen Mandy, details as far as she knew when Gus arrived home that evening, and what beef if any he had specifically with Mandy lately.

  Their answers revealed nothing earth shattering. Gus was highly irritated with Mandy and yes, knocked her around some when she mouthed off, but it didn’t seem like enough to kill her over. But then, they were unsure of Gus' role in the girls' deaths at this point anyway.

  According to Lisa, Mandy had left at nine when they had both gone to the Deep Deuce area northeast of Bricktown. They liked to hang around the bars there. Mandy went with a guy around nine-thirty. That was the last time Lisa had seen Mandy.

  “I got home around three and went straight to bed. I didn’t turn on the lights to our room and assumed she was probably not home yet, or asleep. I didn’t want to wake her if she was, so I slipped in, undressed, and crawled in bed,” Lisa was looking at Randy to make sure she was giving him what he wanted.

  “Did you see Gus or could you tell if he was home?” asked Carrie.

  “I didn’t see him. The whole house was dark.”

  After asking a couple more questions Randy shut his pad and thanked the girls for being so open with him.

  Carrie had noticed that while Lisa was answering questions, Jenny seemed distracted. Carrie had been watching her and it appeared she was inadvertently watching a guy about three booths down. Carrie thought he seemed disturbing to her.

  “Jenny are you okay?” asked Carrie.

  Jenny was mentally tugged
back to the group at the table. She nodded at Carrie and said, “Yes, of course.”

  Carrie continued to watch the girl for a moment longer. “You would tell me if you weren’t, right?” Carrie asked.

  Randy had not noticed Jenny’s behaviour, but knew Carrie was sensing something was not quite right with Jenny. He sat watching both Carrie and Jenny.

  Then finally satisfied, Carrie looked at Randy gave a shrug with her facial expression and moved to exit the booth.

  Once out of the diner, hugs were distributed and Beth left with the girls while Randy and Carrie waited until they were out of sight making sure they were not followed.

  “What was up with that last little bit with you and Jenny?” asked Randy.

  Carrie took a breath and exhaled. “I don’t know. Jenny sat watching that guy there while you were questioning Lisa. I didn’t notice until you were almost done, but she seemed disturbed by him. She was fidgety and rubbing her hands together under the table. You saw her reaction when I asked about it.”

  Randy could see the man through the front windows of the diner. He was a funny little guy, almost like he was in a time warp from the 50s.

  He looked over at Carrie. “Do you think he was someone who has paid for her services?”

  Carrie looked at Randy and grinned, “Really? Not likely.” She turned to look back at the man as Randy turned the key to start the engine.

  “Where’s my journal?” Jenny demanded from another resident of Safe At Last. They had just returned with Beth. When Jenny entered her room, she could tell that someone had been going through her things.

  The other resident just stood with a smirk on her face grinning at Jenny. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Jenny had dealt with girls like this her whole life. She bowed up and marched over to the girl and looked her straight in the eye. Jenny knew she may look timid, but she was far from it.

  “I want my journal and I want it now,” Jenny demanded through gritted teeth.

  The smiled faded from the girl's face and she fidgeted, unsure of whether to continue this confrontation, or give in. She decided to challenge Jenny’s bravado.

  The girl named Becky pushed Jenny back out of her face and snarled at her. “I don’t have your stupid journal.”

  It was either from the stress of the day, or the fact that Becky had taken her one precious possession, that caused Jenny to snap.

  She gritted her teeth and charged at Becky knocking her to the ground. The sudden move startled Becky who quickly found herself on the ground with Jenny straddling her.

  They were still in the doorway of Jenny’s room, wedged between the open door and the end of the bunk beds, against the wall. There was little room and Jenny had Becky at a disadvantage.

  Had Jenny been in a calm and calculating frame of mind she would have recognized her advantage, but she was operating under the influence of blind fury.

  Becky represented every person in her life that had taken over and forced her into a life of heartbreak and despair. She wasn’t thinking or even aware of her actions. Therefore, the shouts and screams of those who had gathered were only a distant hum.

  Then hands, strong hands, were pulling her away from the floor. It was as if Jenny were coming out of a dream where she was suddenly noticing her surroundings.

  Becky lay on the floor with big round eyes, holding her neck. The strong hands that had pulled Jenny up were Beth and another volunteer. It had taken them both to pull her away.

  The room spun, and Jenny felt dizzy. As her body went limp Beth and the other lady guided her to sit on the bed. Nothing but empty uncertainty pulsed through her mind. She felt as though something had detached her body from her heart and mind. Then suddenly she slumped onto the bed and curled up in a ball.

  Beth stood and went to Becky. “Are you all right?”

  Becky nodded. She hadn’t expected her actions to release the rage it had. Now that she was recovering from the attack, she cursed Jenny issuing vile threats.

  Beth grabbed her arm and shoved her out of the room and down the hall to her office.

  Fifteen minutes later, they emerged and headed to Becky's room. She retrieved Jenny’s journal and handed it to Beth.

  “This is a warning Becky,” said Beth. “This kind of thing cannot happen here or you will have to move out.” Beth’s eyes met Becky’s, and she held her gaze until she received a confirming nod from Becky.

  Beth walked into Jenny’s room with the journal and laid it on the small table beside the bed.

  “Here’s your journal.” Beth sat on the edge of the bed next to where Jenny was still curled into the fetal position.

  “We need to talk about what happened,” said Beth.

  Jenny’s eyes had been open staring into nothingness, but at Beth’s words she shut them tightly as if to shut out her request.

  “Jenny I know this has been a tough day for you. I know that your emotions are teetering on the edge. That’s the main reason we need to talk.”

  “Becky was wrong to take your journal, but your reaction was excessive.”

  Jenny couldn’t talk. She couldn’t find the words to say, and had she been able to, she didn’t have the energy to say them. She felt as though exhaustion of the past several days had exploded down on her, and she was suffocating from the weight of it all.

  Finally, she nodded.

  “I see you’re struggling, so I’ll talk… Before Beth could finish her sentence Jenny interrupted.

  “I want to go home. I want to go home to Pride.” Jenny was sobbing now. A torrent of emotions were pouring out. Beth sat quietly and just patted her.

  When the worst of the sobbing had subsided, Beth began again. “Jenny I haven’t been through what you’ve been through, but I know it hurts and I know it’s painful. Often whenever any of us are confronted with painful events our first instinct is to run, run back to a previous place in our life. Even if that place was a painful one, at least it is a painful place we know, and it feels safe.

  “But you came here for a reason. Pride helped you to get to this place for a reason.” Beth stopped for a moment to let her words soak into Jenny’s heart and mind.

  “Jenny I want you to sit up.” Beth reached out for Jenny to take her hand. Reluctantly Jenny took Beth’s hand and used it for leverage to pull herself upright.

  They sat on the edge of the bed side by side. “Talk to me Jenny. Just say anything, anything at all.”

  Jenny took a deep breath attempting to gather the effort to speak. “I feel so lost. I came here to escape Gus and the threat of him hurting me and I get here and I hurt so bad needing to be with Pride and then this girl, Becky, she hurts me too.” Jenny turned her head to look at Beth.

  “Is there a place where no one will ever hurt me again?”

  Beth hadn’t thought it was possible for two eyes to contain the amount of pain that Jenny’s eyes held. They reached deep into a wounded soul that was on the verge of collapse. She had to say or do something to bring that girl back, or she would lose her forever.

  Beth reached out and pulled Jenny close and just sat gently rocking her. “Jenny this side of heaven there will always be pain of some sort or another, but I can promise you this, if you don’t give up now, it will get better. There’s so much more to life than what you’ve known so far.

  “Someday you will be past this, and your wounds will heal. One day you will realize you are not noticing the bad so much, but the good too. Someday you will laugh without trying to. But to get to that someday, you have to keep moving forward a day at a time to get there.”

  “I can’t imagine that kind of someday. I’m not sure it’s even worth the effort,” said Jenny.

  In a wave of compassion, Beth said, “Hey, would you like to go to my office and call Pride? I think I can make an exception for today.”

  Jenny looked up into Beth’s smiling face, almost unsure of whether or not to believe her. Then she nodded heartily. “Yes, please.”

&nbs
p; Bracket called both Carrie and Randy into his office as soon as he saw them return.

  “I’ve been on the phone with the head of the human trafficking task force in our area. We had a good conversation. Have a seat and I’ll go over everything we discussed.”

  Randy and Carrie sat hoping that Bracket would give them something to nudge their case further along.

  “John Marshall is the FBI agent and liaison to the other agencies. As you can guess Gustavo Hernandez is not the top of this food chain.

  Bracket shuffled through his notes then read, “Alexander Volkov is Russian. His crime family has a global operation. He has five brothers and they are all close. Could be because they have a common goal, and that their father saw fit to spread them out to different countries. That way, they have dominion over their territory and won’t have to butt heads with each other.

  “Their common goal is to dominate the black markets of the world. Now they haven’t done that as of yet. There is stiff competition from the Mexican and Columbian cartels and the established human trafficking organizations in Europe.

  “But that hasn’t stopped them. They don’t want to have a niche market, they want it all. The father, Sergei Volkov, was thrilled to have six sons he could trust. Their family bond is tight, as I said.

  “Alexander Volkov is in charge of the US. He has several residences across the county so he can travel and keep on top of his organization.

  “Gus is only one pawn in his game. And according to Marshall, Alexander was in Oklahoma this past week.” Bracket paused to gauge Randy and Carrie’s response.

  What he saw was his two agents on the edges of their seats absorbing every word, so he continued.

  “Apparently the way their trafficking organization works is that they will abduct young girls from everywhere, like Mexico, and large cities where there are run-a-ways. It doesn’t matter, they will take them from just anywhere, really. They drug them and load them up on trucks and transport them as far away from their abduction site as possible.