by Bella Jewel
Kenai narrows his eyes. “Why would anyone call Hannah?”
I shrug. “She’s Kaity’s best friend—if someone had Kaity’s phone they’d be able to find her number and figure it out. Do you think it’s a set up? Hannah thought we should involve the police, but I told her no. Do you think she was right?”
Kenai looks confused. “No. I’ll figure it out. It could be what you said, but it still doesn’t make sense why they’d call her. She’s in Denver.”
“Maybe just to see if she’s in contact with Kaity?” I suggest.
He nods, looking slightly impressed. “Yeah, that could be true. If they’re looking for Kaity, they might be trying to see if Hannah knows where she is.”
“Makes sense.”
“We’ll go check out the place, it might give us a lead.”
“Did you get anything last night?” I ask, walking towards the bathroom.
“Nothing.”
I stop and turn to him. “Does all of this feel a little off to you?”
I don’t know why I said that, but something inside just doesn’t feel quite right. It’s felt like that for a few days now, and I’ve mostly put it down to nerves and anxiety because I want to find my sister. The truth is, it feels like something isn’t adding up, but I can’t put my finger on what. The gunshots. The men in the parking lot. It all seems a bit too coincidental.
“Yeah,” Kenai says, standing. “I just don’t know what it is. I’ll figure it out. Get dressed, we’ll check out this place.”
I nod and disappear into the bathroom. I shower, dress, and then eat the breakfast Kenai orders. When we’re done, we hit the road and make our way towards the address Hannah gave me. It leads us to an old, seemingly abandoned warehouse a fair distance off of the Strip. My heart clenches as I stare at it.
It doesn’t look like anyone is here.
“I think it’s empty.”
“Why would they send Kaity to an abandoned warehouse?” Kenai says, rubbing his jaw and staring at the old, rusty building.
“Should we go in?”
“No one is here, so yeah.”
He reaches into the glove compartment and pulls out his gun. He tucks it into his pants, and then we climb out. It makes me feel a little better to know we’ve got some protection. I can’t see all that well because of my puffy, sore eye, so I stick close to Kenai as we move towards the warehouse. When we reach the front door, Kenai pushes it open. It creaks loudly.
Both of us stop.
Waiting. Listening.
Nothing happens, so we push in further. There is junk everywhere, from old cars to furniture, all of it covered in dust. As we move in, Kenai whispers “Be careful,” as we start looking through the stuff. It doesn’t look like anyone has been here for months, years even. It doesn’t make any sense.
“Look around, see if you can see anything that might help us figure out why they’d want Kaity to come here.”
I scan my surroundings, shoving things aside, coughing from the dust. I move towards the left end of the warehouse, and Kenai moves to the right. I find an old couch with a blanket strewn over it. I lift the blanket and gasp, a ragged cry leaving my throat as I lean down, lifting a soft, red dress into my hands.
I’d recognize that dress anywhere. I’d recognize it because I bought it for Kaity two years ago.
“Kenai,” I croak, hands trembling as tears form under my eyelids.
“What is it?”
“This is hers. This dress is Kaity’s.”
He takes it from my hands and looks around.
“Oh God. Someone has her. I was right. Kenai…”
My voice is becoming frantic and I’m starting to freak out, so much so I don’t realize that Kenai hasn’t spoken since I handed him the dress. I look up at him and see he’s studying the couch.
“We have to get out of here,” he says so suddenly I’m confused.
“What?”
“Now!” he barks, taking my arm and pulling me towards the exit.
“Kenai, she could be here. She might come back. Someone might show up. We can’t leave.”
He keeps pulling me, and I can’t dislodge him. I cry out in frustration, kicking and clawing, but he keeps pulling me until we burst out the front door.
“Kenai!” I scream.
He pulls out his gun just as a loud shot rings out. We both drop to the ground, and my words get trapped in my throat. “Move,” Kenai barks as another shot rings out, hitting so close to my leg that I can’t stop the scream that tears from my lips.
Kenai shoots in the direction of the gunshots, all while moving like a ninja across the ground. I try to follow, but my heart is in my throat and my body is alert with fear. More shots ring out, coming so close. God, we’re going to die.
“Kenai,” I cry. “What’s happening?”
He twists, shoots, and then launches up, taking me with him. He swings the truck door open and throws me in. A gunshot hits the windshield, which explodes into a thousand pieces. My screams turn to frantic sobs as I’m showered in glass. Kenai manages to get around the other side and barks, “Stay down.”
Then he hits the gas.
Shots keeping ringing out, hitting the car, until we’re far enough away that whoever was back there can no longer see us. Only then do I lift myself up, glass shards dropping off my body.
“Don’t move, Marlie. That glass is like mini razor blades and will slice into your skin without effort.”
I stare down, seeing spots of blood already forming on my arms and legs.
“Wh-Wh-Wh-What just happened?” I stammer, my voice thick.
“We got set up, that’s what happened.”
“I don’t … How do you know that?”
“The warehouse was rundown and shitty, yet that blanket was placed so perfectly. It was clean. The dress was clean. It was put there to be found. Someone knew we were in the area and called Hannah, clearly connecting the dots, knowing she’d give you the address. It’s genius, really.”
I hadn’t even realized the blanket was clean. “So someone called her, knowing she’d let us know so we’d go out there and get killed?”
He nods harshly.
“Who would do that!”
“Whoever it is doesn’t like that we’re looking for Kaity, and they’re trying to get us out of the picture.”
Oh. My. God.
“Are we safe?”
He looks to me, his eyes intense. “Not anymore.”
* * *
We go back to the hotel after dropping off Kenai’s truck to get the windshield replaced. He spends the next two hours on the phone, while I just clutch Kaity’s dress, holding it close, praying that she’s okay. God, what if she’s already gone? I can’t bear it. I can’t. I feel like this is all my fault. After everything that happened to me, she suffered and I wonder how much support she had? She deserved someone to look after her, too. If she’d had that, she might not have felt the need to get herself involved with the wrong kind of crowd.
Kenai gets annoyed at whoever is on the other end of the phone and tosses it across the room, then turns and walks to the window. It’s late afternoon, and another day has passed with us getting into more trouble than actually finding anything helpful. What if we’re wrong? What if we’re on the complete wrong track?
“What if it isn’t anything to do with her boyfriend and drugs? What if someone else has her?”
He doesn’t turn. “No.”
“But, it seems unlike something that drug dealers would do. It seems … more deranged.”
He spins around, clearly still pissed at whatever happened on the phone. “Don’t let your paranoia take over, Marlie. This is about finding your sister. I know it’s hard, believe me, I can see it in your face, but I need you to be strong. If you can’t handle it, maybe I should continue on my own.”
My mouth drops open, then I get angry. “What if you’re wrong? Huh?”
He takes a deep breath, trying to be patient. “I’m not wrong. I’ll find
who is doing this, but it has nothing to do with the man that took you, or some other crazy-ass killer. You need to stay focused on the here and now. You’re letting your past come into play, and you need to stop and trust me.”
“That dress was left there and—”
“Enough,” he says, his voice tight. “You’re wasting our time and energy, and we don’t have any to spare.”
Wasting our time and energy? He can’t be serious? My heart clenches and for a moment, I just stare at him as I process those words over and over in my head. How dare he accuse me of wasting time and energy. How dare he. Anger bubbles in my chest. He doesn’t get it. He’ll never get it. I’m not doing any of this for me. This is all for Kaity.
“You know what?” I scream, unable to hold my anger back any longer. “You won’t listen to me, so I’m done listening to you.”
“Marlie!” he calls as I spin and turn to rush out. “Don’t leave. I’m not trying to be an asshole, I’m just trying to keep emotion out of this. One of us has to think clearly.”
I look at him. “You couldn’t possibly understand the emotion, Kenai. You can’t ask me to take it out, because you don’t understand it.”
“No,” he says, his eyes softening a little. “I don’t understand it. I just know my job, and what I have to do. I’m not saying you’re wrong, I’m not saying you’re not right to feel the things you feel. I’m simply telling you we need to focus on what is happening now, and not on what happened in the past.”
My anger still bubbles in my chest, and I cross my arms, trying not to let it explode out of me further. I wish he could understand where I’m coming from. I wish he could see it from my side. I know he’s trying to do his job, but it’s like he is refusing to see anything that I’m saying. Refusing to look. “I’ve learned to trust my instincts, my gut, my feelings, more than anything. Something is off…”
“Maybe, but you hired me. It’s my job to figure that out. Not yours.”
“Then you shouldn’t have brought me!” I say, rushing out of the room.
He calls after me, but I don’t stop. I just need to breathe. I take the elevator to the roof and thankfully no one is up here. I walk over to the brick edge and throw my legs over, sitting on it, feet dangling over the side. Maybe he doesn’t understand me because I’ve never told him. I never really tell anyone. The book, it was a recap of something that wasn’t really through my eyes, but through stories created by my mother and the police and the media. I’ve never really just sat and told anyone what really happened. How it really felt.
“Get down.”
I hear Kenai’s voice behind, but I don’t turn. I just stare out over the tall buildings.
“Marlie…”
“I helped him when he dropped his briefcase,” I say softly. “He dropped it and I walked over and helped him. Just like that. For being a good person I ended up in the hands of a killer.”
“Marlie, get down.”
I keep talking.
“I don’t know where he took me, but I do remember how chipper he was. He was always happy and chirpy, like he was doing nothing wrong. The first day I was there he made me hold one of the girls’ scalp. He just threw it at me. I couldn’t get it off.”
My voice breaks, but I keep talking. He wants to judge and dismiss me, he can judge and dismiss the whole story and not just his version, or the media’s version, or anyone else’s version but my own. When he’s heard that, then he can judge me.
“The next day he made me watch a video of one of the girls being scalped. It was the most horrific thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life. I can’t sleep a single night without those images in my head.”
Kenai is quiet now, so I keep going. I don’t know if he’s still behind me, I don’t really care.
“He said he’d cut my fingers off if I didn’t watch. The girl in the video, she had no fingers and she had no toes. He used to make me brush their hair. Hair that was no longer attached to heads.”
I laugh bitterly.
“I escaped, tricked him and got out. You know what I did? I ran into the damned closet. That was, without a doubt, the dumbest moment of my life. That’s when he broke my knees. Just smashed them with a baseball bat.”
Kenai makes a throaty sound, letting me know he’s still there. He sounds pained.
“I escaped the second time because he didn’t give me a strong enough dose. I managed to get away. I dragged my body into the kitchen and got a knife. He came over the counter, ripped my hair clean out of my head. I still have bald spots. I killed him. Somehow, I drove that knife up into his brain from under his chin. That image and sound haunt me the most.”
“Marlie,” Kenai says, his voice thick.
“You think you know me—you know nothing. You can’t even begin to imagine how it felt to get home after that. Everyone wanted something from me. Police, reporters, publishers, the other girls’ families, my own family. They wanted so much and yet I couldn’t even function. I don’t remember a single thing about those first few months. I was numb. Dead. I might have been functioning, but I wasn’t there.”
I take a deep shaky breath.
“My mom wrote the book, released it under my name, the one you’ve been judging me for since the moment we met. Suddenly I was famous overnight. I didn’t stop her. I barely had the strength to get through each day, I was so broken. I didn’t know what was happening, I really didn’t care. My mother is selfish like that. Instead of being there for me, she made millions out of my story. Since she wrote it under my name I got all the money, but she guilts me into giving it to her. She could take it all, but I guess she’s not that greedy. I don’t ever touch that money and will never. I used some to pay you to help me find my sister. Otherwise, I live in a shitty shack in Colorado Springs and drive a rundown truck, because I want no part in it.”
“Marlie…”
“So next time you think you know me, guess again.” My voice hardens. “And don’t be so quick to brush aside my instincts. If I hadn’t followed them before, we wouldn’t be here now.”
A hand curls around my shoulder and I flinch.
“Get down,” he says, but his voice is softer than I’ve ever heard it.
I swing my legs around and slide off, looking up at him. “I can take your anger, your bossy attitude, everything. But I can’t take you judging me any longer. I don’t deserve it. You can’t even begin to imagine how it feels to walk in my shoes.”
“I’m sorry.”
I blink. “Pardon?”
“I’m fuckin’ sorry. You’re right, I judged without knowledge, and for that, I’m sorry. I just told you to disregard your past, but if I was being honest, it’s my own past that made me judge you. And that was wrong.”
“Your past?” I say softly.
“I’m not ready to talk about it,” he adds, carefully, “but believe me when I say I understand how it feels to read things wrong, or to be misjudged. My past created the man I am today, it made me the tracker I am, and I know your past made you who you are. I respect that, but I need you to trust me, Marlie. I can promise you that I’m doing everything in my power to bring your sister home safely.”
Well then. I didn’t expect that.
He reaches down, cupping my jaw. “I’ve met a lot of people in my life, Marlie, but I’ve never met one as strong as you are.”
My heart flutters and tears burn under my eyelids.
“You’re incredible.”
Oh God.
Then he leans down and his mouth brushes against mine. It’s so light I wonder if I’ve imagined it, but his hand is on my cheek and his body is so close to mine we’re nearly pressed together, so I know I’m not imagining it. Screw it. I reach up, curling my fingers around his neck and bring him closer, slamming his lips against mine.
He groans.
I moan. It’s been so long since I’ve felt this way.
And then he kisses me like he means it, parting his lips, letting his tongue slide into my mouth. I gasp and take
it, pressing myself closer to him, tugging his hair and relishing in his throaty rasp. We kiss deep, and we kiss long. Only when a throat clears behind us, do we pull apart. A family, two adults and two kids, stand on the rooftop, looking embarrassed.
“Sorry,” the father says. “We were just going to watch the sun go down.”
“No problem,” Kenai says, his voice thick. “We were just leaving.”
Kenai takes my hand and leads me off the rooftop.
But it doesn’t escape my notice that he doesn’t look at me.
Not once.
TWELVE
Kenai avoids me when we get back to the hotel room. In fact, he doesn’t say another word, just climbs into his bed and rolls to his side. He regrets the kiss, I know he does. I understand why he would—after all he’s a serious man and his job is everything. He probably just crossed every line he’d ever laid out for himself.
But it was an amazing kiss. There was something there, a feeling, a stir of emotions, I’m sure of it.
Or maybe he just felt sorry for me.
With a sigh, I climb into my own bed. He didn’t offer for me to sleep with him tonight, understandably, so I guess I’m cutting this one on my own. I lay down and put a hand over my eyes, inhaling deeply and trying to stop the flurry of memories that are swirling around in my brain. Talking about it was good, but it also brought them all to the surface and that’s going to make sleeping difficult.
Still, somehow I manage to drift off into a somewhat restless sleep.
“You’ve been such a good girl today, Marlie. I have a surprise for you.”
I look up from the bed. I’m so hungry my stomach feels like it’s twisting in on itself. I’m thirsty. I’m tired. I can’t sleep because every single time I close my eyes, I see him scalping those girls. The blood. The screams. Vomit rises in my throat but I can’t put a hand up to press against my mouth to stop it from rising any further. It doesn’t matter. There’s nothing in my body left to come out.
My eyes find him in the doorway. He’s got … oh God. Bile burns my throat and I turn my head away, unable to look. He’s got all the scalps, with the long hair flowing off them. My fingers tremble and my body starts to shake as he comes in closer, tossing them on the bed.