by Nicole Maggi
“How are we going to find her now?” I asked as we headed back to All Saints.
“I don’t know.” Nate ran his hand through his hair. “She could be anywhere.”
“Hang on.” I stopped and pressed my fingers to my temple, as if to keep the idea from leaping out of my head. “She used to stay with Annabel at 826 Emiline, didn’t she? Maybe she’d go back there. We know there’s no one living there yet.”
Nate pointed at me. “You are brilliant. Do you know that?”
“Yeah, well. That fancy private school better be good for something.”
We changed direction and headed for Emiline Way. Our footsteps thudded through my heart, each step drawing closer to the place where Annabel had breathed her last breath. Part of me didn’t want to see it again, but part of me craved being in a place that still held so much of her. Graying snowdrifts lined the sidewalk that led up to the steps of number 826. I tilted my head back and looked up to the balcony, still identifiable by a lone piece of yellow police tape that snapped in the wind. “I think there’s a light on.”
Nate tried the door but it was locked, and there was no Harvey to let us in. A Post-it note that read “Out of order” was taped over the buzzer. “Great.” I stepped back and looked up again. “Should we yell?”
When Nate didn’t answer, I lowered my gaze and squinted at him. He was hunched over the door. I had to peer over his shoulder to see what he was doing. “Are you seriously picking that lock?”
“Sometimes it helps to have friends in low places.” Nate fiddled with the lock until I heard the latch click. He tugged the handle and the door swung open. “Not something they teach at that fancy school, do they?”
“Definitely not.”
We headed toward the stairs. The building felt more alive than it had when we’d been here with Harvey. I could smell food cooking and hear televisions humming behind closed doors. From somewhere deep inside the concrete walls, a baby cried.
At the top of the third landing, I rested against the wall to catch my breath. Nate shifted from foot to foot, glancing up at the rest of the stairs we had to climb. My chest eased and I pushed away from the wall. From down below, I heard the front door open and close a few moments later, as though more than one person had come in. I leaned over the rail and looked down.
Two black-coated figures were coming up, their footsteps heavy and fast. My throat went dry. The one in front, with the shiny pointy-toed boots…he raised his head, and for one frozen instant, our eyes met.
I launched away from the rail and grabbed Nate’s hand. “Come on, come on,” I panted. The footsteps below grew louder and faster. I pushed myself against my heart, ignoring the burn that seared through my ribs. “He—saw—us—”
“Who?”
“Jules.”
At the name, Nate’s hand tightened on mine, so hard I thought my fingers would break. He dragged me up the stairs. We didn’t stop on Annabel’s floor. Halfway up to the next landing, I tugged his arm. “Kitty—”
“We can’t.” Nate’s face was white, his brow pinched. “Remember what Char said.” He ran up to the next landing, pulling me behind him. Below, I heard the footsteps stop. I risked a glance over the rail and saw Jules looking up and down the corridor.
“We can’t just leave her,” I whispered into Nate’s ear.
He swallowed hard. His face was half in shadow, but I could see that his insides were being torn in two by the expression on his face. He pulled me close to him. “But I can’t let him hurt you either,” he murmured.
I buried my face in his shoulder. Down below, I heard knocking. A door creaked open. Kitty’s voice floated up, an undercurrent of fear running through it. “Hey, Jules.”
“Hey, baby girl,” Jules purred. “Got a special job for you.”
“Okay.” Her voice shook. “Just—just let me change.”
“Sure. Let Marco help you.” I heard footsteps shuffle and peeked over the rail. Marco slapped Kitty’s ass and followed her into the apartment. The door clicked shut behind them. Opposite the apartment, a shadow crept up the stairs toward us. I didn’t need to see his actual figure to know it was Jules.
“Move, move,” I whispered and pushed Nate deeper into the darkened hallway. It was fortunate that Harvey was such a terrible landlord. The lights here had burned out, giving us cover.
Jules’s boots clicked on the concrete steps as he ascended. Nate pulled me all the way to the end of the hall. In the same moment that we realized it was a dead end, Jules appeared at the other end of the hallway. Nate shoved me behind him as the three of us faced each other. I felt like a gunslinger in the old Wild West, only I’d forgotten my gun while the other guy had brought two.
“Hey!” Jules yelled, his voice bouncing off the walls. “I thought I told you what would happen if I saw you again.”
“We just wanted to make sure Kitty was okay,” Nate said. I stepped out from behind him, but Nate crossed one arm in front of me to keep me from going further. His arm was a strong, solid barrier. If he was afraid, he wasn’t showing it.
“You think I don’t take care of my girls?” Jules stepped forward, each footfall a warning. “Is that why you sent her to that halfway house?”
“She looked sick,” Nate said. “I sent her there to make sure she got a decent meal or two.”
“I’ll say if she’s sick or not. I’ll be the one who feeds her.” Another step toward us. “Not some hippie crackpot dishing her a bunch of lies about me. I’ll be the one who says where she goes and where she doesn’t.” Step, step. “What you don’t seem to understand—no matter how many times I tell you—is that Kitty is mine. Anything she does, she does because I tell her to.”
I clutched Nate’s arm, my fingers digging into the thick wool of his coat. “What about Annabel? Did you take care of her too?”
Jules shook his head, clucking his tongue. “Poor Annabel. It’s a shame what happened to her.”
“What you did to her, you mean,” I said. Nate pushed back at me, a warning to keep my mouth shut.
“I did what I had to do.” Jules shrugged. “It’s really too bad. Annabel was one of my best. But you know”—he cocked his head—“in my line of business, girls come and girls go. They are all replaceable.”
“Like slaves,” I growled. “That’s all they are to you, aren’t they? Not human beings who deserve a better chance at life—”
“Georgie.” This time the warning in Nate’s voice was clear. Even Jules heard it and laughed.
“Listen to your boyfriend,” he said. He smoothed the front of his cashmere coat. “You know, it’s lucky for you that I make it a rule not to do my own dirty work, and my boy is busy downstairs with Kitty. Otherwise I’d take some pleasure in seeing him dirty up this hallway with you.” He pointed his finger at us like a gun and mimed pulling the trigger once, twice. I shuddered. Jules laughed, a deep, cold sound that echoed off the walls.
One of the apartment doors swung open and a beefy guy with no neck stepped into the hallway. “Hey, some of us work the night shift,” he snapped. “Take your little party someplace else.” He slammed the door shut with a loud bang.
“Gladly.” Jules eyed us. “How about you two leave first? Because if Marco sees you when he’s done…well, I just can’t be responsible for his actions.”
Nate grabbed my arm and propelled me down the hall. But when we passed Jules, Nate ground to a halt and stared at him for a long breath. “You know,” Nate said, his voice low, “one of these days, your empire is going to come crumbling down.”
“And when it does,” I said, “I’m going to dance in the ashes.”
Jules leaned in close to my face. “I think you’ll dance for me long before that,” he whispered and kissed the tip of my nose.
I jerked back, a scream forming in the back of my throat, but Nate dragged me to the stairs before I could let it
out. “Don’t, don’t,” he muttered as we ran down each flight. My nose burned worse than the pain in my scar. I wanted to cut it off, get rid of anything that Jules had touched…
We burst out into the night. The sharpness of the air cut through me and I breathed in deeply. Nate pointed to the curb, where Jules’s black SUV sat idling, and motioned for us to get around the side of the building.
“Call Manny,” he said once we were out of sight of the car. “Tell him to pick us up around the corner.”
“What? Why?”
Nate’s jaw tightened. “Because I’d bet good money that Jules is taking Kitty to the Warehouse, and I want to follow them.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Manny wound us through dark streets where the lights had long ago burned out, past deserted sidewalks and boarded-up buildings. Ahead of us, the taillights of the SUV shone red in the distance. “You have to keep two car lengths behind,” Manny said.
“Not your first follow job, eh?” Nate said.
Manny snorted. “You’d be surprised how many wives don’t trust their husbands. Usually with good reason.”
I was quiet, my hand tucked tight into Nate’s. The Catch reverberated in my chest, filling my ears with its strange hiccup-hush sound. Once again, I knew without a doubt that I was walking in Annabel’s footsteps, that this was part of the road she’d traveled. I fixed my gaze out the front window and breathed deeply. My gut wrung itself out with dread and fear, twisting and turning…
The SUV turned a corner. Manny slowed, waited several beats, then turned after it. The images churned up to the surface. I gasped and doubled over. “Georgie!” Nate caught my shoulders but it was too late. I had already collapsed into the darkness of Annabel’s memory.
It’s pitch black, a room with no windows, and girls huddle together on the cold concrete wall. In that close dark, I smell fear. It fills my nostrils, chokes my throat, and worms its way down into my lungs. It’s not just the other girls’ fear. It’s my own.
Every several minutes, the door opens and Jules takes another girl outside. One by one, the number of girls in the room dwindles. None of the girls who are left ask where the other ones went. They’ll know soon enough.
I wrap my hands around my throat, trying to strangle the fear. I want out of here…but I have to know where the girls are being taken.
The door opens again and I have my chance. Just before it slams shut, I slide my shoe in. “Don’t,” warns one of the other girls, her voice shaky. “He’ll kill you.”
“He’ll kill me anyway eventually,” I mutter and peek out the door. A long, dimly lit hallway stretches on for miles. There are no windows. The air is muffled, as though a limited amount has been pumped into the space. It’s a dungeon, the polar opposite of my kingdom by the sea…
I pick up my shoe and take the other one off. Holding them in my hands, I ease out into the hall, my back to the wall. Shadows zigzag from the floor to the ceiling. When I’m far enough away from the room, I break into a run.
My lungs burn, my breath heavy white puffs in the cold air. I reach the end of the hall and turn right. The labyrinth of hallways is shrouded in darkness. I’m blind as I race through, but it doesn’t matter as long as I’m not in that room…
The floor slants upward and I’m rising, rising, rising. I come to a fork and stop, panting. My breath is so loud, it echoes off the walls.
Down to the right, the sound of raised voices, hoots and hollers, and loud rap music roils back to me. Whatever is going on with the girls, that’s where it’s happening. My feet stumble away from those sounds, my gut twisting in fear and revulsion. I want to know…and deep down I do know…but I force myself back.
I turn left and flee toward a pinprick of red light that shines from the end of the long corridor. The light grows and grows into an exit sign, like a lighthouse to a lost ship. I fling open the door and tumble onto the street. Light snow dusts the ground. I bend double, panting for the icy night air to fill my lungs…my side cramping… I straighten…
My eyes flew open. Nate’s face peered into mine, his eyes a question. Manny said, “They’ve stopped.”
I replied, “We’re here.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
From the outside, it looked like nothing. An abandoned warehouse, windows with duct-taped cracks, and a dim light above the front door that flickered on and off. If I’d thought Annabel’s old corner at the cemetery was the loneliest place I’d ever been, I was wrong. The Warehouse was far more desolate, a place whose gray brick walls told people to stay away.
Nate and I stood across the street, tucked into the corner, our eyes glued to the door with the flickering light. Even in its on-and-off dimness, I could make out a figure standing guard.
We went around the block and into the alley that ran behind the Warehouse. Darkness stretched the length of it, the only light from the pale moon. We picked our way down, skirting around broken crates and crushed boxes and piles of rotting wood. Every sound made us freeze, every movement deliberate and careful. Nate guided me around a tall stack of crates. As I passed them, my coat snagged on a loose splinter of wood. Without thinking, I tugged it free. The crates teetered and fell with a deafening clatter against the cobblestones.
We froze, Nate’s hand so tight on mine that my bones crunched. He shoved me into the shadows against a slanted set of basement doors that rose up out of the concrete. We huddled into the little corner it provided, hidden from the side of the alley where the guarded door was, but if the guard walked down far enough, we would be seen.
A long beam of light swept over the alley, followed by footsteps. Closer and closer…the bright light fell on the toppled crates… I shrank into Nate, trying to make myself smaller.
Tires squealed on the street at the end of the alley, a heavy bass beat reverberating over the cobblestones. The guard swore and turned, and the light bobbed away from us as he jogged down to meet the car. I crawled on my hands and knees as far out as I dared. A silver Porsche idled at the curb. The guard opened the passenger side and three men in suits stepped out. They headed for the door, followed by the guard.
“Come on,” Nate whispered and pulled me back to the basement doors. A rusted padlock held them together with a chain. Nate pulled out his little lockpick. It didn’t take long for the padlock to give way. I fixed my gaze on the end of the alley as Nate bent over the doors and unlooped the rest of the chain with quick, sure fingers.
The doors groaned in protest as he pried them open wide enough for us to slip through. I activated the flashlight feature on my phone and pointed it down into the darkness below the door. A set of rickety stairs descended from the alley above. They shook when I placed my foot on the top step, so I crab-crawled down them on my hands and feet. Nate closed the door above our heads and followed me to the floor.
The flashlight gave off a small circle of light as I swept it around the room. Empty, dusty boxes were piled in the corners, and cobwebs hugged the rafters. Finally the flashlight illuminated another set of stairs on the other side of the basement. We headed up them. At the top, Nate cracked the door open an inch and peeked through.
“Clear,” he whispered. We slid into the hallway.
My stomach bottomed out. It was exactly the same as Annabel’s memory. Remembering it through her eyes felt so much safer. Now that I was here in the same place, standing where she had stood, the fear crept into my bones and lodged there. Eerie orange light glowed along the hall. I looked up and down the hall, trying to reconcile the reality with memory. In a breath-stopping moment, they synched up. I gripped Nate’s hand.
“This way,” I mouthed with a jerk of my head.
We tiptoed down one hallway, but when we turned the corner in the direction I knew we had to go, a guard stood at the opposite end. He faced away from us and I could see the dark outline of a gun tucked into the back of his pants. I backed up into Nate. His hear
t beat rapid-fire against my spine. We eased out of sight and back into the labyrinth of hallways. Two other corridors led us to dead ends. The third had another guard and we whipped away just before he turned.
I stopped in a pool of shadows and sank back inside Annabel’s memory, where I heard the distant music pounding out a heavy beat from a room down the hall. My eyes flew open. I could hear it now, pulsating from the center of where the three guards stood. We had to get to the room with the music.
I pulled Nate back up the corridor. He tugged my arm, pointing to where the guard stood. I set my jaw and lifted one shoulder. He pressed his mouth into a thin line and followed me down the corridor.
At the end, the guard stood, looking out a set of double doors with paned glass windows. The music was so close that it shook the walls here. I squinted. Ten feet from us and ten feet behind the guard was another hallway. Streaks of light slanted onto the floor from that hall. The room was there.
I dropped to my hands and knees and crawled, hugging the wall where shadows lingered. Nate followed so close behind that his fingers brushed my legs. My eyes were fixed on the guard, the fear that he would turn around so thick inside me that I almost choked. When we got closer, I saw the white cord dangling from his ears. He was listening to an iPod. I tried to exhale but tension wrapped my body like a steel corset.
Music ripped through the air, screaming wails that didn’t even sound like lyrics. The rhythm thumped into my rib cage, but my heart beat double time, tightening the corset, dripping steel into my veins until my blood was cold. We crept toward the room where the music blared and turned another corner so the guard was out of sight. Icy sweat trickled down my neck.
The room was a large square in the middle of the hallway and made entirely of floor-to-ceiling windows. Blinds were drawn down over the glass, but they were old and there was a peephole where they had bent. I brought my eye right up to the glass.
Strobe lights flashed inside so that the room looked fractured. Images came to me in pieces, tiny fragments of the whole terrifying picture. Girls chained against the wall, men lining up to take their turn. Flash. Two girls in the center of the room, their bodies slick with sweat or oil or both, something long and thin connecting them as they thrust back and forth. Flash. A riot of men cheering them on, like a boxing match. Flash. My eyes didn’t know where to look, didn’t know how to stop looking, didn’t know how to unsee what I was seeing. Flash. One of the girls in the center pulled away, cowering on all fours. Flash. Jules’s steel-tipped boot smashed into her face. She scrambled back to the other girl, and they started fucking each other again. The men roared their approval.