by Tom Pawlik
“Wow, so you guys know how to google,” Elina muttered. “I’m impressed.”
Vale looked mildly amused. “You know, for what it’s worth, I think you did the right thing. I really do. Even though this kid didn’t have a gun . . . and wasn’t technically committing a crime. I’m sure he would’ve gotten around to it sooner or later. It was just a matter of time. He had all the classic stats going for him, right? Single mom, no real father to speak of. The kid was just a crime waiting to happen.”
Elina’s jaw tightened. Obviously Vale’s burgundy lady had gone through her bag and run some sort of background check while Elina was waiting out in the foyer. It wouldn’t have taken much to find her recent history with the LAPD. The shooting incident four months earlier had been highly publicized and commented on by all the local news outlets—even a national program had picked up the story. Elina never imagined she’d become the center of such a media circus in only her second year on the force.
She never thought her dream of becoming a cop would turn into a nightmare so fast.
“Whatever,” she grunted.
Vale leaned back and raised an eyebrow. “Though it appears you’ve not quite come to terms with the incident, hmm? Not made peace with yourself yet?”
“Don’t worry about me.”
“Well, regardless, I’m certain the people of LA are safer with one less potential criminal on the streets. I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it if I were you. Some people the world is just better off without.”
Elina snorted. “So is that your thing? You’re some kind of therapist?”
“Hardly.” Vale swirled the wine in his glass. “I just wanted to put our conversation into context for you.” He took a sip. “I’m actually far more interested in what brings you from the big city to our little town. And what possessed you to trespass on my property and spy on my home.”
Elina forced a tone of confidence. “Oh, I think we both know why I’m here.”
Vale spread his palms. “I’m afraid you have me at a bit of a disadvantage, Officer Gutierrez. Apparently only one of us knows.”
“I’m looking for my cousin. He disappeared last month, and his family hasn’t heard from him since.”
“Ah, a missing persons case,” Vale said.
“He had come here to find work. His sister said she saw him getting into a van with Nevada plates four weeks ago. A plain white van. She said it comes around every few weeks promising work in Las Vegas.”
“So it would seem this cousin of yours is—what’s the politically correct term?—an undocumented worker?”
“He was just looking for work. He was trying to—”
“So why aren’t you looking in Las Vegas?”
“Because I followed that van the next time it came around. And you want to hear something funny? It didn’t go to Las Vegas. But I’ll give you one guess where it did go.”
Vale shook his head. “Well, Miss Former Officer Gutierrez, Wyoming is a little out of your jurisdiction, isn’t it?”
“It’s a personal investigation.”
“I’m sure the taxpayers of Los Angeles would be happy to know you’re making productive use of your free time. But please forgive me if I don’t feel compelled to cooperate with your personal investigation.”
“I wasn’t expecting you to.”
Vale downed the last of his wine. “And I don’t appreciate strangers who trespass on my property, invade my privacy, and accuse me of sordid activities.”
“I just want to know where my cousin is.”
“Then I suggest you start with the FBI. Or better yet, the INS.”
“Look . . .” Elina decided to try a less confrontational approach and softened her voice. “I’m not trying to . . . to turn this into a federal investigation. I just want to find my cousin. To make sure he’s safe. And let him know his family is worried about him.”
“I already told you I can’t help you with—”
“Javier.”
Vale blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Javier Sanchez. That’s his name.”
“I’m sorry, Miss Gutierrez, but we really have nothing further to talk about.”
“What did you do with them? There were four other men who got into that van, and I know it brought them here.”
Vale’s gaze grew cold. “My patience is wearing thin. I suggest you forget these ridiculous accusations and—”
“The van’s plates are registered to a dummy corporation in Nevada that pays all the fees and insurance.” Elina was through playing this game. It was time to lay her cards on the table. “But guess who owns that corporation? Vale Corp International. That’s your company, isn’t it? That was your van. Now what did you do with those people?”
Vale stared at her for a long moment. Then he leaned back in his chair and puffed out his cheeks in a long sigh. “Very well, then. You know, when they first brought you here, there was actually a small chance that I could let you go. But only a very small chance.”
“I’d be careful about threatening me if I were you.”
Vale was silent for several seconds, but his cold, yellow-green gaze never wavered. “Elina,” he said at length. “Do you know what your name means?”
“What?”
“It means ‘shining light.’ Ironic, since that’s exactly what you’ll need where you’re going.”
“Careful, Mr. Vale,” Elina said, concentrating on keeping her voice from quivering. “People know I’m here. They . . . they know what I found—”
“Yes, yes, people know where you are.” Vale drummed his fingers on the table. “And I’m sure they’ll come looking for you. They’ll probably search for months. And it’ll be a big story for a while—they’ll have your picture on all the networks. They may even find your abandoned car on a remote highway somewhere in a neighboring state. But in the end they won’t find you. Not even a trace.” He shook his head. “They never do.”
Chapter 18
Elina felt Carson’s hand clench like a vise around her upper arm. He hauled her out of the room at Vale’s command, then shoved her down the hallway until they came to a security door that opened on a flight of stairs into the basement of the mansion.
Seeing the stairs, Elina tried to twist loose of his grip, but he jerked her back. Then he snapped her around to face him and she felt the jarring sting of the back of his hand across her jaw.
“Try that again and I’ll break your neck!”
Elina teetered on the brink of consciousness, but she could see Carson was looking paler than he had earlier and the skin under his eyes had darkened.
She could taste blood in her mouth but grimaced at him, refusing to let her fear show. “You don’t look so good. What’s the matter? Not feeling very well?”
Carson only spun her around and forced her down the wooden steps into the basement.
Elina’s mind was spinning out of control. All her worst fears when she first decided to follow the mysterious van from LA to Wyoming were apparently coming true. She tried to remain rational. And she tried to reason with Carson to let her go.
At the bottom of the stairs he led her down a narrow corridor to a large supply closet at the far end. Inside were shelves of cleaning supplies and chemicals with mops hanging from a row of hooks on the far wall. He twisted one of the hooks to the side and Elina heard something click. Then he pushed against the wall and a small section of it swung out into darkness beyond.
Elina felt cool, damp air brush against her face. “Where are you taking me?”
He didn’t reply but pushed her through the door and closed the panel behind them.
Elina could see they were in some sort of tunnel dug right into the mountainside. Crude lighting fixtures had been mounted into the rock overhead and cast a dim, pale-green glow. They climbed down a set of rough, uneven stairs carved into the rock, which went on for what seemed like more than a hundred yards deeper underground.
“Where are we going?” Elina whimpered again.
S
till Carson didn’t say anything, only forced her forward, down the steps. She could hear his breathing in the darkness, growing more labored as they walked. He didn’t appear to be bleeding, but Elina guessed the gunshot had hurt him more than she had initially thought.
After several minutes they arrived at yet another door, only this one was made of solid wood. Thick, rough timbers that were fastened together with rusted iron bands and bolts. It looked like a door to some kind of dungeon.
Carson pushed the door open and ushered her into another tunnel. More dim light fixtures illuminated patches of the tunnel in the same green hue.
Now Elina could hear sounds ahead. Voices, though she couldn’t make out what they were saying. She quickly discovered that they weren’t speaking so much as moaning. It was as if she had descended right into hell itself.
Carson steered her into a secondary tunnel, far narrower than the first. Darkness fell around her as though someone had put a blanket over her head. After several paces he pulled her to a stop. She tried to tear away from his grasp once more, but despite his wheezing, his grip felt almost like claws digging into her flesh.
She heard a rusty metallic clank followed by the dull creaking of another door. Then came a soft snapping sound, and Elina felt the plastic ties fall away from her wrists right before she was shoved forward. She tumbled blindly onto the cold stone ground as the door creaked and slammed shut behind her, followed again by the metallic clank like some kind of lock sliding into place.
Elina flailed around in the darkness as terror welled up inside her. She felt along the floor until her palms slapped against the rough, wooden surface of the door. She balled her fists and pounded against the door, shrieking in anger at Carson. But her cries were met with silence. She screamed and raged until her voice was gone and she collapsed again on the ground, weeping softly.
Then from somewhere out in the darkness a voice called, “Quién es usted?”
Elina caught her breath. It was a young male voice, maybe no older than a teenager. She felt her way up the surface of the door until her fingers came across a small opening with metal bars, like the window in a prison-cell door. Outside, she could see the soft-green glow of the lights in the main corridor.
“Soy Elina. Dónde estás?”
He replied in Spanish with trembling in his voice, “I think I’m in the cell right across from you.”
“What’s your name?”
“Miguel,” came the reply.
Elina pressed her face to the bars. As her eyes grew accustomed to the low light, she saw wooden doors across the passage from her, built right into the rock wall. Each had a small window opening with bars just like hers. There were three doors on the other side of the tunnel, and she assumed there were additional cells on either side of hers. She couldn’t tell which door Miguel was behind.
He spoke again. “Where are we? What’s happening to us?”
“We’re in Wyoming,” Elina said. “Do you remember how you got here?”
“Wyoming? They told us they had work in Las Vegas. Good-paying work. They picked us up in a van, and then . . . then I don’t remember anything else. I woke up here . . . inside this dungeon.”
“You don’t remember anything about the trip?” Elina said.
“No . . . only that the van smelled funny when we got in it.”
“How many others were with you?”
“Four others, I think. There were five of us altogether.”
Elina pressed her face to the window and called out, “Javier? Javier Sanchez? Has anyone seen Javier Sanchez?”
Then another voice called out—a gravelly, hollow voice. “Elina? Elina, is that you?”
“Javier!” Elina’s heart surged with emotion. Despite the darkness she suddenly felt a spark of hope.
“Elina, what . . . what are you doing here?”
“I came looking for you,” Elina said. “Carmelita told me you had disappeared. She was worried sick. She said you had gotten in a van with Nevada plates.”
“They said they needed five workers. They lied to us. I think they sprayed something inside the van to make us fall asleep.”
“Carmelita said the van had been coming by every four weeks or so.” She related how Javier’s sister had called her in a panic after he had disappeared. Elina had not seen either of her cousins since they were all children. When she was a child, Elina’s family would spend Christmas in Mexico every year. But after her father’s death the tradition had stopped.
Then a few weeks ago she had gotten Carmelita’s frantic phone call with the story of Javier’s disappearance and the mysterious white van with Nevada plates. Carmelita said her family had come looking for work. Elina could guess that they had not come legally, but regardless of the circumstances, she knew she couldn’t just sit by and do nothing. She had to at least find out what had happened to her cousin. And since she had been on leave from the LAPD, she had nothing but time on her hands.
Elina explained how she had been watching for the van to return for a new group of victims and how she had followed it here to Wyoming. It had arrived late the day before, and she snuck into the woods to spy on the house, trying to catch a glimpse of anyone inside. She had spent the night in the cold, watching intently, and had seen fleeting images of Vale and a couple of others. But no Hispanics. And now she had gotten captured herself.
“How long has it been? How long have I been here?” Javier asked.
“Just over four weeks, I think.”
“Four weeks?” Javier groaned. “Is that all it’s been? I haven’t seen the sun since I’ve been here, and they only come down to bring us food or to take one of us away.”
“Do you know where they took the others?”
“I don’t know where. But everyone else I came here with is gone. Do you know?”
A frantic, high-pitched voice called out, “They are cannibals! These people eat human flesh!”
That comment got the others wailing and arguing with each other and pounding on the cell doors. The racket continued for several long minutes. Or maybe longer; Elina had no way to keep track of time anymore. She tried to calm them down but to no avail. She finally gave up, sank against the door, and put her head in her hands.
Despair turned her to memories of her father. His strong arms and gentle eyes. And his simple faith. As a girl she would always grow so nervous before a test at school, and he would pull her close to his side.
“Why are you so anxious, Little Bean? Do you think God has gotten so busy that He’s forgotten about you?” he would whisper to her. “He knew you before you were even born.”
Her father had immigrated to Los Angeles as a young man, newly married. He had worked hard to give his wife and children a better life, putting himself through night school to get a job repairing and maintaining commercial HVAC systems. In doing so, he had taught Elina and her younger brother, Paulo, the value of an education. He showed them the example of his genuine faith in God. He gave them the stern but loving discipline that only a father can give. He taught Elina what she should look for in a husband someday by the way he treated her mother. And in the same way he taught Paulo how he should treat his future wife. That a man should be willing to sacrifice everything for his family. And that such a man could be strong and wise and loving at the same time.
How she missed him now, and her memories only made her heart ache all the more as she longed to hear his voice again. She had been thirteen when he was killed. And in many ways his murder had been the catalyst for her joining the police department. It was a senseless, violent murder by some useless thug who killed him for the fifty dollars in his wallet. Fifty dollars. That had been the value of her father’s life.
She recalled the anger that had burned inside her heart. A spark that grew out of her sorrow but soon hardened and coalesced into a steady, smoldering rage against the young black man who had pulled the trigger. A murderous punk with no job, no father, and a drug-addled mother, he’d turned to violence as a way to ma
ke himself into a man.
But her anger didn’t stop there. It soon burned against all the young black men she encountered. Every one of them she saw, everywhere in the city. None of them seemed to have fathers to teach them how to be real men. How to act responsibly and do an honest day’s work. They were all arrogant, misogynistic, lazy, and stupid. And violent.
So she had joined the police force to put them in jail, where they belonged.
Vale had been more accurate about her than he had probably realized. Some people the world was just better off without. Or so she’d believed.
Miguel’s voice drew her out of her thoughts. He sounded weak and obviously terrified. “It makes sense, you know?”
“What?” Elina stood and looked through the opening in her door. “What does?”
“Why they choose us. Whatever’s going on here, it makes sense why they choose us.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Think about it. We don’t have any real identification. No driver’s licenses or Social Security numbers. And most of us have no families here, at least none who would ever report us missing. We’re the perfect victims. No one cares what happens to us. No one will ever come looking for us.”
Chapter 19
Elina heard footsteps approaching. Multiple footsteps that echoed through the tunnels. The voices of the other prisoners began wailing, pleading for mercy in Spanish. A few seconds later the footsteps approached Elina’s door and a shadow appeared at her window.
A light blinked on and flooded the tiny room.
Elina winced and shielded her eyes. She could tell it was just a flashlight, but the brightness was still painful.
“Now we can do this the easy way,” came Carson’s distinct voice, “or we can do it the fun way.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Just do what I say,” Carson said. “Turn around, face the wall, and lie down on your stomach with your hands behind you. And don’t move.”