“Correy?”
Dez laughed. “Yeah, we’re in Correyville. Didn’t you know? I guess it’s like that community you was talking about, only instead of some Irish guy running things it’s the devil himself.”
“Dez, there’s got to be a way out of here. I’ve got a family to get back to. If you wanted, you could come with me.”
Dez looked down at the empty plastic cup and then over her shoulder. The rest of the women were either sleeping or talking quietly in small groups. Whoever had cooked had passed the food among the group.
“You don’t need to bother. You’re not staying.”
“What do you mean?”
“They brought you here so you’d be agreeable to where they really want you to be. I’ve seen ‘em do it fifty times or more already.”
“What do you mean, where they really want me to be? Why didn’t they just take me there?”
“Coz most women don’t take to whoring if they don’t have something worse to compare it to. Me, I was pushed into a corner a few times early on after The Crisis—for food, mind you—and it didn’t kill me.” Dez shrugged. “But they ain’t asking me.”
“How do you know they’ll give me a choice?”
“Because they have you pulling guts. It looks like nothing, but there’s a skill to it, especially what I do. They got you pulling guts because they want you to go screaming for the door.”
“And the door leads to their prostitution operation?”
“Yeah. Those girls eat good, and they have nice beds. They don’t get walloped for nothing nor have to smell shite every minute of the day. You want to be there, Sarah. Trust me.”
“And you think they put me here so I would then gratefully give my body to whomever paid me.”
“Well, they’re not paying you, but yeah. I sure as shit would.” Dez looked around the room. “There’s not many would turn down the offer if it was made to them.”
“But some did.”
“Yeah, well, some would rather die, wouldn’t they?”
Sarah sighed and fell back onto her pallet. The stench seemed to be reviving as she looked around the darkened room. “I have a child,” she said. “Dying’s not an option.”
“Well, then I guess you’re going to the whorehouse.”
11
Two days sitting in the back of what used to be a dry cleaners. Two days of wondering where Sarah was and if that was really her on the ferry.
Two days.
Mike sat at the counter and looked out the window onto the street of Boreen, County Wexford.
Two days. Just long enough to cool her trail down to make it impossible to ever pick up again. It had been her. He knew it.
A light tap on the door prompted him to his feet and he stood watching the front door—still with its welcoming customer’s chime intact—open on the form of a tall woman holding a covered tray. As usual, she was accompanied by a man—never the same one—with a gun.
“Aideen,” Mike said, his eyes never leaving the man and his gun.
“Good morning, Mike,” she said. She was a good-looking woman, Mike had to admit. Big where it counted, delicate everywhere else. “I’m afraid we’ll be seeing the back of you today.”
“Oh? Finally going to shoot me, are you?”
Her laugh was a rich, throaty one and nearly prompted a smile from him too. If circumstances had been different, he found himself thinking.
“Liam, you big mug, I told you not to bring that in here. It’s not necessary.”
Liam frowned and put his gun back in its holster. “We don’t know that for sure,” he said, eyeing Mike suspiciously.
“Now, Mike,” Aideen said, spreading out the tray of food on the counter. “We’ve had this discussion before. You know that no town can function without rules, and I am sorry that you were caught in them. But tolls are important these days. Especially now. We couldn’t run the town without them.”
Mike sat back down and reached for the cup of tea on the tray. “I’ll be getting me horse back today? And me rifle?”
“Of course. We’re not uncivilized. Edgar doesn’t enjoy incarcerating people.”
Yeah, right.
“But we’ve had the use of your horse for two days and so your toll is paid, and also the fine, mind, for breaking the law in the first place.”
“The law? Which would be entering the town without first asking permission?”
“Ah, now, Mike, don’t be like that. I’ve told you before, the law pertains to anyone on horseback or horse-drawn vehicle and it’s a good law and we’ll stand by that. What with you coming into town without a punt in your pocket, what else could we do?”
“But I’m free to go now?” Mike stood up.
“Aye, but I thought I might make a suggestion?”
“I’m listening.”
“You’re keen to cross to Wales, am I right?”
Mike nodded.
“Well, that’s expensive, ya see. And what with you as broke as—”
“What’s your suggestion, Aideen?”
“Work on my father’s farm for two weeks. He’ll pay you enough for a round-trip passage to the UK.”
Mike hesitated. “I’ll need a fare for another on the way back.”
Now Aideen hesitated and Mike thought her eyes grew a little brighter. “Oh, I see. A runaway wife?”
“No. Just a friend.”
She extended her hand across the tray. “Two weeks and you’ll be on your way again. You have my word.”
He hesitated. In the two days he’d had to cool his heels, he realized he needed to be smarter about what he was doing. Partly the reason he’d been caught unawares by the toll—and Edgar—was that he was too focused on his goal and he missed all the important clues around him.
He shook her hand. “Two weeks.”
An hour later, he had his horse and rifle back and was riding alongside Aideen’s pony trap to her father’s farm.
He glanced around the scenery in this part of Ireland. While the cliffs and crags still buckled beneath the green sod like the area he was from, there was something more tranquil or tame about this part of his country. His eyes lighted on Aideen as she held the reins on the trap. She couldn’t be yet thirty, he thought as he watched her curly brown hair cascade down her back, her face freckled from the sun and lack of makeup.
She’d brought a food tray to him for two days in the back of the dry cleaners and spoke cheerfully to him each time. But she had a story. He could see it in her eyes, eyes that weren’t as cheerful and ready as her easy smile.
He stretched his back and wondered how far away from the coast her father’s farm was.
If his plan wasn’t to turn right around and head back to Donovan’s Lot, then he needed to use his head better about how he went about things.
He had to get to the UK because that’s where Sarah was.
That meant he had to get on the ferry because that was the only way, short of swimming it, to get to the UK.
The ferry cost money.
He had no money.
He’d take the time to make the money.
He could run around like a goose trying to make everything happen fast and get nowhere. Or he could put his shoulder to the plow, probably literally, for two weeks and ensure he got to England.
Now if only Sarah could hold on that long.
12
9 Days after the attack.
Sarah wondered if they would ever come for her. After three full days on the line, she was seriously balancing whether her odds were better breaking out of the factory at night or waiting until they took her to the whorehouse, where there were bound to be more opportunities.
If they were going to offer her the option at all.
Dez assured her they would ask her, they were just making sure she was amenable. Sarah picked chicken viscera out from under her nails and wondered if the smell would ever come out of her hair. The days were long and grueling. If she hadn’t known that deliverance was coming, she had
to admit it would have been much, much worse.
Where was Mike? Was anybody coming? Had they given up on her? She forced herself not to think what John must be going through—all alone. She knew Fiona would mother him, take care of him.
Still, she had to get back to him.
It was late on the third day, just before the clang of the day’s bell was about to sound, that they came for her. She recognized the man called Aidan and someone else she had never seen before. Her hands still wringing with chicken entrails, she felt a strong hand clamp down on her elbow and pull her away from the line.
“Cor, she stinks! Can’t we hose her off first?”
“Just bring her. Don’t bother tying her, she won’t try anything.”
Sarah didn’t even have a chance to get eye contact with Dez before she was dragged out of the factory. The light was fading when they opened the double factory doors and prodded her outdoors. She was grateful it wasn’t earlier in the day. Likely, she would’ve collapsed like a squirming mole at first glance of the sun. As it was, for her purposes she knew the night was her ally.
“I was gonna have a go at her before we delivered her, but I’m not sure I’ve had my shots.” The man that Sarah didn’t know was a rough sort. He was big, easily six-three, with a thick skull and a slack, protruding bottom lip. Aidan referred to him as Gil.
“You don’t want to touch anything in there you don’t have to. Besides, Denny would have your balls on a platter you touch her before him.”
In the three days since she had been bound, her wrists had scabbed over and she didn’t relish the idea of having them broken open again. She went meekly to the back of the cart wondering how long the trip was and if she’d have a chance to slip off. She was stopped before she could climb in.
“Nah ya don’t, little sister,” Aidan said. “Hop up top between us.” Aidan lifted the reins and patted the seat next to him. “And we’re no happier about it than you are.” With sinking heart, Sarah climbed onto the driver’s bench and sat next to Aidan. Gil pulled himself up and wedged her in.
It was clear why they didn’t feel a need to bind her hands, at any rate.
With the factory receding in the distance over her shoulder, Sarah felt a gnawing feeling of anxiety and trepidation working up from her gut to her shoulders.
Would they expect her to go to work tonight? Were they taking her straight to the whorehouse?
She looked frantically from side to side hoping to see someone who might recognize that she wasn’t a willing rider with these two men. But there was no one else on the road this evening. Wedged in between them, Sarah had never felt more helpless or more like prey in her entire life. She could practically feel the hunger and urgency pinging off the man, Gil, as he sat next to her, his face twisted into a lethal contortion of anger and need.
Someone who hurt others for the pleasure of it, she found herself thinking, although why she thought she knew that she couldn’t say.
Wherever they were taking her, she thought, could not be more uncomfortable or dangerous than where she sat right this minute.
She was, of course, absolutely wrong.
* * *
The ride wasn’t long enough. Before it was totally dark, the horse cart turned a corner revealing a long curving driveway that led to a large three-story mansion. Before The Crisis, it must have belonged to someone rich and powerful Sarah thought as she regarded the house on their approach. Kerosene lamps hung in several of the windows illuminating the rooms even from the outside.
Whoever lived there now was powerful, that was for sure. Jags and Bentleys may not drive up and down this bricked entranceway any longer, but the man who lives here is a king in every other way that matters. Dez said his name was Correy. As they rode toward the mansion, Sarah knew the man they were taking her to hired cutthroats and murderers to abduct innocent women and children to work in his filthy, vermin-ridden factory and as sex slaves to whomever still had legal tender.
By the time they stopped the cart in front, Sarah wished she was back in the factory.
Gil jumped down and Sarah immediately joined him to avoid any chance he might try to assist her.
“I’ll take her from here, gentlemen.”
Sarah looked up the stairs at the verandah, where a stout woman stood, her arms crossed in front of her. If it weren’t for the fact that she had screaming orange hair piled up into a beehive hairdo, Sarah would’ve thought she was the housekeeper. She followed her up the stairs, aware that the men were coming, too.
Sarah followed the woman through the house and down the main hall. She could hear raised voices at one end of the house, but she couldn’t hear what they said. She needed to hurry to keep up with the woman ahead of her. The men had fallen away at the foyer and Sarah was grateful for that. Finding the right moment to slip away from this woman would be easier if she didn’t have to watch her back, too.
The woman opened a door off a back room and motioned Sarah inside. She took one step in and her resolve began to falter. The room was steamed with the fragrance of orange and rose petals that rose off the large claw-footed bathtub situated in the middle of the room. Sarah stared at it with wonder.
“Clothes.” The woman said the word as if she was giving an order she expected to be obeyed without hesitation.
Sarah blinked at her and then the tub and unbuttoned her shirt. She dropped it, her bra, underwear and jeans to the floor.
“Kick them over here.”
Sarah obeyed, then went to the tub without being told. She gripped the sides and eased herself into the hot pool of sudsy water, an involuntary groan escaping her as she did.
The woman watched her for a moment and then said, “Get clean everywhere. You’ve got ten minutes.” And then she swept Sarah’s clothes from the room with her foot and left, closing the door behind her.
It would never have occurred to Sarah that the one time she had had in nine days to escape would be the one time she was almost physically incapable of doing so. She needed the bath, the soak, the perfume, the heat, the water. She leaned her head back and dipped her head in the water, feeling the grime and the pain of the last week melt away. Like finding rest in unlikely conditions and food she wouldn’t have fed to the dogs a week ago, she needed this restorative for whatever lay ahead of her. She held her breath and submerged totally. When she came up, she could see the filth coating the top of her sweet-smelling tub of water. She reached for the shampoo that had been left out for her.
She hadn’t had shampoo in over eight months. She squeezed it out onto her head and massaged it into her scalp, feeling gently for the place where Aidan had slammed her head into the side of the cart. When she dipped her head back again to rinse the soap, she noticed that the bubbles were no longer grey. The shampoo had swung the tide. She stood up just as the woman reentered the room with a wide, fluffy towel in her arms, a change of clothes draped over a forearm.
“Figured I wouldn’t have to tell a Yank how to get clean,” she said in a clipped English accent. “One is never sure what to expect with the Irish, however.” She handed the towel to Sarah, who quickly toweled off and wrapped it around her body.
“Put this on.” The woman held up a negligee. It was black, short and totally see-through. She held out a pair of crotch-less panties in her hand.
So that’s the way it’s going to be. Sarah reminded herself that she was clean and that was a start. It wasn’t a gun. But it was better than what she had an hour ago.
She reached for the outfit.
* * *
Thirty minutes later, Sarah stood in the middle of a man’s bedroom. She knew it was Correy that she was waiting for, not a john. The head guy himself was going to interview her. The woman who had arranged her bath, clearly a madam of some kind, had made it clear that she was to sexually avail herself to Correy.
After dressing in the skimpy negligee, she was led to Correy’s bedroom.
Where she waited.
The bedroom was masculine, almost pain
fully so. It looked as if someone was trying very hard to show that he was very male.
That almost never boded well.
Sarah’s heart was pounding as she waited, seated on the man’s bed, which was made of heavy brocades and velvets. She couldn’t imagine how he kept them clean now that washing machines were no more. He probably had poor peasant women banging them out on stones in the river. She shivered. In all the times she had to think about this moment, one thing she never thought would happen…was this moment.
It had never occurred to her—even after all that Dez had said about it—that she might actually end up having to give her body to someone. And not just any someone, but someone vile and wretched and evil. She felt goose bumps creep down her arms and she rubbed them away.
Could this really be happening? Was this really going to happen? She glanced at the orange-headed madam, who sat in a chair by the window looking out. Sarah felt absolutely naked. The negligee easily revealed her breasts and she couldn’t help hugging her body with her arms to cover them.
Once, the woman looked at her from the window and commented. “You’ll need to drop your arms when he comes in. He won’t be charmed by attempts to hide them.”
Who was this monster?
As she waited, Sarah took a long breath and reminded herself that the road back to her son had to go down this path. It wasn’t by way of the poultry factory—which was a dead end in every way—and it wasn’t by way of someone coming to rescue her. Tonight may be a terrible night. It may in fact be the worst night of her life, but it was a necessary night in order to get to the other nights—nights where an opportunity would present itself and she would be able to run.
The door banged open, startling both women. Sarah’s hand flew to her mouth, but she quickly dropped it as the madam had warned her. She sat on the bed, feeling like she was nothing but a pair of breasts and a few strips of lace and panties.
He walked in and straight over to her. If she hadn’t known him to be the monster he was, she would have taken him for a friendly young man who was eager to make her acquaintance. He smiled openly at her. He wasn’t bad looking, with blue eyes and straight teeth, but he didn’t look nice.
Going Gone, Book 2 of the Irish End Games Page 8