I’d been here two full days and it was already early afternoon of the third. I only knew that Kira had been here, not whether she still was. If I made it into the house and she wasn’t there, I had a little over twenty-four hours to find out where she’d gone before Griff came in.
There was a rustling at the door and Isaac stepped into the barn, his eyes never left mine as he made his approach. At the table, he took the branches from my hands and gave them to Sarah. “I want you to come with me.” Without waiting for an answer, he wrapped his fingers around my arm and steered me away from the rest of them.
At the door I pulled out of his grip and turned back to Sarah. “Don’t forget what I told you.”
She looked quickly away and began arranging the boughs, unwilling to implicate herself.
“Where are you taking me?” I asked.
He kept my elbow firmly in his grasp as we moved toward his truck.
“I thought you might like to see my house. You asked about it when you first arrived. We’re preparing for a little holiday party. I want you to be a part of it.”
No doubt it would be a party I’d never forget. ’“What about my things at the dormitory? I should get them.”
He looked at me the same way he had that day at the market, with an air of confidence emanating power and control. “Everything you need is in my house.”
Not quite, I thought and felt for my cell phone. If he found it, it would be the end of our operation and probably me too, but if I failed to contact Griff, he and John would be breaking down Isaac’s door. Keeping it on me was my only option at the moment.
Isaac reached over and took my hand stroking my fingers with his thumb. It was all I could do not to jerk my hand away. A smile played on his lips as we bounced over ruts. I stuffed my other hand beneath my thigh and kept my eyes on the house as we approached. In its younger days it had probably been a stately family dwelling and a beauty at that. I could imagine a gathering of rocking chairs on the wide farmer’s porch. Knitting and babies in the laps of women sharing ice tea and gossip.
We came to a stop and climbed the front steps, now nothing more than warped wooden slats. Scattered pieces of hay and straw slid over the dusty pine boards, forming random shadows against the faded, yellow paint. At the far end of the porch, a pitchfork leaned against the clapboards, done for the day.
At the top of the stairs Isaac pulled a set of keys from his pocket. He freed three deadbolts, each with a different key. The locks were overkill. I could have splintered the weathered wood with one swift kick. The door groaned open and I stepped inside.
A veil of smoke drifted from a room to my right hovering overhead in the hallway. Isaac nodded me across the wide pine floorboards toward the French doors. A threadbare Oriental carpet covered the floor. Victorian couches and chairs hugged graying walls that had once been white. Above the furniture religious pictures hung in ornate, gold frames, Christ with a crown of thorns plunged into His head, The Last Supper, The Road to Damascus.
Beneath the pictures, sprawled on the couches were women in lacy bras and underwear, their hair unkempt, their feet bare. Some wore sheer blouses over their bras, or bathrobes hanging open. Each held a cigarette in one hand. When I entered the room eight pairs of vacant eyes looked up.
Isaac hovered behind me, too close. His breath warmed my neck. He placed one hand on each of my shoulders and then let them fall to my breasts, giving them a gentle squeeze.
I pulled away and spun around, knocking his hands aside with my forearm.
He laughed and let go. “Welcome to my family,” he said. Looking past me, his eyes roamed the women finally settling on a young girl in a baby doll ensemble of purple paisley. “Elizabeth, take Mary upstairs. Show her to her room and help her change her clothes.”
“My name is Britt,” I said.
“Not anymore. Now it’s Mary, as in Magdalene,” he laughed.
Elizabeth stood and crossed the room without a word. Her hand grazed my elbow as she passed.
“Go,” Isaac said nodding toward her.
I followed the girl up the carpeted staircase and down a hallway with bedrooms on either side. There was something familiar about her that I couldn’t place. At the end of the hall she stepped into the room on her left.
“Where’s the bathroom?” I asked. If I was going to be dressing like the women downstairs there’d be no where to attach my cell phone on my body where it wouldn’t be seen. I needed to ditch it before anyone realized I had it.
“You have to change first.” She pointed to the bed in the far corner of the room. “That’s yours. Your clothes are on top.”
An ivory, satin negligee lay across the bed.
“Looks like I’m getting married.”
“The first night you’re here you spend with Isaac. He likes to think of it as the beginning of your relationship. Like a wedding night.”
I looked at her, horrified. “I’m not sleeping with him.”
“He doesn’t ask often.” Her voice was low and seductive. “It’s usually just the first night, unless you make an impression.” She gave a throaty laugh.
“There’s not going to be a first night,” I said trying to hold my voice steady. “And you better believe I’ll make an impression.” I turned and looked at her again. “Where’s the bathroom?”
“Give me your clothes.” She nodded to the blue sweatshirt with OK on the front and my jeans. “You don’t need those anymore.” She stretched one arm toward me for the clothes I had yet to take off. “It’s not so bad here. We get what we need.”
“Your needs and mine don’t fall into the same category.”
“Not yet,” she said.
I ignored her prophecy and pointed to her scantily clad body. “I’m not dressing like that every day.”
“Isaac likes us like this. Anyway, who cares? When we go out he gives us other things to wear, dresses and sweaters and coats.”
I thought of the truck pulling out of the driveway. Hopefully I could find one woman who would be willing to talk. From the slow lilt of Elizabeth’s voice whatever was in her system kept everything right with the world. There’d been a strong smell of pot downstairs mingled with tobacco.
“I’m not changing until I go to the bathroom,” I said again.
She lay her head back onto the bed and slid her legs straight. “Suit yourself, but hurry up. It’s over there.” She pointed to a closed door in the corner of the room.
“Does every room have its own bathroom?”
She nodded.
“How many girls live here?”
“There’re five bedrooms, two or three beds in each. Sometimes they’re full, sometimes not.”
“Where are the rest of the girls?”
“How should I know? It’s a big house.”
“Doesn’t Isaac keep tabs on them? What if they try to leave?”
She rolled huge brown eyes toward me. “Why would they?”
I grabbed the nightgown off the bed and stepped into the bathroom. There was no lock on the door. I slipped my jeans down and unstrapped the phone from my thigh. My hands were shaking. What was I going to tell Griff? That Isaac and I were about to share our wedding night? He’d freak and ruin the whole thing. I had to at least get the information I’d come for. I held the phone between shaking hands and texted Griff. Inside the house. Prostitution? No sign of Kira yet. More tomorrow. I hit SEND then powered it down.
There was a narrow door to my right and I lifted the latch. Inside, shelves were lined with towels, shampoo bottles and boxes of tampons. With one foot on the toilet, I was able to see onto the top shelf. A roll of wallpaper, dusty with age, lay against the far wall, a box of mothballs in front of it, nothing that anyone would be reaching for anytime soon. I set the phone and Kira’s picture on the shelf and slid it back as far as I could then I hopped off the toilet and replaced the latch.
“Hurry up.” Elizabeth’s drawl came from the other side of the door. “Isaac’s calling for us.”
I pulled the negligee over my head and caught sight of myself in the mirror. It was too long and made for D-cups. I wasn’t even close. Swallowing back humiliation, I reminded myself that no one I knew was going to see me, and Griff would never have to know.
“Okay, I’m ready,” I said tossing my clothes to Elizabeth.
She laughed. “Your black bikinis are showing.”
“Can’t help it.”
“He wants you in nothing but what he gives you. That means the nightgown only.”
I hesitated, my heart doing back flips, afraid of exposure in every sense of the word. Then I tossed her my underwear too.
“You’re a good girl. He’s going to like you,” she said and giggled.
I followed Elizabeth downstairs and back into the room we’d come from. I’d be hard pressed to give it a name. The Victorian style furniture, draped with half-dressed women suggested a whorehouse straight out of an old, western movie, but the religious décor brought me right back to the convent at my Catholic elementary school. If nothing else, Isaac was eclectic. It was mid-afternoon. Each of the women in the room, which now had grown to eleven including Elizabeth and me, had a cocktail at hand.
A deep chuckle behind me brought goose bumps to my flesh. I turned to see Isaac eyeing me up and down. “Guess I don’t have your size,” he said. Curling his index finger over the top of the nightgown, he pulled it out and away from my body then stepped forward and dropped his eyes inside the silky material inspecting me from neck to feet. He nodded approvingly and nuzzled his cheek against mine. “The good Lord sure knows what He’s doing,” he whispered in my ear. “I’ll find your size. Work like that deserves to be shown off in a flattering light.”
Isaac crossed the room toward the alcove that housed the bar. It was no larger than a walk-in closet, but it didn’t need to be. It was stocked well enough to satisfy even the thirstiest woman in the house.
“Wine or mixed?” he asked me over his shoulder.
I shook my head. “Neither.”
“Neither is not an option,” he said. His voice had switched from seductive to commanding in the seconds it took him to walk across the room. He looked at me. His eyes turned cold and dark.
“Wine,” I said. “Red.”
His smile returned. “Lovely choice. May I suggest a Cabernet?”
I nodded. My legs wobbled. For the first time I was glad for my oversized nightgown. I’d done exactly what I’d told Griff and John I could do. I was inside. I should be feeling a little smug and pleased with myself, but all I felt was fear. What the hell had I gotten into? Standing in that room, watching him come toward me drink in hand, I knew one thing for certain. I wasn’t nearly as brave as I pretended to be. I wanted to find Kira and give Griff reason to believe in me, to recognize my worth and change the goddamn sign from Cole & Co. to Cole and Callahan. But right now? I was having second thoughts on all counts.
He handed me a goblet and watched until I’d taken a sip then he smiled and turned toward the others, all of who had been watching me as though it were some rite of passage.
Isaac touched my cheek with his fingertips and smirked. “I have things to attend to, my little Mary Magdalene. While I’m working, you get the feel of your new home and meet your sisters,” he said. “And then, tonight will be ours.”
I assumed I was supposed to look pleased, but a wave of nausea hit me and my scalp tingled with sweat. I drew a breath and forced a smile, but he’d already turned away from me. Just before passing through the doorway he slapped the young girl nearest him on the back of her head. “Go easy on the booze,” he said. “You’re working tonight.”
Her mouth hit the rim of her glass and it fell to the floor.
“And for Christ’s sake, clean that up.”
She walked to the bar like a foal on new legs, retrieved a dishrag and collapsed back over the spill. She dabbed at the puddle of vodka then sat back on her heels, swayed and took a gulp from the bottle in her hand.
Elizabeth knelt beside her. “I’ve got it,” she said. “Go pass out somewhere else.”
And then it dawned on me where I’d seen Elizabeth before. She was the one with the long dark hair I’d seen in the truck. She must have felt my eyes on her because she looked up and met my gaze. “What the hell are you lookin’ at?”
“I shook my head. “Nothing.”
“Well go do nothing somewhere else.” She went back to blotting the vodka from the rug. A couple of the women behind me laughed.
I sank into an unoccupied chair and sipped my wine. Alcohol was the last thing I wanted right now, but I had to play the part. Thankfully I didn’t know at this moment how far the role would take me.
Across the room, the girl who’d dropped her drink wedged herself into the corner of a maroon, velvet couch. She lifted a pipe to her lips, lit it and took a long draw, closing her eyes and tilting her head back. The smell of marijuana filled the room. Before she could get the pipe back to her mouth it slipped from her hand, hit her thigh and landed on the cushion beside her. Its contents spilled onto the velvet.
“Jesus Christ.” The woman beside her jumped from the couch and grabbed the pipe. She brushed the glowing ashes onto the floor and stepped them. “What the fuck? Watch what you’re doing.”
But the girl was out cold. A thin strand of drool connecting chin to chest. The woman tossed the pipe onto the coffee table and wandered to the bar shaking her head. No one else in the room showed any reaction. The afternoon passed with their lifeless eyes staring at the Oriental rug or searching the distance outside the window. I sat among them sipping wine wondering what went on inside their heads, if anything. No one seemed interested in leaving or even capable. What did that say about Kira and my plan to rescue her? I emptied my glass of Cabernet and left it on the bar. Hearing dishes rattling down the hallway, I followed the sound into the kitchen.
“Hurry up, Rose.” Isaac was seated at the table. A woman stood at the stove holding a wooden spoon making figure eights in a cast iron pot. A young girl was setting the farmhouse table with plates and silverware. He looked up as I walked into the room. “Go get the others, Mary,” he said. “Dinner.”
I retraced my steps and leaned into the living room. “Time to eat,” I said. A couple of the women stood and came toward me, the rest went to the bar for refills. The girl passed out on the couch didn’t move.
I took a seat at the opposite end of the table as far from Isaac as possible. Rose dished spoonfuls of Mac and cheese onto the plates. Chair legs dragged over the wooden floor as each of the women took a place. Rose sat in the chair beside Isaac. She was older than the rest of us and I wondered about her role in the house. She wasn’t turning any tricks at her age. The meal was dead silent except for the occasional burp, drunken slurping and tobacco-laden coughs. I’d barely inhaled the last spoonful when the young girl who’d set the table stood to clear the plates.
“You, you, you and you,” Isaac said pointing to four of the women. “Make yourselves presentable. We have an engagement. Where’s our fifth?”
“Out cold.” Elizabeth smiled at Isaac.
“Christ,” he said. “I’m too good to you girls.”
“That’s what I tell them,” Rose said.
“Shut up, Rose.” Isaac turned to me. “Very soon you’ll be working too. The better your performance the more often you go out. It’s all about creating a demand. We’ll discuss that later.” He smiled.
My stomach turned. I dropped my eyes to my plate hoping my mac and cheese wasn’t going to rebel.
The young girl who’d been clearing our dishes moved from the sink back to the table and stacked two plates on her forearm, waitress style, then reached for Isaac’s but stumbled. The stacked dishes slipped from her arm onto his thigh leaving remnants of uneaten pasta and cheese on his jeans. Rose and the others froze, not a breath broke the silence.
“Stupid,” he yelled, rising to his feet.
The plates crashed to the floor. He stood a foot from the young g
irl and swung back his arm, tossing steaming coffee from his cup onto her chest. She screamed as the scalding liquid hit her turning the white lace of her negligee a dirty brown and the skin beneath it, pink as a newborn pig.
Isaac dropped his empty mug to the floor with the broken plates. “Clean this up,” he said to her. “You’re my number five tonight. Let’s see if you can get this right.”
At the doorway he hesitated and turned back to me. “Can you see now Mary, why I needed a new girl in the house?
Rose ran cold water on a cloth and held it against the young girl’s chest while two others cleaned the floor. No one noticed me watching until they were done. And then Rose looked at me. “Don’t make mistakes,” she said.
The girl stood beside Rose, whimpering. “Where’s he taking me?”
Rose shook her head. “You’ll see. You’ll be fine. Go get dressed, hurry. The girl left the kitchen and I heard her feet pounding up the stairs. I remembered Ruth’s words. Isaac doesn’t like it if you’re late.
A few minutes later the four women he’d pointed out during dinner and the now defunct house girl came down the stairs dressed in outdoor clothing and winter jackets. I saw the white parka on Elizabeth. Rose took the elbow of the girl who’d dropped the plates and walked with her onto the porch. She was crying.
“Just do whatever they tell you,” Rose said.
The young girl nodded, wiping her nose on the sleeve of her jacket and climbed into the back of the truck with the others.
I stood in the doorway, watching until Rose came back inside, closed the front door and slid the deadbolts into place. She glanced into the living room where the others had resumed their drinking and getting high. “Finish cleaning the kitchen,” she said to me and retreated upstairs.
I went back to the kitchen glad to have something to do that would provide at least a bit of normalcy. If washing dishes was my only option I’d take it. I ran the plates under hot water reviewing each of the girls in my head. I needed someone I could talk to. Someone who could shed light on what the hell was going on here.
Durable Goods Page 6