“We’ll walk,” Griff said and he and John began their trek across the frozen pasture toward the house.
“What if Bennett doesn’t talk?” John asked.
Griff looked down at the bloody knuckles on the back of his hand. “He will.”
CANADA
FRIDAY
I couldn’t be sure how much time had passed. I’d dozed off for what might have been a minute but could have been an hour. The pain emanating from my back dulled all other senses, physical and emotional. I didn’t fight it. Numb was where I wanted to be. The only road sign we’d passed was for Madawaska, but I wasn’t sure if I’d seen it or dreamt it. I kept fading in and out. There was a border crossing there and it could be where we were headed unless Lucas had his own personal backdoor. We were travelling down a one-lane highway. It was dark and tree-lined. The only lights came from logging trucks roaring past, thousands of pounds strapped to their back. When I was young, I was afraid of those trucks. What if the cinch let go and a multitude of limbs and trunks rolled onto the car I was in? I leaned my head back against the seat thinking that I would welcome that end now. Snap, I willed each one as it past.
In the headlights a Border Crossing came into view and a sign for Edmundston. Lucas began to slow the car. This could be my chance for escape, my only chance. They would ask our business in Canada and want to see my passport. What would he show them?
Lucas stopped beside the guardhouse and a uniformed officer stepped up to his window. There was a gun hanging from his belt. I closed my eyes and relaxed. This man would want information that Lucas couldn’t give. I was about to be freed.
“Ahh, Lucas,” the guard said.
My eyes flew open and I turned my head to see the two men shaking hands through the window.
“Alain, how goes it with you tonight?” Lucas asked.
“Very well and you too I hope?”
“Yes, yes. Returning from a party. A very nice evening.”
“Glad to hear it, sir.”
Alain stepped back and waved us through.
“Wait,” I said straightening up as best I could. I winced as I peeled my oozing back from the leather seat. I wasn’t letting this chance slip by.
Lucas looked at me annoyed. Alain bent and looked through the window past Lucas to me. “Yes, Mademoiselle? A smile played across his face.
“I have to go to the bathroom.”
I turned to Lucas. “Can we stop, please?”
“Inside, to your right.” Alain pointed toward the building.
Lucas grunted and turned the car into the lot, parking in front of the building to our left. A sign over the door read, Welcome Visitors.
He took me by the elbow and steered me inside to the ladies room. There were no windows above the stalls as I’d hoped. No windows at all. I glanced into the mirror, recoiling at what I saw. One side of my face, the side that had connected with Isaac’s hand and the front door, was the color of a summer sunset. My eye was already swollen shut and my cheek puffed to twice its normal size. I started to touch it, thought the better of it and dry heaved into the sink. I couldn’t bear to think of how close Griff and John had been. Another ten minutes and we’d have had Isaac and Lucas in handcuffs and I’d be riding home beside Griff, safe and sound and somewhat successful.
I rinsed my mouth and splashed cold water onto my face gently blotting it with a scratchy paper towel. They’d have no clue where I was unless Isaac talked and I didn’t think there was much chance of that. Unless Ruth stepped up with information it would be tough for Griff and John to press charges against Isaac. I hung my head over the sink and let the tears come. They ran over my cheeks, stinging the pulpy skin around my eyes. I’d wanted to hand over everything, Kira, Isaac, Stebbins and the rest of them and instead I’d given them an empty house. I looked in the mirror, groaning at the sight of myself and looked away. There was no Amy here to swoop in and fix things. No Griff. It was up to me. I took a breath. “Get your shit together. It’s not over yet. There’s a way out. Find it.”
I remembered passing an office on the way to the bathroom. There’d been a man inside at a desk and a telephone on the desk. I opened the bathroom door a crack. If I could just get to the office without Lucas seeing me, I could tell the man at the desk what was happening. I leaned my head into the hallway. There was no sign of Lucas. Stepping out of the ladies room I ran to the office pulled the door open and stepped inside. The man turned his head and looked at me. “Can I help you, mademoiselle?” the man asked.
From the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of someone else in the room.
“She’s with me,” Lucas said stepping forward and taking my arm. “Have a good one, Charles.” He guided me through the door and back outside to the car.
Once we were in the car and out of view of the men inside he punched me. My neck snapped and my head hit the window. “Don’t be stupid,” he said. “I have no time to babysit. You do what I tell you or you become trash. You know what I do with trash?”.
I shook my head, wincing from the pain.
“I crush it with my hands and toss it in the nearest Dumpster. Are we clear?”
“Yes,” I whispered trying not to move my jaw.
“Good,” He pulled the car onto the road and we travelled in silence.
I wondered why Lucas had bought me, considering my identity and the risk that posed. But maybe Isaac hadn’t told him who I was. That would make sense. Isaac had found one last way to make money off me. But selling me to Lucas and neglecting to mention that I was a PI with a connection to the Portland PD was no small oversight. And one I hoped he’d pay for.
I leaned my head against the seat, closed my eyes and wondered what was happening with Griff and John right now. Were they at Isaac’s? Were they walking through the rooms I’d just left? Was Griff standing in the bedroom I’d shared with Elizabeth? Could he feel my presence? Was he in the room where Edward had whipped me? Did he know the blood on the floor was mine? Griff had seen something worthwhile in me when he’d asked me to be a partner in his firm. But now, every time he took me in his arms, he’d feel my scars beneath his hands and we’d both remember where I’d been and what Isaac had done to me. I’d failed Griff and John and Kira and all the women at Isaac’s.
GRIFF
The house reeked of booze and cigarettes. Glasses and bottles littered every surface and clothes lay strewn across bedroom floors. Around them lab techs dusted for prints. Gloved cops opened drawers and emptied closets. Griff and John walked shoulder to shoulder in silence taking it all in. Griff’s jaw tight, John’s fists clenching and unclenching. Imagining the hours, the days, the unbearable minutes Britt and Kira had endured here. At the same time blocking the images from their minds so not to be consumed by their own guilt.
At the top of the stairs Griff pulled out his cell phone, opened the Find My Phone app and keyed in Britt’s number.
“Wasn’t she keeping the phone turned off?” John asked.
“Maybe she forgot. Maybe wherever she is, she just turned it on. Maybe it’ll show me something. What the hell else have we got?”
John didn’t answer. The truth was, they had nothing. If Bennett didn’t talk they’d have no way of locating Britt.”
Griff’s phone pinged and he zeroed in on the blue dot on the screen.
“What’s it say?” John leaned over his shoulder to get a look at the phone.
“It’s here. The phone is in the house and it’s on.” Griff looked at John. “Maybe Britt is too.”
“Hiding?”
Griff shrugged. Hurrying down the stairs he found Sergeant McCullem of the Fort Kent PD. He held up his cell phone. “My partner’s phone is in the house. I don’t know if that means she is too.”
“Start in the basement,” McCullem instructed two cops in the hallway. “Work your way up. We’re looking for a cell phone or its owner, Britt Callahan.”
Griff and John trampled down the basement steps behind the two officers. They tore apart the dank
farmhouse cellar while Griff called Britt’s cell.
“Hey,” a voice called down the stairs, “We’ve got a vibration coming from the ceiling over the bar. Could be the phone.”
Griff took the steps two at a time. When he got to the living room a cop was standing on the bar stabbing a screwdriver into the drywall ceiling.
“Try this,” a lab tech handed him a crowbar he’d taken from one of the cars outside.
The cop rammed it into the drywall pulling down a large square of the ceiling and exposing a metal heating duct. “Call it again,” he said to Griff.
The duct vibrated and the cop slammed the crowbar against its seam. The thin aluminum crinkled and split. The vibrating phone dropped onto the bar. Griff grabbed it, stopped the call and went to the messages screen. He read Britt’s last text aloud. It’s time. I need out. Can’t do this anymore. Help. He looked to see when it was written. Thursday night.
“She never hit SEND,” he said staring at the phone. “What the fuck. Why didn’t she…I would have…”
“Bag that,” Sergeant McCullem nodded toward the cell phone in Griff’s hand. Reluctantly, Griff dropped the phone into the plastic evidence bag a young cop held in front of him. Then he stepped out of the alcove and drove his fist through the living room wall.
CANADA
SATURDAY
The digital clock on the dashboard read two-forty five when we pulled into a small town and began making a series of turns down narrow streets, finally stopping outside a three-story brick apartment house. An ancient, rusted out fire escape scaled the back of the building providing small landings outside the second and third floors.
“Get out,” Lucas said. “Follow me.”
I stepped from the car, shivering in the cold. I had nothing with me except what I’d been wearing at Isaac’s. A row of houses stretched down either side of the street. We walked up five metal stairs. I shook beside him as he shoved his key into the lock on the front door of the nondescript building. Releasing it, he followed suit with two more and pushed the door open. A narrow hallway stretched before us, a Tiffany style lamp on a small round table lit the way.
“Get inside,” he said and shoved me into a darkened room.
A fist I never saw coming connected with my cheek and knocked me to the floor.
“This is how we do business here,” said a voice I didn’t recognize. “From what I hear, Isaac treats his girls too good. Here, whores get what they deserve.”
I struggled to my feet. The only light came from the lamp in the hallway. Lucas stood in the doorway, watching. Out of the shadows to my left a man emerged.
“She’s all yours, Clive,” Lucas said. The man handed Lucas an envelope. Without a word Lucas left the room and I heard the front door close.
Clive stood for a moment his gaze frozen on the doorway as though making sure that Lucas was gone. Dark, curly hair brushed against his flannel collar. His profile was gaunt. Protruding cheekbones flanked a beaked nose and his shirt sagged against a hollow stomach. He looked more like a scarecrow than a businessman. Once satisfied that Lucas was gone, he came toward me, balled his left hand and planted it in my stomach. I folded at the waist and landed on my knees.
“Let’s go,” he said and pulled me up with his hand in my armpit then pushed me into the hallway. I winced at the pressure of his hand against the torn flesh on my back. We stepped into a kitchen and he unlocked a door to my left, a stairway led to the basement. The light was dim and the smell rank, he followed me down the stairs. As my eyes adjusted I could make out bodies. Six mattresses lined the floor. A low watt, overhead light bulb shed what little light there was in the room. I could see my breath. He stepped up to one of the mattresses and kicked the shape beneath the blanket. “Move over,” he said. Obediently, the shape complied. “Lie down.” He pointed to the vacated space.
I lay on the mattress and pulled one side of the blanket over myself and up to my chin. Without another word he walked to the stairs in the corner of the room. I listened until he’d reached the top then he closed and locked the door behind him. The person beside me shifted and rolled toward me. We looked at each other without speaking. Even in the shadows of the basement I could see the sallow color of her skin and the sunken depths below her eyes.
“I’m Julia,” she whispered as though desperate for me to know she had a name. Beneath the blanket she took my hand and held it in both of hers. I closed my eyes and fell asleep.
SATURDAY
When I woke up it was to the sound of feet coming down the stairway. The room was no brighter than it had been the night before. There were no windows to announce the morning or welcome a ray of sun. No windows to let escape the rank air heavy with the musty scent of sex. Clive stood on the bottom step with a paper bag in one hand and a plastic container of orange juice in the other. “Breakfast,” he said and set both on the floor then he turned and retreated.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten. Maybe it had been lunch in Isaac’s kitchen the day before with Ruth. I wondered what she’d tell police, or had she escaped out of the dormitory before they’d reached her? She hadn’t done anything when he’d sold Kira, and she’d been in love with her. It was a waste of time to hope she’d do something for me. I rolled to my knees and stood, wincing. The skin on my back cracked open with the slightest movement. Not knowing the protocol in my new home, I was afraid of making a wrong move, but hunger won out. I walked to the stairs careful to avoid the mattresses and uncurled the top of the bag. I pulled out a sesame bagel and bit into heaven. Unscrewing the lid on the orange juice, I washed it down and sat back on my heels feeling the nourishment hit my stomach. Someone came up beside me and pulled the bag toward them and I crawled back to my mattress clutching the bagel to my chest like a dog guarding a bone.
The bag made its way from one hand to the next until it was empty, the OJ followed suit. I tried to savor each not knowing when I’d eat again. I looked at Julia. She’d held my hand for most of the night. I wasn’t sure if it was for my comfort or her own.
“Where are we?” I asked her.
She shrugged. “I don’t know for sure. It was dark when he brought me here. I was high. I remember seeing a sign that said Grand Falls, but I don’t know if that’s where we are now. When we go to the bar we don’t pass any street signs.”
“The bar?”
“Rusty’s, it’s where we work.”
“How did you end up here?”
She took a bite of the bagel in her hand and kept her eyes on the blanket as though deciding how to answer. Finally, she looked up. “My boyfriend sold me.” Her eyes fell away from mine ashamed.
“Your boyfriend sold you?” I heard the disbelief in my tone and felt stupid for letting my naïveté show.
“I was at a party. He introduced me to Lucas and Lucas handed him a roll of money. I didn’t think anything of it at the time. Stupid me. When Lucas said he was going out to score and asked me to go with him, I went. He brought me here. That’s what the money exchange was about, but at the time I didn’t understand.”
“How long ago was that?”
“I don’t know any more.”
“Where are you from?”
“Presque Isle.”
“Did you cross at Edmundston?”
She nodded.
There were border crossings closer in proximity to Presque Isle, but I remembered Lucas’ handshake with Alain, the guard. Stebbins and Isaac were feeder fish and I was moving up the chain.
“Who’s Clive?” I asked Julia.
“This is his house. We work for him.”
“And Lucas?”
“A middleman, I think. He handles sales and transports.”
“What about your boyfriend? Is he involved?”
“I haven’t seen him since that night.”
“Does Clive treat you…us, okay?”
She laughed a tired laugh. “Do I look okay?” She raised one arm and motioned to the other girls. “Do they?”
&nbs
p; I looked around the room. Dead, listless eyes looked back, youth long gone, but ages were impossible to estimate.
“He treats us like dogs,” one of the woman said. “Worse. They screw us and beat us and then hand us their scraps.”
“Stop your whining.” A woman in the corner said. “You could have it worse.”
The woman reminded me of Rose and I had a sudden longing to be back at Isaac’s. Rose had told me I could have it a lot worse and she’d been right.
“Louise, you think this is good, because you were on the street. You were already a whore. But the rest of us had lives.” Julia looked at me and rolled her eyes. “Don’t listen to her.”
“Well la-ti-da,’ Louise said. “Ain’t you the woman of the house.”
A small form beneath a blanket in the far side of the room whimpered.
“Where’s the bar? Rusty’s?” I asked Julia. I’d been ready to give up in the bathroom at the crossing, but with no way to contact Griff and Stark if I gave up now, this would be my life. One way or another, I was getting home.
“I’m not sure where it is. A long dark road is the only thing we ever see. It’s a dive bar. Clive and Myles take us in a van.”
“Who’s Myles?”
“Clive’s partner.” She tucked a strand of stringy brown hair behind her ear. “We have sex with the clients and sometimes we get food. French fries. A burger if we’re lucky. When they’re done with us Clive and Myles bring us back. This is home.” She laughed. “Home sweet home.”
The door at the top of the stairs opened.
“Thought you were something special, did you?” It was a new voice. “See what you get when you question my authority? I paid for you. I own you. But now little bitch, I’ll send you out with the rest of them. No more special treatment.”
A woman was crying. “No. Please. I’ll do--”
“You’ll do whatever I tell you to do, whore,” he said.
A blur of limbs and blond hair came tumbling down the stairs head over heels. When she landed at the bottom, he laughed and closed the door. Above us the lock clicked into place.
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