by Rae Vine
“Would you recognize some of the people who were at the party, if you saw photos of them?”
Queenie shrugged. “Like I said, we were busy.”
The color rushed to Emma’s cheeks. “The men, the man…you were busy with,” Emma coughed and was at a loss with how to ask this. She cleared her throat. “Would you be able to recognize him if you saw a photo?”
“Men,” replied Queenie, calmly, as she accepted a refill for her coffee. She looked at Emma with a smirk on her face as though she enjoyed seeing Emma squirm. “You were right the first time.”
“Oh,” Emma sipped her coffee, and tried not to picture Stacy doing the same, being busy with a group of men. She shook her head. There was no way in the world Stacy would ever become involved in something so seedy. There was no need for it. She had a great job, it paid well. It wasn’t as though she was desperate for money.
Unless.
Unless she was forced into it.
She thought of Gregory’s ugly face and wondered if he’d had anything to do with it. Stacy wasn’t a pushover and she wouldn’t be coerced into doing anything like this. But how much did she really know of what went on in her sister’s life?
“Don’t be asking me to tell you what I do and who I do it with. And don’t you make the mistake of going to the police either.” The smile was gone from Queenie’s face..
“It’s not for the police. They’re not helping me look for my sister. I just need a lead. I just need to figure out what might have happened to her that night. She’s still missing. I need to know if she was—if she was—”
“If she was a hooker?”
Emma exhaled and closed her eyes.
“I don’t know. There were a few of us there. Some I didn’t know.”
“All of them were hookers?”
Queenie shrugged. “No. Only a small group of us were. The rest were guests. We weren’t there to stand around and make conversation with people. You understand what I’m saying?”
“So you wouldn’t really remember whether you saw my sister there or not?”
Queenie rolled her eyes. “Like I said, it was a big house. And there were lots of people there.”
Emma’s stomach heaved and the weight she had been carrying around for days seemed to have multiplied. “You reported your friend missing?”
Queenie nodded. “The next day. I went to the police station and told them. But they know about people like me and Courtney. They know.” She winked. “Some of them even like the service we provide.” Emma’s insides danced. She wasn’t sure she wanted to find out any more, yet desperation drove her on.
Queenie continued, “They don’t really care. When I told them Courtney hadn’t come home, they said she was probably too busy having a good time.”
“They said that to you?”
Queenie rolled her shoulders. “You heard the man talk to me just now. It shouldn’t surprise you.”
Emma knew. They’d also done nothing to find Stacy either. Was Stacy known to them as…one of those women?
“It’s a murder investigation now, and hopefully they’ll get closer to finding out what happened.”
Queenie drank the remains of her coffee. “Yeah? You think so? I’m not holding my breath for answers. I don’t know what happened to Courtney that night. I may never find out.”
“Doesn’t that bother you? Not knowing?”
Queenie looked thoughtful for a moment. “No.” She shook her head. “If I spent my time thinking about things I can’t control, seeing the kind of things I see, meeting the kinds of people I meet, I’d never get out of bed. I gotta earn to live. I gotta earn to eat. I gotta survive. You have to do what you have to do, and I have to do this. I don’t have your luxury of spending time trying to figure out what might or might not have happened. Most people are liars anyway. What makes you think people are telling you the truth?”
Emma found it hard to hear this. Was this how Queenie saw the world? Had all her interactions with people made her so jaded and bitter that she considered everyone to be bad and only concerned for themselves? Emma could see how things could get so desperate that a person started to believe nobody cared. She’d felt that way herself lately and she wasn’t in as terrible a situation as Queenie. She didn’t have to do what Queenie did for a living.
“But it could have been you!” Emma blurted out. “Or next time it might be.”
“And then you and Courtney would both be sitting here having breakfast and you’d be talking about me. She’d say the same thing to you. You gotta do what you gotta do. The police might tell the world and all the press people that they’re doing some investigating and shit, but it’s all for show. A hooker died. So what? This island will get over it.”
Emma was shocked at the blasé way the girl seemed to be dealing with it. Queenie must have noticed her ashen face. “Look, you’re not used to things like this. Don’t get me wrong, this kind of stuff doesn’t happen here too much. Sure, we have the gangs, and the shootings and the problems with drugs, but you give me one place in the world where those problems don’t exist. But this,” her voice seemed softer, and she placed her hand on the table, “this is scary. Poor Courtney. She didn’t deserve that.” Her eyes glazed over, shiny like water. Her tough veneer slipped momentarily. “I just gotta be more careful for a while.” She looked at Emma. “I’m scared. The motherfucker who did this is still out there. I just hope they catch him quickly before another poor girl ends up dead.”
“I hope so too.” Emma said slowly. “I hope they get him and lock him away.” Before he gets my sister. She hoped it wasn’t already too late.
“I hope you find her.” Queenie slid out of the booth. “Thanks for breakfast.”
“You’re welcome. Can I take your number? Here’s mine.” Emma scribbled it down on a napkin and gave it to her. “I might have more questions. You might need answers. There’s someone at the police station who knows I’m worried about my sister. She’s been telling me stuff. I can pass on what I hear from her about the murder investigation.” Ty’s request to keep everything to herself was quickly forgotten.
Queenie took the napkin and shoved it into her pocket.
“Please. Let me have your number.” Emma asked and wasn’t at all embarrassed by the desperate tone of her voice. “Here,” she gave the girl her cell phone. “Type it in.”
Queenie punched in some numbers and returned it to Emma who dialed the number straight away and was relieved when the cell phone nearby rang.
“Can I come with you to the next party?”
“What for?”
Emma shrugged. “Just to see.”
“You think your sister’s mixed up in all this, don’t you?”
“I’m not sure.” She wanted to see this seedy world for herself, up close and firsthand.
“And then what? What’re you going to do then? Parties aren’t that common. This was some special event. If you really want to see what we do come with me to Front Street when the big cruise ships come in.”
Emma thought about it. “Then call me.”
Queenie almost growled. “Are you serious about this? ‘Cos I don’t think it’s a good idea. You can’t just turn up and not do anything. The customers will get suspicious and think you’re undercover.”
She’d need to revisit her strategy. But she had to keep in touch with Queenie. “Call me if you find out anything on the street, about Courtney. If you find out who she might have gone with or where she was last seen. Anything. Please. It’s important to me.”
“What’s in it for me?” Queenie asked, putting her hands in her jacket.
“Breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Whatever you want.”
“I’ll think about it.” She rushed out of the diner, a sight that could hardly be missed in her animal print and purple jeans.
Emma walked over to the counter to settle the bill. “I’d like to pay for yesterday too” she said, remembering how she’d left in a rush yesterday without paying.
The
slight feeling of hope she’d had when she’d discovered that the dead girl wasn’t Stacy now disappeared in light of her conversation with Queenie. Finding out what had gone on at the mansion during the night of the party didn’t make for easy listening. And it was all the more unbearable to think that Stacy might have been involved.
Chapter 5
“I want to go home.” The girl told him. She looked a mess, and he hated tying her up the way he had to. But he couldn’t trust her still. She was feisty, even for someone who had been bound like she had been for days.
He was worried that she would try to escape—not knowing any better. He could tell she’d make a bolt for it given have a chance. But if she escaped she’d be dead, just like that other girl.
“You can’t,” he said and looked out of the tiny little window.
“Please. Please let me go.” Her face and eyes were red and tired from little sleep, from the fear of him holding her captive. Tears rolled down her eyes, and this time it seemed that her spirit had been broken.
His heart softened. Despite his misgivings, he couldn’t tell her much. She knew too much already, and it was enough to get her killed.
“I can’t,” he said, and moved away from her to the table where he’d scribbled down a few important details. He was still waiting for the main man to come back. What a time for a family accident. He didn’t trust anyone else with what he knew and until the main man came back Carter was stuck.
“But I haven’t done anything wrong. You can take my phone and I won’t ever say a thing. I swear. Please, just let me go.”
“I can’t.” He looked away from her; it was better for him not to get involved, not to get too close. He did what he did because he had to. Though situations such as this one were rare—him being in such close quarters. Usually he preferred the stakeouts, keeping his distance, watching from afar.
She wasn’t supposed to be here. She hadn’t been part of the equation. He’d been doing fine by himself. And he would have gotten something. He’d have had enough to put the man behind bars. Heck, he’d have left the island if it was just him.
But the girl complicated things. He’d been stuck here, trying to keep her from harm. Because of her the whole plan had changed and now it was worse. They didn’t know about him—why would they? But they knew the girl was out there somewhere. He had to lie low. He had to get her to be quiet. The moment they caught wind of her, she’d be gone and he would be back to square one. “You put me here and you can take me out again. You said my sister’s here. Don’t you think she’s worried sick about me? She’s just a kid.”
You’re just a kid, he thought, looking at her. She didn’t look much older, at a guess he put her in her early twenties. They didn’t look anything like one another, apart from the eyes.
“She’s worried. I’m all she’s got. She’s all I’ve got. Please.” The girl begged and he couldn’t take it anymore, he walked out, into the warm morning air. They had each other? Nobody else? He looked around him and listened to the silence, his ears always on alert for sounds that did not belong; for sounds that gave clues.
It looked dark here in the thick of the forest even though it was still morning. He’d tried to make things easier for her, he’d gotten her a couple of magazines for one thing, and he tried to give her privacy to use the small toilet in the back. There was an old sink and water pipe behind the shed, and each morning he’d take her out, accompanying her closely in case she bolted. So far she hadn’t.
He’d been here a couple of weeks earlier because he knew he’d need a place to hide out in case things ever turned bad. This was the way he did things, always cautious, always with a backup plan in place.
God knows he’d needed it this time around. The way things had worked out, nobody could have seen this coming.
Carter was waiting for the storm to break. That’s why he had to hide the girl. It was bad enough being burdened with one girl, but with her sister showing up on the scene as well, the potential for this to turn into a shitstorm was huge. He couldn’t be in two places at the same time and yet…
“She’s not here. Can I help?” After leaving the diner Emma returned to the police station hoping to find Ty but she wasn’t around. She was out, busy ‘with enquiries’.
Emma shook her head at the offer of help from the police officer and she left with no answers, again.
Just over an hour ago, she’d come to ask Ty about the girl’s cause of death—because she’d assumed that the dead girl had been Stacy and she’d needed to know how Stacy had died. The need to find out the cause of death had been pressing on her as much as finding out who’d killed her.
But now that it appeared the dead girl wasn’t her sister, things had turned around. She still needed verification from the police before she raised her hopes. If the dead girl really wasn’t Stacy, where was Stacy? Emma couldn’t rest; in a way, this recent discovery opened up more worrying thoughts. One body turning up could mean many things. She was hopeful, but others weren’t. They knew the odds. They knew the likelihood of Stacy being found alive.
Had her death been an accident? Or a deliberate act? Was it random? Her mind conjured up all these questions and more. Why hadn’t Ty called her? If the girl’s body had been identified, she would have expected Ty to have let her know by now.
Disappointed, Emma waited at the bus-stop. She had considered the idea of going to the Crystal Caves in Hamilton because the idea of returning to the apartment didn’t appeal to her. But at the same time, her heart wasn’t set on sight-seeing either.
She was restless, always on edge and the sheer weight of existing in this way was beginning to take its toll on her. The worry, coupled with her inability to sleep, had turned her into a walking mixture of mangled emotions.
News of the dead body had made the headlines and the TV news for most of the day. Everyone knew about the dead girl, and she assumed Carter did too.
She looked around, half-expecting him to come walking along the street, and was partly disappointed when he didn’t show. Between her and Queenie, and maybe Carter—depending on whether she trusted him enough—she stood some chance of getting closer to the truth about her sister.
There was nothing to do but go home and wait and try not to think about what she could or couldn’t do. She’d seen Stacy’s laptop in her room. Maybe she would spend the afternoon getting online and doing research. She wanted to watch the news and catch up on all the news reports to do with the dead girl.
She planned to go through Stacy’s belongings again in the hope of finding more clues.
When she walked into the apartment the TV was turned on high and Gregory sat, apparently riveted by the TV screen. News reports covering the murder flashed up images of the dead girl.
Victim Courtney Wellman. , The heading underneath a photo of a girl with long strawberry blonde hair and the most piercing blue eyes.
She was beautiful.
She’d been a prostitute? Emma looked aghast at the TV screen, at seeing the face of the girl for the first time. Her face would haunt the papers and prime time TV for the next few days.
Emma shook her head, wondering why a girl so beautiful and who could have been and done anything, would choose to go into prostitution.
Gregory was transfixed and didn’t hear her come in. Until she sneezed.
“Looks like it wasn’t your sister after all,” he said, snarling at her.
She ignored him and let her attention turn to the TV. “Reports say the body of twenty year old Courtney Wellman was found hidden in undergrowth in fields surrounding Hog Bay Beach. She was a sex worker who was already known to the police. Her death is being treated as suspicious although the cause of death is as yet unknown.” Gregory turned the TV off.
“I was watching that,” Emma snapped, “put it back on.”
He smiled at her, the lazy, big hulking oaf of a man who just sat there, appraising her.
“Put the fucking TV on.” She leapt towards him and tried to grab the T
V remote but he moved it just out of her reach.
“You asshole.”
He seemed to take offence at that and flung the remote across the room. She jumped, alarmed by his sudden violence. “A police officer turned up today, wanting to talk to you. What have you told them?” His face was all suddenly serious.
She frowned at him and her heart started to beat louder. She didn’t like the way he stared at her. It was odd. Eerie. Then she realized that one of his eyes was hazel and the other was blue. Even as her mind focussed on this seemingly trivial piece of information, blood rushed through her veins. She wanted to run, to get as far away from him and to reach a place of safety.
But her limbs were frozen, and she stood rooted to the ground as he walked toward her slowly.
“Nothing,” she answered. Why was he so mad?
“You sure about that?”
She shrank back. “Yes,” she said, trying to sound braver than she felt. “I haven’t told them anything.” To think that this morning she’d been at the police station looking for Ty and Ty had been over here, looking for her.
“Think again. Think very carefully about what you might have told them.”
She didn’t want Gregory to think she was scared of him. “What were you afraid I’d say?”
“I’m not afraid of anything. But I’m afraid for you.”
His threat hit home and now she was petrified. She heard the pounding of her blood in her ears. “I haven’t said anything.”