The Overseer

by Conlan Brown

  Devin held up a MAC-10. “I’m trying to ask you how firmly you believe this is worth it. Because these people are criminal. There is no government regulation on the human sex trade. There are no receipts, returns, or unions. There is no Better Business Bureau for the buying and selling of twelve-year-old boys as perverse playthings—there’s only this.” He tapped his index finger on the submachine gun.

  Hannah nodded.

  “People get shot every day over meth deals that have gone bad. It’s the nature of the black market. But these people aren’t cooking meth in their basements so they can sell it to kids on the street—they’re selling the kids on the street into other people’s basements—and they are not interested in losing their investment. And they’ll chop you into slices of meat if they catch you. Do you understand?”

  Something seemed to rumble inside of Hannah. Like a tremor exploding from inside of her. Some part of her wanted to cry— another wanted to scream. But she held it in—a fireworks display of emotion escaping in the solemn phrase: “I understand.”

  Devin looked over her face for an inordinate amount of time, studying her, trying to pick up on any hint of hesitation or fear that might work its way to the surface. Hannah focused on her breathing—pushing every thought out of her mind, dwelling as much as she could in the stillness and serenity of single-mindedness.

  “Good.” Devin nodded. He stood up and walked toward one of the grimy windows. “We need to do one last sweep of…” He stopped dead and stared out the glass.

  “What?” Hannah moved from the bed and came alongside Devin at the window.

  He pointed with one hand, grabbing her arm with another. “That’s them.”

  Hannah followed his pointing finger to a tiny dot on the distant highway—a mile or two away. A car or truck—impossible to tell at such a distance.

  “They’re coming back here,” Devin announced, pulling her away from the window. “They’re on their way now.”

  “Now?” she repeated, shocked. “How long?”

  “Two minutes. Maybe.”

  Hannah felt panic stab at her. Help me, God, she prayed silently in the recesses of her mind—then chastised herself. Now wasn’t the time to tell God what to do but to listen to what He had to say. She focused on the stillness.

  Devin moved to the table, picked up the Sig Sauer handgun, and began stuffing magazines of ammunition in his pockets. One magazine locked into place in the grip as Devin threw his back into the wall, handgun clenched at the ready, head peeking out the window.

  Hannah was suddenly overcome by the rashness of his actions. “Do you plan on shooting your way out?” she asked skeptically.

  Devin paused, obviously digesting some kind of vision he was having. “No,” he said definitively, “there are too many of them, and they’re too well armed. We have to get out of here.” Devin pointed to a nightstand. “Get my car keys.”

  Hannah rushed to the nightstand, seeing the keys lying there. Her hand reached out, and something stopped her.

  The girls being photographed.

  The pictures uploaded onto a computer.

  The images on the Internet—advertising to potential buyers.

  Logging vital information.

  Stashing the laptop in the room.

  Hannah stopped, fingertips barely touching the keys. Her focus shifted to the right.

  “What are you doing?” Devin asked, firm.

  “The laptop,” she said with purpose.

  Devin’s attention flashed to her. “What laptop?”

  She moved to the wardrobe against the wall, pulling the doors open, searching through the clothing hung there. “I have to find the laptop,” she said without hesitation.

  “There isn’t time,” Devin said roughly, grabbing the keys from the table himself. “We have to go.”

  “No.” Hannah shook her head. “They stored information on the laptop—where they’re keeping the girls. How and where they’re going to sell them!”

  Devin moved alongside her, pulling objects from the wardrobe with less care than Hannah, trying to help.

  “I need you to get the car,” Hannah said, pulling the drawers open.

  “But there’s no time. We have to—”

  “I’m sorry,” Hannah interrupted, “but you have to get the car. Bring it around. If I’m not there when you come around, you have to leave without me.”

  Devin shook his head. “No. The point was to rescue the girls they took, not give them someone else.”

  She rummaged through to the bottom of the drawer, then pulled the entire drawer out of its place, tossing it onto the bed. “Please, Devin. Go now. I need you to get the car!”

  Devin backed away, not taking his eyes off her.

  “Go!” she shouted.

  He turned, leaving the room.

  Hannah turned back to the wardrobe, pulling open the bottom drawer, rifling through it. The laptop wasn’t anywhere to be found. Maybe they’d taken it with them. That’s what she would have done. It made the most sense to her. But she wasn’t going to give up on it if it were still here.

  She heard a car engine outside. Devin? Or the others?

  What if they did grab her? What if she did become their next piece of cargo to buy and sell? What if…?

  She silenced her mind. Speculation was useless. The future hadn’t happened yet. It was only squawking birds that muddied any wisdom she might pull from this place.

  She looked at the mess on the nightstand.

  The nightstand.

  Hannah dropped to her knees, pulling open the bottom drawer, pulling it completely free. Beneath the drawer, resting on the carpet.

  A cloth case.

  She grabbed it, dragging it from beneath the bed, pulling the zipper with a ragged buzz.

  The laptop.

  Hannah pulled the zipper shut, standing. She moved to the window, shouting, “Devin, I—”

  A heavy-duty pickup truck pulled up next to the window.

  Not Devin.

  Haggard men. One with a tattoo.

  The dragon.

  She turned, ramming through the doors at the other side of the room, uncertain if he’d seen her. Through the hallway, into the room with the front desk. Another vehicle pulled up to her left.

  A midsized silver sedan.

  Devin.

  Hannah shoved the glass doors open—the jingle of the door’s bell announcing her presence with a chiming that froze her blood in her chest. She rushed outside and threw herself at the door.

  “Get in!” Devin shouted pointlessly as she leapt into the passenger seat.

  “Go!” she ordered with a kind of harsh whisper.

  Devin didn’t hesitate. His foot slammed on the gas, and the car took off—a billow of dust lifting after them, obscuring everything behind them.

  “Are they following us?” Hannah asked.

  “I don’t know,” Devin barked. “I can’t see anything through this dust!”

  Hannah spun in her seat. “What do I do if they’re following?”

  “Here,” Devin said, shoving the Sig Sauer at her.

  “Devin, are you sure?”

  They hit the pavement hard as they climbed up from the gravel they had been screaming across and took off across the paved road, toward the highway.

  In the distance Hannah saw the figures disappear into the motel. They hadn’t figured out what was happening yet. But that would change soon. They would find the body, know that someone had ransacked the place. And then they would come tearing after.

  The motel vanished beneath the horizon as the speedometer reached seventy.

  “We got away?” Hannah asked, incredulous.

  “Maybe,” Devin nodded, looking in the rearview mirror.

  Hannah scanned the paved horizon behind them. “Will they come after us?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Will they find us?” she asked, tapping her finger against the trigger guard of the pistol in her hand.

  “They’re cert
ainly going to try.”

  Hannah set the gun next to the gearshift and pulled the laptop from its case. “Then there isn’t much time.”

  Chapter 13

  JOHN MOVED QUICKLY along the Las Vegas Strip, passing the statues of Caesar’s Palace and the fountains of Bellagio, daylight scorching every patch of unshaded world. His feet, fettered in dress shoes, ached. Yesterday’s dress pants and shirt—unbuttoned and flapping as he moved through the still, nearly nonexistent air. His shirt was soaked. Despite the fact that he’d ditched his sport coat, he was still boiling.

  He had always been quick to adapt to new temperatures— rain forests all over the world had been his home in six- to eight-week stretches for years. But the quick movement—racing along sidewalks at the fastest pace one could without drawing attention—was enough to melt him from the inside out. They passed a fake volcano near the street, and he could swear he felt even more heat radiating off of it.

  Trista, on the other hand, was unfazed. She’d been able to change her clothes but was still in women’s dress slacks and a red knit top. Her shoes, while no longer high heels, were not what John would have considered to be sensible either.

  None of this stopped her. Or even slowed her down.

  She marched forward with purpose and resolve, head snapping side to side as she looked at every possible thing that might be of interest. Eyes darting from the kitschy Eiffel Tower to the glass pyramid of the Luxor. Her judgments were almost instantaneous—look, assess, move on. Every few minutes she would cast her head over her shoulder toward John, speaking quickly, saying something that was of interest.

  The same stretches of pavement they had been walking along for nearly an hour and a half were all starting to blur—in part from repetition, in part from the speed with which they blasted past. The only thing that changed were the swirls and swarms of passing pedestrians that walked, moved, and sauntered across the same stretches of sidewalk and pavement—oblivious to any coming trouble.

  Trista stopped on the sidewalk, looking at John.

  “This is the place—that’s for certain.” She glanced at the buildings that surrounded them: the MGM Grand on one side of the street, the Excalibur on the other. “What about you? What have you felt?”

  “I…” He had nothing to add, he realized. John shrugged. “I’ve got nothing.”

  Trista glanced at a car, then back to John. “Devin is tied up with Hannah, trying to find the girls that were taken. He needs our help establishing the scene while he’s away. OK?”

  John nodded.

  “I need you to focus. Do you understand?”

  He nodded again, more slowly this time.

  Trista cleared her throat. “I’m sorry if I sounded impatient. You know how stressed I can get on a deadline.” She forced a smile. “Do you need to take a break?”

  John sat on the edge of a planter, hung his head to rest it for a moment, then looked up. Flocks of people from all around the world moved both ways along the busy sidewalk. Just beyond them the street was jammed bumper to bumper with cars. A truck passed slowly—a moving billboard, taking deliberate advantage of the nearly stopped traffic. On the side of the bright red truck was a picture of a woman—wearing next to nothing. “Full escort service,” the truck said in big yellow letters, a phone number located just below.

  The woman was smiling—at him? It was all so much easier than dealing with a flesh-and-blood woman—someone with needs and feelings, someone who was so easy to fail. He averted his eyes, looking at the fountains of Bellagio that swayed in the distance.

  “Are you going to marry him?” John asked without thinking.

  “Do you mean Holden?” Trista asked.

  He nodded without looking at her, wiping a river of oily sweat from his taxed face.

  Trista turned to him, arms crossed. She walked toward John and sat down on the planter beside him. “Do you really want to know?” she asked without looking at him.

  “Yes,” he said, taking an anticipatory breath, “I do.”

  Trista was silent for several minutes as a host of Las Vegas tourists passed by. “I told him no,” she said without emotion. “I told him no before I ever left Belize.”

  John didn’t speak for several minutes, trying to feel something—but it was like his heart was frozen in a block of ice, so prepared to hurt that it wasn’t ready to do anything else. “Why did you tell him no?” he asked after several minutes.

  She stood, avoiding a retired couple in matching T-shirts as they walked by, arms filled with bags. “Does it matter?”

  John stood. “I guess I just…”

  Something soured in his chest—a feeling of disgust. There was something dark and impenetrable nearby. Not just a feeling. A face. Like someone was watching for them.

  Then he saw it with his mind’s eye.

  Angelo.

  What had been a steady marching of his heart was interrupted by a furious flame, the tempo skyrocketing in speed.

  “Trista!” He stepped toward her, grabbing her arm, eyes shifting side to side as he looked for the mysterious figure.

  She seemed surprised, eyes focused sharply on John. “What are you—?”

  He yanked her away from the place where they had stopped, pulling her as fast as he could.

  Angelo’s eyes remained closed.

  Sweat slipped across his body. Down his face. His back. Through his hair.

  The hot sun on his black clothes. Black jacket.

  He could feel the past. Amorphous and clouded—his personal memories wiped away. Somewhere in the past were needles and flashing lights. Corruption and confusion. And now he stood, feeling it all happening around him, heading straight back into the living hell that had no name or form. Something he dreaded— it was all happening again, and none of them would be safe.

  His mind searched for them.

  Trying to find—

  His eyes snapped open.

  They were in the street below. Beyond the glass of the shop he stood in. In the midst of the crowd.

  They knew he was here.

  They would run.

  He would catch them. And stop them.

  “What’s happening?” Trista demanded, confused by the hand that was holding her arm so tightly. John pulled her through the plodding mess of tourists. “Where are we going?”

  “Angelo,” John said again—face sullen, voice serious.

  “Here?” she asked, face snapping side to side, looking for the mysterious—

  John spun suddenly and thrust a finger as if it were a spear tip, jabbing toward a building across the street. Tall glass for walls—a figure in black, ragged and unkempt. A wild drifter. Angelo. Rushing down the stairs, visible through the glass, racing toward the bottom floor. Toward the street.

  “John!” she exclaimed, as if he didn’t already know what was happening. Trista looked back at him.

  His face was serious—rough, almost angry. “Come on!” he ordered, pulling her with a swift jerk to her arm.

  They moved through the crowd, pushing through the windows in the crush, worming their way as quickly as possible through the forest of swishing tourists. Their speed was hardly faster than a walk despite the fact that they were passing everyone else as if they weren’t moving at all.

  A truck horn, low and blustering, let off a set of angry beeps. Trista’s vision blurred for a moment as her attention raced toward the commotion. It was Angelo, rushing across the street, through the traffic. Another beeping horn as he got in the way of another already delayed vehicle.

  She heard John’s voice before she felt his firm grip jerk her along: “Run!”

  Trista took off after John as he pulled her along for the first few steps, then let go. They charged forward, her feet pounding out a rapid rhythm as they weaved and dodged through the ever-shifting maze of humanity.

  Someone shouted behind them. A woman and her bags toppled onto the sidewalk. Trista stole a glance back and saw what she feared: Angelo ramming his way through foot t
raffic like a charging bull.

  One pedestrian blurred with the next as the whole world became a flashing tumult of people, sunlight, and reflective glass. Trista’s feet thundered against the ground—faster and faster. John was ahead of her, his hand reaching for her every few seconds, grabbing at her, tugging her in one direction or another, then letting go so she could maneuver faster. Every step her pace increased, and with every increase in speed John became harder to make out through the crowd.

  “This way!” John announced, shouting as he grabbed her wrist, pulling her into traffic.

  A car horn screamed as her feet hit the pavement, weaving through cars—all virtually stopped. Across the lanes, dodging polished vehicles—most, freshly washed rentals.

  Trista followed John along the side of a big red truck, watching him disappear around the front end.

  A second behind. She turned the corner.

  “John!” she shouted over the traffic noise, the truck horn reprimanding her with a harsh blast of loud noise. John Temple was nowhere to be seen.

  More honking. Her glance stole to the traffic light down the street.

  Green.

  Every stagnant car in the street began to shoulder its way forward with as much speed as possible.

  Trista found herself between lanes, cars rushing forward to either side. The truck passed and she looked back, the red curtain of the trailer pulling away.

  A raucous symphony of car horns and profanity.

  Angelo—climbing over car hoods, rushing through the obstacles ahead of him with uncanny speed. Trista launched herself across the last lane, hand raised to warn the oncoming traffic.

  She clambered across the median, plunging into another rushing stream of cars trying to make it through the green light. She was halfway through the second lane when she heard the sound of a human voice over the blaring of car horns.

  “Trista!”

  She recoiled, swinging for John’s throat before she realized who had grabbed her arm. He pulled her between the vehicles, her feet touching the sidewalk after just a few short moments.