One Among Us

by Paige Dearth

  Bingo! Maggie thought. That was the same information she’d read about Harker. It also matched the information that Emma had provided to her about the detective. Colby watched the visible transformation as Maggie started to recognize the truth. Suddenly, she leaned into him a little closer. She let her arms, which were always folded over her chest, relax by her sides.

  “Maggie, I’m the real deal. I know you have to trust me; but the truth is, I have to be able to trust you, too. The way I see it, we’re both in the same boat. Agreed?” Colby asked leaning closer to her.

  “Yeah, I guess so. But it’s still going to take me some time,” she cautioned him.

  “I have time. I don’t have a whole lot of patience, but I have time. So when can we get started?” Colby pressed.

  “Started on what?” Maggie shrieked.

  “Get started on getting you and the others out of this place,” he said in an attempt to give her hope.

  The vein on Maggie’s neck began to rapidly pulsate. Of course, she wanted to get out of her situation. But she wondered where they would all go. She couldn’t go home, not after all that had happened. She would love to see her parents again, but too much time and abuse had put that dream to rest. She didn’t want to disrupt Rob and Lorraine Clarke’s life any more than it had been already. She wondered for a moment what her younger brother, Keith, was like. Seth had long since replaced the brother she once knew and loved. She believed that Keith’s life had been great, full of love and happiness, just the way her parents had treated her.

  “I think we need to take this one step at a time, Colby. I mean, you’re expecting a lot of things to happen. You’re making it sound so simple,” Maggie cautioned.

  “Nothing about this process is going to be simple, Maggie. We have a lot of work ahead of us. It will be like sailing through shark-infested waters on a blow-up raft. For now, all I need you to do is answer my questions honestly. As we move further into this process, the questions will become harder and more personal,” Colby warned, pausing to give Maggie time to process what he was saying.

  “I see. Well, if I decide to help, how will I know that I’ll be safe?” Maggie asked.

  Colby took her hand in his. An electric wave fired from Maggie’s fingertips, energizing her whole body. She wanted to pull her hand away from him, but she couldn’t let go of the feelings that his touch released; it felt magical. Maggie flushed with embarrassment, and she hoped that Colby wouldn’t notice.

  As it was, he didn’t notice at all; he was too caught up in the realization that his heart was jack hammering and his lungs felt as though they were constricted. The two sat together, waiting for the other to pull away. They might have sat on the sofa for all eternity if it hadn’t been for a loud banging on the apartment door.

  “Open the fuckin’ door!” Rock hollered.

  Chapter One Hundred Four

  “OK, I’ll be right there,” Maggie yelled back.

  She ripped off her shirt and looked at Colby with wide eyes. “Take your shirt off,” she whispered, “Hurry up!”

  Maggie stood and stared at Colby, who was naked from the waist up. For a moment, she was distracted, taking in every inch of him. He had a broad chest and rock-solid biceps. His stomach looked as though someone had carved the muscles that ran from the top of his rib cage all the way down to his pelvis. Colby’s pants hung just below the hipbones and revealed the sculpted V where the muscles converged between his hips.

  Rock pounded on the door again, snapping Maggie out of her stupor. “Bitch, ya better open this door now, or I’ll break it the hell in!”

  Maggie grabbed the knob and pulled the door wide open. Rock stalked through, grabbed Maggie under the chin, and pushed her up against the wall. Colby rose from his spot on the sofa, and Rock looked him over.

  “Sit the hell down,” Rock ordered.

  Colby sat on the edge of the sofa. “What’s going on here? I paid up front for a full hour.”

  “You’ll get your full hour, but right now I need to talk to this stupid whore,” Rock said, tightening his grip on Maggie.

  “Wh-h…what, Rock?” Maggie managed.

  “What? That asshole kid of yours talked Joey into running away. I wanna know where she is. Now!” he demanded.

  “I-I don’t know. You have to believe me, Rock,” she gasped through the stranglehold he had on her.

  Rock loosened his grip just a smidgen. “Talk!”

  Maggie pulled air into her lungs in short, curt breaths. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You need to let me talk to Seth. He would never do anything to deceive you. This is probably just a misunderstanding. Please, just let me talk to Seth, and I’ll come find you. I swear.”

  Rock looked her over. “You have an hour to find me, and you better have the information I need. You hear me?” he grunted.

  “Yes, yes, I hear you. I’ll find you in an hour,” Maggie promised.

  Rock took one more glance at Colby before he left. Once the door closed behind him, Maggie slid down the wall and sat on the floor in a heap.

  Colby moved to her quickly. “Are you OK? Did he hurt you?”

  Maggie looked up at Colby, her mascara racing down her cheeks with her tears. “I’m fine. I need to leave and find Seth,” she stated.

  “I’ll help,” Colby offered.

  “No, you can’t come with me. You should know a john would never help a hooker. I’ll see you another time, but right now I need to take care of my kid,” Maggie told him.

  Maggie quickly put her shirt back on, grabbed her purse from the floor, and flung it over her shoulder. Taking one final look at Colby, she left the apartment to find Seth.

  She ran the four blocks back to their studio apartment and pushed the door open with a bang. Juju and Seth jumped from where they were sitting on the floor.

  “What the hell’s wrong?” Juju asked, alarmed.

  Maggie looked straight at Seth. “Where’s Joey?”

  Seth, in a state of shock, drew in a breath. “I don’t know, Aggie. I swear, I don’t know,” he said.

  Maggie knew he wasn’t lying. “When is the last time you saw her?”

  “Friday at school. Why?” Seth began to walk back and forth in the small room. “What happened to her?” he screeched, desperation dripping from his voice.

  “I don’t know what happened to her,” Maggie said.

  “But today’s Sunday, Aggie! Has she been missing all weekend?” Seth bellowed.

  “I don’t know. Rock thinks she ran away from home and that you know where she is,” Maggie told him.

  “All right. Here’s what we’re gonna do. Let’s go find Rock and tell him Seth hasn’t seen Joey since school on Friday,” Juju suggested.

  Seth ran to the door and then turned to the two girls. “What if Rock doesn’t believe us?” he asked with apprehension.

  “He’s gotta believe us. We don’t know shit. He’ll see that. Let’s just go,” Juju said, following Seth and Maggie and pulling the door shut behind her.

  They walked to Rock’s house in silence, each of them lost in thought—in fear, actually, that something unthinkable had happened to Joey. Only when they were standing in front of Rock’s house did Juju break the silence.

  “You guys, we need to be prepared to fight. Do you understand? If Joey ran away, Rock won’t believe that we don’t know anything about it,” Juju warned.

  Seth listened with a deep sense of sorrow. “I don’t care about Rock. I just wanna find Joey. We gotta find her ’cause I know something bad happened to her. I can feel it,” Seth said.

  Maggie instincts were telling her the same thing. “OK, let’s go in and see Rock,” Maggie said, walking up the steps to the front door with a greater sense of urgency.

  Maggie knocked at Rock’s front door while the other two stood beside her. Thelma got to the door first and immediately scowled when she saw Seth. “What the fuck you want?” she greeted.

  “We’re here to see Rock,” Maggie informed her.

/>   A second later, Rock came up behind his wife.

  “Let ’em in, Thelma. They’re gonna tell us where Joey went,” he said.

  “Oh. You the bastards that took my baby?” Thelma asked.

  “No, we didn’t take her!” Seth blurted.

  Rock grabbed Seth by the collar of his shirt, but the young boy wasn’t the same little rag doll he’d once been, and it took a little more effort to make him wince. Rock put his nose against Seth’s. “Unless ya want trouble that ya don’t know how to handle, ya better settle down, boy,” he seethed.

  Maggie pulled on Seth’s arm to bring him into her. She put her arm over his shoulder and looked at Rock, her eyes begging for mercy. “We need to talk to you, Rock.”

  Rock watched her intently. Finally, he said, “Yeah, you better have somethin’ good to tell me. That’s all I know.” He led them down the front hallway and into his office.

  Maggie’s stomach was churning. How were they going to talk their way out of this one?

  Chapter One Hundred Five

  “But Seth doesn’t know where Joey is,” Maggie stated.

  “I don’t believe him. Look at him…I can’t even stand the sight of him,” Rock shot back at her.

  Rock had been interrogating Seth for the past thirty minutes. Seth, who was worried sick about Joey, had broken down and started to cry. Then he turned angry and began to argue with Rock. That’s when Maggie stepped in to deflect the fury building behind Rock’s simmering eyes.

  Finally, unable to stand by quietly, Juju asked Maggie and Seth to wait for her outside. When they were gone, she turned to Rock. “Have you looked down in the basement? Remember the things Thelma did to Seth?” she reminded him.

  “What are ya sayin’, Juju? Are you tryin’ to say that Thelma is crazy?” Rock roared.

  “No. What I’m saying is that Thelma likes to party…sometimes a little too much. She could have put Joey down the basement and just forgot,” Juju stated cautiously, not wanting to become the focus of his aggression.

  “Fine! Go and look down the basement and come back and tell me if she’s down there,” Rock said.

  While Juju was gone, Rock thought about Thelma. He decided that Juju could be right; Thelma may have done something with the girl and forgotten it. He thought back to Friday night, when Thelma and her girlfriend had been pretty fucked up. He had left them a lot of dope, and by the time he got back to the house, a little past one o’clock in the morning, the two of them were still going strong. He remembered what Thelma had asked as she looked directly into his face. “Is that you, Rock? Is that you, baby?”

  Thelma was so high she couldn’t even be sure that he was her husband. That was a first for her. Rock thought back to when he and Thelma were young, before the drug use. She had been such an innocent girl. But over time, drugs and alcohol had won the race. Her addiction had built slowly over a three-year period. Now, her sole purpose in life was to get rip-roaring hammered every day.

  Juju stepped back into the office, interrupting Rock’s thoughts. “Well, was she down there?” Rock asked with mocking sharpness.

  “No, but that doesn’t mean Thelma didn’t do something to her. You know Thelma ain’t right when she’s on a heavy binge,” Juju said.

  Rock gave her a hard look—the kind of look that let her know she was on thin ice and needed to be careful about what she said next.

  “All I’m sayin’ is that we should look around a little bit. I’m just bein’ realistic, Rock. Look, I know Joey didn’t run away, ’cause if she did, Seth would know where she went. When Maggie asked him about Joey, I could tell by the look on his face he didn’t know nothin’. So? Can we look around a little?” Juju asked apprehensively.

  Rock considered what she was saying. He didn’t like it, but he also didn’t like the thought that Joey was somewhere in his house dead and rotting.

  “Yeah, OK. But listen real good. I don’t want Thelma to know what you’re doin’. So if she asks, I’m payin’ you to clean up around here,” Rock warned.

  “OK, I’ll go get Seth and Maggie—” Juju started.

  “Nah, I don’t want that whore and that little asshole in my house. You can look inside. Tell the two of them to keep searching the neighborhood. Tell ’em to ask people if they saw her,” Rock instructed.

  When Juju went outside to tell Maggie and Seth the plan, she found them huddling close together next to a large tree. The temperature was below freezing, and the wind was whipping, making it unbearable to be outside for a sustained period.

  “Fuck! It’s freezin’ out here,” Juju said.

  “No kidding. What took you so long?” Maggie asked, her teeth chattering.

  “I convinced Rock to let me look around his house. I thought maybe Joey was down in the basement, but she ain’t. So now he’s gonna let me take a look upstairs and all. I told him Thelma could’ve gotten real fucked up, and maybe she put Joey somewhere,” Juju explained.

  “Good. Let’s go back inside. I’m freezin’,” Seth announced.

  “You can’t,” Juju told them honestly. “Rock is being a dick. He doesn’t want either of you inside the house. I’ll tell ya what. You guys cut through the back and head down to the deli on Kensington near Somerset. I’ll take a look around and then meet you there.”

  “I’m not so sure about leaving you here by yourself. What if something happens and we’re not around?” Maggie asked.

  “Nothing is gonna happen. You’re such a worrywart. Now go! If you cut through Rock’s backyard, it’ll be quicker,” Juju suggested.

  “Come on,” Seth told Maggie, pulling her by the arm. “I know how to get there.”

  “You have to be careful,” Maggie instructed Juju before leaving her. “Rock isn’t exactly trustworthy. If you don’t meet us in forty-five minutes, we’re coming back.”

  “I’ll be fine. Now just go before we all freeze to death out here,” Juju said, wrapping her arms tighter around her chest.

  As Maggie and Seth reached Rock’s backyard, the wind howled. They felt as if they were being sliced by razor blades. They clung to each other, struggling to walk against the strong wind. Then, to their disbelief, they felt sleet. Suddenly, they were inching through driving sleet and rain.

  Seth pulled Maggie toward a small shed. “Come on, hurry up! We can go in there until it stops,” Seth yelled over the strong wind.

  Seth pushed the slide bolt to the right. Opening the door quickly, they stepped inside and pulled the door closed behind them. The temperature inside the small space wasn’t any warmer, but at least they were out of the cutting wind and hammering sleet. Inside, the space was dark, the only light coming through tiny holes in the weathered old roof. Maggie could just about see the old paint cans and garden tools scattered around the shed. She led them over to the middle of the shed, and they crouched down together, trying to keep each other warm.

  In a barely audible voice, Seth whispered, “Aggie, what if Joey is dead?”

  “She isn’t dead, Seth. Don’t think that way. We’re going to find her,” she responded, attempting to keep his hope alive.

  But Maggie had been thinking the same thing. Now, Seth was feeding her own fear that they had lost the girl forever.

  “Ohhhhh.”

  “Did you hear that?” Seth asked.

  “Hear what?”

  “Ohhhhh.”

  “That! Did you hear that sound, Aggie?”

  “Ohhhhh.”

  “There it is again!” Seth said with alarm.

  “It’s just the wind, baby,” Maggie assured him.

  “Ohhhhh.”

  “That’s not the wind, Aggie,” Seth insisted as he rose and strained against the noise of the howling wind to listen for the sound he’d heard.

  “Ohhhhh.”

  The sound was faint, but Seth pushed deeper into the shed, struggling to hear it. He followed his instincts to the back of the shed.

  “Ohhhhh.”

  “Over here!” Seth yelled.

 
Maggie moved quickly to his side. A large, canvas, drop cloth was spread over something. They pulled the canvas back, and underneath was a child’s plastic toy box. Seth gave Maggie a grave glance as she moved forward and opened the lid. Inside was Joey, curled up in a fetal position.

  “Oh my God,” Maggie said.

  Seth rushed in. “Joey? Joey? Can you hear me?”

  Joey opened her eyes just a tiny bit but then closed them again.

  “Help me,” Maggie yelled over the whooshing of the wind, and the thrashing of sleet and rain, against the thin metal structure.

  Seth maneuvered himself around the piles of junk, and together they lifted Joey out of the toy box. Maggie motioned for Seth to lay her on top of the canvas, and then she wrapped the child in the stiff, cold fabric. She felt for a pulse.

  “She’s alive,” Maggie told Seth. “Her pulse is weak, but she’s still alive!”

  Seth began to run his hand over the canvas feverishly, willing Joey to live and trying to warm her up.

  “Ohhhhh,” the soft sound came from deep in Joey’s throat.

  “No, don’t touch her, Seth. I think it hurts. She might have broken bones,” Maggie stated with authority.

  “Stay with her,” Maggie told the frightened boy.

  He crouched next to Joey, afraid he’d lose her; he was scared that she was going to die while he sat there and did nothing to help her.

  Maggie pushed the shed door open and raced around to the front of Rock’s house. She banged on the door with a fierce intensity. She watched through the small window as Rock thumped down the hallway, mad as hell.

  He swung the door open. “What the hell is your problem, bitch?”

  “We found her. She needs help,” Maggie screeched in a high voice.