Out of habit I kept the empty gun poised in front of me, lifted the latch and pushed the door open.
Two single bulbs hung down from the ceiling, attached to orange extension cords that ran the length of the roof and connected to a small generator on the far wall. It purred in a graveled tone, light but not indiscernible. The bulbs threw harsh yellow light down on the interior, illuminating everything.
An elderly woman sat in a wooden chair across from me, her eyes locked on mine. She wore a long plaid jumper and a wool cardigan. She had silver hair and tired eyes and when she realized I wasn't one of Rifkin's men, a look of genuine relief spread over her face. Around her right ankle was a heavy metal cuff, a silver chain snaking away from it and disappearing behind the generator.
On either side of the room were two long rows of cots, all of them with matching green blankets and thin pillows. They were shoved head-to-foot tight against one another, none of them more than three or four feet in length.
Each of the beds was filled with lumps of indiscernible size, all of them curled up tight beneath their blankets. I stood in the half opened doorway and swept my gaze over the room, trying to find the one precious object I was there to receive.
A few heads popped up to examine me as I stood there, their eyes heavy with sleep.
"Annie?" I called aloud. At the sound of my voice several more heads raised from their pillows. A pair of little girls began to cry. "Annie?"
My heart pounded as I walked into the room. I stuffed the Luger back into the waist of my pants and walked forward, hands by my side, head swinging from side to side.
"Unka O?" a tiny voice asked, a small mound moving to the old woman's left.
My heart surged into overdrive. My tongue swelled to twice its normal size and I covered the length of the container in just a few quick steps. "Annie?"
"Unka O!" she squealed, thrashing her little body atop the mattress. I was beside her in two long bounds and tore back the heavy blanket.
There, lying in a plain white jumper, was Annie, staring up at me with enormous blue eyes. She wasn't crying, but she was clearly terrified. She wriggled like a seal atop the mattress, trying in vain to get to me. Padded cords were wrapped around her feet and wrists, keeping from her moving. "Unka O!"
I dropped to the bed and lifted her onto my lap. I started with her feet, using my damaged hands to unwrap the cords from her as fast as I could before moving on to her hands. The minute she was free she stood on the bed and leapt her small body onto me. Her arms wrapped around my neck and her mop of blonde curls cascaded across my face. I wrapped my right arm around her as tight as I could.
For the first time in eighteen hours I felt no pain whatsoever.
For the first time in twelve years, I wept like a baby.
We both did.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
All told there were nine children in the container. Nine children with families just like mine, all somewhere nearby worried sick about their young ones. All but two of the children were girls, none more than four years old.
I shuddered at the fates that would have awaited them. To think someone like me spent five years in jail when bastards like that walked free.
The old woman didn't even bother to watch me as one by one I untied the children. Many of them were petrified for me to even touch them as I unwound the padded straps. A few bore the telltale bruises that told me why. I worked as fast as my hands and my dropping strength would allow, Annie never more than a few inches from my side. When the last one was free, I gathered them by the door and told them to follow me. I gave one last look into the container that had served as a carriage into hell for untold numbers of children and watched as the old woman opened her eyes, raised her head and murmured, "Thank you."
I didn't bother to respond in any way.
Before I went out I grabbed a handful of green blankets from the beds and dropped them across the bodies of the fallen guards. I motioned towards the cabin for Smiley to do the same and paused a few seconds to let him to do so. The rain had lightened up a bit, though it continued to fall in a steady drizzle over everything.
I bent at the waist in front of the children, all of them staring back at me with eyes wide and fear on their face. "Okay everybody, we don't like it in here do we?" I shook my head from side to side and watched as many of them matched it. "And we're ready to get out, aren't we?" I bobbed my head this time, the gesture matched by almost all of them. "Okay, I want everybody here to hold hands with one other person and follow me, okay?"
I grabbed Annie up from the ground and held her in my right arm, her head resting against my shoulder. Behind us the children paired up and as a group we walked out into the rain towards the cabin. I covered Annie as best I could, my left arm hanging useless by my side. I turned my shoulder into the wind and walked sideways across the deck, shielding her and watching to make sure the other children followed. Beyond them I stared at the green blankets tucked tight beneath the guards, praying they wouldn't blow free.
Smiley held open the cabin door as we approached. Every bit of color had drained from his face and his mouth hung agape as he stared at the children marching into the cabin like soldiers. All of them were paired up, tiny hands clinging to one another, their faces plastered with tears and rain. Annie and I stood to the side of the door by the stairs until the last ones entered before sliding in ourselves. "You look like you've seen a ghost," I said to Smiley as we walked through.
"I'd rather see an army of ghosts than what just walked in here," Smiley said. He blinked fast as he stared at me, looking like he might cry as well.
"You really didn't know," I murmured.
He shook his head without saying a word.
"How about the woman chained up out there?" I asked. "Any idea who she is?"
His mouth dropped open even further. "There's a woman chained up in there?"
It was clear he knew nothing about any of this. Being blackmailed into shipping some contraband paled in comparison to what he now realized he'd been doing.
I glanced past him to the light blue quilt covering the guard's body on the floor. The children milled nearby in a tight cluster, but none gave the misshapen blob a second glance. "Do you have anywhere to put them?"
He looked at me with mournful eyes and nodded. I lowered Annie to the floor and immediately she wrapped her arms around my leg. My strength was almost gone and my vision was getting blurry. I had one last thing to do, and I had to get it done before I went under. I could feel it coming, I just had to do what I could to stave it off as long as possible.
Smiley looked down at the tiny figure wrapped around my leg. "Yours?"
"Niece," I replied. "Do you have a cell-phone I can use?"
He grabbed an ancient Nokia from atop the steering column and handed it to me. He didn't ask why I needed it or who I was calling, just began to shuffle the children past the guard on the floor and into his living quarters. I had no idea what was on the other side of that door, but I trusted he would see to the children as best he could in there.
The bottom half of the oversized phone folded down to reveal the keypad. I still had Watts' card in my pocket, but I didn't bother digging it out. I pressed out the numbers from memory and slid myself to the floor beneath a map of the tri-state area. Annie released her grip on my leg until I was situated, then crawled into my lap and rested her head against my chest. My entire body was cold and wet, but she didn't seem to mind.
I was thankful she didn't. Even though her tiny frame was just a fraction of mine, her body warmth helped tremendously.
The phone rang just twice before Watts picked up, her voice tired and irritated. She sounded annoyed to be fielding a call from an unknown number, but I was just glad she did it. "Watts."
"Where are you?" I asked. My voice was thin. The lights were going out. I knew it, and I couldn't do anything to mask it.
Her tone shifted from annoyed to concerned in an instant. "Where the hell are you? My guy says they swarmed
Rifkin's place a half hour ago. Drugs, guns, prostitutes, they found everything in there except you."
"Or my niece," I whispered.
Watts drew in a sharp breath of air. "Did you find her? Is she with you?"
"She's with me," I said. The soft curls of Annie's head rested against my chin. I wanted so much to wrap an arm around her and pulled her tight, but my left arm refused. My right had to hold up the largest cell-phone I'd ever seen.
"Oh, thank God," Watts whispered.
"So are eight other children," I added.
Watts tone downshifted. Not all the way back into cop-mode, but at least half way there. "Eight others? Are they alive?"
"Everyone's okay," I said. "Well, everyone but me." I tried to chuckle, but the sounds caught in my throat.
"Where are you?" Watts asked. "Are you going to make it?"
"I'm on a barge somewhere on the Ohio River. The Coast Guard is en route, I'm sorry but I don't know any more than that."
"Are you going to make it?" she repeated. In her voice was genuine concern. If I was more alert, I would have been touched.
"I'll see you soon," I said and flipped the phone off. I let it drop to the floor, the sound making Annie flinch against me. She pulled back, her blue eyes looking me over.
A stubby finger pointed at my arm. "Booboo?"
"Yeah, that's a booboo.”
She pointed at the side of my face. "Booboo."
"Booboo," I confirmed.
Finally she looked down at the cast on my hand. "Big booboo."
I smiled. "Yeah sweetie, big booboo."
Outside, a Coast Guard horn sounded. It whooped twice, followed by someone giving instructions over the a.m. radio. I couldn't make out a word of it. I stayed awake just long enough to see Smiley emerge from the back room before I finally succumbed to the darkness.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
I awoke to see bright lights above me. Not the kind of lights at the far end of a tunnel that people claim to be walking towards as they experience their last few moments on earth. The kind of fluorescent hospital lights that are three feet square with a frosted plastic plate over them. The kind that bathes everything they touch in an unnatural white light.
I blinked several times. My mind was foggy, though not the same kind of exhausted foggy it had been just a short time before.
Drugged foggy.
A dull beeping sound worked its way into my consciousness, followed by the drone of voices not far away. I rolled my head to the left to see my entire arm looked like it had been mummified, save a few inches around my elbow and shoulder. A new cast encased from mid-forearm down to my hand and a thick swath of bandages covered my entire upper arm. Dull pressures registered at several different places around my body, though none approached anything resembling pain.
I was going to be in a world of hurt once the painkillers wore off.
"Annie?" I whispered, my voice coming out like a croak.
"Unka O!" a voice exclaimed beside me, pulling my head to the right. Seated there beside the bed was Lex, Annie cradled in her arms. Behind them was Watts, leaning with one shoulder against the door. She held a cell-phone pressed to her face and looked like she'd been talking when Annie drew her attention into the room.
"Hey sugar," I whispered. "How are you?"
"I good," she said, offering me an oversized grin. "Look, it’s mommy!"
"I see that," I said, dropping my right hand out the side, palm up. Lex reached out around Annie and it took it in hers, tears pooling in her eyes.
"Thank you," she mouthed as Annie slapped both of her hands down on ours and laughed with delight.
"Is she okay?" I asked.
"She's fine," Lex said. "They all are."
I let my head fall back against the pillow. It wouldn't have taken much for me to close my eyes right then and not wake up for days. The thought of finding Annie, of helping Lex, had been fueling me since I left Wyoming. Now that she was safe, the full extent of what I'd been through was taking hold.
I was really going to be miserable when the meds wore off.
Watts snapped her phone shut and walked up behind Lex and Annie. She gave me a look resembling a smile as I rolled my head to the side to look at her without raising it from the pillow. "Wait until the boys back on the ranch here about you in a gown," she said. I sensed it was her trying to be funny, even if her timing was a bit off.
I decided to humor her attempt nonetheless.
"They better not have messed up my boots," I replied with a small smile.
"I think if they did, the CPD ought to be able to pitch in for a new pair," Watts said. "You did us quite a service last night."
I brushed off the compliment. I never was very good at accepting them, probably because they so rarely came my way. No point to start pretending now. "How did I get here? And where is here?"
"Valley Memorial Hospital, Carrollton, Kentucky," Watts said. "The Coast Guard brought you here from the Sea Horse I. You were in pretty bad shape when they found you."
I nodded. They had no idea. "How did you guys get here?"
"When you called earlier, I was just leaving the hospital. I ran into Lex as I was headed for the parking lot and told her I was headed to Cincinnati to follow up on your call," Watts said.
"I knew when she said that she wasn't going without me," Lex added. "There was no way you'd call unless you'd found something."
"What about Ricky?" I asked.
"They’ve put him in an induced coma for the next two days until the swelling in his head goes down," Lex said. She added a smile that was almost pure embarrassed. "I knew if I had to sit there for two more days with his parents, I would go insane."
"Needless to say I wasn't too happy about bringing her, but I let it happen," Watts said. "We got to Cincinnati just as the CPD was clearing out the last of Rifkin's henchmen. Place was a gold mine. Mayor is talking about handing out citations to everybody involved, the whole nine."
Rifkin was nothing short of an asshole. I hoped they'd throw his ass in jail and forget about him for a good long time. Something told me he'd made enough enemies over the years to make his stay very, very uncomfortable. "What about the boat?"
"The Coast Guard found the drugs, the weapons, and of course the children," Watts said. "Captain Smiley told them what he could and Edna Iris, the old woman acting as caretaker in the container, added what little she knew. There wasn't a lot between them, but it sound like that boat was headed for Louisville. After that, those kids were in the wind. No telling how many came before them. They want to talk to you when you're up for it, but it doesn't have to be right now."
"Good," I whispered. "And the guards they found?"
Watts shook her head. "I've been monitoring the situation as close as I can from here. From what I can tell, there's no intention to bring charges. Saving a boatload of children seems to have that effect on people."
I lowered my head to the pillow and looked up at the bright lights above. Lex's warm hands still gripped mine as Annie patted the tops of them.
The people I cared about were safe. I was content.
"What time is it?" I asked, my eyes unfocused on the bright orbs of light above.
Lex made a show of trying to look at her wrist, but it was buried beneath the long grey sleeves of her sweatshirt. She glanced over her shoulder at Watts, who raised her phone and thumbed on its touch screen. "It is...twelve-fifty. Why?"
It only took a few minutes for my mind to do the math. I couldn't help but smile.
"Two days ago you sat in the Sacred Heart cafeteria and told us we had twenty-one more hours to find Annie. I did it in twenty hours and fifty minutes."
I rolled my head to the side and smiled. Lex squeezed my hands and drew her mouth into a tight, toothless smile, tears back in her eyes. Behind her, Watts smiled, shaking her head from side to side.
Epilogue
Three Weeks Later
A wide array of cars filled the driveway and spilled out onto the street
. All of them seemed to be some form of mini-van or mid-sized SUV in colors ranging from light blue to black. The entire scene screamed soccer moms, which made me even more uneasy than I already was. To be fair, that's what the scene was for, but that didn't do a lot to ease my nervousness.
Push a herd of longhorns across a river on horseback? Not a problem. Walk into a yard full of housewives and make small talk? Lord, help me.
I pulled the truck to a stop behind a silver hybrid Toyota SUV with a Winnie the Pooh sun visor pressed to the rear window. I shook my head twice and wondered again what I was doing here. With a final sigh I picked up the box wrapped in bright green and yellow wrapping paper from the passenger seat and climbed out. Inside it was an assortment of toys and clothes, all emblazoned with Dora the Explorer. I had no idea who Dora was or what she was exploring, but the woman behind the counter assured me they were what every little girl desired these days.
Hard to argue with logic like that.
My new Ropers clicked against the asphalt as I walked down the middle of the street and cut across the front yard to the sidewalk. I could hear the sound of children playing coming from the backyard and followed the concrete path around the side of the house, the noise growing louder as I walked. A small twinge of nervousness rolled through me as I pushed forward, the backyard coming into view bit by bit.
An inflatable bounce house covered the back corner of the lot, filled with a half dozen young children bounding to and fro with smiles on their faces. A mid-sized above ground pool stood to the side of it with a couple of children bobbing in the water, their arms or waists encased in inflatable rings and floaties. The middle of the yard was an open expanse of green grass with a large handful of children running back and forth. Every imaginable outdoor toy on the planet was strewn across the grass around them. A smattering of parents were spaced throughout, keeping a close watch on everyone.
A full wooden deck stretched the length of the house, stained a deep russet color. Twin picnic tables sat on the end closest to me, one covered with gifts of every shape and size, the other loaded with all the makings of a classic Americana barbecue. Beside them stood an industrial sized stainless steel grill with the lid closed, steam rising from its side vents.
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