by Lisa Ladew
Twenty minutes.
Fuck, Talon was good people. Bronx was suddenly partially glad that their dad was an asshole casserole. Pops had fucked up by not being in Talon's life, but at least Talon existed and they'd found him.
Bronx paced. And waited.
In exactly eighteen minutes his phone rang. Bronx answered it in a breathless hello, not even checking who it was.
"Bronx, there's no answer."
"Can you get inside the building?"
"I'm in. I just kept pressing buttons till someone buzzed me in. I'm pounding on her door right now."
Bronx could hear the knocking through the phone.
Fuck.
What now?
Talon answered that with the next thing he said. "Wait, the door's unlocked. I'm going in."
Bronx held his breath, expecting the worst.
"Small place. She's not here. I checked all the rooms. Even the shower and the closet."
"What's it look like?" Bronx asked weakly.
"The apartment? Neat. No sign of a struggle. The bed's not made and there's a phone on the table. But nothing looks out of place. What's going on?"
Bronx felt a clenching in his chest, pain he hadn't felt since he was small, and wished he knew the answer to that.
Chapter 34
Bronx
The bright morning sun hurt his eyes as Bronx pushed outside and got into his truck. He pulled out of the stall and turned onto the street, his mind in fractured overdrive. He still hadn't heard from Eme. And he hadn't slept at all, staring at his phone all night and wondering what could have happened.
He knew where he was going. The administration building. Eme had to work that morning, and he needed to see her face. Even if she turned away from him, gave him the cold shoulder for some shit-eating, enigmatic reason, he had to see her face and know she was alright.
He remembered his revelations the night before. Yeah, he'd figured out that not only did he not know crap about her, some of the stuff he thought he knew might not be true. But again, he didn't care. The only important thing was that she was alive and well.
All night he'd replayed every tiny detail she had told him. He'd written it all down, everything he could remember. But it all added up to exactly minus fifty-five, or less than nothing. Because when he'd thought about the things she'd avoided, and looked up some things she'd said accidentally, it started to look like she was lying about a hell of a lot.
Just now. The phrase pounded through his brain. He'd looked it up just to have something else to do that connected him with her. It was slang that meant later, but in South Africa, not Germany or Ireland. Bronx had found a dozen videos on YouTube of white South Africans speaking English, and they all sounded like Eme, at least when she was upset and her full accent slipped through.
He'd listened to Irish accents until he'd wanted to choke a leprechaun, but he couldn't make any of them fit with the Eme he—
Wait. When she was upset. That's when her accent slipped through. Bronx yanked his steering wheel to the right and pulled into a pay parking lot. He didn't give a shit if he had to pay a dollar to get out of it, he needed a place to be able to sit still for a second. With his foot on the brake, he grabbed his phone and pulled up the Google search bar.
He replayed what she'd said to him in the park, with Isaacs twisting in his hands like a fish on the line.
"Let him go, Bronx, the poes is not worth it."
Her accent had been in full swing then. He replayed the word poes in his head, trying to imagine its spelling. The oo sound and the soft s coming through loud and clear. He typed poos into Google and ran through the sites. Parents Of Olympic Swimmers. Brilliant. That fit Isaacs to a fucking T. Look again. Posted on other sites. He clutched his phone to keep from pitching it out the window. Not helpful.
None of the other sites told him anything. He typed in poos south africa. Shit about pools. He typed poos south africa insult.
Bing-fucking-o.
The word was poes and it meant pussy or cunt or idiot. Now there was the Isaacs he knew and despised.
Something about the word hung in his mind like a cat's claw but he couldn't tease it out. He'd heard it before? He sat in the row of the parking lot until a car honked behind him, then threw his phone on the seat and pulled out of there, back on his way to Eme's work, his brain burning.
***
A glance told him her office was empty. He kept moving. The next office was Captain Briggs' office. Bronx had limited experience with the man and didn't know what to expect, but he was glad the guy was behind his desk.
"Captain Briggs, could you tell me when Lieutenant Avalon is expected in?"
Briggs looked up slowly and his forehead creased. "Who wants to know?"
Oh right. He'd changed out of his uniform. "Bronx Rosesson, sir, from Station 66. I, ah, I need to talk to her."
The captain rubbed his eyes. "Her assistant is two doors down on the left. Talk to him. She won't be in today."
Bronx felt cold iron shoot through his chest. "Why?"
"Not your business, Rosesson. Now move on."
Bronx tried to keep himself under control. Again, a temper that he had little experience controlling raised up inside him. "Can't, Sir. She's not answering my texts. It's personal, and I'm worried about her."
The captain had looked back down at his desk but now he looked up again, his eyes narrowed. "Personal how?"
"She's my girlfriend, sir. I haven't been able to get ahold of her for a day. I'm worried," he repeated lamely. Fuck. He hoped like hell she wasn't going to get in trouble, or pissed at him for lying like this, but he had to know what the fuck was going on.
The man appraised him coldly and Bronx tried to convince his inner rage to stay put. To not go in and throttle the information out of the captain.
"She quit."
Bronx reeled. He hadn't heard correctly. Couldn't have. That just made no sense.
"Quit? When? How?"
"This morning. When I arrived I found an email saying she wouldn't be in and she would send me a formal resignation as soon as she could."
Bronx could see the pity in the man's eyes and he didn't want it. This had nothing to do with her relationship with Bronx, did it? Could it? "Why?" he asked softly.
"She didn't say."
"Can I read it?"
"No."
"Did she seem, ah, stressed?"
Captain Briggs pushed his chair back and stared hard at Bronx, appearing to think. "I wouldn't say stressed. I would say not herself, but the email was short."
Bronx's mind filled with a great roaring that he couldn't even think around, so he was surprised when he heard himself ask one more question.
"What about Chief Isaacs? Is he working today?"
Now the man's eyes narrowed even farther. Into slits. Hostile slits. "I haven't seen him. What is this about, Rosesson?"
"Where is Isaacs supposed to be today? Work, or not?"
"He doesn't share his schedule with me. Now talk, Rosesson. What the fuck is going on here?"
Bronx shook his head. But knew he didn't have the luxury of confusion. Something was going on. Something bad.
"I'm not sure, Sir. I talked to Lieutenant Avalon the night before last and she planned on being here. But there was an...incident with Isaacs on Thursday night. I can't see what one would have to do with the other, but it's the only thing that connects right now."
"Tell me everything."
Bronx did. Having no idea if the time he was spending in that hallway would help Eme in the slightest.
***
Bronx
Forty-five minutes later, Bronx was free and on his way to Eme's place. Briggs hadn't wanted him to leave, but oh well. The fire department could open whatever kind of investigation they were going to, but he knew it wouldn't be what found Eme. He was going to find her. Today. Now. And since no one would tell him what Isaacs' schedule said, he would have to follow that lead himself.
He pressed a button on his p
hone. Talon's voice filled the speaker.
"Hello?"
"Talon, I need help. My girlfriend still hasn't surfaced. I know something's wrong. She quit her job this morning by email. She was forced. And I think I know by who."
"What can I do?"
"The guy's name is Isaacs. Lyle Isaacs. Big guy. Goes by Top, I think. Former first sergeant. Now he's a chief in the department. I need his address. And then I need you to meet me at his place after I check Eme's again.
"I'm on it."
"Good man."
Bronx hung up and looked for parking. This fucking city. No parking in a hundred block radius, ever. As he swore, a tiny car pulled out of a spot practically in front of Eme's door. He manhandled his truck into it and ran up to the building, laying his hand on as many buzzers as it could fit over. Sure enough the door buzzed right back. He swore and pushed it open, then ran up the stairs.
In front of her apartment, he looked at her door. He didn't want to touch the knob or obscure fingerprints if there were any, but he had no choice if he wanted inside. He grasped it with two fingers and turned.
The place looked exactly as he had left it. He could still smell the faint scent of sex in the air and it shot a bolt of pain and confusion through him. Why in the hell would she quit? And what did it have to do with Isaacs?
He walked through the place slowly, looking at everything. Their dishes from pie at midnight two nights before, sitting in the sink. His flowers on the table, some of them starting to brown. The rumpled bed covers. He tried to remember if the bed had been made when they'd come in on Thursday night and couldn't. He'd only had eyes for her. The room and bed had meant nothing to him.
A small desk with a computer sat in the corner and he walked over to it. A piece of paper there made him think of something and he whipped his head around. His note that he'd left for her! It was no longer on the table next to the flowers. That was proof that she still existed. That she'd been awake and in the room since he'd left.
He turned back to the piece of paper on the desk and picked it up. The words on it chilled him to the core, especially since they made no sense, but were meant to hurt him. He read the four words four times, then turned the piece of paper over. There was his writing on the back, a vicious slash through his message.
His heart ached as he turned the piece of paper and read her words again. He knew they were in her handwriting. He recognized them from everything he'd seen her write on the board in class. There. That was one thing he knew about her. The way she dotted her Is and wrote in a mix of cursive and printed.
I never loved you.
Bronx shook his head and stared at the message.
It made no sense at all.
He'd never thought she loved him.
Chapter 35
Bronx
Standing next to his truck on the street, Bronx texted his oldest brother.
When you get a chance can you call the police for me? I tried to make a missing person's report and they wouldn't take it. Said she had to be missing for twenty-four hours if there was no sign of a struggle. You got any friends who would at least go to her apartment and do fingerprints? I'll explain the next time I stop. Thanks.
He finished with Eme's name and address, then switched screens and texted Talon.
You got an address?
The long response came quickly, like he'd dictated instead of texting.
Two but the one in town is empty. I'm there now. No cars. Nobody visible in the windows. Nobody answers door. Other one is a plot of land outside of Half Moon Bay. Want to take a ride?
That could take an hour. But it was all he had.
Where to meet you?
***
Eme
Eme came out of the darkness of her mind slowly. Incompletely. She tried to lift her head but her upper back muscles protested. She settled for rolling her neck, trying to see around her. Dark. All dark.
She pushed her mind to think. To make sense of what was happening. Had happened that morning. Or was it yesterday morning? She'd been in bed. Someone had been with her. Bronx. She groaned as she thought of him. Bronx! Where was he? What had happened to him? She thought he had left, but she'd been worn out, and they'd agreed the night before that he would let her sleep the extra hour she had between when he had to leave for work and when she did. They hadn't slept much the entire weekend, preferring to use their time to explore each other. She hadn't needed the sleep with him, but work was different. If she didn't have eight hours before a work day, she was a wreck.
Dimly, she'd thought he had probably left her. Gone to work. She'd felt the bed move. Heard noises. But then she'd thought he was coming back? But it couldn't have been him, because before she could fully wake up she hadn't been able to breathe. Or see. She'd struggled. But then she'd been here.
Wherever here was.
Her mind looped and stretched in uncomfortable ways, even as her stomach lurched. But her body and mind seemed unconnected. Distant. Her stomach was on its own.
Trying to raise her head wasn't working. She lolled it forward and blinked in the darkness. She thought. Her mind stretched backwards. To the day she'd died.
She relived it. Hitting the rocks hard, the pain enormous, her consciousness shattering. She came to and looked around, testing her body for breaks or weaknesses. She lifted her head and almost puked with the movement. But not quite. An iron tang in the air told her she was bleeding, and immediately she knew from where. She could see the drip drip drip of the blood falling on the rock beneath her.
She was on the edge of a cliff. Behind her, she knew, was the path and the large rock she'd been climbing. In front of her, the steep drop-off led only to the ocean.
She put her hand to her head and probed gingerly. Pain flared, but she was able to feel the edges of where her flesh was torn. She dropped her hand back to the boulder she reclined on. Under her fingers, tiny rocks moved. One particularly big one with a jagged edge sat in the middle of the flat spot she was on. She had landed on it. This was what had cut her head. She picked it up, on impulse, and almost pitched it into the ocean. But a flicker of green caught her eye.
She pulled the rock in close to her, battling her double vision, smearing her blood upon it and traced the green with a thumb. A gemstone of some sort. An emerald maybe, or another type of beryl, like aquamarine. She knew there were mines for both in the area. It was rare, but not unheard of to find them outside of the boundaries of the mine. Emerald. Her bruised mind followed a tangent. Such a pretty word. Sometimes Americans named their daughters that. If she were free, that was where she would be. America. If she were free. Emerald. If she were free.
Her blood dripped on the rock, and as she leaned forward to look out over the ocean below, it smeared coppery red down the side of the granite she lay on. The trail of blood, if looked at from above, almost seemed to suggest something. That someone had died here. Someone who should never have been out here alone in the first place.
Back in the present time, Eme tried to put a hand to her temple. Her head pounded badly enough that she almost believed she was really back there in South Africa, reliving the moment she had realized she had one chance to make a break for it. But only if she left right that second and was smart.
She'd curled her hand around that chunk of rock that had ripped her skin apart and made all that followed possible, determined it would go with her.
A year later, she'd had a gemologist remove what turned out to be an emerald from the rock, discarding the rock and having the emerald placed in a necklace to remind her of everything she'd gone through to be free.
At that point, she didn't realize that she wasn't actually free.
That wasn't something she'd truly discovered until she met Bronx.
She groaned again at the thought of Bronx and tried to lift her hand. It wouldn't move. She called forth her body, tried to get it to explain. Sensation slipped along her forearm, her back, her ass, her neck. She was in a chair. Maybe an office chair, maybe
a wheelchair.
Tied in.
Chapter 36
Bronx
What in the hell were they walking in on?
Bronx locked the car and glanced at Talon, who looked just as perplexed as Bronx felt. They could hear the yelling from the small, isolated street. It sounded like a stadium full of people screaming over a boxing match somewhere far away.
They met at the far side of the car. Talon nodded at the rock wall separating the road from the property. "Let's go in stealth. I get the feeling this isn't something we want to be walking into the middle of."
Bronx nodded and checked the gun in the holster at the small of his back. It wasn't his favorite place to wear a gun, but apparently it was Talon's. It was all he had brought.
They first peeked over, then vaulted over the fence and prowled through the trees on the property that tax records had said belonged to Isaacs. Ninety-three acres, which was a lot for out here, but there was no house on it and some of the land was unusable due to the old owners using it as a toxic chemical dump. He probably got it for a song if he just promised to clean it up.
They hiked in under cover of trees for what Bronx figured was over a mile before they saw any signs of life. Little, metal triangles of roofing everywhere, with roosters on top. Bronx frowned, looking at them. "Cock fighting," Talon whispered and kept walking.
Bronx couldn't reconcile that in his mind. What would a man who was mostly respected as a deputy chief in a fine fire department want to mess around with cock fighting for? But then they came to a crest of a ridge and the question ceased to matter.
Below them, in a great bowl that Isaacs probably thought muffled the noise of the crowd, rather than magnifying it, was a scene out of a movie. A bad movie.
A circle of RVs. Within the circle, at least two dozen men, screaming, shouting, laughing. Within the men, two dogs, circling and ripping at each other in a frenzy. Dog fighting. Bronx's stomach turned. He knew the guy was a dick. He hadn't known he was a monster.
Talon already had his cell phone out but he was shaking his head. "No signal. We gotta call the cops. This ain't right, man."