River Home

by Elle Keaton

  But then there was the red box. Miguel had left it on the stack of books next to his bed; now it was sitting in the exact center of his bed, the lid slightly askew. While Buck nattered on, opening and shutting the few cupboards in the kitchenette, Miguel pondered how to ditch his friend and escape Skagit altogether. Picking up the box, he stuffed it in a canvas shopping bag without looking inside. He was very afraid Justin had left something unpleasant for him. While Buck’s back was turned, Miguel stuck his hand between the mattress and the box spring where he kept an envelope with a stack of cash. He had learned from the last time. He wouldn’t be left wholly without money.

  Buck turned around, and Miguel dropped the envelope into the bag, hoping he didn’t have too guilty an expression on his face. Leaving that bag next to the bed, he picked up another bag of paperback books and some random clothing, then announced, “Ready.”

  When they got to the bottom of the stairs, Miguel stopped, saying, “Crap, I forgot my headphones, just a sec.” Without waiting for a reply, he turned and ran back up the stairs. Quickly unlocking the door of his apartment, he threw the bag of books inside and grabbed the other bag with his escape fund. He relocked the door and, instead of going back to the front entrance, took the back stairs down to the rear exit.

  Turning left into the alley behind the apartment building, Miguel ran as fast as he could, the canvas bag bumping against his shoulder. When he felt safe enough to stop for a moment, he took the cash out of the envelope and stuffed it into his front pocket. The bag and the red box he discarded. Dreams weren’t meant to come true for people like him.

  Chapter Fourteen: Nate

  Klay tapped Nate on the shoulder as he stood up from the conference table. Nate was tired and could use a break, but he followed his boss out of the small room. The two of them had been in meetings and emergency conferences all day trying to pull the threads of this case together. Trying to prepare for Rafael’s family. Sammy Ferreira had flown back in and was now staking out the farm, calling in every hour with nothing to report.

  Nate had been awake for over twenty-four hours and was definitely starting to feel it. Turning from where he’d gotten distracted by a large photograph of Diablo Lake, wondering if he’d be able to get up there by the end of the summer, Nate did a double take at the expression on Klay’s face.

  “Let’s walk.” Klay gestured with his chin toward the back entrance.

  Something was wrong. Crap, his heart skipped a beat: had something happened to Gomez? Klay led Nate down the dim corridor of their office building and outside to the parking lot, where the sun was beating down on the asphalt, making little heat shimmers in the air. Nate squinted against it. In tandem, the two of them stopped and stood in front of the wooden railing that enclosed the walkway around the building.

  “I got a phone call.”

  Nate nodded warily. They all got phone calls. It was unreal how many they fielded each day. “Sir, is it Gomez?” His palms were sweating, and he wiped them on his slacks.

  “First, please fucking stop calling me sir. I do not get off on that kind of shit. And no, calm down, Gomez is safe for the moment. The cat may have nothing to do with this case.”

  “Oh?” Nate couldn’t figure who in Skagit he had pissed off enough to warrant leaving a dead cat on his porch, but he supposed it was possible.

  “Buck Swanfeldt left a message. With everything going on, I couldn’t call him back until a few minutes ago.” Klay turned to look at Nate directly. “Miguel Ramirez has a stalker. Buck has reason to believe he’s found Miguel here in Skagit.”

  “Shit.” Nate straightened. “ I need to check in at home.” He hadn’t been there since yesterday. He hadn’t even thought to call Miguel and tell him he wouldn’t be home. Some boyfriend he was turning out to be; one day and he’d already failed.

  “Wait.” Klay dropped a hand on his shoulder, stopping Nate from leaping over the railing, running to his car, and breaking land speed records getting home. “Ramirez has disappeared.”

  Nate stopped in his tracks, narrowing his eyes at his boss. “What do you mean, disappeared?”

  When Klay had returned Buck’s phone call from the morning, Buck was in a panic. Why the man hadn’t kept calling until Klay answered… Klay said Buck was too polite for that, and his pesky husband was a nurse who’d been called in to work a last-minute shift at St. Joe’s. Joey, apparently, would have had no concern about calling over and over.

  “Buck is on his way. He’ll be here in a few minutes.”

  A beat-up Volkswagen GTI took the turn into the lot just as Klay finished speaking. It would’ve been comical watching Buck extract himself from the car if Nate hadn’t been worried and confused about what the hell was going on. Miguel missing? Buck looked worn and exhausted, not the same man who had visited Nate’s two nights ago.

  Klay led them inside and down the hallway toward the break room.

  He offered Buck a cup of coffee. “At your own risk.”

  Eyeing it, Buck replied, “I’ll pass, thanks.”

  The three of them huddled around one of the larger tables. Nate grabbed himself a cup of the appalling coffee; if nothing else, it was something to hold in his hands and keep him focused.

  “Tell us. Tell Nate what happened and what you know.”

  The story began more than three years ago when Miguel appeared at Swanfeldt’s looking for work. “He was beat down, but he knew what he was doing, and there was something I liked about him, so I gave him a job.” Slowly, over the years, bits and pieces of Miguel’s history had been revealed. How he’d been in a bad relationship, and when he had ended it the person, Jason or Josh something, Buck couldn’t remember, had refused to let him go.

  The ex had first cajoled and, when that didn’t work, destroyed everything he could about Miguel’s life. “He told me that this guy, this asshole,” Buck was shaking with anger, “got him fired, stole any money he had, destroyed his clothing so he would have nothing to wear, badmouthed him to his friends and coworkers. He is, or was at the time, a cop.”

  Klay and Nate nodded in sympathy. Law enforcement abusers were the worst. The bottom of a deep barrel of shitheads. They both sighed, and Buck gave them a sideways look, commenting, “That was weird.”

  “You don’t know this guy’s name?”

  “No… maybe? Miguel never told me. Yesterday, when I went in to work, there was an envelope waiting with my name on it. It had been delivered while I was on vacation. Inside there was a stack of papers with everything private about Miguel.” He pushed an envelope across the table. Nate snatched it up.

  The papers were exactly as Buck said, private and meant to destroy a life. Nate glanced at them before putting them facedown on the table. If Miguel chose to share these things with him, that was one thing. To be forced like this… Nate shook his head. Klay took the papers and quickly read over them.

  “You’re certain he never told you shithead’s name?” Nate asked.

  “I’ve been racking my brain, but he was careful never to mention him by name, only calling him ‘the ex.’ As if speaking his name would make him reappear in Miguel’s life. All I know for sure is that Miguel is from Spokane and his first job was at an auto repair shop like mine. I think his foster parents may have owned it or something. Small business, that kind of thing.”

  Klay scanned the sheet listing Miguel’s employment, especially the places he had been let go from. “Do you know anything about his foster parents?”

  “Not really. I think he liked them, or at least it seemed to me that he remembered them fondly.”

  “Miguel’s what? Twenty-nine, thirty?”

  “Twenty-eight, I think.”

  “So he was twenty-four or so when he arrived here, and he was with this guy for a few years… there is a chance the foster parents might know the guy’s name.”

  They were grasping at straws, but Nate was willing to grasp at anything.

  “What happened, how did Miguel disappear?” Nate asked.


  Hunching forward, Buck scrubbed his hands across his face before answering. “I knew he was going to try and get squirrely. After we closed, I took him to his new apartment to grab some things, and then I was going to take him to your place and hang out until you got back.”

  And Nate hadn’t been home, had he? Even if Miguel had come to the house, Nate wouldn’t have been there. In his rush to get out the door, he hadn’t thought to give Miguel his phone number.

  “Does he have a cell phone?” Nate didn’t remember Miguel using one.

  Buck glowered. “No. But he will after this. He snuck away from me at the apartment. Said he forgot something and then went out the back way. I’m such an idiot.”

  “No, you aren’t, Buck. Miguel is operating in flight mode right now,” Klay remarked. “He’s trying to protect you and everyone else. Survivors of this kind of abuse convince themselves they are to blame for the situation: if they hadn’t met this person none of this would have happened, et cetera. They are so used to surviving on their own, with no resources, they don’t know how to ask for help—or they’ve tried to ask for help before and no one believed them. Their abuser controls their actions. I’m not saying this is how Miguel thinks all the time, but he’s had quite a surprise after feeling safe for a while. We’ll find him. We’ll find both of them.”

  Klay turned to Nate. “Did he tell you anything?”

  “I think he used the name Justin when referring to his ex and only said he was controlling and he didn’t want to bring him into bed with us.” Nate felt his face catch fire. He squeezed his eyes shut. Adam Klay was gay and out, but Nate was not prepared to talk about his sex life with his boss. Ever.

  Klay pretended Nate wasn’t about to burst into flames, and Buck kindly examined the tabletop with great care. Nate tapped the sheet with the dates of Miguel’s different foster placements, wondering how the ex had gotten his hands on it before deciding he probably didn’t want to know. “Okay, so we believe the first name is Justin but don’t know the last. How about I see if I can get a hold of anyone at DSHS to find out the names of his foster parents. Maybe one of them knows more. We can also see how many cops, past or present, in Spokane are named Justin; it’s not that common of a name.”

  “Nope.” Klay leaned back and dragged his cell phone out of his pocket, punching numbers as he spoke. “That’ll take too long. I’ll call the secret weapon. He’s bored anyway, it’s summer vacation.” They were all quiet while the phone on the other end rang and was answered. “Weir, it’s Klay. I got a job… Yeah, right now. Yes… So make him a coffee and leave a note.” Klay clicked off. “Weir will be here in twenty minutes.”

  It was more like half an hour, but Wonderboy Weir finally arrived and Klay filled him in.

  “So basically we need to find out who this guy is?”

  Klay nodded. “I think we should start with the last foster family, but the names are redacted here.”

  “You didn’t hear it from me, but breaking into that database is like taking candy from a baby. Gimme a few minutes.”

  Weir disappeared into an office filled with computers, monitors, and clicking keyboards. Nate wondered what he could do, what was happening, was up down? Between Miguel and Rafael, he was going to need a vacation from being on the edge. This couldn’t have happened at a worse time; Sophia Possos was set to arrive in a few hours. They were hoping she would be able to positively identify her son after so many years.

  Rafael had woken around ten that morning, groggy and disoriented. Klay’d put his foot down about visitors. In fact, he’d dragged the doctor in and had her write orders indicating the young man was suffering from trauma, was under sedation, and needed forty-eight hours’ observation before she would allow anyone but family, Klay, or Nate into his hospital room.

  Nate figured he had those forty-eight hours… and counting… to find Miguel, before he would need to refocus on the trafficking case. Nate knew why Miguel had run: he believed it was his only choice, all other avenues were closed to him, but Nate wished Miguel had trusted him enough to come to him. When he got him back, Nate was going to make sure Miguel understood he would always be safe with him.

  Nate squashed down his disappointment that Miguel hadn’t run to him. This was not about him or his feelings. He knew better. Victims, and Miguel was a victim, often fell afoul of their own logic. It was safe to hide, Nate understood, but sometimes the only way to make an abuser end their behavior was by shining a bright light on it. Forcing everyone to look, to see, to acknowledge that the behavior was as real as it was wrong.

  “I’m going to check in with the hospital.” Klay left the room. Buck and Nate looked at each other. Nate’s mind was blank; even if he wanted to talk, he didn’t know what he would say. Buck had known Miguel much better and much longer than Nate had. He sank lower in his chair.

  Buck broke the silence. “I’m so angry I can’t think straight. I hate being angry.” He breathed out, then rubbed his face with his hand. “I don’t think Miguel has any idea how special he is. Not to sound too much like a Hallmark card or one of Joey’s sappy Disney movies, but Miguel is special. One of a kind.”

  “He has a kind of light,” Nate ventured.

  “Yeah,” Buck nodded, “yeah, he does. And this sick bastard wants to either have it all to himself or snuff it out.”

  Weir swung back into the room, using the doorframe as a handle. “All right, hot off the press.” He waved a printout. “Looks like the foster home Miguel Ramirez, once of Spokane, Washington, last resided in was operated by Devinder Singh. I have a phone number and address.”

  Nate snatched it from Weir’s hand. Buck raised an eyebrow but didn’t protest.

  “I’m going to use the other conference room.”

  Five minutes later, Nate had a name and a few more facts. And a plea from Mr. Singh to have Miguel call when he could.

  Justin fucking Oakes, age thirty-nine, was a former police detective. It was pretty damning to be fired from a police department known for its bad behavior. Spokane PD was rife with graft and abuse, described in local newspapers as dysfunctional; Oakes had still failed to clear the bar. He’d been released for repeatedly threatening witnesses, flagrantly disobeying orders from command, and “misplacing” evidence. The firing happened the prior fall. His whereabouts since were unknown.

  Nate knew exactly where the fucker was now. He was in Skagit, and Nate had met him. Scott, who he’d chatted with at the coffee shop, had in fact been Justin Scott Oakes. Which meant he had been keeping a very close eye on Miguel. Why he’d approached Nate was anyone’s guess, but he was a dangerous man.

  The profile for abusers like Justin Oakes was well documented and pathetically accurate. Life sucked when you were a dirty cop and got busted for it. Oakes had never been charged with any crimes, but there had been enough evidence to make him leave the force. Nate was planning on making him leave the state.

  Chapter Fifteen: Miguel

  The bus station was Miguel’s destination; in his panicked state of mind it glowed like a lighthouse. He’d come to Skagit by bus, he’d leave by bus. He’d start over again, like he had before. This time he would be more careful, not fall into a false sense of security. No one would be allowed close to him, that way he couldn’t hurt them.

  Half jogging, half running down the alleys and sidewalks between the apartment building and the bus station, he occasionally stopped to hide between dumpsters to catch his breath, fearful that Buck would realize he was gone before he could get far enough away. Buck had to know something was up by now—it wouldn’t take Miguel ten minutes to grab something from the apartment, not even three.

  Sweat dripped down his forehead and into his eyes; his shirt was stuck to his back. It wasn’t hot enough to be sweating like this. Miguel’s body was alternating between hot and freezing; he couldn’t regulate himself. He knew he was close to a panic attack, or something like it. He stopped again behind a deli, leaning and putting his hands on his knees to try to catch his breath. A c
runching sound came from his left, back down the alley. Miguel’s heart slammed in his throat as he huddled between the doorframe and the dumpster.

  A homeless older man shuffled past. Miguel had seen him around town and knew he was harmless. His rheumy eyes skipped over Miguel, not seeing him at all. He moved slowly out of Miguel’s line of sight, muttering to himself. Miguel wouldn’t have to fall far to end up where that man had.

  There was nothing left of his life in Skagit but the cash in his pocket. No spare clothes, no jacket, no phone. No hope. But that didn’t matter. Hope was shit anyway. All hope ever did was make him feel he was safe, when he never had been. It had been hope with a false bottom.

  Why had the bitch called Fate chosen this moment in time to give him Nate? It was, simply, a worse sort of false promise; a glimpse of a future that could never be. Shoving his thoughts aside, Miguel tried to calm his breathing. When he felt a little more under control, he began quickly walking again toward the edge of downtown.

  The bus depot had been built in the 1920s or ’30s. It was one of Miguel’s favorite buildings in Skagit; even with all the changes over the years, and the great American way of tearing down and rebuilding, the bus station had remained the same. A squat, one-story building with a small granite-tiled waiting area, long mahogany benches, and a large parking lot for the buses that rumbled and belched as they waited to load or unload passengers. Along the side of the structure was an original mural expounding the convenience of bus service: “See America By Bus—The Modern Travel Way.”

  The line for tickets was longer than Miguel expected, and since he didn’t have a credit or debit card, he was forced to wait and pay in person at the old-fashioned ticket window. The older man processing requests seemed purposely slow, each movement he made sketched out deliberately in advance. Miguel felt itchy and exposed, wanting this part to be over as soon as possible. He would hide in a bathroom stall until it was time for the bus to leave. If he’d had a passport, Miguel would’ve bought a ticket to somewhere in Canada and truly disappeared. Instead he bought a ticket to Portland and then Eugene, Oregon. Eugene was a college town; maybe he could find another anonymous rooming house there. Who knew.