The Innocent: A Vanessa Michael Munroe Novel

by Stevens, Taylor

  Conversation with Logan was a slow, interspersed interaction that allowed for gaps and pauses until the room slowly emptied and she turned to focus solely on him. “According to Heidi,” she said, “I’m missing a few things from the document folder.”

  Logan paused and then chuffed—typical cover for a distasteful subject. “I’ve got some more stuff in my suitcase,” he said. “I’ll give it to you as soon as we get back to the room.”

  “Why’d you hold it back?”

  He shrugged. “Just wanted you to read everything else first.”

  Munroe was silent a long while, irritation washing over her. The last thing she needed was evasion and truth bending from the one person she should be able to count on. She shifted forward, and tapping her finger against the table, Morse to thoughts, said, “What else are you holding back?”

  He shook his head, a slow nothing to steady eye contact.

  “You seem to have forgotten who I am,” she said, voice low and monotone. “Seem to have forgotten what it is that I do, seem to believe that I’ve become blind and dumb.”

  She sat back, arms crossed, and stared at him, not with anger or malice, but with the neutral stare of analysis. “I agreed to do this job for you,” she said, “but that agreement was based on years of friendship, Logan. A friendship based on honesty and trust.” She paused, waited for effect, and then continued. “Without the honesty there is no trust, without the trust, no friendship. You’re holding out on me, and unless you’re willing to come clean, I will get up from this chair and walk out that door, and you know as well as I do that you will never find me unless I want you to.”

  She paused again and said, “I want the truth, Logan.”

  There was silence between them, a long and languid stillness that muted the last of the surrounding conversations into white noise.

  Logan’s eyes were on the table. Munroe waited, willing him to speak.

  She would not, could not, be the first to break: not for love, not for friendship, not for any bond; not in this scenario. The only way she could proceed was if trust and friendship mattered more than protecting whatever secret he harbored.

  The silence drew into moments, and knowing that he had made his decision, she stood to leave. Logan reached for her before she had fully risen, an almost desperate grab across the table, his hand on hers.

  “Please don’t go,” he said.

  “You leave me no choice.”

  “I’ll tell you,” he said. “Just give me a moment to collect my thoughts, okay?”

  She sat again, and still silent, she waited.

  When he finally spoke, his voice was a hoarse and broken whisper. “Hannah is my daughter,” he said.

  For nearly the entirety of her adult years Munroe had known Logan—knew him in a way that even his childhood friends did not—and never in all this time had there been any hint or whisper to confirm what he’d just said.

  Maybe it was the succession of boyfriends filtering in and out of Logan’s life that had blinded her to the possibility, or maybe it was because together he and she had shared everything else, and on trust alone she’d never expected such a secret, but either way, no matter how much she should have seen it coming, she hadn’t.

  The meaning of his words, as detached from reality as they appeared to be, somehow made sense of everything else. Logan’s tenacity in finding Hannah, his connection to Charity, which went further than what he shared with the others, but most of all, his blind desperation for Munroe’s involvement in retrieving the girl.

  A hundred thoughts raced around her mind, synapses connecting, details placed and then replaced in rapid reorder, so as to put new meaning to past events, but as to the one piece to which she had no fit, the only thing she said was, “Logan, you’re gay.”

  “Gay men father children,” he said. “It happens all the time—men who stay in the closet, who marry and become fathers so that they appear straight to the world.” He opened his wallet and pulled out the picture that he carried always. “Michael, look at her. Just look.” He held the picture up next to his face, and the resemblance was so clear that Munroe wondered why she hadn’t seen it the first time in Tangier.

  “It was a confusing time,” he said. “I was barely twenty. I’d gone from a homophobic cult to the homophobic armed forces, was still discovering who I was and what I wanted out of life. I’d just gotten back from a bloody tour …” He paused. “The shit I saw,” he said. “Death was in my face, and I wanted comfort, sanity. I was questioning everything, and I returned to what was familiar. My family had moved to Mexico, so I went to visit their Haven.

  “I didn’t know if the Haven leaders would let me see them, didn’t know if because I had been assimilated into the Void they would lock me out, so I brought five months’ pay with me, a sacrifice, an offering of remorse. They let me stay for three days. Charity was there. We’d been very close friends throughout the years, and if ever I was physically attracted to a woman, it was her. I loved her. I knew that. And maybe I confused emotional love with physical love, I don’t know, but one thing led to another.

  “She got pregnant. If anyone had found out it was me—an outsider—an evildoer—a doubter—she would have suffered horrible consequences. So no one knew, no one could know. Even I didn’t know until after Hannah was born. Charity couldn’t tell me because her letters were screened and her phone calls monitored, and it wasn’t until I’d returned for another visit that I learned.

  “I visited as often as I could,” he said. “Almost every dollar I earned went to the Haven, and even though it was against their rules, I snuck some to Charity too, so she could try to get things for the baby and maybe eat a little bit better. I built a facade of being repentant, and since I was still in the military I had a good excuse for why I couldn’t return from the Void. I went through the motions of belief and gave them so much money that the Haven elders overlooked a lot of the rules.

  “It wasn’t a far step moving from the cult to the army, you know. I could take orders, knew how to keep my mouth shut and how to become invisible. I could march to someone else’s drumbeat, and so I did a double march—in the military and in the Haven, juggling both worlds so that I could utilize the GI Bill and get the hell on with my life.

  “When my contract ended, I had to stop visiting, and that’s when I started planning for Charity to get out. You were with me, so you already know that side of the story. Up until then we’d had to keep a secret of everything in order to protect Charity. Once she got to Dallas, because David was with her and Hannah looked to David as a father-type figure, we wanted to go slow in broaching the whole thing. Then David kidnapped her, and one minute to the next she was gone.”

  Logan choked, struggled to regain composure and, with the words catching in his throat, said, “We knew he’d taken her back inside, and because I’d already done such a good job of buying my way in, it made the most sense that I would continue that way. While Charity has gone through the courts and the media and has done so well at keeping a spotlight on them that they hate her, I’ve done the opposite, keeping contacts and trying to get any piece of information I could from the inside. Nobody has any idea how connected Charity and I are, or how I truly feel.” Logan paused. “You see then why we could never let on? Why it’s been such a secret?

  “For eight years those bastards have kept my daughter hidden and protected that fucking criminal ex-boyfriend. They’ve moved them from country to country to keep ahead of us, and now we finally know where she is.

  “Please,” he said, eyes imploring. “Michael, I need you.”

  Munroe nodded and squeezed his hand in a gesture of comfort and reassurance that only added to the burden she now carried. Failure had never been a viable option, but now it would come with the highest price. She understood Logan’s torment, why this silent and buried obsession had driven him through the years, and how, by proxy, the weight was now hers. The child was no longer a random picture of a girl; she was the beating of Logan�
��s heart.

  Munroe slid her chair back and stood. “We need to go,” she said. “The others are probably up and waiting for us.”

  Logan nodded and joined her. Hand in hand they returned to the hostel in silence.

  Munroe stopped in front of her door, and Logan said, “Wait one second.” She paused, and he went to his room, returning a moment later with another folder.

  Eyes to the documents, holding them tightly, he said, “I held this back because, normally, once someone reads this, they ignore everything else.” He paused. “You were right—I had forgotten who you are. Not forgotten so much as got swept up in the desire to finally get Hannah—overwhelmed by the fear and disgust and frustration of nearly a decade.” He nodded to the folder. “I held it back because until now this hasn’t done anything except to turn our pain into a media-circus freak show. Nobody really cares,” he said. “The Chosen abused us, the media used us, law enforcement failed us, and justice is a farce. I was afraid,” he said, “that maybe you would be no different.” He looked up from the folder and met her eyes, and with tears welling in his, he handed it to her.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  Munroe reached for him, held him tight, and said, “I’ll bring her back, Logan. If it’s the last thing I do, I’ll bring her back. You have my word.”

  The information on Hannah’s whereabouts had come from Maggie, Charity’s sister, who was still a follower within The Chosen, her reticent confession a breaking of rank that had pinpointed the child’s location to the city without going so far as to betray the details that could bring them to the doorstep of the Haven in which Hannah was hidden.

  Needle in a haystack, and there were four ways to find it: dumb luck, taking the stack apart piece by piece, using a magnet, or burning it to the ground. On this assignment, luck was out of the question, time was at a premium, and destruction was not an option.

  Gideon and Heidi would be Munroe’s magnet.

  They had each, at different periods, lived in Havens within or around Buenos Aires. But even if either one had a clear recollection of specifically where, even if they’d had an address, the information would have been worthless.

  The Prophet believed that owning property tied The Chosen to the Void, and this meant that Havens were transient, relocating often, renting from landlords who had no idea that the couple who signed the lease agreement would the next day turn the property into a commune. When a stay had been worn-out, when neighbors had begun to complain, or the number of people attracted too much attention, the place would close down and The Chosen disperse.

  Havens varied in size—some housed as few as thirty people and others upward of two hundred—but one constant was the necessity of clothing and feeding the many members. Havens needed cash to operate.

  The Prophet also believed that working to earn money within the Void was the equivalent of serving Satan, and so The Chosen refused any form of work-for-hire that would enslave them to the world. What income the Havens did have was acquired, not through industry or providing any service to society, but rather by begging, by selling overpriced trinkets to the good-hearted under the guise of sponsoring humanitarian projects, or through donations.

  But begging, although time-consuming, was not highly lucrative, and the resources required to feed and house so many far outstripped the supply. The solution to the disparity came by way of donated goods, clothing, shoes, and food—usually perishables too old and spotted to sell, and cartons or cans nearing or passed the date of expiration. There was a fine line between garbage and sustenance, and The Chosen walked it well.

  Once a Haven acquired a donor, the members made a great effort to maintain a positive relationship in order to continue receiving the goods over the long term. Typically, donors knew little about The Chosen, often did not even know that it was to this group that they gave, but they knew the smiling faces that greeted them every week, knew the children who occasionally came to sing for them, and truly believed that by contributing they were, in a small way, making the world a better place.

  A trip to visit a donor was a special occasion for the children; it meant seeing life beyond the confines of the Haven, and special occasions created clearly formed memories.

  Gideon suspected that at least some of the donors who had been giving while he had lived in Buenos Aires would still be doing so, and Munroe believed that with the donors they would find the map to the Havens—the magnet.

  Instead of renting a car, they rented a taxi, and the simplicity of having a chauffeur was amplified by the boon of having a driver who knew the streets and the landmarks and understood, in place of addresses and clear directions, the general idea of where the children of The Chosen wanted to go.

  Across the city, one district to the next, far past dusk and into early evening, they drove, up and down, gauging distances from familiar landmarks and comparing notes, locating first a supermarket, then a bakery, and finally, a midsize grocery store. With the vehicle idling and the cabdriver waiting, Gideon ran off the little he knew about the grocer, and then, having finished, he reached for the door handle, as if to get out of the car.

  Munroe stopped him. “I’d prefer that we don’t make contact,” she said.

  “I remember the owner,” Gideon replied. “I don’t know if he would remember me, but he would know if they still come around, and even if he’s not there, the employees will know.”

  “I’m sure they would,” Munroe said. “But let this one go.”

  He looked at her, doubt written across his face, and she said, “You hired me to do this job and you need to let me do it.”

  Gideon’s reply was a barely perceptible nod. He removed his hand from the door, and for this Munroe was grateful. If another confrontation had been necessary to establish the order of things, she’d have done it, but at this juncture a face-off would be a waste of time and energy.

  She had what she wanted.

  Chapter 10

  The docks were deserted, and Munroe crept through the night, moving past security checkpoints and into the shadows that preceded the shelter that was currently home.

  Heavy machinery and conveyor equipment stretched out from the wharf like giant manacles onto the three ships that lay at port. Powerful lights illuminated the waterfront, creating lengthening darkness between the two- and three-story buildings that stood opposite.

  The knife attack came without warning, out of the shadows, as if the man who wielded it had been waiting a long, patient time, knowing she would eventually pass.

  He was strong. From behind he jerked her head back and forced her to the ground. Light crossed his face, and she recognized him from the dockyard. His skin was rough, scarred, making him look old, though she knew he wasn’t. His body was taut and muscular from the daily physical labor.

  He tightened his grip on her neck, kept the knife to her throat, and in microsecond gaps she calculated. Her vision shifted to gray. Adrenaline flowed, and the edges of desire crept toward her soul.

  She dropped a knife into a palm from a pocket in her sleeve; smiled; relaxed. In an unconscious response the man loosened his grip, and in that second of error she slashed his wrist. He screamed an obscenity, let go, stepped back out of her way, and blended into the darkness.

  Munroe closed her eyes. Other senses would guide her where sight failed.

  A scrape. A movement of air. He lunged.

  She sidestepped, and his blade missed widely.

  She pulled a second knife from the small of her back. Flipped it open.

  His breathing was heavy, and she followed the sound of it, knives in both hands, circling cautiously. The lust for blood was there, she could feel it welling up inside, a pounding in her head, in her chest, an overwhelming desire to kill.

  And she fought it.

  She was not to be a killer, an animal, a predator. She had fled to get away from this, to leave it behind.

  “There’s no need for this,” she said to the night. “Put away your weapon, I’ll p
ut away mine, and we can walk away.”

  The attacker taunted her with obscenities, and she understood then that he wanted her body and meant to take it by death if necessary. With his mocking, darkness flooded in. She smelled the rankness of his sweat, heard the rasp of scorn in his voice, knew the fear of the knife. Her heart raced, muscles contracted, and instinct washed over her.

  Survive.

  Kill.

  Light reflected off a blade.

  She rolled to the right.

  Instinct.

  Speed.

  She turned. Came from below. Plunged a knife upward, connected under his chin and thrust it deep. Euphoria flowed.

  The attacker dropped to his knees, eyes wide.

  Green eyes.

  Her stomach reacted violently.

  His face. Soft. Familiar. A shock of recognition ran through her.

  She gasped for air. Slumped forward and then, head tilted upward, with the primal shriek of rage and pain still rising, opened her eyes.

  Not to the midnight sky, but to the bland, off-white ceiling of the hotel room.

  Heart pounding, Munroe slid her legs over the side of the bed and stood, looking down at the aftermath of slumber. The sheets and her clothes were drenched, the pillow beside her shredded. She rubbed her fingers, feeling tenderness where friction had burned them raw. For this she had purchased three hours of sleep out of the last forty-eight. So little rest invited trouble, and agitated as she was now, there would be no natural return to the slumber that she so desperately needed.

  Munroe shuffled to her bag, pulled out a bottle, and tipped the contents into her mouth.

  It was nearing nine in the morning, at the same corner place where Logan had followed Munroe yesterday, and the café was filled with morning traffic. He sat at the far end of the room, his back to the wall, listening to a language that he only half understood, observing the bustling crowd, and through the storefront window watched the passersby. Across the table Gideon sat dazed and sleepy-eyed, and the fragrance of coffee blended with the sweet scent of the pastries that filled the empty space between them.