by Cate Clarke
Fake gagging, Kennedy scrunched up her face with disgust.
Jeremy continued, “Sorry. But that’s the way it is! Your mom’s team—their whole goal was taking down Kushkin’s operation. They didn’t. I mean, they went in and got absolutely pummeled, almost lost their whole team except for your mom. She killed Kushkin though. And that really didn’t sit well with the whole operation because, apparently, totally allegedly, they’d been planning to at least step out of the sex trafficking business and retire now that they had enough money to buy Ukraine. And because the surveillance drones were doing really well for them. So Taras freaks out, decides he’s not going to shut down the operation because it’s the only thing he knows. He doesn’t know shit about the technology side of the business. He wants revenge, and you’re the golden ticket. You’re Charlie, your mom’s the grandpa who can barely walk, and Kushkin’s Willy fucking Wonka.”
“Yea, except he doesn’t make Everlasting Gobstoppers…” Kennedy said, trying to hide the fear in her voice.
“Well, he might.” Jeremy shrugged. “Like I said, connections everywhere.”
There was a brief moment as Kennedy thought about Willy Wonka. If she really was Charlie, she would have torn up the golden ticket and stuffed it where it could never be found again. There was nothing sweet about Kushkin’s story. There wasn’t any chocolate or candy or singing Oompa Loompas; it was just sex and violence and revenge. A shiver ran down Kennedy’s body, goose bumps erupting over her forearms.
“Oh, actually…that reminds me,” he said, reaching underneath the seat to his bag and rifling through a backpack of unknowns. “I almost forgot. You gotta do this before we land in a couple of hours.”
He placed a box into her lap.
“Hair dye?” Kennedy asked, looking down at the Garnier label. It was a dark, almost black color.
“Yup. Go now,” Jeremy said, thinking, his eyes moving around like he was searching for something that he was told. “Try not to get any on your skin and brush it out to be as straight as you can. I got some other stuff in here for you as well.”
Climbing over Jeremy into the aisle, Kennedy did what she was told. She was too tired to resist. Maybe, one day, they would say that she was brave for protecting her family from the bombs attached to their basement windows, but Kennedy didn’t feel brave. She didn’t even really feel scared anymore. All Kennedy felt was shame. Shame for letting herself get caught, for forcing her mom and her family to come after her, for her unsuccessful escape, and for her inability to fight back.
Chapter 21
Dominic Ratanake
Seattle, Washington
They were too late. Jeremy Messer had been gone. But at least they had his laptop, and what they’d found on it had led Ratanake right back to Seattle. Another flight. Another briefing. He wasn’t tired. No. Ratanake was prepared to take the next steps, to finally get ahead of Kushkin, to impress Diana.
The two scotch bottles in his pocket were empty, and near the end of his flight, he switched them out for three fresh ones.
Though Messer’s laptop had been tough to crack, the tech team had gotten into it within an hour, scraping out all of the valuable information, siphoning through the piles and piles of anime porn. Ratanake was thankful that the tech guys had been trained by Laird. Despite Ratanake’s opinions of him now, Laird had never met a computer or code that couldn’t be cracked, and he’d passed that quality on to his successors.
As he got into his taxi outside of the airport, his phone rang.
“Diana,” he said as he picked it up.
“Hi,” she said, her voice shaking. “Airports. Flights. Kennedy is getting on a plane.”
She didn’t sound good. It was no surprise that she’d broken a little after all this time. If only she’d allow him to take care of her.
“This coming from the Lefferts?” Ratanake asked, keeping his voice low as the driver peered at him in the rearview mirror.
Diana cleared her throat and said, “Yes. We gotta shut down Vegas. It’s probably McCarran, and I’m headed there now.”
“You got those two guys with you? The FBI guys?”
“Cameron? Park?”
“Yeah, them.”
“No. They’ve got Lefferts’ laptop. Did you know Cameron is Snowman’s kid?”
Ratanake raised his eyebrows. “No. I didn’t. I’ll send backup for McCarran.”
“Where are you now?” Diana asked. Ratanake tried to determine her voice, what her intentions were and what he wanted them to be.
“Back in Seattle.”
“What? Why?”
“Messer’s connections…. Leading me back here.”
The cab entered the Seattle suburbs, taking the same route he’d taken only a few days ago to go by her house. It was unhealthy. Ratanake was clear-headed enough to see that. But even seeing her through the window was enough to get him through the day without his mini golden troops lined up in his pocket.
“I’ve got about an hour here, but I can be there before four.”
“No… I don’t… Okay, Ratanake, I do need backup,” Diana said. “But, I don’t want these two FBI shits, and you gotta stay at base for me. I need Rex.”
“Rex? That dipshit?”
Diana half-laughed. “He’s more capable than you might think and he follows orders well. I still gotta call him, but can you do something for me?”
“Anything.”
“If he agrees, put him on a plane.”
“If he agrees, sure.”
“You think he won’t?”
“Divorced mom and dad travelling overseas to get their daughter back? Oh, I’m sure he’s going to be up for it,” Ratanake replied. “Just don’t—”
“Fall back in love?”
“Well, you said it.”
“Always with the jealousy, Dominic.”
The scotch jingled in his pocket as he adjusted himself against the leather seat. She did it so easily. In his head. In his heart, digging in that hole she’d made. The cab driver parked on the street up ahead, across from the house, pointing at the meter with one grubby hand.
Ratanake held up a hand.
“Don’t worry, Rex’s got about seven girls on the side. I don’t think I’m of any interest to him anymore.”
Ratanake sighed and said, “I wouldn’t assume that.”
Swiping his card over the reader, Ratanake paid the cabbie and got out of the car, standing again across from her house. He didn’t want to hang up and face what was inside without her. Though, she was going to be furious at him for not telling her what was going on with her son. It wouldn’t be the first time or the last.
“Diana, I gotta go,” Ratanake said.
“Me too.”
“I’ll pull all recent surveillance from the airports, okay?”
Diana hung up without saying goodbye, as she did. As she’d always done. Not one for unnecessary conversation or formalities, straightforward and cold. Sarcastic. Beautiful. Strong.
As he walked up the sidewalk, he pulled one of the small bottles out of his pocket and drank the whole thing. There was a hockey net in the driveway, sticks and balls laid in front of it, ready for the next game.
Ratanake knocked on the door.
Wesley answered. Brown hair swooping over his eyes, lanky limbs hanging underneath baggy clothes and a huge Adam’s apple moving up and down in his throat.
“Are you a reporter?” Wesley asked, looking at him.
Ratanake was so surprised that he laughed a little. “No. I’m not. Friend of your mom’s. Can I come in?”
Wesley eyed him and then yelled over his shoulder, “Dad!”
“Good,” Ratanake said. “Good on you to make sure.”
But Ratanake pushed past him and into the house anyway, closing the door behind them. Rex came out of the hallway, a towel wrapped over his head and upon seeing Ratanake in the doorway, quickly unfurled it and tossed it behind him.
“Ratanake!” Rex exclaimed. “What the f— hell are yo
u doing here?”
The living room was messy. It was clear that Rex had been sleeping on the couch, uncomfortable in his own bed. The coffee table was pushed out from between the two couches, and there were piles of clothes in its place.
Rex saw Ratanake’s eyes on his dwelling and went to stand in front of it.
“Champ, head downstairs—” Rex started.
“No,” Ratanake said, catching Wesley in mid-step, pointing at him with one thick finger. Using the same finger, he gestured to one of the stools around the kitchen island. “Sit down.”
“Ratanake, this seems—”
“Not here for you, Rex,” Ratanake growled. “You’re lucky I don’t ask you to leave.”
“From my own house?”
“From Diana’s house.”
“She sent you?”
“Not exactly.” He turned to Wesley, who was hesitating by the stairs and repeated, “Sit. Down.”
Ducking his head, avoiding his father’s eyes, Wesley crossed the room and sat down on the stool, turning it to face Ratanake. He didn’t take off his boots and stepped forward, the heaviness of his feet causing a lamp to shiver on an end table.
“Ratanake, he’s just a kid,” Rex said, running fingers through his wet hair and moving to lean on the kitchen counter. “What the hell do you want with him?”
Ratanake half-ignored Rex. “Something we found on Jeremy Messer’s computer. You know him, Wes? CrypticFruiter?”
“Uh—”
“What are you playing at, Ratanake?” Rex spat, cutting Wesley off and glaring.
Tired of Rex’s interruptions, Ratanake gestured for Rex to follow him, leading him out the side door and into the garage. He hadn’t known where it went. He’d never been here before. He could sense the anger on Rex as he stepped through the doorway, waves of it seeping off of him, clenched fists, scrunched brow, raised veins. It was as much Rex’s house as it was Ratanake's. And he wasn’t about to let him have the home turf power so easily.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Rex hissed. “—coming here to question Wesley? She already talked to him!”
“It’s about something else, Rex,” Ratanake replied, keeping his voice low and even.
“Sure,” Rex said. “Well, you can do it on a different day. You don’t just barge in here—”
“This is military business.”
Rex went quiet, looking up at him, another bead dripping off of his wet hair and soaking into the collar of his T-shirt. In the corner of the garage, there was a pinned-up map of the park where Kennedy had once been lost. Ratanake took a circle, pacing in front of it and checking the notes that Diana had left on the table.
“What military business?” Rex asked after another moment.
“Let me go inside and tell him and you’ll find out.” Ratanake turned around, his hands behind his back, staring across the garage. He began striding toward Rex, speaking quickly as he walked, “You eat crayons, Rex? You’re a low-rank idiot, and you need to stay out of my way. You’re going to get a call soon, and I recommend you say no. If you don’t, you’re responsible for her, and you’re going to get her killed. If not her, then you. She outranks you in every way. Don’t forget that. She dies on your watch, and I’ll kill you.”
There was another silence. Ratanake now only inches from Rex’s face. Rex’s eyes moving back and forth, pulling the words apart one at a time. The fluorescent garage lights buzzing overhead.
“What are you talking about?” Rex asked, confused.
Sighing and rolling his eyes, Ratanake took a step back, realizing that he was wasting his time. He reached for the door, but Rex grabbed his wrist, squeezing it between his fingers. Bold. Ratanake finally sensed some of the military in him. But he was still an idiot.
Rex leaned in and said, “You stink like scotch, Dom.”
He yanked his arm away, glaring down at Rex from the cement steps that led back into the house. There was a snivelling smug expression across Rex’s face that Ratanake wanted to punch off. Any chance they’d had at getting along had dissipated into the sky as if it were smoke rising from a concrete stack. All he could do was give a small chuckle. Laughing off his expression and his observations because they weren’t worth anything to Ratanake either way.
“Wes,” Ratanake began again after shoving his way back inside. “CrypticFruiter? You know the guy?”
Wesley hooked his legs into the bottom of the stool. “I mean, I know who he is. I don’t know him.”
“You’re sure about that?” Ratanake asked, crossing his arms. Rex was leaning against the sink behind the island, behind his son, tossing glares in Ratanake’s direction.
Wesley nodded.
“Okay. Did anyone contact you in these last few months? Someone you didn’t know that you may have shared some information with?”
There was a sheen on Wesley’s face, sweat pooling on his upper lip. He asked, “Like what do you mean?”
Ratanake had really hoped that Wesley had inherited more from his mother than his father, but so far that hadn’t proved to be true.
“Her name was Amelia Rivera.” Ratanake showed him the photo on his phone of a young girl with dark brown hair and eyes, smiling at the camera with deep red lipstick. “You recognize her?”
Wesley’s eyes went wide, and his enormous Adam’s apple bounced up and down as he swallowed hard. “Yeah. Yeah, I know her. She started following me like a month ago…”
“She tell you anything about herself?”
“Um…yeah, like a little bit. She lives in Texas with her mom and her sisters and she just got into college and she—”
“You ever video chat?”
“No! No. But she sent me voice messages…”
Pushing himself away from the sink, Rex asked, “What? Was she like your girlfriend?”
Ratanake said, “Please, Mr. Tennison.”
Rex slunk back against the counter, shaking his head. He sipped from a beer can that he’d taken out as soon as they’d gotten back in from the garage. Only moments ago he’d been telling Ratanake that he was a drunk and now he was doing it to himself. To be a hypocrite? Or to rub it in? Make the scotch bottles in his pocket feel heavy— No. Rex wasn’t that clever.
Wesley cleared his throat and started, “If you’re trying to say that she was a catfish—”
“She was a catfish.”
“Okay, but I heard her!”
“She catfished Jeremy Messer as well, Wes,” Ratanake explained. “We found the same connections to her on his computer as Merino did on yours. So tell me, Wes, what did you guys talk about? What did you tell her?”
Wesley sat up straight. Rex was finally quiet.
“No… I mean I told her some stuff about us. I didn’t tell her much about Kennedy though.”
“But you told her about Jeremy, didn’t you? You told her that Jeremy was one of Kennedy’s only friends?”
Thinking again, Wesley’s gaze slowly dropping to the ground, a haze of memories seemed to wash over him. He wiped at his face with his hands, trying to understand what he’d done, the consequences of letting a pretty girl fool you.
“I did—I told her,” Wesley mustered, choking on some of his words. “I was the one… They… is that who got her?”
“We think it’s who has her now,” Ratanake said. “And we’ve traced some parts of Amelia overseas. It’s heavily encrypted but they’re working on finding where it came from now. Did she tell you anything, Wes? Anything that was, I don’t know, out of character for a girl like her?”
Rex’s phone buzzed. He clamped a hand on his son’s shoulder as he walked by him, heading down the hallway to answer the phone.
“I don’t know.” Wesley shook his head. He was getting overwhelmed. “She was pretty shy about her personal life stuff.”
“Likely.”
“Don’t tell my mom, okay?” Wesley pleaded.
Whoever was playing Amelia Rivera hadn’t shared anything, but had gotten everything from these two
boys. They had infiltrated the Weick family with not much more than a pair of big brown eyes. Rex came back out of the hallway, finishing up his call and hanging up.
“That was Diana…” Rex said.
“So are we getting on a flight then, Tennison?” Ratanake asked, moving himself back toward the front door.
“You’re going to fly me there?”
“Well, sure,” Ratanake said and then added, “She asked me to.”
“Wait—where are you going?” Wesley interjected, loudly springing up from the stool almost as soon as Ratanake’s back was turned.
“I’m going to help your mom,” Rex replied. “Your aunt and uncle are going to be over in a bit, okay?”
“I don’t need a babysitter.”
“Yes, you clearly do, champ,” Rex said, grabbing a few discarded items from his living-room bedroom and stuffing them into a backpack. As he shouldered his coat over himself, he asked, “When did she ask you to?”
“Well, she called me first.”
Ratanake smirked. Rex paused and then pulled his jacket sleeves down, hard and angry. He let out a heavy sigh, looking back to Wesley—behind his annoyance with Ratanake, there was a sadness over his face, like he didn’t want to leave the house again. Ratanake assumed it was because of the divorce. Rex had lost everything once, and he was a fool for letting it go so easily.
Chapter 22
Diana Weick
Las Vegas, Nevada
“We’re going to be a few hours behind them regardless,” Park said, walking them through the back hallways of the McCarran Airport. “But, here’s the kicker…the flight they got on. It’s not going to Ukraine. Yeah. Those tickets we have on file are under fake names, and they’re heading to Romania. It must be to try and throw us off…some type of transfer.”