SIXTEEN
That’s it. I’m going to die.
Jane sat frozen on the couch, waiting for the gun’s blast as Joe turned from the TV to stare at her. But it was the woman who advanced on Jane, her steps slow and excruciatingly deliberate. Olena was the name Joe had called his partner. At least now I know the names of my murderers, thought Jane. She felt the orderly lean away from her, as though to avoid getting splattered with her blood. Jane’s gaze remained fixed on Olena’s face; she dared not look at the gun. She did not want to see that barrel rising toward her head, did not want to watch the hand tighten around the grip. Better that I can’t see the bullet coming, she thought. Better that I look this woman in the eye, that I force her to see the human being she’s about to blow away. She could read no emotions there; they were a doll’s eyes. Blue glass. Olena was now dressed in clothes that she had scrounged from a locker room: scrub pants and a doctor’s lab coat. A killer disguised in healer’s garb.
“This is true?” Olena asked softly.
Jane felt her womb tighten, and she bit her lip at the mounting pain of the new contraction. My poor baby, she thought. You will never take your first breath. She felt Dr. Tam reach out and grasp her hand, offering silent comfort.
“The TV, it tells the truth? You are police?”
Jane swallowed. “Yes,” she whispered.
“They said you’re a detective,” Joe cut in. “Are you?”
Gripped by the contraction, Jane rocked forward, her vision darkening. “Yes,” she groaned. “Yes, goddamm it! I’m with—with the homicide unit . . .”
Olena glanced down at the hospital ID bracelet that she’d earlier torn from Jane’s wrist. It was still on the floor near the couch. She picked it up and handed it to Joe.
“Rizzoli, Jane,” he read.
The worst of the contraction was over now. She released a sharp breath and sank back against the couch, her hospital gown drenched in sweat. Too exhausted to fight back, even to save her own life. How could she fight back? I cannot even get up off this soft couch without a helping hand. Defeated, she watched as Joe picked up her medical chart and flipped open the manila cover.
“Rizzoli, Jane,” he read aloud. “Married, address on Claremont Street. Occupation: Detective, Homicide Unit. Boston PD.” He looked at her with dark eyes so penetrating that she wanted to shrink from them. Unlike Olena, this man was utterly calm and in control. That’s what scared Jane most—that he seemed to know exactly what he was doing. “A homicide detective. And you just happen to be here?”
“Must be my lucky day,” she muttered.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Answer me. How did you just happen to be here?”
Jane’s chin snapped up. “In case you didn’t notice, I’m having a baby.”
Dr. Tam said, “I’m her obstetrician. I admitted her this morning.”
“The timing, that’s what I don’t like,” said Joe. “This is all wrong.”
Jane flinched as Joe grabbed her hospital gown and yanked it up. For a moment he stared down at Jane’s swollen abdomen, her heavy breasts, now bared for everyone in the room to see. Without a word, he let the gown fall back over Jane’s torso.
“Are you satisfied, asshole?” Jane blurted, cheeks burning from the humiliation. “What did you expect, a fat suit?” The instant the words were out of her mouth, she knew it was a stupid thing to say. First rule of hostage survival: Never piss off the guy holding the gun. But by wrenching aside her gown, he had assaulted her, exposed her, and she was now trembling with rage. “You think I want to be trapped in here with you two whack jobs?”
She felt Dr. Tam’s hand tighten around her wrist in a silent plea to shut up. Jane shook off the hand and kept her fury focused on their captors.
“Yes, I’m a cop. And guess what? You two are royally screwed. You kill me, and you know what happens, don’t you? You know what my buddies do to cop killers?”
Joe and Olena looked at each other. Were they making a decision? Coming to an agreement about whether she lived or died?
“A mistake,” said Joe. “That’s all you are, Detective. You’re in the wrong fucking place at the wrong fucking time.”
You said it, asshole.
She was startled when Joe suddenly laughed. He paced to the other end of the room, shaking his head. When he turned back to face her, she saw that his weapon was now pointed at the floor. Not at her.
“So are you a good cop?” he asked.
“What?”
“On TV, they said you worked a case with a missing housewife.”
“A pregnant woman. She was kidnapped.”
“How did it end?”
“She’s alive. The perp’s dead.”
“So you’re good.”
“I did my job.”
Another look passed between Olena and Joe.
He came toward Jane, until he was standing right in front of her. “What if I was to tell you about a crime? What if I told you that justice wasn’t served? That it can never be served?”
“Why can’t it be?”
He reached for a chair, pulled it in front of her, and sat down. Their gazes were now level. Dark eyes met hers with unwavering focus. “Because it was committed by our own government.”
Oops. Cuckoo alert.
“Do you have proof?” Jane asked, managing to keep her voice neutral.
“We have a witness,” he said, and pointed to Olena. “She saw it happen.”
“Witness reports aren’t necessarily sufficient.” Especially when the witness is crazy.
“Are you aware of all the criminal acts our government is guilty of? The crimes they commit every day? The assassinations, kidnappings? Poisoning their own citizens, in the name of profits? It’s big business that runs this country, and we’re all expendable. Take soft drinks, for example.”
“Excuse me?”
“Diet soft drinks. The US government bought ’em by the container load for its troops in the Gulf. I was there, and I saw cans and cans, sitting in the heat. What do you think happens to the chemicals in diet drinks when they’re exposed to heat? They turn toxic. They turn to poison. That’s why thousands of Gulf War vets came home sick. Oh yeah, our government knows about it, but we never will. The soda pop industry’s too big, and they know just whom to bribe.”
“So . . . this is all about soda pop?”
“No. This is much worse.” He leaned closer. “And this time we’ve finally got them, Detective. We have a witness and we have the proof. And we have the country’s attention. That’s why we’ve got them scared. That’s why they want us dead. What would you do, Detective?”
“About what? I still don’t understand.”
“If you knew about a crime committed by people in our government. And you knew it had gone unpunished. What would you do?”
“That’s easy. I’d do my job. The same as always.”
“You’d see that justice is served?”
“Yes.”
“No matter who stood in your way?”
“Who would try to stop me?”
“You don’t know these people. You don’t know what they’re capable of.”
She tensed as another contraction squeezed its fist around her womb. She felt Dr. Tam take her hand again, and Jane held on tight. Suddenly everything went out of focus as the pain roared in, pain that made her rock forward, groaning. Oh god, what had they taught her in Lamaze class? She’d forgotten it all.
“Cleansing breath,” murmured Dr. Tam. “Find your focus.”
That was it. Now she remembered. Take a breath. Focus on one spot. These crazy people weren’t going to kill her in the next sixty seconds. She just had to get past this pain. Breathe and focus. Breathe and focus . . .
Olena moved close, and suddenly her face loomed right in front of Jane’s. “Look at me,” Olena said. She pointed to her own eyes. “Look here, right at me. Until it is over.”
I can’t believe it. A crazy woman wants to b
e my labor coach.
Jane began to pant, her breath quickening as the pain mounted. Olena was right in front of her, her gaze fixed on hers. Cool blue water. That’s what those eyes reminded Jane of. Water. Clear and calm. A pond with no ripples.
“Good,” the woman murmured. “You did good.”
Jane exhaled a sigh of relief and sprawled back against the cushions. Sweat trickled down her cheek. Another five blessed minutes to recover. She thought of all the women through millennia who had endured childbirth, thought of her own mother who, thirty-four years ago, had labored through a hot summer’s night to bring Jane into the world. I did not appreciate what you went through. Now I understand. This is the price women have paid for every child ever born.
“Whom do you trust, Detective Rizzoli?”
Joe was talking to her again. She raised her head, still too dazed to understand what he wanted from her.
“There must be someone you trust,” he said. “Someone you work with. Another cop. Maybe your partner.”
She gave a weary shake of her head. “I don’t know what you’re getting at.”
“What if I held this gun to your head?”
She froze as he suddenly raised his weapon and pressed it to her temple. She heard the receptionist give a gasp. Felt her fellow hostages on the couch shrink away from the victim between them.
“Now tell me,” Joe said coldly. Reasonably. “Is there anyone who’d take this bullet for you?”
“Why are you doing this?” she whispered.
“I’m just asking. Who would take this bullet for you? Who would you trust with your life?”
She stared at the hand holding the gun, and she thought: It’s a test. And I don’t know the answer. I don’t know what he wants to hear.
“Tell me, Detective. Isn’t there someone you completely believe in?”
“Gabriel . . .” She swallowed. “My husband. I trust my husband.”
“I’m not talking about family. I’m talking about someone with a badge, like you. Someone clean. Someone who’ll do his duty.”
“Why are you asking me this?”
“Answer the question!”
“I told you. I gave you an answer.”
“You said your husband.”
“Yes!”
“Is he a cop?”
“No, he’s . . .” She stopped.
“What is he?”
She straightened. Looked past the gun, and focused instead on the eyes of the man holding it. “He’s FBI,” she said.
Joe stared at her for a moment. Then he looked at his partner. “This changes everything,” he said.
SEVENTEEN
Mila
There is a new girl in our house.
This morning, a van pulled up in the driveway, and the men carried her up to our room. All day she has been lying on Olena’s cot, sleeping off the drugs they gave her for the journey. We all watch her, staring down at a face so pale that it does not look like living flesh, but translucent marble. Her breaths come in soft little puffs, a strand of her blond hair fluttering every time she exhales. Her hands are small—a doll’s hands, I think, looking at the little fist, at the thumb pressed against her lips. Even when the Mother unlocks the door and steps into the room, the girl does not stir.
“Wake her,” the Mother orders.
“How old is she?” Olena asks.
“Just get her up.”
“She’s only a child. What is she, twelve? Thirteen?”
“Old enough to work.” The Mother crosses to the cot and gives the girl a shake. “Come on,” she snaps, yanking off the blanket. “You’ve slept too long.”
The girl stirs and rolls onto her back. That’s when I see the bruises on her arm. She opens her eyes, sees us staring at her, and her frail body instantly stiffens in alarm.
“Don’t make him wait,” the Mother says.
We hear the car approaching the house. Darkness has fallen, and when I look out the window, I see headlights winking through the trees. Tires crackle over gravel as the car pulls into the driveway. The first client of the evening, I think with dread, but the Mother does not even look at us. She grabs the new girl’s hand and pulls her to her feet. The girl stumbles, sleepy-eyed, out of the room.
“How did they get a girl that young?” whispers Katya.
We hear the door buzzer. It is a sound we have learned to shrink from, the sound of our tormentors’ arrival. We all fall still, listening to the voices downstairs. The Mother greets a client in English. The man says little; we hear only a few words from him. Then there are his heavy footsteps on the stairs, and we back away from the door. He walks right past our room and continues down the hall.
Downstairs, the girl raises her voice in protest. We hear a slap, a sob. Then footsteps thump up the stairs again as the Mother drags the girl to the client’s room. The door slams shut, and the Mother walks away, leaving the girl with the man.
“The bitch,” Olena mutters. “She’ll burn in hell.”
But tonight, at least I will not suffer. I feel guilty as soon as that thought crosses my mind. Still, the thought is there. Better her than me. I go to the window and stare out at the night, at darkness that cannot see my shame. Katya pulls a blanket over her head. All of us are trying not to listen, but even through closed doors, we can hear the girl’s screams, and we can imagine what he is doing to her, because the same has been done to us. Only the faces of the men vary; the pain they inflict does not.
When it is over, when the cries finally cease, we hear the man walk down the stairs, and out of the house. I release a deep breath. No more, I think. Please, let there be no more clients tonight.
The Mother comes back up the stairs to retrieve the girl, and there is a long, strange silence. Suddenly she is running past our door and down the stairs again. We hear her talking to someone on her cell phone. Quiet, urgent words. I look at Olena, wondering if she understands what is going on. But Olena does not return my glance. She hunches on her cot, her hands turned to fists in her lap. Outside, something flutters past the window, like a white moth, twirling on the wind.
It is starting to snow.
The girl did not work out. She scratched the client’s face, and he was angry. A girl like that is bad for business, so she is being sent back to Ukraine. That is what the Mother told us last night, when the girl did not come back to the room.
That, at least, is the story.
“Maybe it’s true,” I say, and my breath is a puff of steam in the darkness. Olena and I are once again sitting on the roof. Tonight it sparkles like a frosted cake under the moonlight. Last night it snowed, barely a centimeter, but enough to make me think of home, where there has surely been snow on the ground for weeks. I am glad to see the stars again, to be sharing this sky with Olena. We have brought both our blankets outside, and we sit with our bodies pressed together.
“You’re stupid if you really believe that,” says Olena. She lights a cigarette, the last one from the party on the boat, and she savors it, looking up at the sky as she inhales the smoke, as though offering thanks to heaven for the blessings of tobacco.
“Why don’t you believe it?”
She laughs. “Maybe they sell you to another house, or another pimp, but they don’t ever send you home. Anyway, I don’t believe anything the Mother says, the old whore. Can you believe it? She used to turn tricks herself, about a hundred years ago. Before she got so fat.”
I cannot imagine the Mother ever being young or thin or ever enticing a man. I cannot imagine a time when she was not repulsive.
“It’s the cold-blooded whores who end up running the houses,” says Olena. “They’re worse than the pimps. She knows what we suffer, she’s done it herself. But all she cares about now is the money. A lot of money.” Olena taps off an ash. “The world is evil, Mila, and there’s no way to change it. The best you can do is stay alive.”
“And not be evil.”
“Sometimes, there’s no choice. You just have to be.”
&
nbsp; “You couldn’t be evil.”
“How do you know?” She looks at me. “How do you know what I am, or what I’ve done? Believe me, if I had to, I’d kill someone. I could even kill you.”
She stares at me, her eyes fierce in the moonlight. And for a moment—just for a moment—I think she is right. That she could kill me, that she is ready to do anything to stay alive.
We hear the sound of car tires rolling over gravel, and we both snap straight.
Olena immediately stubs out her precious cigarette, only half smoked. “Who the hell is this?”
I scramble to my feet and cautiously crawl up the shallow slope of roof to peer over the edge, toward the driveway. “I don’t see any lights.”
She clambers up beside me and peeks over the edge as well. “There,” she murmurs as a car emerges from the woods. Its headlights are off, and all we see is the yellow glow of its parking lights. It stops at the edge of the driveway, and two men step out. Seconds later, we hear the door buzzer. Even at this early hour, men have their needs. They demand satisfaction.
“Shit,” hisses Olena. “Now they’re going to wake her up. We have to get back to the room before she finds out we’re gone.”
We slide back down the roof and don’t even bother to snatch up our blankets, but immediately scramble onto the ledge. Olena slips through the window, into the dark attic.
The doorbell buzzes again, and we hear the Mother’s voice as she unlocks the front door and greets her latest clients.
I scramble through the window after Olena, and we cross to the trap door. The ladder is still down, the blatant evidence of our location. Olena is just backing down the rungs when she suddenly stops cold.
The Mother is screaming.
Olena looks up at me through the trap door. I can see the frantic glow of her eyes in the shadows below me. We hear a thud, and the sound of splintering wood. Heavy footsteps pound up the stairs.
The Mother’s screams turn to shrieks.
All at once, Olena is climbing back up the ladder, shoving me aside as she scrambles through the trap door. She reaches down through the opening, grabs the ladder, and pulls. It rises, folding, as the trap door closes.
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