She began to remember her grandmother’s house.
Her grandmother’s friends told her he was a savior and would take Natalia out of the poverty and hell that was their home. But when she recalled the washed and starched white lace curtains and little yellow birds her grandmother raised and then sold in exchange for extra food or socks for her or some soap or milk, Natalia hadn’t thought of that home as living in poverty at all. Sometimes the house was cold and there would be little food, but she didn’t starve, and blankets always would warm her.
Her grandmother’s loving arms were what she missed most the day the man took her away. Her grandmother was inconsolable, but her friends smiled and told Natalia that it was all for the best.
She would have liked that one last hug. As best she could remember, she was about four years old the day she left.
She’d held the man’s hand as he walked her to his warm automobile, a car that drove smooth with music, and a driver with a hat sitting in front. She held his hand all the way to the airport, where fresh clothes were put on her, her hair was braided, and a young lady named Lucy even put pink lipstick on her lips, and then smiled at her handiwork. Natalia didn’t like the taste of the bitter substance and wiped it off on her sleeve when the woman looked away.
She climbed metal stairs to a small plane with wide butter-colored leather seats. Lucy strapped her seatbelt on for her and sat across from Natalia while the man smiled and bowed his head and then ignored them both.
She stayed in the man’s big house in New York for the first few years, while she learned how to do chores as she grew and was able to assume more and more duties. She was instructed never to play with the other children in the house, who used to make faces at her. She sometimes snuck food off their plates when she cleared the dishes, such delicacies she’d never tasted before.
She asked about her grandmother many times but never heard anything more about her. In time, she settled into a routine. She became friends with the family dog, Jigs, and would take him for walks around the property, which was gated with armed guards stationed at every entrance she’d ventured to look at. One day, the woman of the house bought a yellow bird, and that became Natalia’s fascination and mission in life. She devoted herself to tending to it, changing the paper in its cage. She changed the water twice a day and made sure he never ran out of food. In exchange, he sang the most beautiful songs, just like the birds her grandmother raised.
After the first few months, she would have agreed, if anyone had asked her, that her life was infinitely better than where she’d come from. All her physical needs were met. The young woman who slept in the same room with her wasn’t unkind, but she didn’t have the same kind of relationship she’d had with her grandmother. Natalia knew she was no longer loved. She was cared for but not loved. And she became satisfied with that.
She felt looked after, useful. She had plenty to eat and warm clothes to wear and a warm bed to sleep in at night. Lucy taught her how to read, since she didn’t attend school like the house children did. She took to it voraciously. Her whole world expanded when she could read about fantasy stories from different lands. She learned about the land of her birth. She learned about America from reading the newspaper every day. Compared to other people’s lives, she had to admit she was very, very lucky.
Sometimes the man came into their room at night and would sleep with Lucy. She put her hands over her ears and hid her head under the covers so as not to see or hear anything, because she sensed the man was hurting her roommate. Afterwards, Lucy would cry. Natalia tried to ask her if she was okay, and she was scolded and told to shut up.
And then one night, she chanced a glance over at Lucy’s bed and found the man having sex with her from behind, but he was staring straight at Natalia. She froze in place, disturbed with his expression, and then rolled over and tried to sleep. When he left, he whispered something to her, but she didn’t listen.
Natalia asked Lucy about the man the next morning when they were doing the laundry, but Lucy slapped her and told her never to bring it up again. Weeks went by without any more visits. Lucy seemed to relax and even started to smile more.
And then one night, he came into the room and visited with Natalia. Nothing was ever the same after that.
Lucy left one spring day, and when she returned with the man, there was another little girl like she’d been once, a brown-skinned girl from Africa who was now about the age Natalia was when she came to the house. Lucy coldly told her that she was going away and that it was now Natalia’s job to teach Adoara how to read and write, and do the chores of the house. Doing this and showing her how to take care of the canary for the lady became the two bright spots of the day. The nights were painful and much dreaded. She began wondering if she could run away, perhaps take Adoara with her, since she knew that the cycle would be repeated, and someone else would be brought to the home when she was replaced. And then Adoara would have to bear the man’s attentions.
She began to plan, and then a miracle happened. The man was shot by his business partner, or so the newspaper said. She was given a ticket to report to Portland to visit a woman who cared for young orphans, all like her, all without papers. She was told Adoara was placed with another family on the east coast.
Natalia was good at nursing scared children back to health. Many of them came with infections and colds, dirty clothes. She became the big sister to scores of girls who came into the house and then left as they were adopted out.
Except she eventually learned the truth about the adoptions. The girls were sold. Natalia herself knew that no one would ever want her, so when the opportunity came up to start another home, Natalia was put in charge. She now had a house of her own to run. She didn’t have to worry about money, food, or her safety. She had no desire to leave because she was not a legal resident unless she married someone. The thought of letting a man touch her ever again was so abhorrent that marriage was not an option. She didn’t feel pretty. In fact, she felt scared. But the scars were really on the inside where no one could see. She bore her shame quietly and the people who came and went, bringing her the young girls she took care of, all seemed to understand her circumstances. No one ever reached out nor was interested.
She felt invisible.
Natalia had followed the stories in the newspaper about human trafficking and now knew that she, at a mere twenty-five years old or so, was part of a criminal enterprise. That could mean deportation if she were caught. How would she ever survive, or worse, would she go to jail? So although she knew it was wrong, she continued working for the men who paid the mortgage and the expenses, gave her spending money, and most importantly, left her alone. She didn’t drive and had no bank account so kept everything in cash in a jar in her snow boots. She had to buy another pair to hold the next two jars of money she saved. It became a game, something she did for fun because she had nothing to really spend her money on, but she liked seeing it grow.
She prepared oatmeal for Carmen and went into the bedroom to wake her up.
Carmen could barely sit up. Her eye looked even more inflamed than the day before.
“Where am I?” she asked.
“You’re safe. No one’s going to hurt you here. I have a doctor coming to give you some medicine. And I brought you oatmeal.”
“I don’t eat breakfast and I hate oatmeal. I have to get out of here,” Carmen said.
“No, that’s not possible.”
“What do you mean, it’s not possible? You can’t hold me here.” She attempted to get up and then saw the handcuff attaching her ankle to the bed frame.
“It’s for your own protection, Carmen.” Natalia said. “Here, just try it.” She held the bowl of oatmeal out, and Carmen swiped it away, the bowl shattering and sending milk and cereal all over the bed and the carpet.
“You know who I am and you’re still keeping me here? That’s against the law.”
“I don’t have the key. Even if I wanted to help you, I can’t. They gave me
the device here but didn’t give me a way to take it off. But these people are not monsters, Carmen. They take—”
“What the hell are you talking about? I’m a free woman! They have no right to do this. And look at my eye, my face.” She touched her cheek and winced. “Look what they’ve done.”
Natalia was disturbed by the violence forced upon the reporter. It was never discussed before. She knew with the articles appearing in the paper that something dangerous was brewing. But she kept her calm and didn’t let on that she was concerned.
“You have to help me. Call my editor, my friends, please! You are the only person who can help me. I think they’re going to kill me.”
Natalia thought that was ridiculous. She scowled. “I have worked for these people for several years now. They don’t hurt people. They help people.”
“They steal women. They steal boys too. They kill people. I’ve learned so much about them. They’re dangerous. Trust me, when they are done with you, they’ll dispose of you too. They’re a bunch of thugs, mobsters. It’s a huge ring, and you’re helping them.”
Natalia wished that she hadn’t heard those words. It was so much easier when they didn’t speak English.
“I have to clean this up. Your doctor will be here shortly.”
“My doctor? You mean the executioner. Please—what’s your name?”
“Natalia.”
“Listen to me. You’re in danger. I don’t understand what planet you’re from, but when you’re no longer young and pretty, they’ll have no more use for you.”
“I resent that!” Natalia was actually offended. “They’ve never laid a hand on me, and they don’t abuse the girls I’ve taken care of here at the shelter.”
“The shelter. That’s a sham. It’s a grooming house for foreign prostitutes. They train girls to perform sex for men who like young girls. Boys too. Have you had boys here?”
“Never. No one ever has sex here.”
“No, they sell them. They do the bad things somewhere else. But, Natalia, you have to understand, just because you don’t see it, surely you understand what’s happening. You can’t be that stupid!”
She fell back onto the bed and began to cry. Natalia did feel sorry for her. Unlike the other girls, if she somehow had managed to free her, Carmen would be able to fend for herself, get help, and go back to her old life. But of course, that was impossible. She thought perhaps she’d question Dr. Nash when he arrived.
“Give me a phone. I need to call the police. We have to hurry. I have to get out of here.”
Natalia looked at Carmen’s ankle, now red and slightly bloody from her pulling on it. She didn’t have anything strong enough to cut through the chain on the cuffs. She could go to the hardware store and buy some bolt cutters, but if Dr. Nash came by and found Carmen unattended, Natalia knew she’d get in trouble.
And she didn’t have a phone. She’d never wanted one before.
“I don’t have a phone, Carmen. I don’t have anything I can use to remove that device.”
“Do you have a neighbor? Someone you could borrow a phone from? Is there a phone booth outside?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged.
“Well, look, dammit!”
She went to the window overlooking the street with the river beyond. Since her living space was on the second floor, over a parking structure below, she had a clear view of the block. There was a phone booth outside the convenience store she sometimes shopped at about a block away. But just then she saw a large black Mercedes pull up in front, and two men got out. One of them looked up at her through the window and nodded, giving a little wave.
Her blood pressure spiked as she stood at the crossroads, suddenly wanting to help the woman and not knowing what to do.
She waved back.
And then there were the sounds of footsteps coming upstairs to her front door.
“Natalia!” yelled Carmen. “Help me!”
She remembered the look on her grandmother’s face when she was taken away that day. All of a sudden, it occurred to her that the woman she’d loved so much did nothing to stop her from leaving with that man who later abused her.
Sold? Was I sold like one of her canaries?
Rage boiled her blood as she recalled being raped repeatedly, her private parts bloodied and torn, her future stolen, the future of all the other women she’d been reading about stolen at her very own hands. The scars from the rapes weren’t what made her ugly. It was what she had done that made her despicable. Unworthy of being loved. She was a non-person.
As she greeted the two men who wore black gloves, men she’d never met before who smiled and respectfully greeted her by her name, who’d been told perhaps the most intimate details of her life, how she’d been compromised into this position, she found it quite easy to lie to them.
“Gentlemen, she’s in the bedroom. She just woke up. I’m afraid she doesn’t like oatmeal.”
The younger, shorter one gave her a smirk. “That’s okay. We’ll make sure she gets something good to eat. We’ll take good care of her. You don’t need to worry.”
He reached into the breast pocket of his suit jacket and took out a thick envelope. Natalia saw the gun strapped to his side. He was about to present her with a lot of money, but the money didn’t mean anything anymore. As her hand went forward to accept his gift, she lunged, grabbed the gun from his holster and shot him right above the bridge of his nose.
As the first man fell backward, Carmen let out a blood-curdling scream, which distracted the second one, who had begun unholstering his weapon. Natalia did as she’d read in her detective novels. She held the revolver with both hands and shot, hitting the man in the throat. He stumbled forward, trying to reach out to grab Natalia, and would have, if she hadn’t backed up just enough so he fell to his knees, clutched his throat, tried to stop the blood spurting from his neck and fell on his belly. She aimed the barrel at the tiny bald spot centered at the back of his head and pulled the trigger.
Chapter 14
“What the hell’s the matter with you, Kiley?” Corbin Newman III screamed into the phone. “We expected you back in Portland today. That’s what you told Chief Rayburn, which I relied on, since you didn’t have the courtesy to return my call as you promised! You promised, God dammit! And since your number was disconnected, we had no way to check in.”
“That’s why I’m calling, to let you know.”
“You’ve left me in a pickle, little lady. I’m not happy about all of this. There’s a very real chance the paper’s going to get sued over your allegations—unsubstantiated allegations now since you couldn’t be bothered with completing your investigation.”
“That’s not fair. You published it early.” Kiley had never heard him so angry.
“Oh, fuck You! You’re the one who dug up all this dirt. Problem is, I trusted you with the details. I promised the chief you’d be bringing all that in. I got the mayor all over my ass and more attorneys and other media outlets interested in me, personally, dragging Rosalie and her radio station through the mud as well, than if I’d cured Herpes or something.”
“Corbin, listen to me. The facts are true. All the facts stand,” she insisted.
“Really? Well, where are all those sources? You better have them all wrapped up, checked, and double checked. You better have fingerprints and blood samples because you’re going to have to help defend all of us in court. These guys don’t mess around. I think you’re about to be arrested.”
“What? That’s ridiculous.”
“Really? Have you talked to the chief?”
“He’s going to be my next call.”
“I don’t know this for sure, but I think they’re sending someone out to interview you, someone from the F.B.I.”
“But they don’t know where I am.”
Kiley heard papers rustling in the background. “How does 917 Beach Access Road do for you? Is that close enough?”
That was the address of her rental bungalow. Now
she saw how Jason had been right. She should have contacted the Pinellas County Sheriff’s office days ago, when she first came out to Florida.
“I don’t understand why all this is centered on me, Corbin. Everything I said in my articles is true. I have the tapes and the interview notes. And I can’t be made to produce them, to protect my sources. But I can voluntarily turn them over to law enforcement. I want to cooperate. We’re all on the same side.”
“You would think so, wouldn’t you? This is worse than a hornet’s nest. People are going to die.”
“Pardon? I don’t understand.”
“This morning. There’s been a shooting. Two property owners were shot in their own building. One of those centers.”
“Which one?”
“On Canal road, warehouse district, close to the river.”
Kiley knew about the shelter but hadn’t interviewed the staff yet. It was one of the places she asked Carmen to check out.
“How could I be involved in that? I’m not in Portland, Corbin.”
“There were no girls there. Looks like there had been, but everyone’s disappeared. If what you suspected is true, someone could be cleaning up loose ends. All those girls you thought you wanted to help are disappearing faster than my first marriage. They’re scattering. We’re not going to have any witnesses.”
“Where did you get this information from?”
“Well, not from the mayor. He’s not talking to me anymore. He told me personally he was going to see to it I paid for creating this stain on the good city of Portland and, indirectly, on him.”
“So who told you the girls are disappearing?”
“Michael. He found Carmen’s phone, some of her notes she’d left behind. He’s been doing what he can, but honestly, Kiley, you need to be here to help direct him. You need to give us something as a cover. No one will talk to him. He got a tip from his friend at the police.”
“I told you that was going to happen. So does anyone know where Carmen is?”
Escape To Sunset: One Night Stand Romance-Hiding From The Mob (Sunset SEALs Book 4) Page 13