Ghosts (5 page)

He sat in the small plastic chair, his back already protesting the awkward angle. A gray-haired man coughed across the room, his chest rattling. Vance cast a glance his way, wondering when the man had last slept in a real bed. He had the look of someone who’d spent some time on the streets. The giveaway wasn’t clothes or hygiene; it was the look of relief the man had at being indoors—as if the hour it would take to do his laundry provided him an excuse to do something as simple as sit in a room.

Not wanting to stare, Vance turned his attention back to his laptop, checking in yet again on the social media sites, all while posing as a teenage girl. It had taken him a few tries to really pick up the language and nuances, but he now played the part shockingly well. It never failed to amaze him how easily he could be accepted into their online social circles. Sometimes he wondered if they welcomed him in simply because none of them wanted to admit they didn’t have a clue who he was.

This used to be Harmony’s area of expertise. Of course, she’d always made friends effortlessly, both online and off. The washer launched into a spin cycle, sounding like an airplane taxiing on a runway. The noise startled him out of the trip down memory lane. He allowed his gaze to drift around the room, taking in the cracked floors, the paint peeling off the walls, the signs instructing him to use less soap. Someone had posted puppies for sale on the bulletin board. Vance wondered if he’d ever have the kind of life conducive to owning a dog; then he wondered if he wanted one.

Tired of working and tired of being stuck in his head, he fished for a quarter, hoping Pac-Man would offer sufficient diversion while he waited to switch his clothes over to the dryer. When he proved to be as inept at catching cartoon ghosts as he was at catching traffickers these days, he gave up and sank back into the plastic chair, settling for mindlessly watching the clothes and soapy water chase each other around the washing machine.

A woman with weathered skin and large, luminous brown eyes interrupted his trance. “Sir, if you want a good, hot dryer, try the one on the end down there.”

He was momentarily taken aback by her show of kindness. Grown men hesitated to approach him when he had a scowl settled across his face, yet this woman with the riot of gray hair barely contained in a ponytail interrupted his thoughts, or lack thereof, purely for the sake of kindness. He offered her a smile of thanks. “I’ll do that.”

She took that as all the encouragement needed to launch into a conversation. He learned that her grandson had been sick the night before. As she went into detail about the stuffed animals that had been soiled, he realized he didn’t mind the sound of another human voice so much after all. After she’d left him alone with his laundry, he texted Jessie to let her know he’d made a friend in the laundromat. It would make her happy to know he’d had some measure of human interaction, and he’d yet to check in since leaving her place. It was only a matter of time before she hunted him down. Jessie was not a woman to be ignored.

AFTER A DAY OF TAKEOUT
and social media sites, Vance finally had the break he needed. His mind was numb from all of the searching and chatting he’d done that day, but he had one golden lead. The man in the maroon car was bragging about coming into easy money, saying the only effort it’d taken was smooth-talking a desperate girl. (Well, he’d said as much in words that were far less kind.) Vance cringed at the inhumanity he had to immerse himself in to do his job. A day online left him feeling like he was in dire need of a shower.

Following the breadcrumbs from that one comment, Vance found himself on a profile for a man who was barely more than a child, his name listed as “Da Beast.” Two brief mentions of models were enough for Vance to take notice He jotted down some notes, sent a quick message off to Rick, and grabbed the shower he’d been wanting.

By the time he returned to his computer, Rick had already come through with a file on Da Beast, whose real name was Kyle Barron. Judging from the size of the file, Kyle had been under suspicion for a while, though he’d successfully eluded authorities so far. Kyle ran a modeling agency in St. Louis that was suspect at best. But he’d yet to be caught doing anything explicitly illegal.

Vance worked into the night, venturing down each Internet rabbit hole he could find until he was reasonably sure he’d figured out which one led to Nicole. As distasteful as the research was, it was the easy part. The hard part was still to come. To that end, he typed up a report and forwarded it on to Jeff, his contact at the Washington FBI office, before snagging a few hours of sleep.

The next day, he checked out of the hotel. He was tossing his bag into the backseat of his truck when Allie pulled into the parking space beside him. The smile on her face faded as she realized what was happening.

“Were you really going to leave without saying goodbye?”

“I have a lead on Nicole.” He tried not to look annoyed.

“Oh.” She seemed small and fragile in that moment.

He couldn’t bring himself to remind her that he was only in town to find Nicole and then he’d be gone, that he never intended to stay. Instead, he offered her what he could give. “I’ll be back soon, and hopefully with Nicole.”

Allie nodded. “I’ll be praying.”

“I’m not sure if we should tell the Barnetts. I don’t want to get their hopes up.”

“I don’t know. They deserve a little bit of hope.”

“Whatever you think is best. You know them better than I do.” Vance wasn’t sure if he should feel guilty about that or not.

It was a three-hour drive to St. Louis. He spent a good portion of it wondering how he always managed to hurt the people who loved him. Of course, he often didn’t realize they loved him until after he’d hurt them, but Vance wasn’t sure if that counted as much of a defense.

It hadn’t been Harmony who’d opened him to the idea of loving another person; it had been Jessie. At the time, she had been one of several women controlled by his boss, Spence. Vance was supposed to protect her, keep tabs on her, and even keep her in line if needed. But he wasn’t supposed to love her. To this day, he couldn’t say what it was about Jessie that was so different, that broke through the protective wall he’d built around his heart, but she was the first human being he could remember truly caring about.

Vance had found himself going out of his way to watch out for her. At first it was little stuff, like looking the other way if she came in past curfew. But they soon became friends, and he found himself looking forward to her presence and genuinely worrying about her when they were apart. Still, it wasn’t until he thought she’d been murdered that he realized their connection went beyond one throwaway kid having an affinity for another: He loved her.

It wasn’t the kind of love novels were written about. Vance loved Jessie like a sister. He treasured her but never desired her. Harmony, on the other hand, had driven him to distraction from day one. Even when he thought she was insane for leaving her idyllic suburban upbringing for the harsh realities of the street, he still couldn’t be around her without admiring the graceful curve of her delicate neck or wondering if her ears felt as velvet to the touch as they looked.

At first, his desire for Harmony had been in constant war with his disdain for her choices. But when Jessie fell into trouble, everything had changed. He and Harmony had set aside their differences to protect the one thing they’d always had in common: Jessie. That had led to the discovery of something else they’d both had in common: an intense desire for the other. Eventually, he came to realize they were two halves of a whole.

Thinking about Harmony now, about their love story, reopened the gaping wound her death had left behind. Vance understood that the world was still turning. He knew he’d eventually have to come out of his fog, put one foot in front of the other, and somehow move on. But he didn’t have the faintest idea how to begin to do that. He didn’t want to do that. As eager as he’d been as a child to leave behind the ghosts of his past, he was equally loath to leave behind the ghost of Harmony Baker.

As he parked his truck outside a derelict building listed as the headquarters for Beastly Modeling, Vance wondered if the name was intentionally ironic or unintentionally astute. He didn’t expect to find Nicole there, but it felt remiss to not even check. The place was deserted and there were no cameras, leaving Vance to assume it was a dummy address. It seemed the only people to frequent the building were homeless and in search of a break from Mother Nature.

He was rounding a corner to search the back of the building before calling it in when he spotted a ragdoll of a woman curled against the crumbling brick. He peered close enough to ensure it wasn’t Nicole without getting too close or disturbing what he hopped was only a sleep.

“Am I seeing ghosts now?” Her brittle voice stopped him dead in his tracks. There was something familiar about it—or maybe something familiar lurking under the gravel in it.

“And just whose ghost do you think you’re seeing?” He knelt before her, trying to see the woman through the grime. Hair that had once been curly hung in tattered, dark clumps. Her skin clung to her face, barely concealing the skeleton beneath.

“Never thought I’d see you again, Vance. Thought for sure Aleksandar killed you like he did the blonde. What was the blonde’s name?”

“Jessie. The blonde was Jessie.” Vance recognized Maria, though it was no wonder he hadn’t sooner. When he’d known her, she was still beautiful—vibrant, even—with riotous, coffee-colored curls. The shell of a woman lying in the filth at his feet saddened him to his core.

“Maybe Aleksandar did kill you. Are you a ghost, Vance?” Her fingers reached out tentatively, grazing his jaw.

“It only feels like it sometimes.” He captured her hand in his, patting it gently. “Hey Maria, do you know anything about the guy who owns this building? Have you ever seen any girls coming in and out of here?”

She shook her head, chanting to herself long enough to make Vance give up on getting a straight answer. Then, all at once, he could understand the words tumbling from her lips: “Don’t hurt those little girls, Vance. They’re so young. They’re babies. Don’t hurt them.”

“I don’t want to hurt them,” he soothed. “I want to help them. But you’ve got to tell me where they are before I can do that.”

“You didn’t help us.” The accusation was thick in her voice.

His heart constricted at the truth of her words. “I know. And I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to make up for it. Help me find them.”

She studied him closely, her sharp, dark eyes peering straight through him. At long last, she nodded. “They just get their mail here. The girls are at the old shoe factory. You won’t tell them I told you, will you?”

“No, Maria. I won’t tell them. How many girls are at the factory?”

She studied a point beyond Vance’s shoulder. He couldn’t tell if she was thinking or if he’d lost her.

“Three. Four, maybe. Baby boy is small time. Picks ‘em up and moves ‘em out.”

Vance considered her words. If there were multiple girls, it might be better if he went by the book and called in the Feds. “Can I give you a ride somewhere?”

She hung her head, unable to look him in the eye. “Shelters won’t take me.” She wrapped her arms more securely around herself, but not before Vance caught a glimpse of the track marks running up and down them.

“If I can’t take you anywhere, would you like some lunch?”

She nodded without looking up. He told her to wait for him, although he doubted she had the strength to do much else. After retrieving his lunch and a bottle of water from a cooler in the backseat of his truck, Vance trotted back to the woman on the wall, kneeling before her once more to offer her the meal.

“Thanks.” She accepted the gift.

Vance didn’t know why he did it, but he couldn’t resist hugging her. “You take care of yourself.”

Her only response was the slightest nod of the head. A part of Vance wanted to scoop her up in his arms, to carry her away from this terrible place, this terrible life, to give her a hope and a home. But he also knew the woman was only a breath away from crossing from this life into the next. She had neither the will to live nor the will to give up her habit. Without those, there was nothing he could do to help her. He could, however, help the girls being held in the abandoned shoe factory around the corner.

It didn’t take long for him to verify that someone was keeping something at the shoe factory—an old brick building that looked identical to the countless other old brick buildings downtown, except for the lock on the front door and inconspicuous security camera focused on the front stoop. Vance parked far enough away to keep from arousing suspicion while watching to figure out just what he was up against. While he watched, he put in a call to Rick.

“Can you help me put together a file for the Bureau? I think I have enough for warrants.”

“Hello to you, too,” Rick greeted, his voice friendly as always, regardless of circumstance.

“I just really want to get this kid out of there.”

Rick sobered. “Is it bad?”

“I think so.”

“Vance, buddy, I’m looking at the info you sent and I don’t think it’s enough. Who’s your witness?”

“Knowing that won’t help the case.”

Rick sighed. “If you need to get her now and ask forgiveness later, I’ll take care of the paperwork.”

“I think there are a few girls in there. Getting three out by myself could be tricky.”

“You’re such a lightweight since you went lush. Let me talk to Ronnie. We might be able to help.”

“I’m not a lush,” Vance snapped. “And how can you help? Aren’t you on your way to some remote island or something to celebrate your anniversary?”

“Something like that. But we got held up in Chicago. It would be no trouble to swing by before we head out.”

Vance stared at the door for a long, hard moment. Everything was so quiet, so ominous. He wondered if Nicole was really on the other side of that door. If he barged in now, would he save her or get them both killed?