The Fire and the Veil (Veronica Barry Book 2) (20 page)

Veronica and Harry finished their tour of the neighborhood, much to Harry’s disappointment. Veronica led him inside and opened a can of food for him, which brought Blossom and Binky out of the woodwork. She opened a can for them, splitting it between two bowls. Then she made herself a cup of tea and settled down on the couch with her piles.

Chapter 12

She was standing in the concrete courtyard of a motel. After a moment, a man appeared from around the corner and jogged over to her. He was middle-aged, with sandy blond hair and dark eyes. He wore a rumpled gray suit and a loosened, red tie. He held up a key-card. “Number 141,” he said with a smile.

She returned the smile coldly, and walked along a step or two behind him.

It was starting to get dark, and her stomach growled. She followed him up some stairs, and down an outer walk, passing doors with numbers 135, 137, 139… until they stopped at 141.

He slid the card and the little light over the knob turned green. He pushed open the door. She shut the door behind her, eyeing him.

He turned, grinned at her and took off the tie.

“What’s the hurry?” she asked in a lazy voice. Lola’s voice. “I thought you said you wanted the whole night.”

“Sure, baby,” he said. “But why wait? Let’s get started.”

“Yeah, but I’m hungry.”

“I got something you can swallow.”

Lola clenched her fists at her sides, her fingernails digging into her flesh. “Fine. Let’s do it.”

“Yeah,” the guy said, his smile widening.

Lola took off the jacket she was wearing, the guy watching her. When her hands went to the hem of her tee, he licked his lips. She felt a wave of nausea. Veronica could feel her uncertainty. her stomach hurt, cramping with hunger, and she needed a place to sleep. She’d turned some tricks before, Veronica realized. But never like this, in a motel, stuck with the guy for however long he’d stick around. She felt trapped.

She dropped her hands. The guy’s eyes narrowed and his eyebrows drew together. “Don’t play games,” he said. “Look.” He shoved a hand in his back pocket and produced a wallet. He opened it, and pulled out some twenties—at least five. He waved them at her. “See? I’ve got the money. I’m not playing. So you don’t play either.”

Lola nodded. “Right,” she agreed, then she lunged forward and grabbed the money from his hand, and threw herself on the door.

“Hey! Bitch!” he shouted, and she felt him grab the back of her tee shirt as she got the door open. She yanked herself away from him and stumbled out onto the walk.

Lola looked both ways. To the left, there was no one, but to the right, a short distance down, a woman walked towards her, holding a bag of groceries.

Lola tried to run left, but she felt steely fingers catch her forearm.

“Fucking bitch!” the guy cried. “Give me my money!”

Lola squeezed the hand that held the money into a fist and hauled it around, hitting him hard in the temple. He jerked her arm, taking her off balance. With his free hand, he slapped her so powerfully her ears rang and she found herself on her hands and knees. She shook her head. She was still clutching the money. If she could just get away from this asshole…

Then she felt his shoe on her right shoulder blade, and he crushed her to the ground. The impact scraped her cheek. He dragged her arm out from under her, the grit of the concrete skinning the side of her wrist and hand. He pried her fingers from the money, still standing on her back. Then mercifully, his weight lifted.

“Fucking whore,” he growled, and walked down past the woman, who stood still, staring at them.

Lola choked on tears of rage and despair. She picked herself up, her back spasming with pain, her wrist, hand and fingers throbbing.

“Do you need help?” the woman asked. She was young, with dark brown hair and golden skin. She had a faint accent.

“No,” Lola said, glaring at her.

“You could come in. Wash your wrist,” the woman offered, her hand on the knob of number 137.

“No,” Lola said. Then she added in a whisper, “Thanks anyway.”

~~~

Her cell phone went off, vibrating across the coffee table. Veronica opened her eyes. It was a relief to not be in pain, although she found when she moved that her neck was stiff. She was half-lying on her couch. She’d fallen asleep after completing French II, only a few papers into French III.

Well, if she’d seen the name of the motel, she might have been able to call CPS back with Lola’s location, but she hadn’t. Another bust.

The phone was still buzzing. She grabbed it. It was Melanie. She answered it.

“Hey Mel,” she said, rubbing her neck.

“Hey—you don’t sound good.”

“Ah, I just fell asleep on the couch. What time is it?”

“Um… five fifteen,” Melanie said.

It didn’t feel like it should be so early. But then, her investigation with Khalilah had ended almost before it began—she’d walked Harry at 12:30. She must have fallen asleep around four.

“Hey, you there?” Melanie asked.

“Yeah, sorry. It’s been a weird few days.”

“Really? Do tell.”

“I don’t know where to start, Mel. It’s all just so frustrating. Did I tell you I have a dream about a student?”

“Yeah! The one who nearly died crossing the freeway.”

“That’s the one.”

“I’ve been keeping an eye on Angie, you know, for signs of suicidal tendencies…”

“Mellie, it wasn’t Ange,” Veronica said, feeling tired.

“Oh?”

“Yeah, I figured out it was another girl. I’m sorry, I should have called you. I’m sorry you were worried about it being Angie this whole time.”

“Forget it. I worry about her all the time anyway. Who did it turn out to be?”

“A girl in Angie’s class named Lola. I’ve had several dreams about her, since. Each one is worse than the next. She’d got terrible stuff going on in her life, Mel, and I don’t know what to do to help her.”

“Terrible like what?”

“Ugh, you name it. Abusive step-dad. Possibly abusive step-brother, although my details on that aren’t clear. She does drugs—not just pot, either, I gather, but meth, too.”

“Yuck,” Melanie said.

“Yeah. And she got kicked out of her house, so this last dream, I saw her trying to prostitute herself for a place to sleep tonight… except she panicked and tried to rob the guy, and that didn’t go well. It’s just a nasty situation.”

“Have you reported the step-father abuse yet?”

“Earlier today. But I don’t know if they’ll do anything. The woman I talked to sounded unimpressed.”

Melanie snorted. “Yeah, it’s a wonder CPS is still functioning at all. You know they cut something like 70% of their staff over the last two years?”

Veronica sighed. “And Daniel and I had a fight.”

“What? Why? Did it have to do with this girl?”

“No, it’s this whole other thing. You remember Khalilah?”

“Khalilah Jadeed? Angie’s old French teacher?”

“She asked me to help her find this missing woman. It’s really complicated, but the brief version is, the woman’s father saw her abducted, but he refused to make a police report about it—”

“What?”

“I know. It’s complicated. But anyway, for a while Khalilah didn’t want to report it either—”

“You must be leaving out some major details, here.”

Veronica rubbed her eyes with the fingers of her left hand. “Yeah. Okay, let me see if I can explain this. This woman is a refugee from Iraq. Her family is part of a rural tribe. They have their own set of laws. When she was abducted, it put into question their… honor.”

“Oh my god,” Melanie exclaimed. “I’ve heard about things like this. If she gets raped, they see it as a dishonor on their whole family. But, Veronica, what I heard is, they would kill her to restore it.”

“Exactly,” Veronica said. “So Khalilah wanted to try to find her, and get her to some safe house, before the police or her family did.”

“Oh my god,” Melanie said.

“And I told Daniel what was going on, and he basically said that I was out of my league and to stay out of the whole thing.”

“Uh-huh,” Melanie said noncommittally.

“Look, I realize it sounds all dangerous, and it is, but I’m not even really involved. I just drove around with Khalilah trying to get some visions, and none of it amounted to anything, anyway. One spirit even said the other spirits don’t want me to find her! So they all think I’m a big weakling, too, apparently.”

“A weakling? What?”

“That’s the thing about Daniel. He’s really sweet and all, but he doesn’t have any faith in me. He thinks I’ll just get hurt or something—” Veronica groaned. “Oh, he’s probably right. What’s the point anyway? I have no leads.”

“The spirits didn’t give you any hints at all?”

“Just one really obscure reference to a walnut and a peach.”

“That’s kind of weird,” Melanie said. “Oh! And there’s that motel.”

Veronica sat up. “What motel?” she asked slowly.

“Down in Elk Grove. You see the sign if you drive down Elk Grove Boulevard, but the motel’s a block south. I think it’s on the corner of Walnut Avenue and Peach Street. Hence the name.”

Veronica thought about her dream. She thought about the young brunette with the slight accent. It could have been Amani. But it didn’t make any sense. She was carrying a bag of groceries, not handcuffed to a bed in some dank basement.

“That can’t be it,” Veronica muttered. “It can’t be.”

Could it be? Could Lola have somehow wound up at the same motel as Amani? Maybe the young woman wasn’t Amani. Maybe the motel where the john brought Lola wasn’t even the Peach Walnut Motel. But that didn’t mean Amani wasn’t being held against her will somewhere in the Peach Walnut Motel—it didn’t have to be the same place from her Lola dream.

“Melanie, thank you,” Veronica said. “You’ve been amazing, as usual.”

“I try,” Mel said. “But, um, how?”

“I’ll explain when this all starts making sense to me, I promise,” Veronica said. “But for now, I have to let you go. I have to call Khalilah. I think maybe we might find Amani after all.”

“Oh, okay,” Melanie said. “But, V, be careful. I mean, it sounds like if you can get her away from the person who snatched her, you’ll be up against her whole family next.”

“Not if they never hear about it. The main thing is going to be to avoid the abductor.” But something told her that there might be no abductor. Which still made no sense. Jahid had seen her pulled into a van. Why would he lie about that? Khalilah said he was distraught. Why would he fake being distraught? “I have to go,” Veronica told Mel. “I’ll call you later.”

“Okay, hon. Be careful.”

“I will be.”

Veronica hung up and immediately dialed Khalilah’s number. They had to try to get over to that motel as soon as possible. They had to get to the bottom of all of this. Veronica had to sort one thing out, at least, with all the messes that were piling up.

~~~

“I’ve never heard of this place,” Khalilah said as they whizzed down 5 south in her hybrid.

“I don’t think it’s an upscale establishment,” Veronica said.

“You think I’ve only heard of upscale establishments?” Khalilah asked with a smile. Her voice seemed higher than usual. Veronica knew she was nervous. Veronica felt pretty nervous, herself. She didn’t know what to expect. She’d already decided that the first thing to do was go directly to room 137, the one the woman took her groceries to in her Lola dream. There really was no reason to believe that the woman was Amani, but Veronica had a feeling about it. And she was learning to trust those.

“What if you’re wrong about the dream?” Khalilah said, showing a flair for mind-reading, herself.

“You mean the woman I saw?”

“Yes. You said she had a bag of groceries.”

“I know. It doesn’t fit. Unless—do you think Jahid was lying?”

“About her abduction?” Khalilah asked, then was silent for a moment. “I suppose it’s possible,” she said at last. “But I don’t see why he would lie about such a thing, and why to my brother? And why the oscar-winning performance? I wouldn’t expect Jahid Ahmad to be such a convincing actor.”

Veronica pondered this. Why
would
Jahid lie? Why tell someone he didn’t know very well, who worked at the Islamic Center, that he’d witnessed his daughter’s violent abduction? And then refuse to get the police involved?

“I’m probably just wrong about Amani being the woman in my dream,” Veronica said.

“Have you dreamt of Amani before?”

“No,” Veronica said. “And in fact, I wouldn’t say this dream was about her, either. She was just part of the scenery, really.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I was dreaming about a student of mine. I’ve had several dreams about this student.”

“And she knows Amani somehow?”

“No,” Veronica said. Why was this so complicated? “I don’t know why I think this woman was Amani. I just do. The student… she was in an altercation, at a motel—it’ll probably turn out not to be the Peach Walnut Motel anyway. But after the altercation, a woman tried to help her. That’s the woman I think is Amani.”

“What makes you think this dream was anything more than an ordinary dream?”

“Because I’ve had other dreams about this student, and I have reason to believe I saw real things happen in them.”

“Why… I don’t know how to ask this,” Khalilah said with a sigh. “Why do you think—why are you getting this information, about your student?” She glanced at Veronica. “It would be awkward, I think, to get outside information about a student. I mean, what sort of information is it?”

“I think the spirits want me to help her,” Veronica said, examining her nails. “I just can’t figure out how.”

“So the things you’ve seen are bad?”

“Very.”

“And do you really think it’s likely that Amani turned up in this student’s path? It sounds like wishful thinking, honestly.”

“Maybe it is,” Veronica said, feeling a twinge of annoyance. She’d said from the beginning she wasn’t sure about the woman. “I mean, it probably is! I just think we should eliminate the possibility of her being in room 137 before we look anywhere else. Maybe just going to the room we’ll see something or find some sort of clue. It’s seems like too much of a coincidence, that a spirit gave me the name of a motel, and then Lola turns up at a motel.”