Furious (21 page)

At the police station, the FBI questioned both Faith and Rage for more than an hour. It was now Detective Yuhasz’s turn. He’d called Faith inside his office for a private talk, leaving Rage to wait in another room and fill out a report. The last time Faith had seen Detective Yuhasz was when she’d hit him over the head with his keyboard.

“So,” he said. “I see you’ve been keeping out of trouble.”

His sarcasm was hard to miss. “We were having our nails done.”

“All the way over in West Sacramento?”

She stayed calm as she reminded herself she needed to play nice and do whatever she must to keep him from throwing her in jail again. As far as she knew, she hadn’t broken the law, but these days there seemed to be a fine line between right and wrong. “I’ve been meaning to tell you in person that I’m sorry for losing my temper. I don’t know what came over me.” She lifted her chin. “You might be glad to know that I have yet to miss an anger management class.”

“From what I witnessed in the salon, I can see it’s working.”

She snorted.

“You do realize that you might be pissing some people off? And I’m not talking about me or the FBI.”

“Please don’t suggest I sit at home and do nothing.”

“I’m only saying that by stirring the pot you could end up jeopardizing your children’s lives.”

She thought about it for a moment. “I can’t think that way.” She shook her head. “I just can’t. I don’t see how doing nothing puts my kids in less danger than they’re already in. What’s that saying about shaking the hornet’s next?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Neither do I,” she said. “But I do know that bears endure stings to get to the prized honey. In other words, I can’t worry about the bees or shaking the hornet’s nest and pissing off a bunch of scumbags with guns. Sitting at home fretting hasn’t exactly helped Corrie Perelman, now has it?”

“Just do me a favor and try to stay inside the law as you sniff around.”

“I’ll do my best.”

There was a long pause before he scratched his chin and said, “The truth is, I would also like to apologize.”

“For what?”

“For upsetting you and making you feel as if your children were merely a case number. I have two children of my own and grandkids the same age as Lara and Hudson.” He fidgeted in his chair as if talking about his private life made him uncomfortable. “My ex-wife used to accuse me of being coldhearted.” He rearranged a stack of papers on his desk. “What I’m saying is I understand your frustration . . . as well as any outsider might. I’ve been in this business a long time. Long enough to know that you don’t have to look very hard or very far to find the scum of the earth lurking around almost every corner, which brings me to human trafficking. It’s an epidemic. I know it. The FBI knows it, and something tells me you know it.”

His gaze was on hers. He was letting her know she was on the right track and yet for whatever reason he couldn’t say it outright.

“I was born and raised in Chicago,” he went on, breaking eye contact. “We lived in a rough neighborhood, which is why I decided to become a police officer. I wanted to make a difference. I thought I was ready for anything. I felt invincible. But there was a problem. I felt too much empathy . . . for everybody. Every homicide, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault leaves a victim in its wake, and there wasn’t a day where I didn’t feel his or her pain. I would go home after every shift and lie awake in bed thinking of that victim. How would she support herself now that her husband was gone? Would that nice couple ever be the same after losing their only son to gang violence?” He scratched the side of his head. “Empathy wasn’t helping me. I had to find a way to get enough sleep so I could do my job properly.”

She said nothing, just watched him stare into open space while he collected his thoughts and then finally continued.

“I taught myself to disconnect from it all. Callousness and hard-heartedness can be learned until it becomes habit.”

What he was saying made sense, and she couldn’t imagine doing his job, dealing with criminals and trying to help the victims of horrible crimes day in and day out. When it was clear he was finished she said, “I appreciate you sharing.”

He nodded.

“What will happen to those girls from the salon?”

“They’ll be taken to child services, where hopefully they’ll get the help they need to move on.”

Realizing the desperation of it all, Faith sighed. “I should get back to my friend. Are we finished here?”

“We’re done,” he said. “But I want you to know that not a day goes by that I don’t think of your kids. I’m doing everything I can to stop them from slipping through the cracks.”

Everyone had their own personal demons to deal with it, she thought. For the first time since meeting him, she wondered if perhaps he really was on her side. Faith stood. A knot in her throat stopped her from telling him she appreciated all his hard work. They shook hands. She swallowed before managing a heartfelt, “Thank you.”

“I realize we got off to a bad start,” he said, “but don’t be afraid to share information with me. We do have resources available.”

She nodded and then walked out the door.

T
HIRTY
-S
IX

Diane usually left the chores to the little whores, but at the moment everyone was in major lockdown, thanks to Jasper and Miranda. She’d even locked Phoenix in the barn. She didn’t trust anyone.

She scrubbed harder, needing to get out her frustrations. She put her entire upper body into washing another pan as she looked through the kitchen window and out at the wide-open fields. Ever since Miranda and Jasper had disappeared, the girls at the farmhouse seemed on edge, everyone afraid they might be next to disappear. Even precious Trudi had been walking around the house with suspicious eyes as if she thought an assassin might jump out of the kitchen pantry at any moment.

Rumor had it that Miranda and Jasper were both dead, but Diane knew otherwise. Aster wasn’t the only one with eyes and ears on the streets of Sacramento and its surrounding areas. No cash had been found on Jasper’s body.

That really pissed her off.

Miranda could live for months on that kind of money.

She needed to find the girl before anyone else did. If Miranda talked to authorities, Jasper wouldn’t be the only one to pay for his mistakes with a bullet to the head.

As she scrubbed, she noticed how her hands had aged. Before her hair had grown limp and the lines around her eyes deepened, Diane had been Aster’s number one mistress. She used to wear beautiful clothes and nice jewelry. Now she was nothing more than a babysitter to a bunch of little sluts—sluts like sweet, innocent Jean. Soon after Miranda had left the farmhouse, the youngest girl, Jean, had become closer to some of the other girls. She usually spent most of her time alone, staring out at nothing or reading whatever book she could get her hands on. But lately she had a defiant look to her and more than once, Diane had caught her talking to Adele. Unlike most of the girls in the house, Adele had been taken from a grocery store while her mother shopped. The girl refused to obey the rules. It had taken months to convince her that her mother, Corrie Perelman, had given up looking for her. Runaways were much easier to train. If she didn’t know better, she would say Adele was up to her old tricks. She and Jean had bonded and the two of them appeared to be conspiring ways to escape.

Diane didn’t like it one bit, so back into the closet Adele went. Jean was ten years old, for God’s sake, but you would think she was much younger. Grow up! By that age Diane had been forcibly subjected to every act of indecency imaginable. The thought pissed her off—so much so she left the pan and frantically looked around the kitchen, her heart beating rapidly against her chest as she grabbed a knife from the counter. Gripping the handle tightly, she marched through the house, keys jangling around her wrist as she unlocked one bedroom door after another until she found the room where beautiful little Jean was sitting on the floor with Trudi and Victoria.

“Oh, isn’t this nice,” Diane said. “Playing cards with your friends, I see.”

“Is someone here to see us, Mother?” Victoria asked.

“Is someone here to see us, Mother?”
Diane repeated in the same sickly sweet, kiss-ass tone of hers.

“What’s wrong?” Trudi wanted to know.

Diane waved the knife in Jean’s direction. “That’s what’s wrong.”

The girl simply stared at her with those big blue eyes. She never blinked. The little bitch had been treated like a princess since the day she arrived. Aster called every week to check on the girl as if she were some sort of national treasure. “Hold her down,” she told the girls.

“What?”

“You heard me! I said hold her down!”

“Who?” Trudi asked.

“Jean. I don’t like the way she’s looking at me.”

Jean didn’t move. Nobody did. Diane sucked in a mouthful of musty, manure-filled air and tried to calm herself.

Trudi had always done what she said, never had to be asked twice before now.

“My,” Diane said, “how the tables have turned.” The tension hovering between them was thick and nasty. Ever since discovering that Jasper had stolen her money and ran off with Miranda, she’d let her guard down around here . . . stopped paying attention to what the little whores were up to.

“Do it now!” Diane shouted. She stabbed the knife in the air in front of Victoria and felt the blood rush to her head. “You hold her arms to the floor and you,” she said, pointing at Trudi, “hold her legs.”

This time they did as she said.

Jean didn’t cry, didn’t squirm, didn’t even let out a whimper as the girls held her flat to the ground. Her god-awful stare was wide and unblinking like a porcelain doll’s.

Diane got down on her knees. “Did you know that your mom doesn’t love you anymore?”

“That’s a lie,” Jean stated calmly. “You’re a liar.”

Trudi exchanged a worried look with Victoria.

“We’re your family now,” Diane told Jean. “Trudi, Victoria, and all the other girls here at the house are your sisters. I don’t know how much the girls have told you, Jean, but pretty soon you’re going to have to earn your keep around here.”

The uninterested look on Jean’s face sent chills up Diane’s spine. She wanted . . . needed to put the fear of God back into the girl. “Miranda is dead.”

An eerie calmness settled over the room until Jean said matter-of-factly, “No she’s not. Miranda is alive, and she’s going to come back and take me away from here.”

Diane felt the blood rush to her face. Her chest tightened, making it hard to breathe as she reached down and grabbed Jean by the hair, yanking her up from the ground so that they were nose to nose. “It’s time to teach you a lesson!”

Victoria made the mistake of grabbing Diane’s arm to stop her. She backhanded the bitch and then dragged Jean out the door, locking it securely behind her. The young girl’s cries as she dragged her across the hallway and down the stairs filled her satisfaction. It was time to show Jean what life was all about.

It had been raining nonstop for hours.

Miranda sat quietly in the hotel room wondering what to do next. She reached for the flyer on the nightstand and took a good, long look at Jean’s picture. Her real name was Lara McMann. Her brother had been taken, too, but Miranda had no idea where the boy could be. She sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the phone.

She should call the hotline, but something kept stopping her.

Would somebody answer? She leaned over, picked up the receiver, and carefully dialed the number on the flyer. She heard a ring and quickly hung up.

What if the call went straight to the police? She didn’t trust the police. She didn’t trust anyone. The hotline was probably a setup.

She came to her feet and began to pace the room. She felt like a fool as she raked a hand through her hair. What would she say? What should she do?

How could it be a setup? The flyers had to have been made weeks ago, well before she ever ran from Mother. The flyers had nothing to do with catching her and everything to with helping Jean. She was being paranoid. The honk of a horn, a car door slamming shut, raindrops hitting the roof . . . every sound startled her, made her wonder if this was it, if her time was up.

She went to the window and peeked through the curtain. There were five cars in the parking lot below. Across the street, she watched a man in a raincoat and hat hunch over as he rushed down the sidewalk before disappearing inside a corner market.

Her stomach gurgled.

The sound of squishy, wet footsteps caused her to step away from the curtain until her back was flat against the wall. The footfalls stopped right outside her door. Frozen in place, she hardly breathed, didn’t dare make a sound. She looked around the room, trying to decide what she could use against an attacker if someone crashed through the door without warning.

They were coming after her. She could feel it.

And then footsteps sounded again. Whoever had been at the door was walking away.

Her gaze returned to the phone as she swallowed the lump of fear lodged in her throat. If she dialed the number and no one answered, she would have to leave a message along with the motel’s phone number where they could call her back. The thought of telling even a recorded voice where she was staying caused a cold sweat to cover the length of her body.

What was wrong with her?

She was exhausted . . . hungry and exhausted.

After standing in the dark for too long, she decided to rest for a moment before heading out to find a pay phone. She walked quietly to the bed, curled up on top of the mattress, and thought of her mom and how she wished she were with her now.