4. 4
“That’s quite a story, Abigail,” my therapist, Robin Wagner, says. “Do you want to talk about how that makes you feel?”
I’m with her on my monthly appointment, two days after the charity event. It’s exactly a week after we found the bodies, and I didn’t feel any need to make an earlier appointment since this one was already booked.
“Besides sick to my stomach, you mean?”
Robin gives me a patient look over the half-moon shaped glasses she’s worn every single time I’ve seen her in the last ten years, not answering my question. I focus my eyes on one of the ornaments behind her in her cabinet. It’s some kind of African Tribal statue, and I’ve been wondering for years what the hell it’s supposed to be. I’ve never asked her, though I kind of like the mystery. I slide my teeth over my bottom lip as I try to determine how finding twelve murder victims has made me feel. There hasn’t been any official report yet, or maybe there has, but we haven’t been informed on the contents of that report. I’m assuming it’s a little farfetched to believe twelve people died of natural causes and then were buried in some creepy house in a very odd manner.
When I don’t answer Robin’s question, simply because I don’t have the answer to it, she starts tapping with her pen on the side of her clipboard.
“You’re allowed to be shocked, Abigail. You’re allowed to be sad for the victims. You’re allowed to be spooked, no matter how tough you are.”
While I know she’s right, I don’t really want to hear it. The more we sit in silence, maybe I do, because why else did I show up for my appointment?
“You need to start allowing yourself to feel these things,” she concludes. “The longer you keep fighting these feelings, the more control they will get over you, making you feel worse instead of better.”
I release a long sigh.
“This is one of those occasions where you just point out what I already know, but I have to actually do the work myself, right?”
She doesn’t answer, she just has this serene smile as she writes something down on her notepad. It’s annoying as fuck.
“That’s what I thought.” I sigh again, standing up from the leather ottoman I’m sitting on, starting to pace through the office. Sitting still isn’t something I’m particularly good at.
“You’re capable of working through this, Abby. And I don’t mean literally working through it. I mean taking the time to process this and go through the motions. To be frank, there are worse things you’ve encountered, but because you encounter them so frequently, your mind doesn’t find those events as traumatic as this event. Because that’s what we’re talking about. Your brain is responding to something traumatic, and you’re trying to find coping mechanisms to work through it. I need you to do the work. Sit down with your feelings. Write it down, journal.”
I cringe at the words. I hate writing stuff down. I’d much rather go shoot some bullets at the range and get my feelings out that way. But apparently, that’s just a coping mechanism. I’ve learned through the years that it’s not necessarily a bad thing to use coping mechanisms, as long as they’re helpful. But I don’t see how emptying my gun in some targets will actually be helpful this time.
Robin chuckles.
“Don’t be a stubborn ass, Abby. Three minutes. Sit down, feel, and write it down. And make an appointment for next week, because I know you’ll probably only listen to me once and then stop doing it. I’ll need to convince you again next week, when you start to have a hard time.”
Sometimes I hate her for knowing me so well. She might be the closest thing I have to a mother figure next to my aunt Viv, even if I pay her good money for her time. I roll my eyes, sigh and then nod. Robin might be the single reason I’m able to function in this line of work. I’m a tough cookie, but I need to stay sane in order to keep doing my work.
“Same time next week?” Robin presses.
“Hmhm,” I say as I pick up my coat and head for the door. “I’ll make an appointment with Maisy if she’s at the front desk.”
“Good, I’ll see you next week then. Remember, sit down, feel, and write down.”
I leave her office feeling lighter than when I entered. I’ve always found it both marvelous and infuriating that seeing a therapist doesn’t mean you get a magical solution for all your problems. It just means you get the tools to fix your own problems. I don’t love when she makes me realize my own errors and see the solution to it myself. Why the hell do I pay you if I’m doing it all myself? Worth every penny, because without coming here I wouldn’t take the time to fix my own shit.
Maisy, the secretary that’s manning the front desk, is on the phone with someone. She’s been working here ever since my first appointment and sometimes I believe she’s the one thing that keeps this whole business afloat. Leave it up to Maisy to fix it.
I hover at the side of her desk a little, as I wait for her to finish the conversation and actually make an appointment for next week. I pick at my nails, trying not to listen in on Maisy’s conversation, as another door in the hallway opens up. Chester storms out of the door to his own therapist’s office. He’s been through quite a lot of them before ending up with Ryan Decross, who doesn’t let Chester bullshit him. Their sessions tend to go a lot different than mine, going off of what Chester tells me, but to each their own.
A heated-looking Ryan appears in the doorway.
“I’m not repeating myself again. Chester. Just fucking listen to me.”
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the reason Chester and Ryan work well together. Ryan isn’t afraid to speak his mind or lose his professionalism. He just tells Chester what he needs to hear, and because he doesn’t hold back, Chester is willing to listen to him. Well, most of the time.
As my friend storms the hallway, he flips his therapist the bird and then joins me at Maisy’s desk. She’s just finished her phone conversation and she’s looking at the exchange between Chester and Ryan with curiosity.
“What can I help you with, sweety?” Maisy says as she shifts my focus from Chester back to her.
“Hey Maisy. I’d like to make another appointment for next week.”
She nods and starts clicking on the computer.
“Same time?”
“Sure.”
“Got it. I’ll send you a text with the details.”
I nod, giving her a smile. My exchanges with Maisy usually go this exact way, and I can’t tell you anything about the lady herself, but we’ve got this making appointments down to a science. As I step away, Chester stands in my place.
“And what can I do for you?” Maisy asks with the same kindness.
“Make me another appointment with the asshole.”
Maisy chuckles and starts clicking again.
“Got you scheduled for the same time next week so you can ride together again.”
Chester grunts something that I suppose has to resemble a thanks and rushes out of the hallway to the elevators. I wave at Maisy before following him and she gives me a wink. When I catch up to Chester, he’s obsessively pressing the elevator button.
“You do know that pressing it more than once won’t make it come any quicker, right?” I ask him.
“Of course I know. That’s what I do, I know things.”
“No need to take the grumpiness out on me,” I say, holding up my hands defensively. “Tough session?”
He huffs. “Apparently, I have to start feeling stuff.”
I bump into his shoulder as I widely grin. “Me too. Maybe we can feel stuff together.”
“Let’s start with annoyed.”
I snort. “Think we’ve got that one down. I also don’t think that’s what Robin and Ryan meant.”
“Well,” he says as the elevator finally arrives and the doors open up, “he didn’t specify what it is that I should be feeling, so the next feeling I’m going to practice is smugness, getting away with doing his assignment while not listening to his crap at all.”
“Don’t burn,” I whisper to my pan of paella that evening. “Please, please, don’t burn.”
Pouring myself a glass of whiskey, I move around the kitchen, tidying up as I wait for the dish to finish. Cooking soothes me, it makes me feel closer to my Mom, which I crave every now and again.
Chester’s kitchen is ridiculous. His whole home is ridiculous. It’s a little castle on a cliff, completely surrounded by forest on the side that’s not bordered by water. The castle is built right on the edge of the cliff, and while it used to freak me the fuck out because I thought it was going to fall into the water, it grew on me. The sound of the water hitting the cliffs now actually kind of calms me whenever I hear it, making me feel at home.
The castle is the only part of the Von Liechsenfield money Chester has accepted. It was his inheritance from his grandmother, the only person in the whole family who believed in, supported and loved him no matter what. Her home had always been a refuge to him and she left it in his name when she died.
All the money went to Satan Co, but I doubt he would’ve accepted it even if she left it to him. The house though, that was his. In terms of rich people”s money, it isn’t a big castle. Certainly not in Von Liechsenfield terms.
He could’ve sold it and made a pretty dime out of it, money we could’ve invested in our organization, but then he’d be homeless and paying rent. Just like me. This is my home, even if it isn’t officially in my name.
Taking a big gulp of my whiskey, I tentatively look at my paella again: on the top it looks awesome, it’s what’s going on underneath that’s worrying me. I can’t see if we’re getting a nice, tasteful browning, or if I’m just charring the thing like coals on a barbecue. Just a few more minutes, I decide, walking out into the hallway to put the spices I used back into the pantry.
“So, I figured something out,” Chester says while tapping on his laptop. Megadeth is blasting through his Bluetooth speakers, letting me know he’s deep into his work. We don’t do regular working hours. Sure, we go to the office, but work doesn’t stop there, not for us. We both have a tendency to get obsessed and keep going until we solve the puzzle that leads us to save the kids.
“What’d you find?” I ask as I stick my head around the corner into the hallway, looking through the open door to his office. The food will be good for a few minutes without my attendance, I guess.
“I figured out how they found out we were coming.”
That catches my attention. And that feels like a conversation that’s going to take more than a few minutes to have.
“Do you need the laptop to tell me? Or can we talk about it while we eat?” I ask, this nagging feeling in my stomach that we should have this conversation with a full stomach.
“I’ll come over,” he answers, quickly tapping something on his laptop.
Grabbing two plates as he turns off the music and comes to the kitchen, I turn down the stove and grab a serving spoon and fill the plates up. Nice, tasteful browning it is. Score. My friend sits down on a stool at the kitchen island and starts tapping the rhythm of the song he was just listening to on the counter until I shove a plate in front of him. He waits to tuck in until I’m sitting down myself.
“So?” I impatiently ask, before taking a bite.
“Well, the sellers had built something that functioned like a firewall on the website you get directed to through the dark web, notifying them when someone was reading the messages without using the proper protocol.”
He stuffs his mouth with a big bite, and I stare at him with wide open eyes as I impatiently wait for him to finish his bite. Leave it up to Chester to drop a bomb like that, stuff his mouth and leave me hanging. Not talking with a full mouth was obviously more important. Can take the kid out of the riches, but can’t take the riches out of the kid.
“When I found the lead, I obviously worked around these alarm systems, but someone else didn’t. I can”t trace the exact IP address, no matter what I try. I get bounced around. My best guess is that our Unknown Subject saw the kids next door and decided to do some research of his own. I traced his IP address to the dark web but I found nothing after that, the trace disappeared. But that’s too big of a coincidence not be related If you ask me.”
That’s something we agree on. I don’t believe in coincidences, certainly not huge ones like this. The conclusion that these events are linked is justifiable, I think.
“So now what?”
He shrugs.
“Now I dive into the depths of the dark web and dig into every nook and cranny until I find a lead. I’m still going through all the traffic cams to see if we can find something, but the sellers and the buyer have to get in contact again and they’ll probably use the dark web again. And I’ll find it, just you wait.”
A look of fierce determination dominates his face, and if I wasn’t sure he was doing everything within his power before, I would be now. He could be like a Pit Bull once he bit down on something. I think his therapist calls it hyper-focus, but personally, I go with determination.
We eat our meal in silence for a bit, his smartwatch lighting up every now and then.
“Who’s trying to reach you?”
“Remy,” he says, unfazed by my inquiry.
“What does he want?”
“Something about the donation,” he snaps, his words harsher than I’m used to from him.
“So then why aren’t you answering him? We need that donation.”
“We’ve already gotten the donation. We don’t have to attend any functions for a while. Might consider sending him a thank you card.”
He says so with a straight face, though I expected the prospect of not having to go to any function in a while would make him happier than he currently is.
“So then why is Remy still texting you about the donation if we’ve already got it?”
He stops his fork halfway up to his mouth and looks me in the eye, his bottom lip moving from left to right over his top teeth.
“He’s asking me for your number, so he can ask you out.”
My fork stops mid-air, hanging in front of me halfway through bringing it to my mouth.
“And what are you telling him?”
“That I’ll talk to you about it.”
I drop my fork and sit back a little. Why does Remy want to ask me out? He’s been with Chester, right? Do I even want to go out with Remy? Even considering that question leaves me confused. Dancing with him was overwhelming, and I’ve played the dance over and over in my head.
“When were you going to bring this up?” I ask him, trying to buy myself some time.
“Right now?”
“Yeah, you would’ve told me if I hadn’t asked you about your messages?” I ask him in disbelief.
He’s suddenly very interested in his plate. Yeah, that’s what I figured. He wouldn’t have told me. He pushes some bites of his food around on his plate with his fork, before he just starts eating again, ignoring my question. Real mature.
“I wasn’t even sure if going out with a woman is something he’s up to,” I force the conversation.
“We haven’t talked about logistics, but I’m under the impression he just likes who he likes, no matter their gender.”
He’s making me curious about how the two of them have spent their time together.
“What have you talked to him about?”
“Everything and anything, not the big stuff though. We just hooked up a few times and we both knew that was all it was. So I can tell you about his taste in music, which sucks by the way, but I can’t tell you what his plans for the future are. We mostly spend a lot of time not talking, as those things tend to go.”
His eyes are stuck on his plate, his shoulders hunched over.
“Would you prefer I didn’t go out with him?”
“No,” he answers way too quickly. I keep staring at him until I’m making him start to feel uncomfortable, forcing him to keep talking. The upside of being close friends for so long is that I know how to play him like a fiddle.
“It’s just a bit quick, you know? One dance and he wants to go out with you?”
I snort.
“Yeah, because one short encounter in a coffee shop is a much better basis for you guys to get together.”
He rolls his eyes at me and shoves his plate away from himself.
“It’s different for guys.”
“Oh, don’t give me that crap,” I scoff. “That’s sexist bullshit and you know it.”
And he does. Chester’s as accepting as they come and is all for equality. For him to use it as an argument right now is just weak.
“Do you want to go out with him?”
I shrug. I haven’t given it any thought since our dance, but I can see myself going on a date with Remy.
“I’m not opposed to it.”
Chester releases a sigh.
“I’ll let him know,” he says, as if that’s all there is to it. He takes his plate to the compost bin and scrapes the last bites off of it before he puts his dirty dishes in the dishwasher. “I’m going to see if I can find anything out about the kids,” he says, as he leaves the room and I silently watch him go.
Rammstein starts blasting through his speakers at such a volume it’s a blessing we don’t have any neighbors. We’ll have to talk about what’s really going on some other time.
“What’d you order?” Chester asks me, an hour later when he walks into the living room where I’m watching some documentary about border patrol. He places a cardboard box in front of me on the coffee table. I raise my eyebrow in question. I didn’t order anything, now did I? The package is a standard beige box, addressed to me, without any information about the sender on the outside.
“Nothing,” I answer, as I bend over to the table to grab it. Flipping the box over to see if there’s anything to find there about the origins of the package, I come up empty.
“Have you been online shopping again?” my friend asks me as he lets himself fall down on the couch and starts scrolling his phone.
“Not that I know of,” I answer honestly, searching my memory if there’s something I’ve subconsciously ordered and then forgotten about. It’s been a while since I’ve been on an online shopping spree. I peel the tape back from the package and open it up.
Reaching my hand in, I pull a stack of Polaroids out. I definitely did not order this and my anxiety rises. The photos are upside down, not revealing anything yet. My heart is pounding in my chest while I find the courage to flip them over.
I’m not prepared for what I see.
A young woman, with dark hair and dark eyes filled with terror stares back at me. She’s gagged with something black. I hold my breath while I look at the next picture. It’s another photo of the woman, looking right at the camera in freight, tears filling her eyes this time. It takes everything I’ve got to look at the next one in the stack. Same story. Why the fuck am I being sent pictures of a girl in terror?
Chester is looking up from his phone to see what’s wrong, my silence an obvious indicator that something’s up. But before I can manage to get the words out to tell him what it is, I notice that the girl in the third picture has a mole right next to her nose that wasn’t there in the first two pictures. That’s weird, right?
I flip back to the first two photos, to see if I’ve missed the mole, but it’s not there.
That’s when it hits me that they’re different girls.
As I quickly go through the whole stack of photos, I can’t breathe. I feel like there’s an enormous boulder on my chest, making it hard to suck in oxygen. Counting out all the times I see another girl staring at me in terror, my stomach wants to flip. My blood pressure is rising so high I can hear my blood rushing in my ears.
Twelve.
It’s twelve girls. Just like the piles of dirt.
My head tricks me into thinking I can smell lime, but it’s just my memory that’s being jogged.
The twelve piles of dirt change into faces of actual human beings, rightfully scared for their lives. Deep down I knew those dead bodies belonged to living, breathing people once, but having a face to them is something else entirely.
When I let my hand with the photos fall down, Chester grabs my wrist and takes the photos from me, flicking through the stack himself. The corners of his mouth pull down, as the images of the women burn onto my retinas. My vision gets blurry as I let myself fall back on the couch, holding my head in my hands. Why the fuck am I getting pictures of dead girls? How the hell did someone find my address? Chester’s fucking anal about our privacy.
He starts calling someone when he drops the Polaroids back into the box, sits down next to me and wraps an arm around my shoulder. Whoever he’s calling answers the phone.
“Yeah, Chester von Liechsenfield, need someone to come in. We’ve received a box of pictures that might be related to the bodies we found the other week.”
The person on the other side of the line talks, and I can’t hear the words as I’m too busy hearing my own blood rushing through my head.
“Oh cut the crap Olksen, I know there hasn’t been an official statement, but we both know I know what’s going on.”
The superintendent, who turns out to be the person on the other side of the line, starts cussing Chester out. It’s a good thing we’ve got history and we’re on good terms most of the time. Most of what Chester does to find information is toeing the line of the law or blatantly crossing it until it’s justified. Over the years, we’ve reached an understanding with Superintendent Olksen and the way we work is beneficial to both of us.
“Yes, get a detective here now. CSI is useless, we’ve touched the stuff before we knew what it was. I’ve got security footage myself from the delivery, I’ll send it over, but it was my regular mailman and will probably be a dead end. Will text you the address.”
The eyes of the girl in the first picture are stuck in my mind. The terrified look is something I’ve never seen. Actors don’t even come close. What the hell happened to them? What was the last thing they saw? Going off on the pictures it had to be gruesome. A monster. A shiver runs down my spine and Chester pulls me closer to him.
“Those are the girls from the graves we found, right?” I ask him even if I fully know the answer before he has to tell me.
“My best guess is they are, yeah. I might have snuck a peek into the police department’s research. They’re still trying to identify the bodies, but DNA is backed up so it’s taking a while and even then there’s no guarantee it’ll get us some answers.”
I smack Chester on the knee, because he knows better than to stick his nose into places it doesn’t belong when there’s no good reason. To be honest, it makes me grateful for having my little snoop as well. Hearing confirmed that there were indeed more dead bodies in that basement than just the one I saw is both justifying and horrifying.
“Why here? Why address it to me?”
“Beats me.”
We sit in silence for God knows how long, as I stare at the box and mull over everything that goes through my head, specifically not diving into my feelings. If I go there right now, it won’t end well. Chester is one-handedly tapping away on his phone, using the other one to keep me squeezed tight to his side. I let his comfort seep in.
The front gate buzzes, and Chester opens it up using an app on his phone as I watch how a police van drives onto the terrain. My friend finally lets me go, leaving me feeling cold and empty as he opens the door to let the police in, my eyes glued to the box.
Chester walks in with none other than Superintendent Olksen himself, followed by two men in civilian clothing. He leads them to where I’m still sitting on the couch, not even bothering to get up. I get a short head nod from the Superintendent, which I reciprocate by nudging my chin to the box on the coffee table.
“Evening Abby,” he says. Olksen is a good guy. Doesn’t give us as hard of a time as he could be giving us, seeing as we’re technically working outside of usual law enforcement. But he recognized early on that we deliver good work and get the kids home safely if we can, while simultaneously putting the bad guys away.
The two detectives he brought over pull out gloves before they reach for the box.
“We’ve been all over it. Our prints will be everywhere,” Chester says. “Wasn’t expecting something like this to come up.”
The two men keep handling the box and its contents as evidence, which it obviously is of course, but I don’t want to think about it like that. There’s much more they can do than just dust for fingerprints. They can investigate the kind of tape that’s been used, maybe something distinguishing about or in the photographs.
“This is all very unfortunate,” the superintendent says. “We’ll take it from here. There’s a team from the FBI coming in related to this. They’ll probably want to speak to you about it. I’ll give them your information so they can contact you.”
I numbly nod. Sure, whatever, get the FBI involved. Get all the agencies you can gather involved for all I care. Superintendent Olksen focuses on Chester next.
“You and I are going to have to have a conversation about looking at stuff you shouldn’t be looking at.”
Chester raises his chin in defiance.
“As soon as you can prove I’m doing it, I’ll come in and have that conversation. Until then, I know nothing.”
Olksen is trying to give him a stern look, but he fails and smirks at my friend. They’ve had this conversation about a million times, but nobody has ever been able to find proof that Chester got into the police files. They both know he does it, he just does it so well he gets away with it.
“Can you send the footage of the cameras to the precinct?” one of the detectives asks.
“Already done,” Chester states as he starts walking in the direction of the kitchen. After saying some short goodbyes, the superintendent and the detectives leave and I get off the couch, following Chester.
He grabs a budget energy drink from the fridge and opens the lid. The guy drinks only the highest quality of coffee, but when it comes to energy drinks, he only drinks this one budget brand. I’ve stopped trying to understand these parts of Chester’s brain. The fact that it’s late and he’s drinking an energy drink means we’re probably pulling an all-nighter. Good thing too, because I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep right now.
What the hell have we gotten ourselves into?