Chapter 18
Jordy
It took several hours of driving around before Kitt declared us safe enough to stop for a while.
I’d dozed off at some point during the car ride, so I wasn’t exactly sure where we ended up.
For all I knew, we’d simply spent the day driving in circles.
Not that it mattered to me. One location was the same as the next, as far as I was concerned.
So long as we were safe, then I was happy.
We ended up stopping for the night at a very expensive-looking hotel. I’d protested at first. We didn’t need to stay anywhere fancy. I’d lived my entire life without luxuries. A weekend without room service and a Jacuzzi tub wouldn’t kill me.
However, Kitt claimed he’d chosen the hotel based on its security.
Anyone off the street could just walk into a regular hotel, but this one was on much stricter lockdown.
It was the kind of hotel often used by celebrities that needed to fend off crazed fans and paparazzi.
We weren’t even allowed into the building until we proved we could pay for a room, which Kitt took care of on his own, and then we were escorted directly to a private elevator which took us straight to our room and was apparently under the watch of guards at all times.
How much did a place like this cost, and how had Kitt managed to afford one of the rooms on short notice?
I couldn’t even imagine, though based on everything I’d learned about the man, I was starting to suspect he wasn’t just a lawyer with good connections. Kitt had money of his own. That was the only explanation.
Whatever. I wasn’t going to question it. Right now, more resources could only help us.
I was much more concerned about whatever was on the memory card that Lily Kim had left for us.
Basically, the situation could be summed up like this.
Grace Calderon, the main supplier for the bell ringers who’d been in charge of the actual trafficking side of things, was making plans to leave the country.
The memory card included everything Lily Kim had managed to gather about Grace Calderon’s plans and would probably be enough to catch the woman if we acted quickly.
There was just one problem. We still hadn’t managed to get in contact with Logan, or Clay, or any of the others. We were still on our own.
Kitt and I sat across from each other at a table in the hotel room, looking down at the screen of his phone that he’d used to display the information from the memory card.
Neither of us spoke for a while, but I couldn’t stand the silence.
By then, night had fallen, and I could see the lights of whatever city we were in flickering outside the window, but the thick glass didn’t let in any of the noise outside.
There wasn’t even the sound of a ticking clock to mark the passing time.
All I could hear was the rapid patter of my own heartbeat, and I hated it.
“We have two choices,” I said, just to break the silence.
Kitt nodded. “We do. We can either go after Grace Calderon ourselves, or we wait to reconvene with the others, let her get away, and focus our efforts on the remaining leaders of the bell ringers.”
I never used to mind my memory before I knew it was unusual.
I thought everyone struggled to filter through all the details of their memories, so I’d never seen it as anything worth complaining about.
Now that I knew it was unusual, and that most people actively struggled to recall the details of their past, I found it incredibly unfair.
I already understood what Kitt was talking about.
The two main leaders of the bell ringers that we could focus on were Preston Vanshaw, the leader, and Edgar Barr, the financial backer and biggest client.
Remembering these two men in general would have been enough for this conversation, but my mind didn’t work in general concepts.
No, the second Kitt mentioned them, I was immediately bombarded with images of the two men. Every crease in their faces, their exact height and the color of their eyes, even the way they smelled, was as clear to me as if they were standing in front of me right now.
“Jordy,” Kitt called as he gripped my hand across the table. “Jordy, listen to me. Focus on my voice.”
As he talked, his thumb rubbed against my palm. The two sensations together grounded me, and I managed to focus back on the present moment around me.
Most of the lights in the hotel room were still off, since we’d sat directly down at the table to review the memory card Lily Kim had given us, so the atmosphere was dim and soft around the edges.
Off to the side, the air conditioner whirred with the gentle hum of a well-maintained machine.
It was only spring. The weather wasn’t warm enough for the air-conditioner to be running. We should probably turn that off.
My eyes were already searching for the room’s temperature control panel, when Kitt called my name again, bringing my attention back to him.
Maybe I wasn’t as grounded as I thought. My head still felt a little spacey.
“I’m fine,” I insisted. “I was just thinking.”
My eyes met his.
How strange. I could remember every detail about him, just like I could with everyone else I met, so why was I always surprised by the depth of his dark eyes when he looked at me?
In his eyes, there was no difference between pupils and iris.
It was all just solid, glittering black.
Such a difference to the color I saw in the mirror every day.
My own eyes showed off my pupils like they were the main attraction.
Every time my pupils constricted themselves in fear or dilated in excitement, it was on display for everyone to see.
I much preferred Kitt’s hidden expression.
No matter how hard I looked, I couldn’t tell what he was thinking.
I had no way to know if he was afraid, or excited, or nervous.
For years, I’d survived by reading the desires of the people around me and catering to them.
The fact that Kitt’s opinions remained hidden within the shield of his dark eyes made it a lot easier for me to express my own opinions.
“I’ve already told you before. Edgar Barr was our most frequent client. He’s the one I hate the most. I don’t... I don’t care about anyone else. I just want to see him go down.”
Kitt sat silently for a moment, then nodded and placed his metal briefcase onto the table. After opening it, he picked up the cell phone displaying the data from Lily Kim’s memory card.
“All right. Edgar Barr is the one you want to focus on, then that’s what we’ll do.”
He started to place the phone inside the briefcase, but I grabbed his wrist and stopped him.
“Wait. Just like that?”
The phone remained in his hand, hovering in the air just above the open briefcase as Kitt looked at me with confusion.
“What do you mean? We have two choices. Whether we go after Grace Calderon ourselves or wait to regroup with the others and focus on the other leaders of the bell ringers, like Edgar Barr. You said you’d rather focus on Edgar Barr.”
“Yeah, but...” I snatched the phone out of his hand and placed it back on the table. “Just because that’s what I want to do doesn’t make it the best choice. “Didn’t you say before that you think Grace Calderon was our best bet for winning the case?”
With a snap, Kitt closed his briefcase again.
“In my professional opinion, yes. I think she would be. But this isn’t just about winning the case.
It’s about bringing justice to the victims. Justice to you.
There’s no point in any of this if you’re unhappy with the results in the end.
So, if Edgar Barr is the one you want us to focus on, we will. ”
I was tempted to say yes. I so badly wanted to see that man—that monster—behind bars that I was willing to throw everything else away to make it happen.
Unfortunately, with my memory being the way it was, when I thought back on the past, I not only saw Edgar Barr’s face in perfect clarity. I also saw the face of every other child I’d been raised with.
The various roommates that had come and gone over the years.
The ones who were too young to know that anything else existed.
The ones who were taken when they were older and still remembered their families.
The ones that had found a way to survive.
The ones that hadn’t.
I remembered all of them.
This wasn’t just my decision, but I was the only one who could make it.
“No,” I eventually declared. “The most important thing is making sure we take down the bell ringers for good. If Grace Calderon is our best bet for doing that, then we need to stop her before she leaves the country.”
“You realize that means going after her alone?” Kitt asked.
“We can’t afford to bring in any new people, or we could just end up in another situation like with Sam back at the bunker.
I’ll keep trying to get in contact with the others, but if they don’t respond soon, it’ll be just the two of us going after Calderon. ”
Squaring up my shoulders, I sat as straight as I could in my chair. “I’m not much of a fighter, but I’ll do my best.”
Kitt just chuckled and patted my hand. “Oh, I think you’re a much better fighter than you give yourself credit for, or else you wouldn’t have survived this long.
All right. If you’re sure about this decision, then I’ll start making plans.
Now, go take a shower and relax for a bit while I order us some food. You haven’t had a proper meal all day.”
The hotel’s bathroom was nearly as big as the bedroom. Made entirely of white marble with gold trim, it looked like the kind of place where royalty would bathe. I felt guilty just turning on the shower as my fingerprints left smudges on the perfectly polished metal.