Chapter 5
Makhi
“Get away from my house. You think I haven’t heard all about you? Get.”
The dark-haired man in his forties, who opened the door five seconds ago, would have immediately slammed it in our faces if I hadn’t stuck my foot in the way to wedge it open.
After giving Nash a pointed look, since this is going exactly as I expected, I decide to take the lead. “Look. Nance, our housekeeper, said you have your mom visiting from New Mexico. We just need to speak to her for five minutes.”
“So you can put your filthy hands on—” He grunts and rocks to the side.
Alice, a gray-haired woman who looks to be in her sixties, steps into his place. She bears too strong a resemblance to the man she nudges aside for them to be unrelated.
She eyes us suspiciously, her gaze lingering on my bruised face. “You wanted to speak to me?”
The man looms up behind her, bristling with rage as if we’re the devil here to drag his grandma to hell. “You don’t know what they’re capable of. Let me—”
She rolls her eyes at him. “Didn’t I bring you into this world and keep you safe and alive?”
From the sharp edge creeping into her tone, only a fool would dare open his mouth.
“But Mom...” A whining note creeps into his voice.
“Yep, a fool,” I mutter.
Vonn nudges me hard enough to nearly send me flying. I shoot him a scowl and refocus on pissed-off Granny.
“I think I can handle a conversation without crumbling into dust.” She turns back to where Nash, Vonn, and I are filling her doorway. Nance is back at the house. “You had a question for me.”
Vonn steps forward. “We’re looking for a girl. She…”
The man mutters something, and his mom glares him into silent submission, then she turns back to Vonn. “He thinks that since he’s a father of three, he knows the way of the world. Wait until his little boy is a teenager and all those lovely hormones hit. He’ll learn something new.”
I grin at her, liking her more each second.
As if recognizing that this isn’t a fight he can win, he turns around, grumbling as he stalks away after failing to save his mom from us.
“There was a girl, a young woman really. She came into town a few weeks back on a bus from New Mexico. She had shoulder-length dark hair and dark blue eyes,” Vonn says.
The woman stares at him.
“We think she was dyeing her hair,” I say, remembering her blonde roots growing out. “She might have been a blonde when you saw her on the bus.”
Vonn continues. “She was wearing—”
The woman gestures for him to be quiet. His eyebrow shoots up, and I guess army vets aren’t used to being told to shut it by grannies half their size. He shuts it though. Smart after the tongue-lashing she just gave her son.
Her forehead furrows, adding a few more wrinkles to the rest. Her expression is thoughtful, and her eyes narrow with concentration.
“Can’t remember her name, but a sweet girl.
Blonde. Blue eyes. A little skittish. I gave her a sandwich and a bottle of water.
She didn’t have anyone meeting her at the bus station, and I thought about maybe inviting her for a cup of tea.
Then my family swarmed me, and I lost sight of her. ”
I share an excited glance with Nash.
That sounds like Byrdie.
“Did you meet her on the bus?” I ask, holding my breath.
“Deming, New Mexico. That’s where I got on. She was already on the bus, and that’s where the journey started.”
Suddenly, I can breathe. “You’re sure?”
She gives me a long look, the equivalent of a head slap. “You think I can’t remember where I live and the place I got on a bus to come visit my newest grandchild?”
“When you put it like that, feel free to call me an idiot. I deserve it,” I say with a grin.
One corner of her mouth lifts in a slight smile. “She seemed nice enough. Hope you find her.”
I take her hand and kiss the back of it, not only because she just saved my bacon, but to piss off her looming son, who’s back and glaring daggers at me.
She closes the door, and we head back to Vonn’s truck parked on the driveway.
“Looks like we’re going to Deming, wherever the hell that is,” Vonn says.
“Looks like we are.” I snap on my seatbelt and glance at Nash. “And your uncle…”
“He’ll have to wonder where we are,” Nash says. “I’m not sitting this one out. I’m coming.”
Vonn raises his eyebrow and starts up the truck.
Nash makes a face. “He won’t do anything while we’re gone.”
I share a glance with Vonn, and I’m not sure any of us believe that.
After heading to the house to pack a bag and put Nance on high alert for a potential visit from Nash’s uncle, we hit the road.
Six hours and countless snacks later, we pull into the parking lot of the Deming, New Mexico, bus station.
On a Friday mid-afternoon, the constant flow of people in and out of the station never slows. It’s busy.
“Now what?” I scowl at the busy station with no clue where to start looking for Byrdie.
Vonn slams the door shut and walks away from the station’s front entrance, glancing back at me and Nash to say, “Now we ask any shop or security guard within walking distance of this station if they saw a terrified woman looking to get out of town fast.”
“Why not in the station?” I ask, following.
“People at the station won’t remember her. You just saw how many went in and out of there,” Vonn says. “It’s a way too transient place to look for her. Too many people coming and going make it hard for anyone to stand out.”
“Makes sense,” I say.
“What makes you think she was within walking distance?” Nash asks.
“If she had a car, do you honestly think she’d be taking a bus?” Vonn asks.
“Good point,” Nash mutters.
And so begins three hours of asking strangers if they saw a woman matching Byrdie’s description.
We drift outward from the bus station, sticking our heads into grocery stores or any store that Byrdie might have had a reason to go into.
She had no money, and Pissed Off Granny gave her a sandwich, so she had no food either. When a sign for a women’s shelter comes into view, it seems like the perfect place Byrdie would have wandered into.
I push open the door, and the redheaded woman on the other side of the counter has her guard up the second she clocks me. She had started to smile as she lifted her head, then her smile froze and evaporated.
Must be all these lovely bruises Vonn left me with.
Her response doesn’t leave me hopeful, but I let the door close behind me and walk toward her. “I’m looking for a woman who might have stayed with you,” I say, resting my hands on the counter.
There’s not much to see here. Just a small seating area inside the two-story building and several closed doors. Other than the woman sitting at the front desk, no one else is around. It’s late afternoon, so maybe they are about to close?
On the wall behind the woman is a mural, and on the counter are leaflets with information on applying for food stamps.
“I can’t tell you that,” she says calmly but firmly.
“What do you mean you can’t tell me if she were here?” I scowl.
“This is a women’s shelter. I can’t give out information about any woman here, past or present. You’ll have to look elsewhere. Better yet, accept that whoever this woman is, left for a reason and doesn’t want to be found.”
“Look, this woman was in trouble. She didn’t leave because she wanted to. Someone took her. She could be hurt. I’m just trying to look out for her.”
A flicker of suspicion, laced with a heavy dash of doubt, passes across her face. “Then the best thing you can do is go to the police and have them look for her.”
That might have been an option if the cops in Massey didn’t hate us. They’ll file a missing person report, and that’ll be all they do. We could go to the cops here, but what if Byrdie isn’t even her real name? Vonn says it is, but he could be wrong.
“You’re not listening to me.” I grind out, wishing I could shake the answer out of her because her resistance to dropping the smallest of hints is making me think Byrdie was here.
She lifts her chin. “No, you’re not listening to me.”
Pissed off, I start to tell her how much when the door beside me swings open, and I automatically glance at it.
A brunette who looks to be in her mid-twenties freezes in the doorway.
My gaze drops as she yanks the sleeve of her hoodie to cover her wrist. Not fast enough.
I spot the dark bruise she was trying to hide.
Then I notice her baggy hoodie hinting at a small bump.
And just like that, I feel like the biggest fucking idiot in the world.
Women’s shelter.
The woman behind the desk emphasized “shelter,” and my mind skipped right over, thinking it was some charity and not the sort of place a woman might come to get away from a man who might hurt her.
My gaze returns to the woman behind the desk. “I get it. Sorry. I’ll go.”
And I walk away, giving the wary brunette a wide berth on my way out the door.
“I was about to call you. Any luck?” Vonn approaches from the other side of the road, his eyes flicking to the door I just stepped out of.
I make a face. “Going into a women’s shelter to look for Byrdie wasn’t the best idea I ever had.”
Understanding sweeps across his face, and Vonn winces. “Ah.”
“She might have gone in there, but they wouldn’t tell us if she had. I felt shitty enough for even asking. Where’s Nash?”
Vonn is looking around when Nash, halfway down the street, pops out from an alley and motions us over. “I have something.”
Vonn and I glance at each other and hurry toward Nash.
A woman wearing a million layers stands beside a shopping cart full of cans.
“This woman saw someone matching Byrdie’s description,” Nash explains.
“Information I’m happy to pass on once you pay me for it,” the woman says.
She wants cash for it, and she’s going to tell us whatever we want to hear that will keep her getting paid.
“And we should believe you because…” I let my voice trail off, seeing where this is going: Nash down a couple of hundred bucks with little to show for it.
She rolls her eyes at me. “Believe me or don’t believe me, but I saw the girl getting a donation from the church down the street. They give out free food.”
Vonn catches her eye. “What was she wearing?”
“Where’s my money?” she asks Nash.
Nash pulls out a twenty from his wallet and passes it to her.
It’s gone quick as a flash, buried within the multiple layers of clothes keeping her warm. “She was in a light blue Amish dress.”
“Amish dress?” I frown. “She was wearing jeans when we saw her.”
“Well,” the woman says sarcastically, “considering I walked her into the women’s shelter myself, I figure they didn’t have a spare Amish dress lying around, so a pair of jeans would have to do instead.”
This might be Byrdie, especially since the homeless woman took her to the women’s shelter, but to know for sure, we need answers. If this woman can give them to us, I can swallow my sarcasm for the next five minutes.
“Did you see her again?” I ask her.
Her eyes slide expectantly to Nash, and he pulls another twenty from his wallet and hands it to her. It disappears within her layers of clothing, and she turns back to me.
“I didn’t see her,” she says, and when I glare at her for ripping off Nash, she rolls her eyes at me. “But a couple of guys were going around flashing her picture a few days later. I was doing my thing on the street and got a peek. She was in some old-fashioned wedding dress.”
“Wedding dress?” I echo.
I remember Vonn saying she was married and hadn’t agreed to it. More and more, I’m sure this has to be Byrdie.
“Was there a guy in the picture?” Vonn asks.
The intensity of Vonn’s demand means she forgets to ask for more money before she answers, “Just her. Picture could have been ripped in half or something. Never saw the girl again. Those guys were showing her picture at the bus station, and they disappeared soon after. Hope they never found her. She seemed a sweet girl. A little too skittish to survive on the streets, but maybe the streets would’ve hardened her up if she’d been on them long enough. ”
That’s Byrdie.
“Thank you,” Nash says, and pulls out five crisp twenties from his wallet and gives them to her. “You’ve been more helpful than you’ll ever know.”
Her eyes widen, and she snatches the money as if scared he’ll change his mind. She hurries off with her shopping cart, then slows after a handful of steps, and turns back. “One more thing,” she calls out before we can leave the alley.
“What is it?” Nash asks her.
“The girl…” She hesitates, gnawing at her bottom lip. “She seemed… different.”
Nash frowns. “Different how?”
“Lost. She was wandering around as if it was her first time in a city. Even if she hadn’t been wearing the Amish dress, I’d have thought she’d escaped from a convent or something.
She had bare feet. Bare feet in the city…
” She shakes her head at the ridiculousness of it. “Not even the homeless do that.”
She was here, and now we have some idea of where she came from.
As suddenly as she stopped to tell us the most important piece of information we could have gotten, the woman hurries away, the cans in her cart rattling.
We look at each other.
“That was Byrdie,” Nash says, and we all nod.
“And it sounds like she wandered away from a cult,” I mutter.
“We need a hotel with Wi-Fi to look for any known cults in New Mexico. It’s probably going to take us all night.
” Vonn gives me an exasperated look. “Like some idiot told me, New Mexico is a big state, but that works in our favor. Means she’s unlikely to have crossed the border from another state.
At least, I hope not. We’ll start looking for cults in New Mexico, but that’s Byrdie. I’m sure of it.”