22. Louise
Chapter 22
Louise
Two days pass, and work begins to return to normal. My coworkers get over their discomfort, and the usual banter returns in force. I haven’t seen Draven since the morning of our fight over Ruby. He’d received a call to support on another case down in Washington D.C., but we’ve kept in regular contact.
Our enforced separation, though, gives me far too much time to worry. What if he’s changed his mind about our relationship, if what we have can even be called that? What if he’s decided I’m not worth the aggravation and has an urge to return to his trouble-free life? He started out wanting to punish me for my actions eight years ago. Maybe this is how he’s chosen to do it by getting me into bed and then dropping me once I admit my feelings.
No, I don’t believe that. Not really. I’m missing him, that’s all, and allowing my frustrations at the lack of progress on Shala to get the better of me.
My cell rings, and a spurt of hope briefly shines until I see the caller ID.
Rick.
“Hey, what’s up?” I ask glumly.
“You owe me so many favors now, Rhodes, you’ll be ninety years old before you’ve paid them all off.”
“Dream on,” I say, my spirits lifting as they often do when I speak with Rick. He’s just a solid, all-round good guy. “Go on, then. Tell me this latest miracle you’ve performed.”
“Draven came to see me a couple days ago and said you were interested in talking to some of the women from the warehouse.”
My pulse jolts at the mention of Draven’s name. Then Rick’s words resonate, and a spark of excitement curls in my gut. Draven came through for me. God, I want to kiss that guy.
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“One of them has agreed to talk to you. Darla Adams.”
My heart rate shoots up. Darla Adams was the woman who Ms. Fowler lied about in her statement. The one she said she’d watched two men bundle into a van. “When? Where?”
“She’s agreed I can pass on her contact details. After that, it’s up to you.”
“I love you,” I say.
“Yeah, yeah. Too late, Rhodes. You had your chance back in the academy, and you blew it.”
I laugh. “You’re so full of shit.”
“Whatever,” he says, chuckling. “Keep me updated.”
“I will.”
I end the call, then stare at my phone waiting for Rick’s text. Less than sixty seconds later, it arrives. I add Darla’s number to my contacts and immediately place the call. It goes straight to voicemail, but given that I’d come up as unknown caller, I’m not surprised. I use that method of call screening all the time. If it’s important, the caller will leave a message. If they don’t then, in all likelihood, it’s either spam or inconsequential.
I record a brief message, leaving my name, number, and the reason for my call. After that, I call Draven to share my excitement at Rick coming through with a contact, and to thank him for coming through for me. It’s an excuse to speak to him, I know that. He’ll probably know it, too.
Cramming down my disappointment when he doesn’t pick up isn’t easy, and with no call from Darla, I decide to grab a bite to eat. I walk the mile to the food mart, buy a sandwich and a bottle of water, and head back to my office. I jog up the steps, then hear my name being called. Turning around, my gaze falls on a woman I recognize from the case file: Darla Adams. She’s leaning against a tree at the foot of the steps with another woman standing beside her.
I return to the street. “Ms. Adams.” I hold out my hand. “I’m Detective Rhodes.” Thank God I can still call myself by that title… for now.
“I-I got your message,” she falters. “This is my friend Linda. I-I don’t like to go out by myself. Not now.” Her voice drops. “Maybe not ever.”
A desire for vengeance heats my blood. As if these women haven’t suffered enough, yet their suffering continues. They’re free, but not really.
“Are you available to talk now?” I ask carefully.
She nods, nibbling on her thumb nail, her gaze darting between me and the building behind her. “Can Linda stay?”
I offer a gentle smile. “Absolutely.” I jerk my head toward the precinct. “The coffee in there is awful. How about I drive us somewhere that serves better java?”
A faint smile touches her lips, but it’s gone so fast I wonder if I imagined it. “If you’re sure you have the time.”
“I have the time.”
I drive the three miles to my favorite coffee place, which, as luck would have it, is nowhere near Bolder Street where those bastards snatched Darla. I settle both ladies into a comfy sofa by the window and head up to the counter, ordering coffees and slices of pound cake. While I wait for the barista to fill my order, I glance over and watch Darla pulling on a loose thread as Linda whispers in her ear. I’ll need to take care with Darla. The woman has been through enough, and I don’t want to add to her pain.
I set the tray on the table and take a seat opposite the two women. “I hope you like pound cake,” I say. “Although it should be called ten-pound cake, because I’m certain that’s the amount of weight I put on after eating it.”
Darla breaks into a genuine smile, and this time it holds. It changes her entire face. A tinge of pride tugs at my chest that she smiled because of something I said.
“It’s one of my favorites.”
“Mine, too,” Linda says. “Thank you, detective.”
“My pleasure.” I split my cake in half and take a bite, brushing crumbs off my skirt. I make a satisfied groan. “God, it should be illegal for something to taste so good.”
Darla giggles, and her whole body relaxes. Good. I thought hard on the drive over how to approach questioning her, how best to tease any information she has from her. I decided to treat the situation as though we’re just friends engaging in nothing more than sharing a coffee and enjoying a good old gossip.
Darla sips her latte, spilling a little on the table as she puts down her cup. She dabs the spillage with a napkin. “What do you want to know?” she asks.
I lean forward, locking eyes with her. God only knows what horrors she endured, what terrible acts she witnessed, and personally suffered.
“Whatever you’re willing to tell me,” I say. “I’m not here as a detective. There are others investigating this case, and I’m not one of them. I just want to hear about my sister.”
Darla nods, her mouth turning down at the edges, her eyes a dull shade of brown. “She was lovely,” she whispers. “We were kept in adjacent cells, and sometimes, when the drugs began to wear off, before the men would return, we’d stretch as far as our chains would allow and touch fingers through the bars.”
My breath hitches, my emotions on the edge of spilling over. The image Darla paints is as clear as if I’d been right there with them. Her chin dips, and Linda squeezes her arm in encouragement.
“I cried a lot, but Kiera… she was so strong. She’d comfort me, telling me her sister was on the police force and she’d never give up looking for us. She trusted you implicitly, so dogged in her belief that you’d rescue us in the end.” Darla lifts her head, her eyes brimming with unshed tears. “And you did.”
Tears bubble behind my eyes, and I dig my fingernails into my palms to distract me. “We’ll get the men who did this, I promise you. They’ll pay for what they’ve done.”
Darla briefly closes her eyes, nodding. “I wouldn’t have gotten through this if it weren’t for Kiera and the others. We were in it together, you know? All of us just trying to survive the next minute, the next hour, the next day.”
Linda sniffs, then riffles through her purse. She pulls out a tissue and blows her nose. I reach across the table and clasp Darla’s hand, woman to woman. We’re connected by a different kind of pain brought about by the same events. “Is there anything you can tell me that you haven’t already told the police?” I ask gently, conscious of my earlier declaration of not being here in an official capacity.
Darla plucks at the skin at the base of her neck. “I don’t think so. I can’t even tell you how many there were. Four? Five, maybe. They kept me—us—drugged a lot of the time. Except when they… when they...” She swallows, squeezing her eyes closed once more. “Then they liked us lucid. They liked it when we fought them, when the other women screamed, knowing their time was coming.”
Nausea swirls in my gut. A part of me knew the women would have been repeatedly raped, but to hear it from one of the victims, and to know Kiera went through the same thing... I can’t bear it. Anger curls my hands into fists, and sweat beads along the nape of my neck despite the cool air inside the coffee shop. If I ever get my hands on the men who did this, I’m not sure what I’ll do. I don’t trust myself not to do something stupid.
“It’s okay, Detective Rhodes,” Darla says, offering comfort in the form of a pat on the back of my hand when I’m the one who should be comforting her.
I place my hand over hers, grappling with emotions that threaten to erupt from deep within me. I have to stay focused on the end game—bringing those responsible to justice. This isn’t about my personal vendetta, as much as I sometimes want it to be. Death is too quick for these men. Too easy. Life in prison is a much greater punishment.
“I’m so sorry Kiera didn’t make it. She deserved to live.”
“You all deserved to live,” I say. “No one’s life was worth more than the other.” I draw in a cleansing breath, refocusing my mind. “Would you recognize the men again? Their faces? Voices?”
Darla pulls in her lips. “I honestly don’t know. Everything is so fuzzy. The doctors put my lack of memory down to the cocktail of drugs they fed us.” She offers an apologetic smile. “I feel so useless.”
“You’re not useless. Not at all. You’ve been through a horrific experience. I’m no doctor, but the lack of recall is probably your mind protecting itself.”
She lifts one shoulder. “Maybe.”
“Rick—Lieutenant Mathieson—told me all the men were foreign. Would you be able to place their accent?” I’ll lay odds on them being Albanian given they’re Shala’s men, but it doesn’t do to presume anything.
Darla shakes her head. “I doubt it. I’d struggle even if they were Americ—” Her eyes widen. “Wait a minute.” She reaches for Linda’s hand. “God, how could I have forgotten?”
Hope spikes within me. “Forgotten what?” I probe gently.
“A few days after they’d taken me… at least I think it was a few days.” She rubs her forehead. “Time sort of blended, and it was always dark.”
I give her space to think, for the memories to return in their own time. I sip my almost cold coffee and wait, firing a friendly smile at Linda while Darla stares into the distance, then her gaze cuts back to me. “I woke in a bit of a daze this one day to raised voices. All the other women were still out of it from the drugs. The men were huddled outside my cell arguing. I don’t know what they were saying because they weren’t speaking English, but the voices were definitely angry. Then this one guy came storming toward them. I couldn’t see his face very well. He was half in shadow, but I heard his voice as clear as day. He hissed at them to shut the fuck up and do their jobs or he’d shoot their dicks off. He must have been the boss, because the men immediately stopped shouting at each other and bowed their heads.” She raises a trembling hand to her throat. “I can’t believe I’ve only just recalled this. The man, he was American. I’m certain of it.”
I hold my breath, my belly fluttering with excitement. This could be the breakthrough we need to crack the case. The American can’t be the boss. That’s Shala… or is it? Maybe we’ve been looking in all the wrong places. Shelton told me there was a bigger case. Shala could simply be the leader of this patch.
“Have you mentioned this to anyone? To Lieutenant Mathieson’s team?”
“No. Like I said, I only just remembered. I can’t believe I didn’t think of this before,” Darla says, her expression stricken.
“It’s okay.” Linda winds an arm around Darla’s shoulders. “You’re doing so well.”
“You are, Darla. You’re so strong. A survivor. Listen to Linda, and don’t be hard on yourself. When your brain is ready, it’ll release the information.” I give Darla a coaxing smile. “Would you come back to the station with me and look at some photographs of known traffickers?”
Hopefully, I can sneak her in without Shelton spotting us.
“I already went through the pictures when the police questioned me. I didn’t like looking at them knowing they were the same as the ones who took me. I wanted to find those responsible, but I didn’t. The thought of seeing their faces again, knowing what they did to me… I’m just not sure I can.”
“But your memory is coming back now,” I say. “It’s worth a shot, as long as you’re willing. There’s no pressure,” I add, even though I desperately want her to agree to my request.
Her throat bobs several times as she repeatedly swallows. She lets out a long swoosh of air, then dips her chin. “Okay,” she whispers. “I’ll do it for Kiera.”
After grabbing two spare chairs from an unused interview room, I lead Darla and Linda to my desk. Darla asks for some water, and she downs the entire plastic cup, but when I ask if she wants another, she declines. I make her comfortable in front of the computer screen, even though her hands are trembling. She plucks at the hem of her shirt. Linda, the good friend she clearly is, places a hand on Darla’s back between her shoulder blades, and lightly rubs.
The poor, poor woman.
She’ll need friends like Linda, not to mention hours upon hours of therapy to cope with what she’s been through. The shock hasn’t even begun to set in yet. Her insides must feel numb, but when that feeling begins to wear off, the agony, the fear, the self-loathing, the blame, the guilt… they’re all going to rain down on her head. I make a mental note to mention the idea of seeing a therapist to her. May as well plant the seed now and give her time to think about it. Or maybe it’d be a better idea to mention it to Linda.
I click the mouse, and the first picture appears on screen. One by one, I move through them, watching Darla carefully for any signs of recognition. Even a flicker could take the investigation in a whole new direction. But as time passes, and Darla shows no signs of identifying a single person on screen—some of which are known traffickers, along with other kinds of vicious criminals—I begin to lose hope.
After thirty minutes, she shakes her head, and her shoulders droop. She’s had enough, I can tell.
“I’m so sorry, but I don’t recognize anyone,” she says, confirming my suspicions. “I’d like to go home now, please.”
As disappointed as I am, I immediately close the lid on the computer. “Of course. Don’t worry at all. I appreciate your time.”
“Can I use the restroom before we leave?” Linda asks.
“Sure.” I lead the way out of my office and point out the ladies’ room to Linda. Steering the conversation away from anything to do with the investigation, I chat with Darla about a show I’ve been watching on Netflix. It turns out she’s watching the same show, and her entire body relaxes as she chats about the plot and what she thinks will happen next.
Linda rejoins us, and I gesture for the ladies to follow me toward the stairwell. We’ve only taken a couple of steps when, without warning, Darla grabs my arm and skids to a halt.
“No,” she whispers, pressing her back against the wall as though she wants to make herself as small as possible.
“Darla, what’s the matter?”
“It’s him.” She clasps a handful of her shirt, the blood draining from her face.
“Who?” I ask, dropping my voice.
“The American.”
I follow her gaze. Oh, my God . My jaw slackens as I watch the man Darla called “The American” disappear into a nearby office. He didn’t once look our way.
“It can’t be,” I say. “Are you sure?”
She shakes from head to foot as if she’s freezing. “I’m positive.” She locks eyes with me. “Who is he?”
I swallow, my racing heart almost bursting from my chest at the enormity of her identification. “It’s my captain.”