55. Garrett
GARRETT
“Bernard who?” I ask Athena, confused what he has to do with Peony’s and Zara’s disappearance.
Is Bernard her father? And what does he have to do with everything?
It’s probably nothing. But her ramblings could end up taking the investigation in the wrong direction.
“According to him, it’s German and French for ‘brave as a bear.’ But I don’t know if it’s his real name.
” Her accent slips into the Texan drawl I’ve heard from her one other time, and her gaze goes to the living room window overlooking the backyard.
“Like Josiah probably wasn’t my boyfriend’s real name either.
” Athena laughs a humorless, shaky breath.
“Or rather, Josiah was my boyfriend before I was honest with myself.”
“What does all of this have to do with Peony’s and Zara’s disappearance?” Shit. Please tell me she isn’t taking us down the wrong path.
The twisting in my gut though, tells me to listen to what else she has to say. Like the iceberg that sank Titanic , there’s more to her words than what’s on the surface—as confusing as they might be.
Her eyes jerk to mine. “Josiah wasn’t really my boyfriend. He just pretended to be one in the beginning. He pretended to care about me. Told me he loved me—unlike my parents. My father was an abusive asshole. To me, anyway.”
She crosses her arms like a shield, Poppy pressed against her chest. “Josiah was never my boyfriend. Not like I had originally believed. He was…” She closes her eyes for a beat and releases another shaky breath. “Josiah was my pimp.”
She watches Noah’s and Officer Hunt’s reactions, fear glossing her eyes. She’s just admitted to doing something illegal. Something that could, in theory, get her arrested.
Arrested or not, she now has all of our attention.
“How long ago did you leave him?” My near-quiet voice echoes in the pin-drop silent room.
She walks to the bookshelves behind the couch and picks up a framed photo of Peony smiling at the camera. “You make it sound as easy as walking out the door and never looking back.”
None of us say anything. We just wait to see if there’s more to her story.
“I didn’t clue in at the beginning what was going on.
Josiah encouraged me to run away from home.
He knew about my father. He pretended to be a concerned friend.
Told me he loved me.” Her Texan accent remains strong, and her mouth lifts into a one-sided smile, sadness drowning out any hint of humor.
“I was so desperate for someone to love me, I fell for his lies. We didn’t have much money.
So he convinced me to have sex with a friend of his. Just this one time.”
Hugging Peony’s picture and Poppy, she returns to the windows overlooking the backyard. “I didn’t want to. He told me I would do it if I loved him. So I did. The next week, it was a different friend he wanted me to have sex with. Again, if I loved him, I would do it…for us.”
She traces her fingertip over the glass, as if drawing a small picture.
“And then came the threats. If I didn’t keep having sex with his friends”—she stops drawing to one-handedly finger quote “friends”—“he would tell the police I was selling my body for money, and I would go to jail. He then pressured me into doing other things that would get me in trouble if I was caught. Like stealing.”
She leans her temple on the window. “I wanted to escape, but I didn’t know how.
I tried to leave him once. He beat the living shit out of me and told me the next time I tried that, he would kill me.
” Her voice grows steadily distant, like she’s back with the man she once thought loved her.
“He introduced me to another of his friends. Only this friend, he didn’t want me to have sex with.
He was Josiah’s boss. And now The Bear—Bernard—was my boss.
But I wasn’t his only girl. He had a bunch of other girls he pimped out. ”
Christ. Once I get my daughter back, I’m never letting her out of my sight…until she’s at least fifty.
I’ll make sure she knows every day that she’s loved, so she doesn’t fall prey to assholes like the ones Athena is describing.
Even though what she’s telling us has nothing to do with Peony and Zara, it’s like watching a train wreck mid-collision. I can’t turn away.
“I was stuck in this hell for years. Day in, day out, never knowing what to expect. Sometimes, I was beaten so badly by a john, I couldn’t work for a week.
Other guys weren’t so bad. They were just there for the sex.
One guy…” A soft smile lifts the corners of Athena’s mouth, but she still doesn’t look at us.
She continues tracing on the window. “One guy was worried about me because of the bruises on my body. He asked me if I was okay. I thought maybe he would help me escape. He didn’t.
He walked out the door afterward and never looked back. ”
The movement of her finger against the glass slows, becomes more delicate.
“And then one day I met Kenda. I was at a party, and she was there. I didn’t know at the time she was doing research for an investigative piece she was working on.
She’d hoped this would be the big break she needed and was planning to expose the sex trafficking ring I was part of. ”
“Investigative piece?” I frown. “Why not tell the police what she suspected? Or had she planned to do that too?”
“She would have told the police, but she didn’t know who to trust. Some of The Bear’s best clients were cops.” Athena draws a heart on the window.
“What is Bernard’s last name?” Noah asks her.
Her shoulders twitch with a small shrug.
“I don’t know. I never heard anyone say it.
Like I said, it’s probably not even his real name.
” She fogs up the window with a long breath.
“Kenda convinced The Bear he had nothing to worry about with her. He had no idea she was a reporter, which is why she was allowed to talk to the girls, even though she was hired as the housekeeper.”
Athena erases the heart on the window with the heel of her hand.
“I’d known for a couple of years by that point I was gay, but it took time at first for me to realize it.
I thought my disinterest in men was due to my situation.
I never said anything about it to The Bear.
It wouldn’t have made a difference. As long as I did as I was told, as long as I still brought in money, he didn’t care what my sexual preference was.
“I fell in love with Kenda. And she…” Athena turns to me. “I don’t know if she ever told you, but she was bisexual. In college, she had been crushing on Zara big-time, but she knew Zara was straight, so she went out with you instead.”
Shit , I had no idea. It wouldn’t have made a difference to me that she was bi, but I hadn’t realized Zara was her first choice.
Like Zara had been mine. Only I stupidly hadn’t voiced it at the time and had gone out with Kenda. “Was she ever in love with me?”
Not that it matters anymore. Kenda is my past. Zara is my future. But I am curious, given I had been in love with Kenda. Just not as much as I had thought I was at the time. Not as much as I am now with Zara.
Athena’s smile is apologetic. “She cared for you. A lot. But I don’t think she loved you. Not in the same way you loved her. Not in the same way she and I fell in love.”
Athena goes on to describe the sequence of events that resulted in Kenda going to New York right after she and Athena had fought.
That was when Kenda and I bumped into each other and ended up having sex.
Of how Kenda returned to the house where the girls were kept, needing more evidence for her story, needing to protect the girls.
How she eventually realized she was pregnant.
How The Bear found out about it and used the pregnancy to keep Kenda and Athena in line.
And later, he used Peony to keep them from escaping their hell.
Horror-induced rage surges through my body.
The hot spike of adrenaline fists my hands.
All this time…I didn’t have a single fucking clue any of them had gone through that.
I had no idea what Athena and Peony ha d survived.
But so much now makes sense. “Is Peony terrified of men because of everything you’ve just told us? ”
Athena nods, unable to look at me, her head down.
“None of them ever touched her. Not in the way you might be thinking. But she saw enough not to trust men.” Her hand goes to her pendant.
“After much planning, we finally escaped. The three of us. Kenda and I had planned to begin a new chapter in our life together. Get married. Finally have our happily ever after.” She swipes at her cheeks.
“She wanted to send her story to a major newspaper, like she had originally planned. But I begged her not to. I was afraid the cops would figure out I was one of the girls she mentioned, and I would be arrested for prostitution. And that was only the start of my petty crimes.” Athena shoots another nervous glance at Noah and Officer Hunt.
“You finally had a chance to be happy, only for your stuff to be lost in the apartment fire and then Kenda was shot because you were in the wrong place at the wrong time.” I shake my head at the senselessness of it all.
If it hadn’t been for the shooting though, I might never have known about my daughter.
“There was no apartment fire. I just told you that ’cause I didn’t want to tell you what really happened to my ID.
The Bear had it. He figured I couldn’t go far without it.
And we weren’t in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The men were The Bear’s hired hands. They tracked us to the mall and didn’t realize an on-duty cop was there.
The cop shot them. Kenda had told me if anything ever happened to her, I was to come here.
” She looks directly at me. “You would protect Peony and me.”
“Do you think whatever happened to Zara and Peony has anything to do with your past?” Or have we just been wasting time listening to a story—as heartbreaking as it is—that has sidetracked us from more pressing issues for the moment?
“I don’t know. The mask…the one you said the man was wearing.
” She looks at Noah. “One of The Bear’s men would wear a wolf mask.
Like the kind you can easily find online or at Halloween.
But no one knew I was here. I’ve made sure of that.
Except…” Her gaze shifts briefly to the window.
“One of the johns was in Maple Ridge a few weeks ago, but he wouldn’t know me.
I only recognized him because he beat up one of the girl s and his face stuck in my mind after that.
” She shudders, her reaction to his memory saying it all.
“Do you know his name?” Noah asks.
“No.” She turns her eyes to me. “But you do. He was one of the guests for Wilderness Warriors. He came into Picnic & Treats a few weeks ago, and Peony got upset.”
“I think I know who you’re talking about.” I then explain to Noah and Officer Hunt, “We take photos while we’re on the trips, to post on social media. Not all the participants agree to being photographed, but I can show what we do have to Athena. Just to make sure I have the right man.”
“This lead might have nothing to do with Emily’s death and Peony’s and Zara’s disappearance,” Noah warns. “But we’ll let the Feds know. Their Homeland Security special agents who deal with sex trafficking and exploitation will want to pursue that lead. And they’ll want to interview you.”
Athena nods, her hands clutching both Poppy and her pendant, her skin paler than normal again.
“You thought you were safe in Maple Ridge,” Office Hunt says. “If Bernard was no longer your pimp, why are you worried he might have tracked you down here? Why would he bother?”
Good point. Why spend time looking for her and why kidnap my daughter and Zara when Athena wasn’t in the house? If that’s what really happened.
“If The Bear thinks I have info on him that I could turn over to the Feds, he would put a bounty on my head and send his men looking for me.”
“Do you have information on him? Evidence Homeland Security might be interested in?”
Athena shakes her head, her shoulders slumped, expression worn. “I wish I did.”
“What about an address? Do you know where we can find Bernard?” Noah asks.
She shakes her head once more. “Somewhere in New Orleans. He had a big white house. That’s all I know. I’m originally from Texas. That’s where Josiah found me. ”
I frown. “New Orleans? I thought you and Kenda were living in North Carolina. And the only reason Peony had been born in New Orleans was because Kenda went into labor while you and her were visiting the city.” That’s the lie she had told me because Louisiana is listed on Peony’s birth certificate.
“I wanted to distance myself from that city as much as possible after what happened. We had escaped to North Carolina, but we were just temporarily hiding out there. We were living in New Orleans when Peony was born.”
Noah looks thoughtful. “Did you go anywhere in New Orleans—like a hair salon—where people would remember you? Maybe somewhere close to where you were staying?”
“I don’t remember the name of the place.
But it wasn’t close to the house. One of The Bear’s men always drove us there and stayed with us.
And I doubt the women working there would tell you anything.
They were as scared of The Bear as I am.
Plus, I wouldn’t be surprised if the owner was paid well to keep silent about what she suspected. ”
I share a worried glance with Noah. We have a possible location as to where Zara and Peony might have been taken…but just how hard will it be to find them in the city?
Assuming that’s where the kidnappers were headed.
Assuming Zara’s and Peony’s disappearance is linked to Athena’s past life.