Chapter 3
Chloe fully expected someone to come barging through the door to say, hey, thanks so much for getting us started, but you’re way out of your depth now that we’re at the murdery part of things, so we’ll take it from here.
To be fair, it might not be totally inaccurate.
She was sure there was protocol for this kind of thing, just as she was equally sure she’d be best-guessing what that protocol involved if Addison or Sinclair or Tom didn’t rap on the glass to stop her next question.
But she understood what it was like to have to lock down her feelings to survive, and what’s more, she’d promised to help.
She wasn’t going to scale back on that. Not even when faced with a scared teen and a dead body.
“Why don’t we start from the beginning?” Chloe asked, knowing Intelligence would want as many details as possible. “Can you tell me how you got to the warehouse last night?”
Esme shrugged in reluctant agreement, staring at a spot on the table in front of her. “I snuck out of the group home after lights out.”
Chloe tried to be patient and give her room to elaborate. It’s what Addison would’ve done, she knew. But the silence stretched on with no end in sight, and yeah, let’s just say restraint wasn’t her thing.
“You snuck out to…?” she asked, brows up, and Esme exhaled, giving all the way in.
“I snuck out to hang with Kayleigh and Alex and Oliver. They’re my friends from school. We met at the park, three blocks from the group home.”
Chloe remembered what Tom had said about Esme running with a bad crowd lately. Looked like she’d found the source. “Okay. What did the four of you do after you met up at the park?”
Esme hesitated, but, thankfully, not for long. “Normally, we’d just stay there and chill, but Kayleigh said she wanted to party. She’d swiped her mom’s credit card, and she used it to order a ride-share to North Point.”
The deep breath Chloe intended didn’t go as far as she would’ve liked, but she clung to her cool. “What happened once you got there?”
“We tried going to a couple of clubs, but we couldn’t get in.
Which I told Kayleigh would happen, because we didn’t have IDs, but she didn’t listen.
” Esme paused to roll her eyes, her dark lashes disappearing momentarily beneath the sweep of her bangs.
“Alex said it was no big deal, though. He knew a place we could go. We walked forever—like, really far from where we’d started, on the main strip.
I thought we were going to someone’s house or something, but then, Alex finally stopped at some old building close to the entrance to the docks.
There weren’t any lights on or people around. ”
“It was abandoned,” Chloe translated, dread growing in her belly at Esme’s nod.
“The windows were all boarded up, but one was missing a panel in the back, so it wasn’t hard to get in.
Alex had some pot, and he and Kayleigh and Oliver started smoking.
I’d never seen them do it before,” Esme said, biting her lip in a way that made Chloe believe her.
“They only ever talked about it. I’d always kind of thought they were full of shit, but…
anyway, I didn’t want to, so I said no.”
Chloe let out a breath of relief. She might not know much about witness statements, but she was sure that if Esme had been high, this one would have probably gotten complicated.
Esme continued, “Kayleigh didn’t like that, though.
She said I was being a buzzkill and that smoking pot was no big deal.
That getting high might loosen me up.” Esme’s chin lifted, all teenage defiance.
“But she was just being a bitch so she could look cool in front of Alex and Oliver, so I decided I’d had enough of her crap and dipped. ”
“You left?” It was a ballsy move for anyone, let alone a thirteen-year-old kid. Then again, ballsy seemed like a recurring theme for Esme.
“Yeah,” she said, but then her bravado slipped a beat later.
“Only, it was dark, and I hadn’t really been sure where I was to begin with, so I got lost kind of fast. I knew I wasn’t exactly in the safest part of the city.
I’m not dumb—I watch Law & Order. I know what happens to girls who wander around all by themselves, distracted by their phones, so I found another building that looked pretty dark, at least from the outside.
I thought I could sneak into the back where no one would see me, just for a minute while I figured out where I was. ”
The dots connected with a sickening pang. “The warehouse.”
Esme nodded, shakier now, her wiry arms wrapped tight around her thin tank top.
“This place wasn’t empty like the other one, and it wasn’t totally dark.
There were giant shelves and big, wooden crates all over, some of them stacked up to the ceiling, and there were a couple of overhead lights on in the back of the building.
I thought it was probably for security, but I still didn’t want to get caught, so I hid behind one of the shelves, just in case.
I started to pull up location services on my phone, but then, I heard someone in the very back of the room, arguing. ”
At this point, Chloe’s heart was far enough in her throat that all she could do was give Esme a look that said she was listening, and that Esme could trust her.
Thankfully, that was all the kid needed.
“There were two men. At first, I just heard their voices. I was going to bolt, but they were closer than I thought. I was scared that if I made any noise, they’d find out I was there and I’d be in really bad trouble.
So, I stayed where I was and kept hiding. ”
“That was really smart,” Chloe said. In truth, it had probably saved her life. “Could you see the men from where you were?”
“Yeah. I wasn’t going to look at first. But, then, I knew I should, in case they saw me and I needed to make a run for it. Only, they were too busy arguing.”
Chloe took a slow, silent breath and tried to remind her adrenaline that it wasn’t the boss of her. “Can you describe them?”
“One of them is the guy who…you know. Got stabbed.” Esme’s voice caught, and she cleared her throat before pressing on. “But the other guy was white, with brown hair. Old, but not like, grandpa old. Maybe thirty-five?”
Later, Chloe might be able to laugh at the irony of thirty-five being old, but right now, she settled for what she hoped was an encouraging, “That’s good.
Did you notice anything else? Height, build?
Maybe how this other guy was dressed?” More things she knew from experience that Addison would have asked.
“He was taller than the other guy. Bigger, too, like maybe he worked out.” Esme leaned forward in her chair, gesturing to her shoulders. “And he was kind of dressed up.”
“Like, in a suit?” Chloe asked, and Esme nodded, her brows bent in thought.
“Sort of, but without the jacket or tie. But I remember, because he still looked pretty bougie. I thought it was weird, being all GQ in a North Point warehouse in the middle of the night, but it wasn’t like I was gonna bring it up. I just wanted to get out of there.”
This next part was going to be a lot harder, so Chloe gentled her voice. “You said the two men were arguing. Do you know about what?”
“Not exactly.” Esme’s chin dropped a fraction, the move tagging Chloe right in the sternum.
“They weren’t yelling or anything, but the bougie guy was definitely mad.
I could tell by the look on his face and the way he was clenching his fists.
He kept asking why the other guy was lying to him, saying he knew he was ripping him off and that he was cutting in the product.
But he might as well have said drugs, because, like, everyone knows that’s what ‘the product’ means. ”
Fair point. “And how did the other man respond?”
“He was trying to smooth things over, saying he would never do that, he knew who the other guy was. But I could tell he was scared, especially when…”
Tears filled Esme’s eyes in a sudden burst, and she jammed them shut as her words crashed to a halt. Instinct screamed at Chloe to jump out of her chair and protect the girl—God, she knew the exact brand of fear Esme was feeling right now, how terrifying it felt to be so vulnerable.
And so, she offered the only thing she could think of. An anchor.
“Esme,” Chloe said, shocked at how calm and in control she sounded. “Esme, hey. Look at me.”
She opened her eyes, the tears she’d probably been doing her very best to hold back spilling over her pale cheeks, and fuck, this anchor thing was harder than Chloe thought it would be.
Yet, she still did it. “I promise that you’re safe. I know this is really scary, but nothing bad is going to happen to you here. Nothing. Do you understand?”
Esme nodded, swiping at her face with the back of one hand.
“Yeah. Okay, yeah.” She took a breath. Let it out.
Took another one, then said, “All of a sudden, the bougie guy just kind of snapped. He took out a knife. It was long, with a really fancy handle that looked shiny and white, like it was made of pearl. There was a design on the blade, too—kind of swirly, the same as a tattoo. I thought maybe he’d just use it to scare the other guy, but he didn’t. ”
Her voice lowered to a notch above a whisper.
“He just lunged forward and stabbed the guy really hard, right here.” She touched the spot directly over her clavicle, her fingers trembling.
“The guy was so surprised, he didn’t even scream.
I wanted to run, but I knew if the man with the knife heard me, he’d come for me, too. He’d…”
She trailed off again, but Chloe shook her head, shifting in her chair so she was in Esme’s field of vision. “He isn’t here. He isn’t going to hurt you now.”