Chapter 15
Nick
THE ELEVATOR RIDE UP to the room was silent except for Nadya’s breath, sharp and irregular, like she was in training for a panic attack. I couldn’t blame her. This had been a rough day for her.
The doors hissed open on our floor, and she took off like a shot, not waiting for me. The keycard beeped her into the room, and she was already at the minibar before I’d even shut the door behind us.
She pawed through the plastic bottles, then turned, her hands shaking enough to make the label on the vodka impossible to read. She held it up to me.
“Want breakfast of champions?” she asked, voice brittle with what was supposed to be humor.
I took it from her, unscrewed the cap, and handed it back. “Leave some for the next trauma tourist,” I said, then got myself a bottle of tequila.
We toasted—if you can call clinking plastic bottles a toast.
I only had one sip, knowing I needed a clear head if I had any hope of getting work done.
The sooner I followed up on those leads the better.
I needed these pricks locked up yesterday.
Hell, I needed them locked up a decade ago, so they never would’ve had the chance to do what they had done to Nadya.
She snorted, the sound closer to a bark. “If the world has more of me, we’re all fucked.”
“I have to disagree. The world would’ve been great if people like you replaced people like the ones we’re hunting down.”
I left her with the vodka, dropped into a chair, and fished out my laptop. The sticker on the lid was half-peeled, residue gumming up the edges. I’d never had the patience to scrape things clean, so I’d have to get more stickers to cover the old.
I waited for the hotel Wi-Fi to choke itself awake while Nadya orbited the room with her bottle and her ghosts.
She didn’t even pretend to look for a glass, taking another hit straight from the neck, then settled on the bed, feet curled under.
Her hair was a mess; wild around her face from the bike ride.
Her nails were chipped, some flecked with old paint.
I wanted to ask if she was okay, but that would be pointless.
Instead, I opened a browser on my laptop and got to work.
First, property records for the house with the blue door.
The county database said the house had been sold a year ago, but they gave me the name of the previous owner.
I cross-referenced with the timeframe Nadya had given me to make sure I got the right guy.
The name that popped up was Carl August Holton.
Age fifty-two. A widower. The house had been in the Holton family since the seventies.
I dug deeper. The last recorded occupant besides Holton was his nephew, a local who worked at the hardware store. I clicked through to his Facebook, scrolled the gallery, and there he was: the man from the sidewalk. I stared at the screen until the image burned into my retinas.
Nadya hadn’t moved in a while. I shot a glance her way. She was already through the first bottle and on my unfinished tequila, eyes glassy, but she smiled at me when she caught me looking.
“Find anything interesting, Agent Santana?” Her words came out slurred.
“Yeah,” I said, keeping my tone neutral. “Looks like we were right about the guy in town. He’s the nephew of the previous owner of that house.”
She nodded. “Did you ever think you’d spend your life hunting perverts? Or did you have better dreams?”
I shrugged, not looking at her. “At least I get to lock some monsters up.”
She took another drink, and I watched her throat work as she swallowed.
It made me want to get up and take the bottle away, but I stayed put.
She’d had a rough day, and this was her way of dealing with it.
I wasn’t her... well, her older sister, since that was who apparently usually lectured her about her vices.
If she wanted to get drunk, it was none of my business.
Back to the laptop. Holton’s online footprint was ghost-thin, but I traced a few mentions through the local newspaper: a yard sale for charity, a letter to the editor about fluoride in the water.
Nothing about kids, nothing about violence.
Just a man who’d lived in the same house for half a century and minded his own business.
The picture painted didn’t fit the monster I was hunting, but it never did. Predators knew how to look like everyone else.
The deeper I dug, the more I found myself staring at the timeline, at the overlap of dates; the steady drip of weekends and summers and school holidays. The way the world kept moving, even while it was coming apart for the girl driven to that house.
A fresh alert pinged from the federal search I was running in the background.
Holton had a daughter, though she’d been gone from the census after the age of twelve.
Last mention was a traffic ticket, then two drug arrests.
A few weeks ago, she’d been released from county jail. I made a note to track her down.
Nadya’s voice broke the silence. “You ever think about quitting?” she asked. “Like, walking away and pretending you could have a normal life?”
“I like my job,” I answered. “It gets ugly, but it’s worth it when I catch them.”
She got up, wobbled a little, and came over to stand by my chair. “You’re too good.”
I looked up at her. Her pupils were blown, her skin warm and shiny, and she’d run out of sarcasm for the moment.
“You want to know why I do this?” I asked, stupidly feeling like I should share even though I never talked about this with any of the other victims or witnesses, or anyone, really. Maybe I just wanted Nadya to relate.
She nodded in response.
“Because if someone had done their job, my sister might still be here,” I said. “Because it’s never over for the ones left behind.”
She frowned. “Your sister?”
“Yeah. She was kidnapped when we were little. There’s still no trace of who might’ve taken her, but every time I take a case, there’s this hope that maybe this one will be related in some way. Maybe this time, I’ll find her.” I shrugged. “Someone needs to keep looking.”
Because every time I called the police station in my hometown, I hoped they’d kept looking, but I knew better. A case that old had next to no chances of ever getting solved, so why would they use their limited time and resources on my sister?
Nadya sat next to me, close enough that I could smell the vodka on her breath.
She leaned in, resting her head on my shoulder, and let out a sigh that was more sob than exhale.
“Maybe it’s contagious. You know, feeling like there’s hope.
I watch you work, and I think maybe you’ll find them all and get rid of them. ”
I didn’t say anything, just watched the blue glow of the laptop reflect off the window.
Outside, the street was empty, the town already asleep or pretending to be.
Out there, the world was filled with evil.
Any of those darkened windows might hide monsters.
I could never catch them all, but I could at least catch some.
Nadya slid her hand along my arm, tracing the line of my scars with her fingers. “Does it ever get easier?” she asked, barely a whisper.
“No,” I said. “But you get stronger.”
She looked up, and for a second I thought she was going to cry. Instead, she leaned in and kissed me.
It was clumsy, vodka-fueled, entirely unprofessional, and something I wanted with every fiber of my being. I let it happen for a heartbeat, then pulled back gently.
“Not like this,” I said, voice soft but firm.
She blinked, then laughed, and the laugh tipped over into a small, shuddery sob.
“Sorry,” she said. “I’m just—I don’t know. I don’t want to be alone.”
“You’re not,” I said.
She nodded, but she didn’t look reassured. Instead of trying again, I helped her to the bed. She didn’t resist, just curled up on top of the covers, shoes and all. I gently removed her sneakers, but left the rest, not wanting to be a creep, especially when she wasn’t in the right state of mind.
Within minutes, she was asleep, but her face never relaxed. Every now and then, she’d whimper, hands balling into fists.
I tried to get back to work, but my eyes kept going to Nadya’s sleeping form.
Her hangover was practically a guarantee.
I watched her for a long minute, then got up, found a glass, and filled it with water.
The drink and a packet of ibuprofen went on her nightstand. There. I could get back to work now.
But when I returned to the laptop, my focus was nowhere to be found. All I could think about was the sound of her whimpering in her sleep, the memory of her kiss, and the way my own hands shook when I thought about everything that had been done to her.
I couldn’t protect her from her past, but I could at least help her close that chapter of her life by seeing those monsters locked away. So far, I had only found one, and there was no guarantee I could prove it in the court of law, but maybe he could lead me to the rest.