Chapter 2 #3
“Yeah. He gave me pasta, and the puppy’s name is Chaos,” Kelsey said, a tiny, watery smile peeking through. “An’ he says I can stay here until you come get me.”
Until she came to get her. The reality of the situation crashed back down on Glenna. Kelsey was in Italy. She was in Oregon. There was an ocean between them, a debt of thousands of dollars, and a legal system that had branded her unfit.
“I’m coming, Kelsey,” Her voice might wobble, but the fierce, unwavering determination of a momma bear desperate to save her child knew she’d beg, borrow, or steal if she had to. “I don’t care how. I don’t care what I have to do. I am coming to get you.”
“Promise?”
“I promise on my life, baby girl.”
The man, Tyrone, stepped forward, gently taking the device from Kelsey. “Kelsey, why don’t you go take Chaos back to Petra in the kitchen for a minute? I need to talk to your mom.”
No. I don’t want her out of my sight.
But before Glenna could object, Kelsey nodded and scrambled off the table, before she blew a kiss to the screen and ran out of view of the camera with the puppy on her heels.
Tyrone walked around the table and sat down. He was joined by a blond man who took a seat at the head of the table.
“Glenna, this is my boss, Gunnar McKinley.”
“Ma’am—”
“Don’t ma’am her, Gunnar,” a woman’s voice sounded from off camera, “you’ll freak her out.”
“That’s my wife, Jorja.” Gunnar looked sheepish as he waved to his right. “But she’s right. This is all new for you. May I call you Glenna, or do you prefer the ma’am?”
“Glenna is fine.” Who were these people? “How? How did my daughter get there? How did you find her?”
“We’re still working on the ‘how’ of how she got here to Europe,” Gunnar said. “But my people, well, let’s just say we specialize in getting people out of places they shouldn’t be. We were on a mission to recover two other girls when we found Kelsey. It was pure luck, Glenna.”
“Or maybe Dwight was looking out for her.” Tyrone chimed in.
Glenna wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, her mind racing. “The state... the DHS in Portland... they told me she was in foster care. They told me she was safe.”
“They were wrong,” Tyrone said, his voice flat. “Either someone in the system is dirty, or they’re so overstretched they didn’t realize a child had been snatched out of their jurisdiction and sold to a trafficking ring.”
The word trafficking made Glenna’s stomach turn.
“I need to get to her,” She leaned her head against the wall, fighting the urge to throw up.
Her baby. Her innocent, beautiful baby had been in the hands of monsters, and while she’d been scrubbing floors and begging for a chance to see her, Kelsey had been halfway across the world in a nightmare.
“But I... I don’t have anything. I don’t even have a passport.
I lost my ID when I was homeless, and I’ve been trying to get a replacement, but?—”
“All easily—” Gunnar started to speak, but stopped when Tyrone interrupted him.
“I don’t care what you don’t have. Listen to me, Glenna.
Dwight Jennings was my brother. Not by blood, but by something stronger.
He died because I wasn’t fast enough to save him.
I’ve spent years carrying that.” He leaned closer to the camera, his brown eyes burning with an intensity that made Glenna feel like she was being analyzed by a warrior.
“I failed him then,” his voice was a low, dangerous growl.
“I am not going to fail his family now. You are coming to Italy. Tonight.”
“Tonight? I can’t?—”
“You can,” Gunner interjected. “We’ve already taken care of the paperwork. There’s a car on its way to the diner right now. The driver’s name is Aria Burnley. She’ll have everything you need—a phone, clothes, and an emergency travel document that will get you through customs.”
Glenna shook her head, her mind reeling. “How? How can you do that? You don’t even know me.”
“I fought shoulder to shoulder with Dwight,” Tyrone said simply. “I know he’d want his child in the other room to have her mother with her. My boss,” he gestured to the man at the head of the table, “doesn’t believe in leaving anyone behind. Neither do I.”
There was a loud, impatient pounding on the bathroom door. “Glenna! You in there? Get your ass out here right now! I’ve got three tables waiting and a mess in aisle four!” Bernie’s voice was muffled but unmistakable, his tone reaching a fever pitch of irritation.
Glenna looked at the door, then back at the screen. For months, she’d been a victim. She’d been a woman who things happened to. She’d been small, and quiet, and compliant, hoping that if she followed the rules, the world would eventually give her back what she’d lost.
But the rules were a lie. The system was a cage. Her daughter was in Italy, and these people were offering to bring her to her daughter.
There wasn’t a hope in hell she was turning that down.
“The car, when will it be here?”
A ghost of a smile touched Tyrone’s lips. “Aria will be in the alley behind the diner in about two minutes. It’s a black SUV.”
“I’ll be there.” God, she hoped this wasn’t the universe’s way of putting her out of her misery. “If you people are serial killers, I swear I will haunt you for the rest of your miserable lives.”
Both men laughed.
“I like her.” Gunnar’s wife’s voice came from off-camera.
“Glenna?” Tyrone asked.
“Yes?”
“Don’t look back. Just come get your girl. She’s waiting on you.”
Sounds like something a serial killer would say.
But could she really afford to take that chance? She’d seen her daughter in the room with them. If they were serial killers, then they had Kelsey, and they’d better be prepared for her to lose her shit when she got there.
“I’m done looking back,” she said, and for the first time in longer than she could remember, she felt the weight of the world shift. She wasn’t just Glenna Harper, the failed mother. She was the woman who was going to get her child back, and nobody was going to stop her.
She disconnected the call, stood up, and opened the door.
Bernie was standing there, his face purple with rage. “You’re done! You hear me? You’re fired! Hand over your apron and get the hell out of my restaurant!”
Glenna reached behind her, untied the grease-stained strings of her apron, and let it fall to the floor in a heap.
“You’re right, Bernie,” she said, her voice calm and terrifyingly clear. “I am done.” She walked past him, her pace quickening as she moved through the kitchen. She pushed through the heavy steel back door and stepped out into the pouring Portland rain.
The alley was dark, the air smelling of trash and wet asphalt. But there, idling near the end of the brick corridor, was a black SUV with tinted windows. The back door opened as she approached. A woman with long blonde hair and a tactical-looking jacket waved at her. “Glenna?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Aria. Get in. You have a flight to catch.”
Glenna climbed into the plush leather interior. The door closed with a solid, expensive thud, sealing out the noise of the city, the smell of the grease, and the life of the woman she no longer was.
As the car slid into gear and accelerated away from the curb, Glenna looked down at her hands.
They were still shaking, but for the first time, it wasn’t from fear.
It was from the sudden, violent realization that the world was much larger than she’d ever imagined, and that somewhere across the sea, a man with her husband’s tattoo had her daughter, and she was getting her back. Period.
“Italy,” she whispered to the rain-streaked window. “I’m coming, Kelsey.”