Indelible Ink (8 page)

20

Morgan entered The Ground Up through the back entrance, staying as casual as he could. He felt naked walking around without his rifle, and found himself patting his denim jacket to make sure the pistol was still in the holster underneath it. He was also cognizant of the buck knife in his right boot, the small dagger strapped to his forearm and brass knuckles in his back pocket.

Harper’s handler, Wallace, assured him the tracking device in Deena’s backpack was working perfectly. Wallace had hidden it there at Marsh’s behest when Deena started going missing and they began to worry the girls would run away. Across the street from the coffee house, Wallace was waiting in the SUV and Morgan was thrilled he didn’t suggest coming in to help.

The place was pretty much empty, just a lone laptop guy at a booth and a young woman standing at the counter waiting for her order. Morgan casually stared at the menu for a moment, then the travel mugs and other crap on the back wall. Out of the corner of his eye he looked around to make sure he hadn’t missed anyone in a dark corner.

He followed the arrow on a restroom sign to see the door to the women’s room wide open. He felt the muscles in his back relax and he sighed in relief. As the woman walked off with her coffee, Morgan smiled and stepped forward. “Hi—” he paused to look at the kid-behind-the-counter’s nametag. “Hi, Kevin. How’s it going? Can I get a…” he looked back at the menu. “A large mega mocha?”

“You mean a vendi Mocha Mega?” Kevin said with a half-smile.

Morgan’s eyes narrowed and he patted his jacket. “Right.”

“Anything else?”

Morgan looked at the large glass case next to the cash register. “How about one of those blueberry scones? Those look good.”

“It’s actually raspberry, do you still want it?”

Morgan looked around and fixed his eyes on the guy with the laptop. He could be a witness. Morgan decided to play it cool since he needed the kid. Needed the information he might have. “Yes. That’s fine.”

Morgan heard footsteps behind him and assumed someone had come in through the back door just as he had. He casually started to turn to get a look at them.

“You’re going to order a girly drink like that?” It was his mentor’s voice. “Nice skirt, Sally. Want him to put an umbrella and a little slice of fruit in it, too?”

The kid fired up the blender to make Morgan’s drink, creating a ruckus.

“Fuck off,” Morgan mumbled.

Kevin stopped the blender and looked over at Morgan. “Did you say something?”

Morgan looked around innocently and then shook his head no. Kevin fired up the blender again.

“This is your chance, Morgan. You find this girl and you can write your own ticket. You want to be Marsh’s number one again?
Kill both of the girls.
” Morgan could feel the breath on his neck, see Brandt leaning over his shoulder. “You want to get in good with one of the competitors like Thorpe and go to work for her as her right hand man? Hey! Kill the girl. It’s a win-win.” He stepped out in front of Morgan and looked him in the eyes. “Who do you help out by letting her live? Certainly not yourself. The plan has to be to kill Deena and Harper, and while you’re at it, put some holes in that weirdo in the car.” He pointed over his shoulder.

“Marsh wants me to try to talk to her first for some reason.”

The blender stopped and Kevin smiled at Morgan a bit nervously.

“Marsh is a dumb-ass. Deena needs to be out of the picture, he just doesn’t want to come right out and say it. It’s a deniability thing.”

Morgan leaned against the counter. “Hey. You seen a girl in here lately?”

Kevin looked at him blankly. “There are girls in here all the time. Constantly. I mean, like a stream of them. Anyone in particular?”

Morgan looked around again, fixing on the lone guy working at his laptop. “Long dark hair? Late twenties?”

“Not ringing a bell. Better description, maybe?”

“What a dufus. I think he needs some help with his memory,” Brandt said.

Morgan shook his head a bit at the thought. “I don’t know…”

“Does this help?” A photograph was thrust past Morgan to the clerk.

Morgan turned and found Wallace holding the picture. “You left this in the car,” Wallace mumbled.

Morgan looked from Wallace to Brandt, who was standing behind him. He wondered where Wallace had come from and if he was really there holding a photo of Deena. When Kevin took it, Morgan was able to relax a little.

“Hmmm. You guys cops or something?”

“No. We’re her mom and dad,” Morgan said.

Brandt moved around the men. “This idiot’s trying to horn in on your work. He was going to stay in the car, right? Now he’s here? He’s blowing the whole thing. What the hell?” He nodded at Morgan. “Watch your back, friend. Watch your back.”

Kevin looked Wallace over and continued. “Looks like the older sister of the girl who was in all day yesterday.” He stuck a straw in a drink and handed it to Morgan.

“Older sister?” Morgan took the drink and sucked some coffee through the straw before deciding it really didn’t look at all manly. The coffee was good, though.

“The girl who was here had to be, I don’t know, sixteen or seventeen.”

“But they looked alike, right?” Wallace asked.

Kevin looked the big man up and down. “Yeah. The one in here yesterday had a birthmark where this one has a tattoo.” Kevin pointed to the smiley face tattoo showing on Deena’s shoulder in the picture.

“Not a tattoo, though?”

“Not unless whoever did it wasn’t much of an artist.”

“All day, huh?”

“A few hours. Then her friend came, she got a call and ran out.” Kevin looked behind himself and then under the counter. “Left so fast she forgot her bag. It’s around here somewhere.” He opened a cabinet door on his right under the counter, then another on his left and pulled out the backpack.

Morgan’s eyes narrowed. That explained why Wallace’s tracker was off. She must’ve known about the device and dumped the bag to throw them off.

Morgan started to take the bag, but the kid stopped him.

“Mom and dad, huh?”

Morgan pulled out a fifty-dollar bill and stuffed it in the little plastic tip jar. “We miss our little girl so desperately.”

Kevin took his hand off the bag.

As they walked out of The Ground Up, Brandt followed. “Are you stupid? You’re giving that kid a fifty? That’s nuts. You should’a clocked him or worse,” he said. “In my day, this place would’ve been in flames by now. You’re a moron. Since when do you leave witnesses? That kid will sing to every person with a badge that comes around. How many cameras did that place have?”

Crossing the street to their vehicle, Morgan wondered if the man was right. Who would really come looking out here for evidence, though? Who would think to stop at that particular coffee joint?

Morgan stopped as they reached the SUV. He yelled across the hood to Wallace. “Hey. I just remembered something. Be right back.”

21

The rumble and sway of the train calmed Deena’s nerves for a bit. Avi had deliberately picked a seat near the middle of the car, just in case someone came at them from either direction. He had left to find the bathroom and do whatever his morning routine was. He’d dozed a few times in the night, and so had she, but Deena couldn’t imagine either of them had managed to get more than a couple of hours of sleep total.

Out the window, the vast countryside of the West Coast sailed by as the sun rose, with the ocean poking into her line of sight occasionally. The crumbling buildings of small communities and former one-horse towns filled her view every ten or fifteen minutes, with few larger cities to gain her interest. It was mostly cow towns and grain silos followed by the rocky greeting that northern California presented. They’d stopped twice so far at small stations. Even after the stops, no one had come into the car. She couldn’t imagine many people had boarded.

She stared at wheat fields for as long as she could before digging in her bag for a magazine. It was a long trip back from Seattle to L.A. She flipped through the pictures, never resting her eyes on one for more than a couple of seconds before flipping again. She turned her attention back to the window and watched the scenery whiz by.

It was going to be a long trip back.

The men that came in from the next car appeared abruptly. They pushed aside the metal door and slammed it shut behind them. She recognized them from Marsh’s organization. She’d worked with them in some manner or another on a job once. The lead man was very familiar. His name was Ramirez and he had a broad scar across his face that Deena had given him years ago. They were not friends. Another of them was a thug whose name escaped Deena, but she was sure it rhymed with tree or maybe limb. She only vaguely recognized the other two men. They all focused on her and approached without a word passing between them. She took a deep breath and waited for them to sit across from her.

“Hello, Deena,” Ramirez said. He didn’t sit. “We’re here to make sure you make it back to the city. Boss wants to talk. He’s kinda worried about you.”

“That’s sweet, but I’m not interested in going anywhere with you.” Deena looked around the car to see only a couple of other people now scattered throughout her section of the train.

“What’s going on? We’re all on the same team here, right? You work for Marsh, we work for Marsh. Let’s just go have a talk with him. Together.” Ramirez said.

“I’m on my way. I certainly don’t need an escort.” She was sure of it.

Ramirez nodded. “They said you might be a little foggy. Said maybe that voodoo you do might have clouded your head, and that’s fine. You’ll get better.” His tone was soothing. Like a TV doctor giving a patient a pep talk. He sat down across from Deena and smoothed out his khaki pants. “Just let us help.”

“I don’t need help.”

“Your sister seems to think you do.”

Deena was sure her sister did think she needed help. She always had. “I find it hard to believe you’ve talked to Harper. And I remember what happened the last time you touched her.” Deena stared at the scar that went from his forehead down to his chin. “Didn’t go so well.”

Limb sat down across the aisle from Deena. He seemed to be a little more business-like than Ramirez. “At the next stop, in about five minutes, we’re all going to get off this train. Some more of our coworkers will be waiting there, and we’ll get in the car and go.” Limb was posing, acting cool, but Deena could feel the tension. He’d been sent to bring back a very scary individual and he knew he wasn’t up for it. “It can be that easy.” He slid his windbreaker aside to reveal a pistol concealed there. “But we don’t mind making it hard.”

Deena laughed at him. “You
do
know who I am and what I can do, right? You think a gun is really going to throw a scare into me? I don’t scare easily.”

22

Deena at 16 the first time around

Deena loved it from the moment they stole the pickup truck and headed out on the interstate. It was a release from the confinement she’d felt from the day they ended up in the crappy little town their foster family called home. The breeze through the open windows made her hair wave in and out of the window like a majestic flag of her own tiny country.

They ended up camping at a state park for nearly a month. They’d driven for two straight days, taking turns every few hours. They hadn’t had much time to pack before they left, but among other things, they had sleeping bags, bread, peanut butter and enough feminine hygiene products to last them into the next year.

The first night, they started a fire and made s’mores without graham crackers and stared at the flames from opposite sides.

“What’re we going to do?” Harper said. “We can’t keep driving for the rest of our lives.”

“Why not?” Deena hadn’t seen much of the world, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity. They could drive from town to town and eat peanut butter for the rest of their lives and that would be just fine with her.

“We’ve been lucky so far. No one’s spotted the stolen truck, or speculated what two underage girls are doing driving it - first of all.” Harper flung a burnt marshmallow into the fire. “Second; we didn’t have that much money to start with and gas has already taken a chunk out of that.”

Money wasn’t a big factor in Deena’s thinking. Only freedom and staying on the road made the list. “We could head to Augustine, the Thompsons moved there when we were in high school. You got along with Jenny Thompson. I bet they’d loan us some money.”

“Did you have an aneurism that I didn’t notice?” Harper asked. “They threatened to kill you the last time we saw them. You nearly burned down their garage.”

Deena honestly felt the Thompsons would be willing to let that go. It was years ago, when she was six, and it was an accident. “You don’t think they’d be over that?”

Harper’s face was unreadable in the flickering light, but Deena was sure she was scowling.

“Fine,” Deena said and stretched herself out on the sleeping bag. “We’ll think of something.” She rolled away from Harper. In the faint light dancing on the trees nearby, she thought about the fight with Mike and how easy it had been. How she moved so fluidly and how the blob on her arm had been itching ever since. And it had gotten larger.

“Dot?” Harper sounded farther away. “What do you think will happen when they catch up with us? Mike…”

“What’re you complaining about? I’m the one who did it. All you did was try to protect me—least that’s how I’ll tell it.”

Harper was sniffling. “Whatdya mean, that’s how you’ll tell it?”

“I’ll tell them I panicked and tried to run away, but you wouldn’t let me go alone. They’ll let you off, no problem.” Deena thought about how easily it had been to get Harper to leave. She laid it on thick about how the police would come after her too as an accomplice or an accessory or something. Harper was the one who panicked and went along with it. “I mean, they might ask you about who stole the car, you can just blame that on me. They’ll never know you did it.”

Deena thought again about the fight. She remembered the dark crust of her knuckles; the blood. She remembered the rush of adrenaline.

She remembered how much she liked it.