Saving Charlie (Stories of Serendipity Book 9) (20 page)

She busied herself the best she could the next couple of days, doing anything possible to get her mind off The Man, Les and the potential mistake she was making. She looked at the tattoo on her leg a lot in those days, trying desperately to remember why she’d kept it, a reminder of her own fallacies. But the words taunted her with their new meaning. ‘Les is more’ had more meaning for her now than it ever had. Before, it had only been, ‘don’t get high with your tattoo artist before letting him mark you permanently.’ Now it had a face behind it, and she couldn’t get that face out of her mind.

Wednesday evening, she was double-checking the lock on her office door before going over to her home side, when her phone rang.

“Are you wet?”

Dread settled in the pit of her stomach. She couldn’t tell if Les was making fun of her or not.

“Don’t, Les.”

A soft chuckle met her ears, and she thought it sounded good-natured. Relief slowly seeped in.

“I just can’t get over how you thought that was me, calling you like that. I’ve never talked dirty to a woman in my life.”

A smile cracked her face. “Somehow I doubt that.”

“Well, maybe in the heat of the moment, but I’ve never had phone sex, or whatever it’s called.”

His voice over the phone was doing familiar things to her body. Heat coiled inside her core, and she shifted in her seat. It had been days since she’d heard his voice. Before the trip, that was normal. But after spending ten days with him nonstop, and then three days without hearing him at all, well…

He cleared his throat at her silence and continued. “Um, I called to let you know I’d be picking you up at seven on Friday.”

She’d forgotten all about that. On purpose.

“Les, look. I don’t know if that’s a great idea.” She sat at her desk and ceremoniously straightened a stack of already neat papers just to busy her hands.

“You promised me you’d go. I need a date, and the agreement was to see where this went, and go out on Friday.”

“I think we’ve seen this won’t work.” Leaning back in her seat, she sighed inwardly. Charlie knew he was going to break through her defenses. She was so weak against Les.

“You’ve seen something, not me. As far as I’m concerned, until you’re willing to talk to me and tell me what’s going on inside your head, I still get my date.”

She sighed. “Fine. Is it fancy?”

His voice sounded harsh. “Very. And also, I wanted to let you know, just in case you get bored next Saturday night, I’ll be playing at the Gin. I usually do covers and fill in when she’s got an open spot, but Saturday I’ll have some original stuff. You might like it.” The tone of his voice softened as he spoke and left Charlie with a warm gush of emotion flowing through her. She was sure she would like it, but would she have the guts to go?

“We’ll see, Les. I’m not sure I can make it.”

He was quiet, but didn’t hang up the phone. Eventually, she heard a sigh and he said, “I miss you Charlie. I’m sorry if I messed things up.”

Of course he would think he’d done something. “It’s not something you did. I’m fucked up, Les.” She didn’t deserve him. At all. She wished like hell she could get out of Friday, but knew it would hurt him worse to even try. “I’ll see you Friday at seven.”

And now, I’ll only put you in danger.
If she never did another selfless thing in her life, she would do this. Les was too damn important to her.

After hanging up with Les, Charlie plodded to her living side of the house for the evening. As soon as she opened the door joining the two sides, she noticed something was wrong. All of the lights were on, and she habitually turned them off in the morning before going to her ‘business’ side. She immediately went to the front door, and saw Justin’s car out front.

Asshole.

She stomped through the rooms, calling for him. “Justin! Come out! I know you’re here.” Not finding him anywhere downstairs, she climbed the staircase to the second floor, getting angrier with each step.

“Just-” Her voice froze in her throat when she came to her bedroom. As soon as she took in the scene before her, she reached for her phone, dialing 911.

Justin was sprawled out in her bed, naked, which wasn’t surprising. She’d found him there like that before on numerous occasions. What surprised her was he was lying in a pool of vomit, and he wasn’t conscious.

“Oh…Justin…You dumbass…” She slapped his cheeks ineffectively before rolling him over to his side. Sweeping her eyes across her bedside table, she saw all of her medications sitting there, some bottles overturned, as if he was looking for the best cocktail. Next to it all was an enormous tequila bottle. Nearly empty.

A letter to Charlie, eight months ago

I know you, and I have a job for you. There is a motel owner in Serendipity who has made us aware of happenings there. A resident takes girls there. Girls like you used to be. I know you have gone to great lengths to establish a new identity, and will respect that if you get the girls out. If you go to the police, or refuse to cooperate with us, we will expose you to the public. You need this. The girls need you. Take them to the below address. The Refuge will keep them safe.

After a whirlwind of hours at the hospital with Justin, Charlie was finally home, getting ready to go out again. She had changed into her black cargo pants and hoodie, and her knapsack was ready. The phone call this time was different, and Charlie felt unease in her gut. This time, the caller had warned her.

“This one might be different. Our contact sounded odd on the phone. Be careful,” the woman whispered. Usually, almost an hour after each phone call was spent wondering if she knew the woman whose voice traveled down the phone lines to her. She would compare the voice to every other woman she could remember ever speaking to—therapists, other girls from The Man’s ring, girls she’d been in groups with—but no similarities ever came to her. Tonight, she didn’t waste time trying to figure it out. She was too on edge from her words.
Be careful.
Charlie had never been warned before.

Charlie had taken the call right after Justin regained consciousness. He’d had his stomach pumped and was on an IV after alcohol poisoning, an overdose on her pills and near death. Charlie didn’t feel guilty about that, but she desperately wanted to talk to him. He had regained consciousness, but wasn’t ready to hear what she needed to say.

She had mixed feelings about this call. Part of her was glad for something to take her out of the hospital, but another part wanted one final conversation with Justin. He wasn’t really in a position to hear her, though. So she left it, and went home to get ready, tendrils of anxiety prickling her spine.

Grabbing her knapsack, Charlie left the house to go to the motel. She parked her truck, noticing the exterior looked the same as it always did: dark and quiet. As she always did, she ran through the possibilities in her mind before she got out of her truck. What could happen if a man was in there, protecting his property, how she would protect herself and the girl? What could happen if it was a John? What might she do if the girl was unwilling to come along with her?

In front of the motel door, Charlie took a cleansing breath, clearing her mind of everything besides what she needed to do. Palming the master key card she’d been given months ago, she armed herself with a large pocket knife, blade extended. Then she double-checked her hoodie pocket for her pepper spray. Satisfied she was as prepared as she could be, she twisted the knob of the door and slipped inside silently. The caller had said to be careful.

Holding her breath against the musty smell of the room, her eyes adjusting to the darkness, Charlie noticed a lump in the bed farthest from the door. It was covered with a sheet, which wasn’t typical, and she swallowed thickly, suddenly nervous. She couldn’t leave a girl, though. Adrenaline ratcheted her nerves. Suddenly hyper-aware, Charlie slowly walked over to the side of the bed, each step seeming to take an eternity. She was striving for silence, but her steps seemed to be taking her someplace different somehow. This job seemed different. Something was off.

Reaching out, she grasped the sheet between trembling fingers. The fingers of her other hand tightened on the open knife. Mentally, she told herself to get a grip and do her job, and Charlie quickly pulled back the sheet.

To reveal a man with a huge grin on his face.

While her brain registered the set-up, another man’s arms grasped her around her torso, pinning her arms down. Her heart stopped momentarily, while her mind immediately went down a dark path. She had to stop it though, or she would never get out of this alive.

Panicking, she tried to loosen his grip, but with her arms immobilized, her efforts were ineffective. She could smell his sour breath as he laughed a guttural, unfamiliar sound that reassured her he was an unknown, like the man in the bed. For some reason, this spurred her into action. If she didn’t know these men, they couldn’t hurt her like The Man could.

He lifted her off her feet and she used the momentum to kick at the man in front of her, bloodying his face. A fist punched her in her chin, knocking her head sideways, and she struggled again, managing to stomp the man’s instep behind her with her boot-clad heels.

Belatedly, she remembered the extended knife in her hand and imbedded it in the man’s thigh who held her.

A grunt escaped him, and she used the distraction to kick at the man in front of her while she tried to reach in her hoodie pocket for the pepper spray. The man in front reached behind him, pulling out a small pistol that chilled Charlie’s blood. Seeing it from this vantage point, looking down the smooth black barrel instilled a sense of power in her mind. She could only fight. Instead of freezing like the man intended, it only spurred her into action. She snapped her head back, hitting the man behind her in the face, as the pistol went off with a flash and a bang and the acrid smell of gunpowder. He released her, and she released the pepper spray on both of them before she ran out of the room and got into her truck.

From Carla May’s journal — November 1995 — Age sixteen

The Man treated me different from the other girls. I think I was one of his first, and he liked me better. At least that’s what he said, anyway. He would give me breaks, but I didn’t really like them. He would leave me alone for weeks at a time sometimes between big jobs in the beginning. I would be locked in my room alone, with nothing to do except eat the meal he would get someone to bring to me. I had lots of pills to help with the boredom, and sometimes, he’d let me have a joint. But most of the time it was pills. I have no idea what they were, but they helped the time pass. Later, I didn’t get so much alone time. That was fine. I was happy to have company, men to talk to and fuck. Most of them were really nice to me, happy to have a young woman to show them some attention. The Man always said I was the best. I was his diamond in the rough. That’s what he called me. He always promised to get me Pocahontas, the one with the little raccoon in it, like the toy I had. But he never did.

Les was working on his speech, hating the whole public speaking thing, but knowing in this case it was necessary. And he had some things he needed to say.

Somebody had set up the Liberator, and Les had a feeling The Refuge of Light had seen the last of the anonymous woman who brought them girls. It had been a mystery for several months, and all they had to go on was the descriptions from girls, who were mostly high, and had seen her under extreme duress.

The description always varied, as the Liberator was always dressed fully in black, hiding her hair under a hat. She was white, but shades of white varied with the amount of drugs pumped into the girls. Her eye color changed with each descriptor. He’d had the girls work with sketch artists, with varying results. In the end, they still had no idea who she was.

Rachel was the only reliable person to see the woman who dropped off the girls. She’d described the truck, but never gotten a plate number, and the woman was careful to hide her face when she stopped the truck.

Being asked to deliver the key note address had surprised him, although as it was explained, he was the most down-to-earth of the board members. He didn’t feel too terribly down to earth in his tuxedo. More like he was playing dress-up.