A Girl Undone (11 page)

“Five or six hundred miles.”

Hiking in the mountains in the dead of winter? It would take weeks. “Well, we probably wouldn’t run into a lot of people.”

Luke turned his attention back to the road because we were coming up on our destination. In ten miles, we’d seen only two other cars. Now we strained to read names on mailboxes at the edge of the road using our headlights.

Finally, we found the name on the mailbox that matched the one Streicker had given us. The kitchen light was on in the ranch house and a security light beamed over the garage. As we drove in the gate, a large brown-and-black dog leaped up. It ran until it reached the end of its chain by the garage, and then stood on its hind legs, barking and straining to get free.

An older woman came out and snapped, “Lie down,” at the dog. It silenced, and she called out, “Mikhaela! He’s here.”

The woman motioned to us to stay in the van as she came around to Luke’s window. “Here’s her birth certificate. An official copy just like you asked. And here’s the money.” She shoved the envelope into Luke’s hands. “It’s all there. Seven thousand in cash. Nothing bigger than a fifty.”

She turned back to the house. “Mikhaela, hurry!”

Damn!

“Did Streicker tell you we’re picking up a girl?” I whispered.

“Nope. But he said if I saw a maroon pickup out front to drive on.” Luke reached up and felt for a length of copper pipe snapped to the ceiling above his head.

Great, I thought. Streicker sent us out to do his dirty work because he expected trouble.

A girl came out of the house, a backpack slung over her shoulder. Her head was down, and she swiped her cheek with the back of her hand. She stood on the porch, the yellow light from the kitchen tinting her face and red ponytail. Even from twenty feet away I could tell she’d been crying.

The older woman marched over and wrapped her arms around her, and my eyes began to fill, remembering the night a couple weeks before in the darkened airplane hangar when I said good-bye to Yates, my heart fighting to believe we would be together again.

The woman raised her voice and I heard her say, “I cannot let your stepfather get his hands on you.”

“But, Gran, Canada’s so far away. I might never see you again!”

“If that man gets custody, he’ll auction you off before you turn fifteen. And if that happens, I don’t know where you’ll end up. This way, I know you’ll be safe.”

I watched her stroke her granddaughter’s hair. Streicker had demanded seven thousand to get this girl to Canada. He wasn’t like Father Gabriel, who risked his neck for the cause but would have never taken money for himself.

“Do you believe Streicker’s really going to smuggle her out?” I said to Luke.

“You think he’s lying?”

“I don’t know. Doesn’t it bother you that there’s a girl in his house with scars around her wrists? What if Streicker takes this woman’s money and does something bad to this girl?”

A truck roared up the drive, catching Mikhaela and her grandma in the headlights, and they broke apart.

“Holy mother, he’s speeding up,” Luke said.

“Brace yourself!” I said, grabbing hold of his seat.

The truck veered before it hit us, thumping across the dirt to a stop. Then a man hopped out, his coat half on and arms flailing as he landed awkwardly on the ground. “I came to take you home, Mikhaela. Get in the truck.”

The chained dog barked wildly, frantic to get at him. “Tell that dog to shut up!” he yelled.

“What should we do?” I whispered to Luke.

“Hold tight. Don’t do anything just yet.”

The woman stepped in front of her granddaughter. “What are you doing here, Hatch?”

“I came to pick up my daughter.”

“She’s not your daughter.”

“Law says she is.”

“Law says you’re not allowed within a hundred feet of us.”

“I got me a lawyer, and I’m getting custody.”

“Over my dead body.”

Hatch laughed. “So be it, old woman!” He drew a gun and pointed it at her face.

I gripped Luke’s shoulder. “What should we do?”

“This cannot happen.” Luke reached for the pipe.

“Wait, what are you doing?” I said, but it was too late. The van door released with a faint click, and Luke was out the door, cat quiet. He crept behind the truck and out of my sight.

I crawled into the front and peered out, praying that the dog would keep barking, and the man wouldn’t hear Luke behind him. I fished inside the glove compartment and under the seat, hoping Streicker had another weapon stashed away, but all I found was a crushed soda can and a first-aid kit.

Oh God, Luke, be careful!

The man wobbled ever so slightly. “You’ve got to the count of three to get in that truck, Mikhaela, before I blow your grandma’s head off that skinny body of hers. One.”

Mikhaela took a step toward her stepdad, but the old woman threw out her arms to hold her back. “You’re drunk, Hatch. Six hours out of jail, and already drunk.”

“Two. I’m warning you, Mikhaela. It’s your fault if I hurt her!”

I saw Luke behind Hatch, inching forward, the pipe raised over his shoulder like a baseball bat.

“Three!”

Mikhaela screamed, and I slammed my fist down on the horn. The man jerked his head, and our eyes connected as the pipe slammed into his skull. He dropped to the ground, and the gun flew from his hand.

Luke straddled the body, his chest heaving. I scrambled out of the van, and Luke raised the pipe again.

“Luke, stop!” I yelled, hurtling toward him. “Put it down!”

He looked up at me, his face transformed into something so dark and disturbed, I spun to a stop. I locked my eyes on his and stretched my hand out, praying that the Luke I knew was still in there.

“You got him,” I said quietly, easing closer. “He can’t hurt them now.”

Please, please give me the pipe. You’re not a killer. You don’t want to kill him.

I saw Luke’s shoulders drop, and I held my breath as he lowered the pipe. I slid it out of his hands and heard Mikhaela whimper, “Is he dead?”

My heart was pumping like I’d been running flat out, and all my senses were ramped up.

Luke and the grandmother stayed where they were. I dropped the pipe on the snow and crouched by the body. I set two fingers on the man’s neck and felt for a pulse, grateful he was facedown. “He’s still alive. We should call an ambulance.”

The woman reached over and picked up the man’s gun. “Go,” she told us. “I’ll deal with this. You get Mikhaela taken care of.”

Luke stood over the man, not moving. I tugged on his arm. “Luke, please. We need to go. We need to get Mikhaela out of here.”

The dark presence in Luke’s face was gone, but he looked dazed like he’d capsized at sea or crashed in a desert. He blinked, and took a couple steps toward the van. “I’ll get the engine started.”

“Okay. Good.” I was breathing hard and trying to stay focused. I had to get Mikhaela.

She’d backed up almost to the porch, and as I walked toward her, she shook her head at her grandma. “The police will think you hurt him. I have to stay and tell them you’re innocent. That it was someone else.”

Help me,
Mikhaela’s grandmother asked me with her eyes.

I put my arm through Mikhaela’s. She was shaking so hard, I was afraid I’d have to ask Luke to carry her. “Mikhaela, we need to get in the van so your grandma can call the paramedics.”

I wished I knew if I was doing the right thing, taking Mikhaela to Streicker. I wished I could guarantee she’d get safely to Canada, but all I knew for sure was if I left Mikhaela here, she could end up with her stepdad if he lived, or in an orphan ranch if he died.

Her grandmother set the gun down and took Mikhaela’s other arm. “Nobody’s going to lock up an old woman,” she promised. “Not one who was defending herself.”

We walked Mikhaela to the van, and I belted her into the seat beside mine. I held her hand as tears ran down her cheeks. “What’s going to happen to us?” she said.

“Everything’s going to be okay.” I hoped I wasn’t leading her into a trap. “We’re going to get you over the border.”

Luke backed down the drive, and Mikhaela rocked in her seat like she was winding up for full-blown hysterics. I rubbed her back, knowing I had to calm her down.

“Don’t be afraid,” I said. “You won’t be alone. The people at Refugee Assistance in Canada will find you a nice family to live with.” I thought back to the promises Yates had made me about them. “They’ll get a message to your grandmother so she knows you’re okay.”

“But I’m never going to see her again!”

I turned so she couldn’t see my face. “You’ll see her again. The border won’t be closed forever. I bet your grandma will be there to see you graduate from high school.”

I kept babbling, promising things I couldn’t deliver, trying to keep Mikhaela from losing it, even though I was barely holding on myself.

When we drove onto Streicker’s property, I was ready to collapse. If Mikhaela’s stepdad lived, I could be looking at kidnapping charges on top of all the other charges the feds had against me.

But if he died, Luke had just killed a man.

15

Streicker didn’t thank us for the favor. He met the van outside the back building, taking Mikhaela’s birth certificate from Luke and then thumbing through the money. “Seven grand. All here.”

Then he ordered Mikhaela to go inside and get some food, jerking his head at the metal building. “You want to eat. It’s gonna be a long night.”

I pulled my hat over my hair, and stepped down from the van. The adrenaline rush from extracting Mikhaela was fading and I wondered if Yates had felt like this when he helped girls escape into Exodus: bruised, but still standing, in a world I’d tried to make a little bit better.

Luke went to follow Mikhaela in, but Streicker held him back. “Something happen out there?”

“Her stepdad showed up,” Luke said. “He pulled a gun on her grandmother.”

“You okay?”

Luke shrugged.

“You kill him?”

“He was alive when we left.”

Streicker narrowed his eyes at me like he’d decided this was my fault. “I’ll take care of it,” he said. I watched him head back to his house, ticked he’d put this on me.

I didn’t push Luke to hit that man, but maybe what Streicker really blamed me for was bringing trouble to Salvation and getting Barnabas killed.

Luke leaned against the side of the van. The darkness and confusion had left his face, but I felt he’d pushed it deeper inside him. “You did good back there,” he said.

“Yeah?”

He raised his hand, and my heart skipped, sensing he was about to touch my cheek, and even though I wanted to hold Luke and have him hold me after what we’d just been through, I made myself reach up and adjust my hat, and his hand fell back the way I thought it might.

“You got Mikhaela into the van,” he said. “She wouldn’t have left if it was just me. And you calmed her down. I couldn’t have done that.”

“I hope we did the right thing, bringing her here. Are you okay?”

He looked into the dark. “Yeah. Tired. Hungry as a wolf that missed a kill.” He shook his head. “Forget I said that.”

I followed his gaze. Luke was pretending he was fine, but he wasn’t. “Let’s get something to eat.”

The metal building was a big open space, divided by a partition that rose most of the way to the ceiling. In the front half, cardboard boxes were stacked on pallets, and a long folding table and chairs were set up in the middle.

Sure, I was exhausted, but it took me a second to register the six teenage girls sitting around the table eating stew. They were probably here when Luke and I first arrived, but we never picked up a clue, which I was sure was what Streicker intended. They were all about my age except for Mikhaela, and looked so young and fresh-faced, so unaware of what could happen, I felt years older. I hoped none of them would have to go through anything like what I’d been through.

Clearly, Streicker had a whole operation going. Six girls supposedly headed for Canada. Thousands of dollars in cash. A van tricked out to carry ten girls at a time. God, I hoped he was for real.

The smell of warm beef stew filled the room, turning my stomach. I knew it was Scarpanol-free, and I was starved, but I couldn’t eat it.

I cut a couple slices of bread and spread butter on them. Luke sat, hunched over his stew, while the girls talked quietly among themselves. I stood, watching him, wishing we were alone and far away so we could talk about what had just happened.

It was only a week or so ago that he talked Ramos out of aiming his gun at me, but that was before Luke saw Maggie executed. He’d changed. He wasn’t the guy I could trust to keep his head and think things through.

At least he didn’t boast to Streicker about almost killing that man. If he had, I don’t know what I would have done.

Luke finished eating, then got up and went over to help two men load a dolly with cartons of prescription drugs. Pharmaceuticals had paid my private school tuition, so I knew there was big money in painkillers people stole and sold on the street, but the drugs in those boxes didn’t look like the ones I knew addicts wanted.

Still, there were thousands of dollars in pills, and I couldn’t believe Streicker ran a legitimate business out of here. I slid around the partition separating the front half of the building from the back and spied stacked blankets and cots, and the open door of a bathroom, but what really drew my attention was a backdrop surrounded by light stands and the shiny silver umbrellas that photographers use. I peered at the life-sized photo taken inside of a barn or a rodeo ring. Real bales of hay were stacked beside it.

“Hey!”

I jumped, and Streicker gave a laugh. “Like a hound on a scent, aren’t you?”

I tried to look casual. His hands were full of navy blue passports, and I was asking myself how he’d gotten real U.S. passports when I saw the lion and unicorn on the covers. Like my fake passport, they were Canadian.

Streicker flipped two open. “Who do you think Mikhaela looks more like?”

Mikhaela didn’t look anywhere close to twenty-one, but at least she had the same red hair as the girl on the left. “This one.”