Denied (3 page)

Lily took a breath and started. “I left work like normal on a Friday evening a few weeks ago—I couldn’t tell you exactly how many weeks because I’ve kind of lost track of the days, but it would be close to when I was first reported missing.” She thought of something and frowned. “Who did report me missing?”

“One of your work colleagues,” he told her. He leaned forward and checked his notes. “An Elaine Lewis?”

Lily nodded; she knew who that was.

“She called because she was worried after you didn’t show up two days in a row and hadn’t called in.” He paused and looked up. “Please, continue.”

Lily took a breath, bringing back the memories of everything that had happened with a twist inside her gut. “When I approached my car in the parking garage beneath the building where I work, a woman with a baby stepped out of the shadows, asking for help. She was crying and looked awful. I tried to help her, but a man was there, and he hit me and threw me into the trunk of his car.”

“A woman with a baby?” he interrupted, and checked his notes. “We didn’t get any reports of a woman with a baby being hurt.”

Lily shook her head. “It was a set-up. The woman had been put there, knowing I’d try to help her. The thing I thought was a baby was actually a doll.”

His bushy eyebrows lifted again. “A doll?”

“Yes, I saw it hit the ground just after I hit the floor myself.”

He scribbled something down and then looked back up at her. “Continue.”

“I was semi-conscious, but I don’t think I was in the trunk for more than a couple of hours. The next thing I know, I’m being thrown into a shipping container with five other women.”

“You don’t know how many weeks you’ve been missing, but you know you were only in the trunk for a couple of hours?”

“No, I’m not completely sure. But I know I was taken when it was night, and it wasn’t daylight when he opened the trunk again.” Lily remembered something. “A black BMW! The car the man took me in was a black BMW.”

“How do you know this?”

“It was the only other car present in the parking garage. It must have been the one they moved me to.”

“But you said you were unconscious. How can you know for sure?”

She shook her head, feeling helpless. “I can’t. I’m just trying to tell you what I know.” Sudden tears pricked the backs of her eyes and she blinked them away, not wanting the detective to think she was over-emotional and unable to be a strong witness. She took a breath and leaned forward, making eye contact with the man and forcing herself to hold it. “The men who took me were sex traffickers. The main guy was big, with a wide forehead, deep set eyes, and a nose that looked like it had been broken too many times. He stank of cigarette smoke all the time. The man working with him was skinny and had bulging eyes like you’d see in someone with a thyroid problem, or something. They were perverted, sick bastards who are still out there, doing what they do. You need to find them and stop them!”

“You’ve been gone for over a month, Miss Drayton. Are you saying you’ve been held in a shipping container all this time?”

This was it; she would have to tell him about Monster.

She shook her head. “No, they had a buyer for me. I was sent to Cuba for a man who didn’t want me for sex.”

Her cheeks colored at the word.

“No?” His eyebrows lifted again in that disbelieving way that made her want to reach across the desk and slap him. “What did he want you for, then?”

Lily pressed her palms together to keep control of herself. “He has—had—a birthmark on his face. He wanted me to get rid of it.”

“This is hell of a story.”

She slammed her hands down on the wooden surface of the desk. “It isn’t a god-damned story. It’s the truth!”

“Control yourself, please, Miss Drayton.”

She sat back and looked down. “Sorry,” she muttered, even though she wasn’t. Why the hell wasn’t this asshole taking her seriously?

“So, you were taken by sex traffickers, and sent to a man in Cuba who wanted you to remove a birthmark that had been bothering him. What happened then?”

“I did what he asked and he sent me back to America.”

“Just like that?”

“Yes, just like that.”

He pressed his lips together and steepled his fingers against his mouth. “And this man wouldn’t also happen to be the bad boyfriend, would he, now?”

Her cheeks flared with fresh heat and she stared down at the desk. He’d know if she lied.

“He and I did end up having a relationship, yes, but initially I was taken against my will. Please believe me.”

“Why didn’t you contact anyone back in America? Why didn’t you let anyone know you were safe?”

She shook her head. “I should have. I didn’t think … So much had happened.”

Detective O’Bannon pulled himself closer to the desk and picked up a pen and paper. “So, what’s this man’s name so we can contact him and verify your story?”

“His name …” She hesitated. “He only ever gave me one name, and that was Merrick.”

“Merrick?”

She nodded.

“And where in Cuba were you?”

“I don’t know. He never let me leave the property.”

“So I’m supposed to track down a man whose name is Merrick, who lives somewhere in Cuba?”

“No, you’re supposed to track down the god-damned traffickers right here in America who are probably still taking women to sell to perverts!”

He cleared his throat and set his pen back down before looking back up at her, his eyebrows raised. “Miss Drayton, you understand that wasting police time and giving misleading information to the police are all things you can be charged for?”

Her anger finally exploded, and she jumped to her feet. “I am not fucking lying! I don’t have some secret boyfriend I’ve run off with and come up with some elaborate story to cover my tracks. Sex trafficking exists, and if you don’t know that, you should seriously be looking for a different job.”

He stared at her coolly and spoke slowly. “Please, sit, back, down.”

Clutching her fists at her sides, her cheeks flaming, she forced herself back into the chair. She needed his help, and she hated that he didn’t believe her. If only she’d kept her mouth shut back at the apartment and hadn’t said anything to that damn neighbor. How fucking interfering was he to call the cops ahead of her? The first thing she’d do when she left this place was go to his apartment and confront him. She was sick of men interfering in her life.

She knew what the detective thought he saw—a young woman who had gotten herself caught up in a bad relationship, made mistakes, and now was making up an elaborate story to cover her tracks. This was the old boy way of thinking, the same reason so many rape cases were never reported, and if they were reported, they weren’t prosecuted. It was always assumed the woman somehow was asking for it, that deep down what happened was always the woman’s fault.

“Listen to me,” she said, leaning forward, her arms pressed against the desk. “I’m a professional woman. I’ve written articles for medical magazines. I’m not some brainless idiot who has run off with some unsuitable guy and is now making up a crazy story to try to cover my back. Everything I’ve told you is true, so you can quit giving me those disapproving glances and actually do something to find the sons of bitches who took me.”

He at least had the courtesy to shuffle uncomfortably in his seat, and he cleared his throat again. “Miss Drayton, no one is saying you’re making this up, but you must understand the information you’ve given is extremely vague. I can sit you down with an artist and see if anyone already on our files matches the descriptions you’ve given of the two men who took you, or the woman involved initially, but other than that, I’m afraid we simply don’t have the resources to send officers to every port within an unspecified amount of time, in any direction from here. Plus, weeks have passed since you were first …” he hesitated over the word, “taken. I’m sure the traffickers would have moved on by now.”

She shook her head. “I don’t think so. The other girls seemed to have been there for a lot longer than I had. I don’t think they’re moving them unless they absolutely have to.”

“Even so, we’ve already wasted a lot of time and manpower over your disappearance. We can’t afford to keep allocating resources to a missing person who clearly isn’t missing.”

He exhaled a sigh and sat back in his chair, his hands folded over his stomach.

Lily had the feeling she’d just been dismissed.

Three

Lily left the
police department with the certainty nothing was going to be done.

She stepped out onto the street and shoved her hands in her pockets. As she hadn’t known how long she’d be, she hadn’t asked the cab to wait, so now she had to figure out how to get home. It was too far to walk, but she could get a bus to her neighborhood and walk the rest. The fresh air and space would give her time to think about what she was going to do next. Besides, she didn’t have much choice, and she couldn’t keep getting cabs everywhere. The detective said her car wouldn’t be released back to her just yet, especially in light of her statement. It had been found abandoned near the river, though they’d detected no signs of a struggle—no blood, or fingerprints that didn’t belong to her—but she’d been told they would need to impound it further in case of new evidence. She couldn’t believe there hadn’t been any leads with the car. Cigarette Hands must have moved the vehicle himself, or had the woman with the pretend baby do so. How had they not left any trace of themselves behind, and how had they moved the car without being spotted on CCTV or by a witness?

The police weren’t going to find Cigarette Hands or his partner. Yes, the detective would probably send out the artist’s impression, maybe pin the picture to a couple of notice boards in various stations, but that would be the extent of their investigations. Cigarette Hands would be left to carry on taking young girls, raping them, and selling them until the traffickers did something that either got them arrested or killed.

Anger hit her, sudden and with full ferocity. What the fuck was wrong with all these men? Between Monster, Cigarette Hands, the useless detective, and even the neighbor who had stuck his nose in where it wasn’t wanted, it felt as though they were all in some kind of conspiracy where they’d each do something to screw her over whenever she tried to move on.

But she couldn’t just let this drop. The faces of the girls she’d shared the space of the container with haunted her every time she closed her eyes. She couldn’t stand the thought more were out there, hurt, abused, and terrified, and the police were doing nothing to find them. How was she supposed to continue with her life, knowing Cigarette Hands was going unpunished?

A decision lodged firmly in Lily’s heart.

If the police wouldn’t find them, then she would.

The idea both terrified and exhilarated her in equal measures. Could she do this? Track down the place where she’d been held and find Cigarette Hands and his crew at the same time? She wouldn’t need to do anything; just locating the port and the shipping container would be enough to take back to the cops. At least then she’d be giving them something substantial to go on. The police could take it from there, rescuing the girls, and arresting the traffickers.

Lily took a shaky breath.

If she was going to do this, she would need to get a gun for protection. She wouldn’t allow herself to be taken by those bastards again. She felt more confident holding a weapon now than she would have a month ago. It was amazing how much a matter of weeks could change someone. She’d also need a map so she could mark off all the ports within a reasonable distance. It might take her weeks to cover them all, and she might never find the right one, or the men who had taken her, but at least she’d have tried. She couldn’t lie in bed every night knowing they were still out there somewhere.

Another thought occurred to her, sending ice through her veins.

What if Cigarette Hands discovered she was back, safe and sound? Apparently her disappearance had been picked up by the media, and so it was only realistic to expect some reports about her reappearance would also surface. What if he saw she was still alive? He knew she’d seen their faces and could identify certain things about them, what they did, and where they did it. They’d expect her to go to the cops, and would want to stop her. Her purse had been in her car when she’d been taken, and it had contained her driver’s license and her address. The police had made no mention of it being found in the car, which meant the traffickers had probably taken it.

The ice solidified to penetrate her heart.

Cigarette Hands knew where she lived.

She wouldn’t be sleeping soundly in her bed any time soon. She’d be waiting for them to break in and finish the job they’d started.

Raping and murdering her.

A shiver ran down her spine and she spun around, suddenly certain she’d felt someone watching her. But the streets of Los Angeles looked no different than they normally did—an eclectic mixture of locals, tourists, and Hollywood wannabes. No one appeared to be paying her any attention.

She shook her head and kept walking watching out for the next bus stop that would take her in the right direction. The whole time she felt as though eyes were on her, and she spun around, half-expecting to see Cigarette Hands standing on the sidewalk behind her. Of course, the notion was ridiculous, and each time she turned no one was there. It was hardly surprising she felt spooked, considering everything she’d been through and the possibility of more danger awaiting her.

On the side of the street, she passed a payphone, the old fashioned handset with ‘public phone’ written across the top. She no longer had her cell phone and had never bothered to get a landline fitted at her apartment—why should she? No one, except work, had ever needed to call her, and if they did, they just called her cell.

She needed to call the clinic she’d worked for and tell them she was safe. If her disappearance had made the newspapers, she assumed her reappearance would, too, and she didn’t want her boss and colleagues to find out through a third party. Though she wasn’t close with anyone there, she assumed they’d at least have been worried about her. Plus, she needed to let them know she wouldn’t be coming in to work any time soon—if she even still had a job.

Lily lifted the handset and placed the call.

A familiar voice answered, and Lily jumped right in.

“Maggie, it’s Lily Drayton.”

She heard the sharp intake of breath on the end of the line. “Lily? Oh, my God. Are you all right? We’ve been worried sick here. The police have been around asking questions and everything!”

“Yeah, I’m so sorry. I should have called sooner, but I’ve only just been allowed home.”

“What happened?”

She decided the closest thing to the truth was the best to tell. After all, look at what had happened when she’d lied to the neighbor. “I was abducted by traffickers.”

A gasp of shock. “Oh, that’s horrific.”

“Yeah, it was,” she admitted. “Don’t worry. I didn’t end up sold on to someone who wanted me for … that … but I did see some awful things. I’m going to need to take some time before I come back to work, if that’s okay. Assuming I still have a job to come back to, of course.”

“There will always be a position here for you, Lily, so take your time. Get some counseling if that will help. I can’t imagine what you’ve been through.”

“Yes, thank you. Counseling sounds like a good idea.”
Once I’ve tracked down the bastards who took me.

“
Good. Well, I’m so happy you’re safe, and if there’s anything I can do, please just say.”

“Thank you, Maggie.”

“Of course.”

Lily hung up the phone, guilt working its way through her. Was she doing the right thing? Perhaps she should let the police do their job, and she should go back to doing hers? Wouldn’t that be the right way to handle things?

But how could she go back to her old way of living, going to work in the morning and coming back to an empty apartment, an empty bed? Already her life felt pointless without Monster in it. He’d shown her a different way of living—a life full of color, passion, and intensity. Everything now felt hollow and soulless. She couldn’t imagine how it would feel weeks or even months from now. Would she slowly forget about how it felt to be alive and go back to the numb existence she’d had before, or would she gradually die from the inside, withering away until her body eventually caught up with her broken heart?

But you can’t just go back to the way things were,
a voice reminded her.
Those men know where you live.

She wasn’t safe. She hadn’t been safe in Cuba, but she still wasn’t safe here. However smart Monster might be, he’d been an idiot when he’d made his decision.

He’d left her with no choice.

She needed to get a weapon, but from where? She didn’t plan on sitting around for any length of time while she waited for permits and background checks to be done. Cigarette Hands would have tracked her down and killed her before any kind of license came through. Would she even qualify for a permit now? She didn’t know what kind of records the police had on her, and even though she’d not been charged with anything, something might come up as a red flag on her profile. She couldn’t take the risk.

Lily was at a loss. She didn’t hang around with those kinds of people—people who would know how to get an illegal weapon. Hell, she didn’t hang out with people in general.

Then she thought of someone.

There was only one person she knew who had tried to help her, and now he owed her a favor.