Thread of Deceit (24 page)

“It’s getting late,” she said finally. “I need to get back to my article.”

“I’m sorry, Ana.”

“Save it. I’ve got hours of work ahead of me here tonight. I’d better go.”

Before he could respond, she set down the receiver and let out her breath. As much as she hated to admit it, Sam was right. Accuse someone wrongly and you’d ruin his life. Accuse Jim Slater and she’d shut down Haven.

But her heart cried out in defiance—allow a pedophile to go free, and ruin the life of a child. Many children. Perhaps hundreds.

Ana picked up her purse and stood, hoping to find something to eat in the snack machine on the first floor. She headed for the stairwell, pushed open the door and started down. As she reached the first landing, she saw Jack Smith leaning against the wall.

He smiled. “Hello, Anamaria Burns. Just who I was coming to see.”

Her heart stumbled. “You. You’re working for Jim Slater, aren’t you? You’re part of his pedophile ring. You’re the one Flora calls Segundo. The man she escaped from.”

“Right on the first charge. Wrong on the second. I don’t know who had the girl, but I would never touch a kid. Guys who do that are sleazebags. I’m a hired man, and I don’t ask questions. If I’d known who I was working for when I signed on, I would have turned down the job.”

“How…how did you get into the building?” She backed up a step, clutching the handrail for support.

“You’re almost as good as me,” he continued. “Almost. See, I figured out how to get into this place, no problem. And you figured out about Jack. Only difference is, I’m right on time. But you? You’re just a little bit too late.”

“What do you mean I figured out about Jack? That’s you, right?”

“Nah. Name I’m going by in St. Louis is Don Bering. Even got a driver’s license to prove it.”

Ana stared at the smirking man, trying to drink down enough air to think clearly. Though he had said nothing menacing, she recognized the look on his face. He was planning to hurt her. Kill her, perhaps.

Without turning her head, she made a mental search for an escape. The night cleaning crew would be somewhere nearby, emptying trash cans and vacuuming floors. Her pepper spray can lay at the bottom of her purse. And she could run.

But Bering—or whatever his real name might be—was big, stocky, layered with thick muscle. He was close, too. Three feet away, at the most. Then she saw the gun in his hand. A small, silver pistol with a silencer on the barrel.

Desperate to buy time, Ana asked, “What can you tell me about Jim Slater? If you’re not Jack, who is he? You said I figured out…” Realization washed over her. “It’s Jim, isn’t it? Jim Slater. Jack is his real name.”

Bering chuckled. “Slater was born Joseph Slaughter, and he grew up in Philly. The city of brotherly love, they call it, but Jack’s more into children. You pegged him, lady. He runs a big operation, lots of clients, wads of money. Strictly cash, of course.”

“He trades in children. Brings them in from Honduras. I suppose he sells them. Or is it a rental agreement?”

“I don’t know the details. All I know is that we’re alone. It’s just you and me.”

Ana edged her purse around, hoping to be able to grab the pepper spray. “What do you want with me, Don Bering or whoever you are? Did Jim—Jack—send you here?”

“First, I want you to put down the bag.” He gestured at her purse with the gun. “Set it over there. Farther. That’s a good girl. Now, you’re coming with me.”

“Where are you taking me?”

“You do what I say, and don’t ask questions. We’ll go down to the first floor, and we’ll step outside and get into my car. Nice and easy. Happy face, you know? Don’t even think about screaming or trying to run, because this little baby is equipped with a very sophisticated silencer. You’ll be dead before you hit the floor, and no one will hear a thing. Now, let’s start walking, shall we?”

With a last look at her purse—where her pepper spray, car keys and cell phone were stashed out of reach—Ana stepped away. As she did, her phone rang. She glanced at Bering.

“Sam Hawke knows I’m here. I told him I’d be working late.”

He frowned. Kicked at the purse. Dug around inside until he found the phone and tossed it to her. “Take it. Watch what you say. One hint and I drop you right here.”

Praying hard, she spoke into the phone. “Hello. It’s Ana Burns.”

Sam’s voice was tight. “I called Jim’s house. He’s not there. I talked to a housekeeper. She said he’d been planning a trip, a vacation, but she wasn’t sure he’d left yet. Those two girls we saw? They weren’t with a foster family. They’d been living at Jim’s place. Now they’re gone.”

Ana swallowed. Bering was motioning her to cut off the conversation. “Okay. I’d better get back to work.”

Bering grabbed the phone and snapped it shut. “Get moving.” He grabbed her by the upper arm and jerked her down to the landing again.

“Hey, you’re hurting my arm,” she protested. “I got cut with a knife right there the other day, buster. Move your fingers.”

To her surprise, Bering dropped his hand but jammed the pistol into her side. “Walk,” he said.

“So, what happened to the two little girls?” she asked as they started down together. “Slater was keeping them at his house.”

“I don’t know anything about that.”

“Did you kill them?”

“Just keep moving!” he barked, giving her a shove.

Using the momentum, Ana leaped over the handrail and dropped to the lower flight. Her feet flew down the steps, light, hardly touching, taking them faster than she ever had. The pounding of Bering’s feet above her echoed through the stairwell.

A chunk of concrete exploded just in front of her face. He was firing at her, using the silencer to muffle the shots. Ana coughed and stumbled forward. A spray of powder erupted two feet ahead. She grabbed the metal railing, used it to propel herself faster.

His breath was labored now behind her, and she thought she had a chance. A few more steps to the door. She reached for the release bar. A bullet slammed into her hand. Flesh sizzled. Bones snapped. Blood sprayed across the exit door.

She threw a hip against the bar and burst out into the parking lot. “Help me, help me, dear God!” she choked out. Her legs moved of their own accord, conditioned by years of training. Instinctively, she reached for her purse.

No purse. No keys.

A bullet hit a streetlamp post and ricocheted past her thigh. Bering’s voice rang out. “Hey! Stop right where you are.”

Her hand knew no pain, only the dull shock of injury as she rounded a corner. Not a single store was open. No cafés. Nothing. And then she spotted the city bus pulling away from the sidewalk.

“Wait!” Ana shouted. She waved her wounded hand, sending flecks of blood arcing through the air over her head. “Please wait!”

The bus brakes squealed, and Ana sprinted into the street. She slammed a shoulder into the bifold door and wrenched it open. Her foot hit the metal step, and she launched herself up and through. Swinging around, she threw herself against the door as Bering’s fist began hammering on the glass.

“Drive!” Ana screamed to the startled woman behind the steering wheel. “He’s trying to kill me! Please go.”

The driver stomped on the accelerator. Ana tumbled to the rubber-matted floor, clutching her hand to her stomach.

“You bleeding?” the driver demanded, glaring over her shoulder at the new passenger. “Bleeding on my bus?”

“Go,” Ana croaked. “Just keep driving.”

“I’ll have to clean that up. Get into a seat. We don’t allow riding on the floor.” She clicked her tongue against her teeth.

Ana staggered up and fell onto a seat. Except for an old man snoring in the back row, the bus was empty. She clamped her good hand over the other, trying not to cry from the intense pain that now shot through it, elbow to fingertips.

“Where you goin’, lady?” the driver called. “You got money to pay the fare?”

“Can you take me over to Haven on Martin Luther King?”

“That’s not on my route.”

“Please. There’s a man who can pay you.”

“You telling me you ain’t got the fare?”

“I can get the fare.”

The bus pulled over to the sidewalk. “Get out, lady. You’re my second gunshot this month, and I ain’t taking you nowhere. People bleeding all over my bus…forget that.”

Ana lurched forward, grasping the steel bars that rose from one seat back after another. Her hand was on fire. The door swung open. Gritting her teeth against the pain, she turned to the driver.

“A man is trying to kill me. I need to get to Haven. And you won’t help me?”

The driver looked at her in distaste. “I’ll radio the police. Now get out.”

Unable to stop the tears, Ana worked her way down the steps. The bus had traveled only a couple of blocks from the
Post-Dispatch
building. For all she knew, Bering would round the corner at any moment. She stepped down onto the sidewalk and realized immediately that she was standing in the heart of a run-down, drug-infested neighborhood with only a few streetlamps to light her way. Ragged children paused in a game of tag to stare at her. Three young men lounging against a boarded-up brick building gazed at her beneath hooded eyelids.

“Dear God,” she murmured in a prayer born of utter despair. “Please help me. Be my defender.”

“Excuse me, ma’am, are you trying to get to Martin Luther King, Jr. Street?” a voice asked behind her.

Ana swung around to find the old man from the back of the bus. His skin the color of dusty charcoal, he wore an old blue suit coat, a pair of plaid trousers and some brown tennis shoes with holes in the toes. He scratched his chin for a moment then squinted at her.

“I know that street,” he said. “Want me to help you get there?”

Ana managed a nod.

“Well, come on, then. Let’s get moving.”

“T
erell, I have to go check on Ana.” Sam approached his friend cautiously, unwilling to widen the rift between them. “We were talking on the phone, and we got cut off. I’ve called her back three times, but she won’t pick up.”

“Probably mad at you.” Terell kept his eyes on the basketball game in progress at Haven. “Wouldn’t surprise me.”

“T-Rex, listen—”

“Don’t call me that name.” He swung on Sam, his dark eyes blazing. “Things are different between us now.”

Sam looked at his friend, despair heavy in his chest. “I’m sorry. I’ll say it seventy times seven if I have to. Please forgive me, Terell. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“It’s not about hurt, man. I can take that. This is about trust. You don’t trust me. What kind of friend is that?”

“Ana had just told me what Flora was saying in the trash bin. Ana thought—”

“Ana this and Ana that. You trust me less than some woman you’ve known for a week. Is that it? Huh?”

Sam rubbed his eyes. “You know I trust you, Terell. I believed in you when nobody else would even speak your name.”

“Then why would you accuse me?”

“It’s Flora. She’s one of our kids. And she…she reminds me of…”

Unable to speak the words, he shook his head. How could he justify accusing his best friend of molesting a child? But how could he live with himself if he didn’t try to find the man who had assaulted Flora?

“What—she reminds you of that little girl you shot in Iraq?” Terell tossed out. “You’d better get over that, Sam. You killed a kid and nothing you do can change it.”

“Shh.” Sam stiffened. “Drop it.”

“You killed her on accident,” Terell went on, throwing the words at the man beside him. “The military knows it. God knows it. I know it, too—and I wasn’t even there. I know it, because I trust what you told me. I trust you, Sam, because I’m your friend. I believe you thought that van was full of Iraqi insurgents who were driving toward the roadblock to attack you. I know you shot at the car to protect yourself and your men. And I’m absolutely sure you didn’t intend to cause the death of that little brown-eyed girl.”

Terell wore a frown in place of the usual grin. “You better just get over it, Sam,” he declared. “Get. Over. It.”

“I’m trying,” Sam hissed through clenched teeth.

“No, you’re not. You take one look at that little Mexican girl—”

“Honduran.”

“Whatever. And all you see is that girl in Iraq. Well, you can’t bring her back, Sam.” He leaned closer. “She’s dead! You hear me? Dead!”

“Why are you doing this to me?”

“Because you’re so fired up to make amends for a dead girl that you would accuse me of the worst thing a man could ever do! Your guilt has eaten holes right through your brain, man. You know me. You know who I am. You know I would never do that.”

“And I know I would never shoot a full magazine of bullets into a van carrying a poor Iraqi family. But I did. I did it, Terell. Sometimes we do things we never thought we would in a million years.”

“What you did was a mistake. What you’re accusing me of is a vile sin. I’m a forgiven sinner, but not that kind. And you know it.”

Sam stared into the dark eyes of the friend he had loved so many years. He sensed the cluster of children growing around the two of them. They had never seen Uncle Sam and T-Rex angry at each other. One of them started to whimper. Another kept tugging on the hem of Sam’s white T-shirt. Sam searched his brain, trying to erase the memory Terell had roused from its fitful slumber, trying to replace the image of that bloodied, lifeless child with an explanation that would satisfy his friend.

“I know you didn’t hurt Flora, Terell,” he repeated. “I shouldn’t have accused you. I wasn’t thinking—”

“It’s that lady!” someone screamed. “She’s bleeding again!”

The children scattered, their shoes pounding across the concrete floor, their voices pitched high with hysteria. Sam pivoted away from Terell. He spotted Ana as she hurried toward him. One arm cradled the other against her body and pressed her hand to her abdomen. Even from a distance, he could see blood spattered across her face and shirt.

“Sam!” She ran toward him, calling out, stumbling through the mass of shrieking children.

He left Terell, his legs eating up the space between himself and the woman. “Ana, what happened? Who did this?”

“Oh, Sam!”

He caught her, pulled her close. “Ana, Ana.”

“You kids get on back to what you were doing!” Terell barked. “You’re out of your groups, every last one of you. Am I gonna have to put you on the list?”

With a chorus of cries and shrieks, the children scampered back to their activities. Terell clamped a hand on Sam’s shoulder. “Let me look at her, dog. She’s pale. She might be in shock.”

“I’m not in shock,” Ana breathed, her eyes focusing on the taller man. “It was him, Terell. It was Jack Smith.” She shook her head. “That’s not his real name. He shot me, and I barely—”

Her face crumpled. Caught in Sam’s arms, she sagged to the floor. He and Terell followed her down, lowering her gently to the cool concrete. She sat spread-eagled, her shoes missing, her head bowed, red stains spattered across her blouse.

“Get the first aid kit, Antwone!” Terell shouted to a teenager who still hovered near. “Call 9-1-1, and tell them to get over here with the police and an ambulance.”

“No, wait.” Ana lifted her head. “It’s just my hand. I think I can—”

“Did you hear me?” Terell snapped at Antwone. Then he twisted back to Ana. “I don’t care if the bullet went through your hand or your head, woman. You need a doctor.”

“But he’s after me. He’ll find me.” She caught Terell’s arm, her eyes pinned to his face. “I know who did it. I was so wrong about you. The predator is Jim Slater. He’s Primero. He sent the hit man after me, because I figured it out. We have to find Flora! Terell, please help me. Sam, I need you.”

“Ana, slow down,” Sam said as Terell eased her wounded hand away from her body and began to examine it. “You say Jack Smith shot you? Where did it happen?”

“At the newspaper building. He got in. It was the man Jim Slater introduced as his colleague from Arkansas. He told me his real name—at least the alias he is using with Jim—is Don Bering.” She winced when Terell prodded her palm. “Jim hired him. Jim’s real name is Jack Slaughter.”

“Jack Slaughter? So that’s why you couldn’t find any mention of Slater in Aspen.”

“Yes, and Bering…I’m afraid of what he did to those two girls. Now he’s after me. He’s going to kill me, Sam.”

“No way. I’ve got you now. You’re safe.”

“These bones are broken,” Terell announced. “Bone fragments in the wound. Shredded tendon. Her skin’s burned, too.”

“But no arteries,” Ana said. “Nothing important.”

“Nothing important? You’re a reporter, aren’t you? Your livelihood depends on a keyboard. A surgeon needs to set these bones and stitch the tendons back together if you want to keep full use of your hand.”

“I can’t. Not now. Just wrap it, and I’ll go to the doctor later. We have to find Flora. Bering will be after her, too. We need to look for Gypsy and see if she can tell us where Flora might be.”

“The only place you’re going, Ana Burns, is to the emergency room,” Sam cut in.

“Terell, you seem to know more about injuries than Sam. What do you think?”

“I think Sam ought to stop running his mouth all the time. Making accusations, bossing people around. That’s not how we act at Haven. I might have to put Sam on the list.” Terell chuckled, the first happy sound Sam had heard from his friend in the past twenty-four hours. “Let me work on this, Ana. I’ll make the decision.”

Sam digested the shards of hurt that remained in his friend’s voice. He suspected the injury to Terell would take longer to heal than Ana’s.

His attention riveted on his patient now, Terell began to work. Ana clutched her trembling hand, her pale face contorted with pain. As Sam gently rubbed her back, Terell unrolled a bandage, packed the wound with sterile gauze and began to wrap the hand.

“I know this sounds crazy, but I’m with Ana,” he told Sam. “She needs to see a doctor, but if the pain can wait, we’ve got other business. She’s been shot, and that means someone wants her dead. Ana, are you sure you saw who did this to you?”

“Don Bering,” she said. “The man we met as Jack Smith. The guy who came here with Jim Slater after church on Sunday.”

“I didn’t like the looks of him,” Terell said. “That dude and Slater were up there like a couple of burglars breaking our padlock. Made me mad.”

“They were trying to get through the door and onto the fire escape so they could catch Flora. It’s because she can tell police what they’re doing. They know I’ve been talking to Flora, so Bering came after me tonight. He fired at me as I ran down the stairwell. He took my purse, so I didn’t have my keys. I barely made it onto a bus, but then the driver made me get off.”

“You were bleeding,” Terell murmured. “Bus drivers won’t do ambulance service. So, how’d you get here?”

“There was a…” She looked over her shoulder. “He was a…Where did he go? He got off the bus when I did. He led me here.”

“I didn’t see anyone but you,” Sam said. “Ana, I know you want to look for Flora, but you’ve got to stay here until the police and ambulance arrive. Terell and I will—”

“No, Sam. Absolutely not.” She pushed herself up, the end of the bandage floating from her hand like a white banner. “Bering knows I figured it all out—Jack Slaughter’s operation. The Honduras connection. Slaughter hired him to kill me, and I have no doubt he’s after Flora, too.”

“Then we’d better find her first,” Terell said, getting to his feet.

“She’ll be with Gypsy,” Ana told him. “But how can we find her? She could be anywhere.”

“Gypsy won’t be hard to track down,” Terell said. “These girls work regular streets. They stake out a corner, and the pimp protects it. If we can find someone who knows his way around—”

“Raydell,” Sam said, standing now. “Raydell knows everything and everyone in this hood.”

“You’re just breaking Haven’s rules all the time, aren’t you, dog? Butting in, giving orders, acting uppity.” Terell chastised him. “You fall in love, and the rules go right out the window.”

“I am not—” Sam bit off the denial. Unable to bring himself to look at Ana, he growled at Terell. “Speaking of rules, T-Rex, it’s against the law to shoot someone. Finding Flora is a job for the police. They know the streets better than any of us. And if you think Ana’s hand is going to heal right—”

“Those two little girls at Slater’s house!” Ana spun around and caught the sleeve of Sam’s T-shirt in her good hand. “We’ve got to go find them, too. Come on, Terell.”

“Now wait,” Sam called as Ana and Terell started for the door. “You don’t have any shoes on, woman. The ambulance will be here any minute. This is a civilian setting. There’s a certain order to the procedure.”

“Civilian setting? This is war!” Terell yelled over his shoulder. “Come on, Sam, you’re the reconnaissance dude. Put on that black beret again, and help us out.”

Standing in the middle of the gym, Sam stared at the two—the wounded woman, and the wounded friend. They both needed a haven, and he wanted to provide that for them. But they wouldn’t have it.

As Sam hesitated, the words of Jesus filled his head….
The greatest love is shown when people lay down their lives for their friends.
Love. Ana’s idea of God was the rescuer, comforter, savior. But now he saw that the two facets of his Lord’s character worked together. Love demanded action. Action revealed love.

Sam held up a hand, signaling Ana and Terell to wait. He jogged to the office and pulled Caleb’s attention from the innards of a computer. The youth agreed to shut down the building early, to give Sam’s cell phone number to the police and to notify the ambulance that a woman with a gunshot wound to the hand would arrive at the hospital soon.

Questioning his sanity the whole way, Sam dug yet another pair of flip-flops out of the lost-and-found box. Though he knew it was crazy to venture out with a woman as badly wounded as Ana, his body hummed with the cry from Terell’s lips.

This is war.

And it was. Jesus had ordered His troops to care for “the least of these.” Wasn’t Flora the very least of all? Didn’t she—didn’t every child—deserve better?

Jesus had instructed His disciples to clothe the naked, and that description perfectly fit the abused children Ana knew so much about. They had been stripped of everything—their dignity, their self-worth, and most of all, their innocence. They stood helpless, completely defenseless against anyone who meant them harm. Their only hope was that some adult would care enough to reach out and find them, rescue them, clothe them in warm robes of love.

“What was the word in the poem Flora wrote?” Sam asked as he handed Ana the flip-flops.

“Esperanza,”
she said. Her voice softened as she translated the verse. “‘It comes. Like moonlight. Like wind before rain. Like a green bud on a dead tree.
Esperanza.
Hope.’”

“So, are we gonna talk poetry all night?” Terell asked as he clipped the end of the bandage in place on Ana’s hand. “Because I’m ready to get out of this place. Hear the sirens? If we don’t beat them, we’ll be here for hours.”