Vanish (19 page)

poison. That’s why thousands of Gulf War vets came home sick. Oh yeah, our government

knows about it, but we never will. The soda pop industry’s too big, and they know just whom

to bribe.”

“So . . . this is all about soda pop?”

“No.
This
is much worse.” He leaned closer. “And this time we’ve finally got them, Detective.

We have a witness and we have the proof. And we have the country’s attention. That’s why

we’ve got them scared. That’s why they want us dead. What would you do, Detective?”

“About what? I still don’t understand.”

“If you knew about a crime committed by people in our government. And you knew it had

gone unpunished. What would you do?”

“That’s easy. I’d do my job. The same as always.”

“You’d see that justice is served?”

“Yes.”

“No matter who stood in your way?”

“Who would try to stop me?”

“You don’t know these people. You don’t know what they’re capable of.”

She tensed as another contraction squeezed its fist around her womb. She felt Dr. Tam take her

hand again, and Jane held on tight. Suddenly everything went out of focus as the pain roared

in, pain that made her rock forward, groaning. Oh god, what had they taught her in Lamaze

class? She’d forgotten it all.

“Cleansing breath,” murmured Dr. Tam. “Find your focus.”

That was it. Now she remembered.
Take a breath. Focus on one spot.
These crazy people

weren’t going to kill her in the next sixty seconds. She just had to get past this pain.
Breathe

and focus. Breathe and focus . . .

Olena moved close, and suddenly her face loomed right in front of Jane’s. “Look at me,” Olena

said. She pointed to her own eyes. “Look here, right at me. Until it is over.”

I can’t believe it. A crazy woman wants to be my labor coach.

Jane began to pant, her breath quickening as the pain mounted. Olena was right in front of her,

her gaze fixed on hers. Cool blue water. That’s what those eyes reminded Jane of. Water. Clear

and calm. A pond with no ripples.

“Good,” the woman murmured. “You did good.”

Jane exhaled a sigh of relief and sprawled back against the cushions. Sweat trickled down her

cheek. Another five blessed minutes to recover. She thought of all the women through

millennia who had endured childbirth, thought of her own mother who, thirty-four years ago,

had labored through a hot summer’s night to bring Jane into the world.
I did not appreciate

what you went through. Now I understand. This is the price women have paid for every child

ever born.

“Whom do you trust, Detective Rizzoli?”

Joe was talking to her again. She raised her head, still too dazed to understand what he wanted

from her.

“There must be someone you trust,” he said. “Someone you work with. Another cop. Maybe

your partner.”

She gave a weary shake of her head. “I don’t know what you’re getting at.”

“What if I held this gun to your head?”

She froze as he suddenly raised his weapon and pressed it to her temple. She heard the

receptionist give a gasp. Felt her fellow hostages on the couch shrink away from the victim

between them.

“Now tell me,” Joe said coldly. Reasonably. “Is there anyone who’d take this bullet for you?”

“Why are you doing this?” she whispered.

“I’m just asking. Who would take this bullet for you? Who would you trust with your life?”

She stared at the hand holding the gun, and she thought: It’s a test. And I don’t know the

answer. I don’t know what he wants to hear.

“Tell me, Detective. Isn’t there someone you completely believe in?”

“Gabriel . . .” She swallowed. “My husband. I trust my husband.”

“I’m not talking about family. I’m talking about someone with a badge, like you. Someone

clean. Someone who’ll do his duty.”

“Why are you asking me this?”

“Answer the question!”

“I told you. I gave you an answer.”

“You said your husband.”

“Yes!”

“Is he a cop?”

“No, he’s . . .” She stopped.

“What is he?”

She straightened. Looked past the gun, and focused instead on the eyes of the man holding it.

“He’s FBI,” she said.

Joe stared at her for a moment. Then he looked at his partner. “This changes everything,” he

said.

Mila

There is a new girl in our house.

This morning, a van pulled up in the driveway, and the men carried her up to our room. All day

she has been lying on Olena’s cot, sleeping off the drugs they gave her for the journey. We all

watch her, staring down at a face so pale that it does not look like living flesh, but translucent

marble. Her breaths come in soft little puffs, a strand of her blond hair fluttering every time she

exhales. Her hands are small—a doll’s hands, I think, looking at the little fist, at the thumb

pressed against her lips. Even when the Mother unlocks the door and steps into the room, the

girl does not stir.

“Wake her,” the Mother orders.

“How old is she?” Olena asks.

“Just get her up.”

“She’s only a child. What is she, twelve? Thirteen?”

“Old enough to work.” The Mother crosses to the cot and gives the girl a shake. “Come on,”

she snaps, yanking off the blanket. “You’ve slept too long.”

The girl stirs and rolls onto her back. That’s when I see the bruises on her arm. She opens her

eyes, sees us staring at her, and her frail body instantly stiffens in alarm.

“Don’t make him wait,” the Mother says.

We hear the car approaching the house. Darkness has fallen, and when I look out the window,

I see headlights winking through the trees. Tires crackle over gravel as the car pulls into the

driveway. The first client of the evening, I think with dread, but the Mother does not even look

at us. She grabs the new girl’s hand and pulls her to her feet. The girl stumbles, sleepy-eyed,

out of the room.

“How did they get a girl that young?” whispers Katya.

We hear the door buzzer. It is a sound we have learned to shrink from, the sound of our

tormentors’ arrival. We all fall still, listening to the voices downstairs. The Mother greets a

client in English. The man says little; we hear only a few words from him. Then there are his

heavy footsteps on the stairs, and we back away from the door. He walks right past our room

and continues down the hall.

Downstairs, the girl raises her voice in protest. We hear a slap, a sob. Then footsteps thump up

the stairs again as the Mother drags the girl to the client’s room. The door slams shut, and the

Mother walks away, leaving the girl with the man.

“The bitch,” Olena mutters. “She’ll burn in hell.”

But tonight, at least I will not suffer.
I feel guilty as soon as that thought crosses my mind. Still,

the thought is there.
Better her than me.
I go to the window and stare out at the night, at

darkness that cannot see my shame. Katya pulls a blanket over her head. All of us are trying

not to listen, but even through closed doors, we can hear the girl’s screams, and we can

imagine what he is doing to her, because the same has been done to us. Only the faces of the

men vary; the pain they inflict does not.

When it is over, when the cries finally cease, we hear the man walk down the stairs, and out of

the house. I release a deep breath. No more, I think. Please, let there be no more clients tonight.

The Mother comes back up the stairs to retrieve the girl, and there is a long, strange silence.

Suddenly she is running past our door and down the stairs again. We hear her talking to

someone on her cell phone. Quiet, urgent words. I look at Olena, wondering if she understands

what is going on. But Olena does not return my glance. She hunches on her cot, her hands

turned to fists in her lap. Outside, something flutters past the window, like a white moth,

twirling on the wind.

It is starting to snow.

The girl did not work out. She scratched the client’s face, and he was angry. A girl like that is

bad for business, so she is being sent back to Ukraine. That is what the Mother told us last

night, when the girl did not come back to the room.

That, at least, is the story.

“Maybe it’s true,” I say, and my breath is a puff of steam in the darkness. Olena and I are once

again sitting on the roof. Tonight it sparkles like a frosted cake under the moonlight. Last night

it snowed, barely a centimeter, but enough to make me think of home, where there has surely

been snow on the ground for weeks. I am glad to see the stars again, to be sharing this sky

with Olena. We have brought both our blankets outside, and we sit with our bodies pressed

together.

“You’re stupid if you really believe that,” says Olena. She lights a cigarette, the last one from

the party on the boat, and she savors it, looking up at the sky as she inhales the smoke, as

though offering thanks to heaven for the blessings of tobacco.

“Why don’t you believe it?”

She laughs. “Maybe they sell you to another house, or another pimp, but they don’t ever send

you home. Anyway, I don’t believe anything the Mother says, the old whore. Can you believe

it? She used to turn tricks herself, about a hundred years ago. Before she got so fat.”

I cannot imagine the Mother ever being young or thin or ever enticing a man. I cannot imagine

a time when she was not repulsive.

“It’s the cold-blooded whores who end up running the houses,” says Olena. “They’re worse

than the pimps. She knows what we suffer, she’s done it herself. But all she cares about now is

the money. A lot of money.” Olena taps off an ash. “The world is evil, Mila, and there’s no

way to change it. The best you can do is stay alive.”

“And not be evil.”

“Sometimes, there’s no choice. You just have to be.”

“You couldn’t be evil.”

“How do you know?” She looks at me. “How do you know what I am, or what I’ve done?

Believe me, if I had to, I’d kill someone. I could even kill
you.
”

She stares at me, her eyes fierce in the moonlight. And for a moment—just for a moment—I

think she is right. That she
could
kill me, that she is ready to do anything to stay alive.

We hear the sound of car tires rolling over gravel, and we both snap straight.

Olena immediately stubs out her precious cigarette, only half smoked. “Who the hell is this?”

I scramble to my feet and cautiously crawl up the shallow slope of roof to peer over the edge,

toward the driveway. “I don’t see any lights.”

She clambers up beside me and peeks over the edge as well. “There,” she murmurs as a car

emerges from the woods. Its headlights are off, and all we see is the yellow glow of its parking

lights. It stops at the edge of the driveway, and two men step out. Seconds later, we hear the

door buzzer. Even at this early hour, men have their needs. They demand satisfaction.

“Shit,” hisses Olena. “Now they’re going to wake her up. We have to get back to the room

before she finds out we’re gone.”

We slide back down the roof and don’t even bother to snatch up our blankets, but immediately

scramble onto the ledge. Olena slips through the window, into the dark attic.

The doorbell buzzes again, and we hear the Mother’s voice as she unlocks the front door and

greets her latest clients.

I scramble through the window after Olena, and we cross to the trap door. The ladder is still

down, the blatant evidence of our location. Olena is just backing down the rungs when she

suddenly stops cold.

The Mother is screaming.

Olena looks up at me through the trap door. I can see the frantic glow of her eyes in the

shadows below me. We hear a thud, and the sound of splintering wood. Heavy footsteps

pound up the stairs.

The Mother’s screams turn to shrieks.

All at once, Olena is climbing back up the ladder, shoving me aside as she scrambles through

the trap door. She reaches down through the opening, grabs the ladder, and pulls. It rises,

folding, as the trap door closes.

“Back,” she whispers. “Out on the roof!”

“What’s happening?”

“Just
go,
Mila!”

We run back to the window. I am the first one through, but I’m in such a rush that my foot

slides across the ledge. I give a sob as I fall, clawing in panic at the windowsill.

Olena’s hand closes around my wrist. She hangs on to me as I dangle, terrified.

“Grab my other hand!” she whispers.

I reach for it and she pulls me up, until I am doubled over the windowsill, my heart slamming

against my chest.

“Don’t be so fucking clumsy!” she hisses.

I regain my footing and cling with sweating hands to the sill as I make my way along the ledge,

back to the rooftop. Olena wriggles out, closes the window behind her, then clambers after me,

quick as a cat.

Inside the house, the lights have come on. We can see the glow spilling through the windows

below us. And we can hear running footsteps, and the crash of a door flying open. And a

scream—not the Mother this time. A lone, piercing shriek that cuts off to a terrible silence.

Olena snatches up the blankets. “Climb,” she says. “Hurry, up the roof, where they can’t see

us!”

As I crawl up the asphalt shingles, toward the highest point, Olena swings her blanket,

brushing off the footprints we have left on the snowy ledge. She does the same with the area