Page 55 of Ballistic

“It’s for teens. And it’s run by a good friend of mine.”

“Not going to some teen ranch, either. I don’t need someone preaching to me, or making me sit through some stupid group therapy like I got head problems, or something.”

“No therapy. And no preachers. I promise. She came from the streets herself.” I nabbed a pack of smokes from the drink holder beside me and lit up another.

“They’ll find me, you know. Why d’you think they give us these pretty bracelets?”

“We’ll get that off you. But I want you to lay low. You have a choice. You don’t have to go back there.” I put the car in drive and headed toward the shelter, about two miles west.

She jutted her chin toward my cigarette. “Can I have one?”

“You take one, I won’t look.”

The girl didn’t look right, puffing on a cigarette as she lit it up, but she hadn’t looked like a normal girl all night, so what the hell did it matter?

“What’s your name, kid?”

“Isabel. Everyone calls me Izzy.”

“I’m Dax. How’d you end up working in a sleazy club?”

Shrugging, she blew a lungful of smoke out the window beside her. “I was starving, you know? All I could think about was food. All the time. And I ran into this guy. Thought he was trying to pick me up, or something, so I got in the car with him, thinking maybe I could make a couple bucks.” She talked like a street kid, hard and cynical, like she’d seen just about everything in her twelve years. “He took me to some Chinese restaurant, let me order whatever I wanted on the menu. Started asking me about my family. My friends. I wasn’t stupid, so I didn’t tell everything. He told me he knew of a place, just like the one you’re telling me about now.” A quick glance showed the doubt in her eyes, as if she didn’t trust me all of a sudden. “First couple nights were cool. They let us hang out, drink, gave us some clothes, a shower. Food. There was so much food, all the time. I couldn’t imagine going back on the streets after that. So, when they gave us a choice, whether, or not, to leave, I stayed. I figured I’d have a better chance of surviving, and the girls there didn’t look like they were hard living.” Cigarette tucked between her fingers, she picked at her nail, eyes cast downward. “Wasn’t until the first night I was made to work the floor. Some guy … business suit. Clean cut. He tried choking me.” Her jaw shifted as if she was trying to stave off tears, and she turned away from me. “’Swhen I realized, everything’s too good to be true.”

“This place … my friend. It’s not like that. She’ll take care of you. And you can leave whenever you want.”

“Is it true what you said back there? About hunting pedophiles?”

“Yeah. It’s true.” In my spare time, I’d picked up on a game of luring them in and beating the shit out of them. Something I’d started out doing in an effort to track down Nicoleta that eventually morphed into a way to kill the hours.

“You won’t find all of them. They’re everywhere. Walking around in business suits, looking like everyone else.

“I don’t need to find all of them. Rats know when the hawks are watching.”

“And they hide underground, where the hawks won’t go.”

I blew the smoke out the window and glanced back at her. “This hawk will.”

21

Nicoleta

Parked on the cement floor of the apartment balcony, I stared up at the moon through the scattering clouds that danced around it. I could just make out the rounded edge that disappeared into its dark half, and wondered what it must be like to live on that side. The endless void of space and its unapologetic emptiness. Hard to believe anything could be hidden so adeptly, with as bright as the moon shone in the night, but perhaps, like some of us, its dark side had been born out of necessity.

* * *

I looked up from the spreadsheet laid out on the accountant’s desk, having already compared it against the one on screen, and twisted around in the chair. “Looks good.”

Dmitry stood behind me, arms crossed, and gave a nod. “Good. I’ll let Samson know everything balanced correctly.”

Twisting back around, I closed the laptop and stared down at the names Marty had handwritten on the paper beside it. “Did you kill him? Marty?”

“Do you want the truth? Or would you prefer I lie?”

I didn’t know how to answer. I’d felt responsible for whatever had happened to him, as it’d been my comment that’d drawn Dmitry’s attention to his work. “The truth. I guess.”

Hands behind his back, Dmitry paced a few steps in my periphery and paused. “How’s this? You tell me about the mark on your arm. The one you’ve hidden behind the sweatshirt you’re wearing. And I’ll give you the truth.”

A jolt of panic climbed up the back of my neck, and I snapped my head up to see the serious expression on his face, eyes directed toward my sleeve.