Bryan shrugged, confused by the abrupt change in subject. “Maybe?”
“Maybe?” Jericho echoed, fury edging into his voice.
“Man, all these bitches look the same. Maybe. Why?”
“Because she was last seen with Carlos, eight years ago.”
Bryan shook his head. “Then I hope she wasn’t nobody important ‘cause you ain’t never gonna see her again.”
“She was my fucking sister, dick.”
“Man, look. I don’t know what you want me to tell you. Carlos works for bad fucking people. People with money. People with power. People who don’t give a fuck about people like your sister.”
“There has to be somebody at the top of the food chain,” Atticus said.
“I’m sure there is, bro, but you’re never going to find a name. I don’t fuckin’ know it and the people who are unfortunate enough to know it aren’t in any shape to talk anymore.”
“Somebody will always talk,” Jericho insisted. “Given the right motivation.”
He looked down at the drill, but Bryan was shaking his head. “Man, use the drill, fucking pull my teeth out. I’m not saying shit about shit. The person you’re looking for is a goddamn myth, some fucking childhood monster who sneaks in the window and steals your fucking children. He’s fucking Keyser Soze, man. He’ll ruin your whole goddamn life and make sure every single person you love dies screaming, even the family dog. Even if you know him…you don’t fucking know him. Your sister’s dead. Just fucking kill me already.”
Jericho looked at Atticus, who shook his head. They weren’t going to get anything more out of Bryan. He picked up the gun and screwed the silencer on the Ruger from the bench, handing it to Jericho to put Bryan out of his misery.
They got what they came for. A name. A generic name, but it was at least a place to start. Jericho put a bullet between the man’s eyes before he knocked the chair backwards and began violently stomping on Bryan.
Atticus let him go until he stumbled back, then gripped Jericho from behind, pulling him away from the corpse.
He didn’t let go even when Jericho tried to wrench free. “I’m fine. I’m fine,” he snapped.
Atticus held firm. “You’re not fine. Who would be? Just breathe.”
“What the fuck is going on? What did they do to my sister? Where was she for the last eight fucking years?”
Atticus pressed his lips to the back of Jericho’s head. “I don’t know. But we’re going to find out, and when we do, we’ll take them out, whoever they are, however many there are, all at once or one at a time. Either way, I promise you, they’ll be the ones who die screaming.” Jericho didn’t answer but collapsed back against him. “Let’s just go home.”
At first, Atticus wasn’t sure Jericho heard him, but eventually, he just nodded. “Yeah, okay, Freckles. Let’s go home.”
Jericho couldn’t stop thinking about Bryan’s words. Was he just full of shit? He couldn’t be. Dying people didn’t lie, especially not to a guy with a drill in his hand. But that didn’t mean that Bryan hadn’t fallen victim to whatever story these people circulated to keep them off the cops’ radar. Keeping people too afraid to talk was just good business.
Jericho knew, deep down, that the most obvious explanation was that Carlos had trafficked Mercy, that he’d turned her into a junkie so she was more susceptible to his seduction, easier to manipulate, easier to lure away from her family. It wasn’t a unique story in their neighborhood. It wasn’t a unique story anywhere.
People had this idea that human trafficking was something that took place in third world countries. They thought of women and children packed into shipping containers, like something out of a crime show. They imagined the bad guys being far removed from their perfectly curated lives.
But the truth was, most often, the girls being trafficked didn’t even know it. They thought their pimps were their boyfriends, they thought they loved them because that was what they were told.If you loved me, you’d sleep with this guy. It’s just one time. We need the money. Don’t be selfish.
Jericho had seen it hundreds of times. Parents coming to him, distraught, because their daughters had been groomed by some much older gangbanger to believe they were Bonnie and Clyde. His stomach churned at the thought of his baby sister falling prey to some slick talking predator. But it was the most likely scenario.
Pimps could sell one girl or child thirty times a day for years without ever having to worry about restocking inventory. What enterprising criminal would turn that down? Even the simplest of gangbangers understood supply and demand. And that was all any girl ever was to them. Product.
He slammed his hand down on the steering wheel, hoping the impact would drag his thoughts away from falling down a rabbit hole of what could have happened to lead to his sister winding up in the river, missing a kidney.
His phone vibrated on the seat beside him, snagging his attention. Atticus.
He glanced in the rearview mirror to the truck tailing him. Atticus was only a vague outline on the darkened two-lane highway. “Yeah?”
There was a slight pause before Atticus hesitantly asked, “You good?”
Jericho sighed. No, of course, he wasn’t. But that wasn’t Atticus’s fault. “I just keep running over what Bryan said. None of this shit makes any sense.”
