Forgive Me (15 page)

Nadine hesitated long enough for Angie to think she was going to walk in the opposite direction. Angie’s heart sank when Nadine went running in the same direction as the man.

“We need the next camera!”

Vincent checked the maps. “That’s SF-R3L.” After some more clicking, he got the video to load. It was like a scene transition from a movie. There was the man, walking away when Nadine came running into the frame. More conversation took place and the man and Nadine walked out of the frame together.

“Where are they going?”

Sean and Vincent exchanged looks. Both studied the map.

“From here? I’d say the parking garage,” Musgrave answered. Vincent concurred.

“Do you have cameras there?” Angie was thinking vehicle make and model, a license plate maybe, but Vincent’s frown damped her hopes.

“Light is too low there for these cameras, I’m sorry to say.”

Angie gave this some thought. “We need to get pictures of this man to the DC police.”

“No problem,” Vincent said. “I can get that done for you today.”

“Great.”

From her purse, Angie fished out her car keys and handed them to Mike.

“What’s this for?” he asked.

“You said you had a big bouncy house delivery.”

“Yeah. So?”

“So, take my car back to Falls Church and get your work done. I’m going to stay here for a while.”

“And what, pray tell, will you be doing here?”

“I think this guy is a predator,” Angie said.

Mike seemed unmoved by Angie’s observation. “So?”

“So, if I’m a smart hunter and I found a good feeding ground, you better believe I’m going to come back.”

CHAPTER 19

E
xhibit D: Excerpts from the journal of Nadine Jessup, pages 35-37

It was a warm spring afternoon when I left the studio with Ricardo. Don’t ask me what day or date. I’ve lost track. Ricardo told me we were moving out, so I had to get all my stuff together. I asked him where we were going. He looked at me and I could tell not to ask that question again. I got this feeling that I was done. They had tried everything to make me into Jessica Barlow. But I’m no JBar. I’m a failure. I’m a loser like my so-called friends think I am. It was a wake-up call for me, what Ricardo pointed out. Their posts, the way they talked about me. Calling me fat. Jump off a bridge.

Maybe I should. Maybe I should go find a bridge and stop being anyone’s problem. Would it hurt? I think about it. How would I want to die? Cut my wrists? I hate blood. Maybe pills. But what if I just puke it all up. Jumping from a bridge . . . that freaks me out because I’m imaging how scared I’ll be on the way down. Then I guess it won’t matter. But I hate roller coasters. That’s a funny reason not to kill yourself, but if I came to a bridge and got the opportunity, it’s probably what would keep me from jumping off.

I managed to get my journal out from its hiding place in the mattress without Ricardo seeing it. Maybe he’ll notice the slit I made later on. Maybe he’ll think the ratty old thing had just given out. I sure hope so. I don’t want him to know what I’m really thinking because I’m so messed up right now. I sometimes wish I would never wake up, that I could just die. It would be SO. MUCH. EASIER. Bye-bye world. Bye-bye. Does Ricardo love me or hate me? I just can’t tell anymore. Is there even a difference? Why does love have to hurt so much?

I thought about what he said about my mom. That really stuck with me. Stuck with me like I think about a knife sticking in my throat or my mom’s throat. I think about him pinning me to the ground, hovering over me. He could take me anywhere, do anything, as long as he doesn’t do that again. I don’t want to make him angry. I love Ricardo and he loves me, but it won’t stop him from hurting me. He’s like a bridge I’m standing on. I could jump off to get away from him, but I’m afraid of the pain that would follow.

We took the Cadillac. It was parked out front. Keys in it and running. Nobody is gonna mess with Ricardo. He got me something to eat at McDonalds drive through. Then we drove to some desolate street. I didn’t like that I didn’t know where he was taking me, but I didn’t want to be punished again so I wasn’t about to say no or even ask where we were going. He stopped the car and took out a blindfold and told me to put it on. I didn’t want to, but he looked at me hard, and I got scared. Then it got dark because I tied the blindfold around my head. He tightened it to make sure I couldn’t see out. I felt a breeze pass by my face, but I didn’t flinch. Ricardo laughed. Maybe next time I’ll hit you, he said.

I thought about the old Ricardo. The one who loved me and made me feel loved. I missed him and I wondered what happened? What did I do wrong? The pictures. It was probably those damn pictures. If only I was prettier, more photogenic, the JBar he wanted me to be. What was crueler, I wondered, to never show love or to give it and then take it away?

The car turned every which way, but I was blindfolded and completely disoriented. I didn’t know where we’d gone or how long we had been driving. It seemed like hours, but time has a funny way of passing when you can’t see the world going by. I wondered why Ricardo wanted me blindfolded, but I wasn’t about to ask him. He wasn’t talking and that was my cue to stay quiet, to not make any trouble. Trouble caused me pain.

The car finally came to a stop and I heard him open his door. My heart started beating fast. I had that creepy feeling, like you get watching a horror movie. Something was going to happen. There was a reason I was blindfolded. My gut told me I was about to find out. A moment later, Ricardo opened my door and helped me out of the car. My hand was trembling and he asked what was wrong. I told him I was scared. He said, “of what?” I wanted to say of him, but I didn’t want to make him mad so I said of being hurt. He whispered in my ear, do you think I would ever hurt you?

I went from outside to inside. I heard the creak of a door and the air turned stale. Someone was cooking something. Beans and rice maybe. I could smell cigarette smoke and perfume. Ricardo helped me down a short flight of stairs. Now there was a musty smell mixed with the smoke, perfume, and food. I thought of the basement at my house that had the same dank smell. I could tell I was walking on a hard surface. I heard a little splash of water under my feet when I stepped in a puddle. My heart was thundering, my body shaking.

Easy niña, Ricardo said. You fine. You fine. All is good. I take off the blindfold in a minute. You gotta work now for your food. You ready to go to work. That’s what I remember him saying. I heard footsteps shuffling toward me. Voices whispering. Laughs. Giggles. Get back, putas! Ricardo yelled. A girl’s voice said look at the freshie. New meat. I like it. Someone grabbed my ass. Nice and firm, a girl said, then laughed.

Ricardo dug his fingers into my arm. His nails pinched my skin and it hurt. This was a warning, a reminder to me that he was love and suffering, pain and relief all rolled into one. I heard the sound of shuffling feet. People scurried away. Where were we? What dark world had he brought me to? Ricardo pulled me to a stop like I was the mule he once called me. At last, he took off my blindfold. I blinked though I didn’t have to adjust my eyes too much because there wasn’t much light.

I was in a room about the size of my bedroom, but the walls were made of wood—cheap stuff, different types of wood all pressed together. What else was in this room? A twin bed on a metal frame, a wastebasket, and nothing else. No other furniture. No windows. A small lamp plugged into an extension chord pulled through a hole in the wall gave off the room’s only light. I heard a man grunting. I know those noises because Ricardo made them with me and because he made me watch a lot of videos. It sounded like it was coming from close by.

Where am I? I asked Ricardo. Your new home he said. I don’t like it here, I said. He threw me onto the thin mattress and started to choke me. My eyes bugged wide. He let go of my throat so I could breathe again, but then he took out a lighter. He grabbed my arm hard and held the flame to my skin until the searing pain got so bad I began to scream. He covered my mouth with his hand and burned me again.

That’s when Stephen Macan entered the room. He was dressed in a suit. He still looked distinguished and handsome, but there was something very cold about him. A darkness I hadn’t seen in him before. He sat on the bed. The springs creaked and groaned under his weight. He told Ricardo to leave. He still had that accent I couldn’t figure out. I was crying and Stephen Macan gave me some tissues. He was drinking a Coke with ice and he offered me a drink. He rubbed an ice cube over the burn on my arm. He said anytime I did something wrong from this point forward I would be burned. I started to cry harder. What do you want from me?

He told me that I worked for him now and that Ricardo wasn’t my boyfriend anymore. I can’t have a boyfriend. Not here. He said he tried to make something happen with the pictures, but I’m not going to be JBar. Not now, not ever. I don’t have what it takes. But I still have to pay him back for all the time and energy he invested in me. I have to earn my keep, he said. I asked how I’m supposed to do that? I’ve never had a real job before and I don’t have any skills.

The grunting sounds I heard became louder, more intense, and they distracted me. Stephen Macan grabbed my chin and turned my head to make me look him in the eyes. The coldness I saw made me shiver. He said my job was to make his clients happy.

I told him I didn’t know how to do that, but he said I was lying. He said I took care of Ricardo just fine. That was my training period. Now I have to take care of others for real. My arm was throbbing. I couldn’t stop crying. I felt sick to my stomach. I wanted to puke. Stephen Macan took out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. I shrank away from the flame, but he grabbed me and pulled me close to it. Close so my face could feel the heat and my eyes stung from the brightness. He put the cigarette to the flame and took a drag. Then he gave me the smoke. I inhaled and coughed because I took a big drag. He told me not to take such a deep breath. He wanted me to smoke it all because the cigarette would calm me. It wasn’t just tobacco in there, he said. He wouldn’t say what else it was, but I smoked it down anyway and felt extremely lightheaded. Calmer. The pain in my arm didn’t go away, but it didn’t hurt as badly anymore.

Stephen Macan said it was time for me to go to work. He said I belonged to him now. He called me a piece of property he owns and said it was time to, “earn your keep little girl.”

How? I asked.

But I knew. I knew.

Stephen Macan got up from the bed and opened the door to my makeshift room. Buggy was standing there smiling a big toothy grin. He strutted in, unbuttoning his bowling shirt. He took off his fedora hat and Stephen Macan took money from him. I saw this exchange. Nobody tried to hide it from me. Ricardo came back into the room. I was sitting on the bed and he leaned down and whispered into my ear to make Buggy smile or Stephen Macan will burn my face so badly my mom won’t recognize me. Then he’d put me down into the hole.

What’s the hole?

He wouldn’t tell me. He just said, you don’t ever want to go into the hole, Jessica. For a second I forgot my name wasn’t Jessica. I forgot I was Nadine. Ricardo said he would wait outside for me to finish then he would take me out for lunch and take me to my new apartment. Don’t I live here now? I asked. He laughed. Nah, he said, this place is for the work. Upstairs is for sleeping.

His voice sounded far away because my head was buzzing from whatever I’d just smoked. Thank God I was high. Thank God because I knew what was coming. Buggy came toward me with a giant smile on his face that put no sparkle into his black eyes.

CHAPTER 20

D
ay two of Angie’s stakeout and already she was sick of the salads they sold in the food court. She was also sick of the lighting, the pumped-in music, the filtered air, and the echo from the din of constant chatter and footsteps. She felt like a vampire wandering the halls of the Union Station mall, going from floor to floor, store to store, looking for a tall, balding man with a handsome face and good taste in suits.

When she saw them, she tailed young, single girls because that was the bait that attracted this shark. The girls came in all shapes, sizes, and colors, but shared one common attribute—they came, and in great numbers, too. It was a Saturday, and Angie was having a hard time keeping up with the endless flow of bodies that came in and out of Union Station. Everyone there had a story and she couldn’t help but wonder if some of the girls she followed were just like Nadine—naïve girls from troubled homes who fled their sad circumstances thinking they would be safer, happier on their own. Angie had been in business long enough to know they were almost always mistaken.

Mike checked in a couple times from his bouncy house party. In the background, Angie could hear what sounded like a bazillion kids making enough noise to drown out a fleet of jet airliners.

“
So any luck
?” Mike shouted into the phone.

Angie scrunched up her face as she struggled to make out what he said. “How do you stand all that racket?”

“What?”

Angie sighed.
“I’m fine. No luck yet!”
She startled a young couple walking by, who shot her an aggrieved look.