J. Ellison - 14

“A year pass. I no hear from my sister. No one hear from her. Then the man came back. He see me in kitchen, says you grow up, you perfect now. I was twelve. He take me from kitchen. At first, he kind, nice to me. He feed me, give me drink and nice soft bed to sleep. I don’t need to do work, no more working in kitchen.

“I guess is only natural he want me. Many men want me, but my sister keep them away from me. Once she gone, I have men like bees, swarming me for my honey. I have no choice. When man decide to have sex with me, he takes me to the back bedroom. There is a camera. He does what he likes, doesn’t care if it hurts. After, he give money.

“I feel great shame. But what am I to do? I cannot go police, they deport me. I have no man to watch out for me, no sister anymore. I at their mercy.

“He starts by bringing other men, older men who like little girl. They ask for ‘massage.’ They do all the things that he do to me, force me to spread my legs, my ass, my mouth for their pleasure. I do it, not because I want to, but because I know the sooner they finish, the sooner they go.

“There are cameras in the room. I find the video camera in the closet. They make video, too, sell video of me having sex with strange men.”

Taylor had snapped to attention at that.

“Are you sure? There are videotapes and still pictures?”

The girl nodded. “Yes, I sure. I see them making video, then mailing envelopes. There is computer in spare bedroom, that is the man’s office.”

“What is his name?”

“Oh, no. I no tell. I no want to get dead.”

“Saraya, how’d you end up in the park?”

At that, panic had replaced fear in the girl’s eyes. “I run away. I figure it better to be dead.”

Funny, Taylor thought to herself as she drove back toward headquarters. She hadn’t doubted the girl’s story for a second. Was she so immune to death and destruction, to the very evil living in people’s souls, that she was programmed to believe a victim? She knew that wasn’t the case, she had a bullshit detector a mile wide. People claim to be victims for myriad reasons. Taylor was pretty good at determining who was lying and who was telling the truth. She’d been duped before, but not often.

Saraya Gonzalez was not a Snow White victim. The reality gave her pause. She’d been so caught up in the Snow White case that many of her other cases had been temporarily shelved. They needed to solve these fucking murders so she could go back to her job. There were people in the city who needed her help. Give me your poor, your weak, your downtrodden. I’ll fight for them. That’s what she was, what she longed to be. That was the very thing her father would never understand.

There it was, that damn scent in her nose. Why couldn’t Win Jackson just leave her alone? She tried to shake off the memories, but her primordial olfactory senses defied her and made her doubts rise to the surface as if she was a little girl, vulnerable and weak, unable to win her father’s love. She hadn’t talked to him for three years, since right before she made lieutenant. They always fought-Taylor had little respect for Win’s desire to take shortcuts to the top, and the knowledge that his daughter was a cop rankled him to no end. But the last conversation had been particularly virulent, and Taylor was through. She’d told him to take her trust fund and screw himself.

She knew he wasn’t dead. That much she could feel. As divorced as she’d become from her family, from her father, she still had the presence of mind to know that he was out there. She’d be able to feel if he weren’t. Wouldn’t she?

At least she didn’t have to worry about asking him to walk her down the aisle.

She dragged her thoughts away from her past and anchored them firmly in the present. She had another mystery on her hands. At least this one was definitely alive.

Taylor shuddered. Hearing Saraya’s story, her tiny, accented voice uttering atrocities so frail, so tortured, Taylor didn’t doubt her veracity for an instant. She wondered whether it would have been better to die than be so horribly abused, understood the girl’s desperate attempt at flight. She was too weak to make it very far, the massage parlor must be within a day’s walk. But Saraya had clammed up, refusing to answer any more questions. Taylor had signaled to Bunch to transport her to the hospital. A warm, safe bed and some nourishment might loosen her tongue. She hoped.

As she neared the CJC, the traffic got heavier. Taylor felt it, palpable in the air. Something was happening. She crawled along, finally turning the corner onto third. News vans lined the street. Satellites were set up, there were people milling about, walking through the street blocking the entrance to the CJC parking lot.

Taylor resisted the urge to take out her weapon and shoot it into the air to clear a path. Instead, she took a flasher from beneath her seat, put down the window of the unmarked and held it out in her hand. She flipped the switch and hit her horn. The noise and the glowing red globe got their attention. The sea parted and she pulled into the parking lot of the CJC, double-parking alongside the Channel 4 news van. She should have them ticketed for blocking the entrance.

Her phone rang and she saw Sam’s number. Flipping it open, she walked briskly across the parking lot, shouts ringing in her ears, her hand up in the universal “no comment” posture. Sam was talking loudly enough that Taylor heard her clearly over the din.

“Remy fucking St. Claire is in my lobby, about to hold a press conference,” Sam growled.

Taylor threw a glance back over her shoulder. “But all the news trucks are here.”

“Oh, trust me, no they aren’t. I’ve got patrol officers trying to keep the entrance to Gass Street clear. I assume she’s heading your way after she finishes here. If you hurry, you can get your TV on, see her in all her bony glory. She looks like hell.”

“Well, her daughter just died.”

“Aren’t you the gracious one. Call me later, okay? I need to get this under control. And stay off camera. Man, this hacks me off. Why that anemic bitch decided to have her press conference at my office is beyond me.”

Sam was gone, and Taylor shut her phone. To say Sam and Remy had never gotten along would be an understatement.

As she neared the door, the shouts of the media began to fade away. Each step up the back stairs dumped a load on her heart. This ruckus wasn’t for the poor, innocent girl they’d just pulled out of the bushes in Edwin Warner, nor for Giselle St. Claire or Jane Macias. It wasn’t about any of the victims.

No, this was for something much worse. A false prophet.

Inside the door, Taylor could hear the commotion before she saw it. The homicide team was crowded around the television set, watching. Taylor took up a position with them.

Remy St. Claire had been pretty when she left Nashville to strike it big in Hollywood. An elfin face, pale blond hair, long legs, a breathy, little-girl voice reminiscent of a packaged young Norma Jean. Hollywood made her gorgeous. They took her under their wing, brought her into the fold, and made Remy St. Claire a star. A shooting star.

The lip injections, cheekbone implants, breast implants, ear tuck, liposuction, rib removal, all of that was de rigueur. Standard operating procedure. Her voice coach had annihilated all traces of Tennessee from her vocal cords, eliciting a low, smoky Mae West tone from deep within Remy’s artificial chest. Her long, blond locks were color-treated now, four individual shades of honey blond, highlights so subtle, so perfectly uniform that it took four hours once a week to keep them maintained.

Her figure was emaciated to the point of starvation under a veneer of muscle obtained through stringent daily meetings with trainers-strength, Pilates and yoga. Only her breasts stood out tall; the rest of her body seemed to shrink in on itself, as if the internal organs were so starved that they took the skin for nutrition.