Ridley Pearson - Choke Point

It’s not the perfect cover—a small, contained space. But the boats that take guests are cash-only, off grid and operated by independents.

He knocks lightly on the door to the port cabin, pauses and knocks once more. He hears her move a chair blocking the door and she admits him. Forced to duck by the low ceiling, he takes a seat in the chair she has just moved. It’s a small but warm space—teak and varnished hardwoods, nautical-themed fabrics, a clock fashioned after a captain’s wheel. Her laptop is running, and plugged in, the pillow on the narrow berth crumpled where she leaned against it as she worked. An empty mug of tea sits in a gimbaled holder attached to the wall. He has never known her to look anything but tired, and she does not disappoint him.

“You never answered me,” she says.

A thoughtful and exhausted Knox takes the chair. “Refresh my memory.”

“Who are you?”

“You’ve Googled me. You know who I am.”

She wants to contradict this. As she considers how to, Knox speaks.

“Can you make me one of those, please?”

Sonia fills a small electric teapot with water from a ceramic pitcher. The thing starts boiling nearly immediately. She wipes off her cup, pours over a fresh tea bag and hands it to Knox, who cradles it in his big hands.

“You’re writing.”

“What else? It’s how I relax.”

“About the teacher? Maja’s artwork?”

“Compelling stuff,” she says. “A young girl’s insight into the criminal world. A clue worth sharing with the general population. Maybe other girls have drawn similar images.”

Knox sets the mug on the floorboards and unzips two of the many pockets inside the Scottevest, retrieved while he was making arrangements. Inserting the three different SIM cards and rebooting the iPhone takes several minutes. “You have more than one SIM?” she says, a challenge in her voice.

It has become so routine, Knox failed to realize how it would look to others. “Business and personal. Easier for tax records. U.S. taxes . . . don’t get me started.”

“A lot of bother for a struggling freelancer.”

“Who said I was struggling?

“I just did.” She returns to her typing, but her furrowed brow lingers longer than it should.

He checks texts, e-mails and voice messages for the chips that provide the various services. He scratches out notes onto the back of a receipt. Tommy has called several times on his private number; Knox feels badly about not having been in touch over the past few days. There are a half dozen business calls on his second card that need following up. The last of the three phone cards connects him to a voice mail from Chief Inspector Brower. Knox saves the message, reminding himself to return to it later. Grace will want to hear this one.

“You’ve made yourself a target, that much is obvious.”

“Making enemies is making yourself significant,” she says. “It comes with the job.”

“Your enemies apparently have a long reach.”

“If it’s more than you can handle, no problem. I understand.”

He takes a sip of tea. John Knox can think of several ways to turn that statement around and sting her; John Steele’s reluctance to do so frustrates Knox.

“You don’t need me until and unless there are some good photographs to make. Anyone can photocopy children’s artwork.”

“I feel safer with you around.” The walls are thin—they can hear conversation from an adjacent boat—and so they have been speaking quietly. Her comment is barely audible.

“Maybe some kind of day rate is in order.”

“If I want a bodyguard, I’ll hire someone trained for the job.”

“You are outnumbered. We are outnumbered. These people have clearly spread money around the town in an effort to find you. They got people to that neighborhood quickly. That suggests what, a half dozen guys on bikes? More? That’s a big payroll.”

“I appreciate what you’ve done for me, Mr. Steele. This place . . . I live here and it wouldn’t have occurred to me. I probably would’ve gone to a friend’s house, and I now see what a mistake that would have been. I’m not ashamed to tell you I’m afraid.” She pulls her knees to her chest and places her chin on her knees, contemplative and vulnerable. “But I consider my own fear and magnify it ten times, and I still don’t come close to the fear these children must be living with.”

“Your niece.”

She appraises him, openly pondering telling him. “Similar circumstances, I suppose.”

He waits her out. The people on the nearby boat are making it a four-person party.

“Similar, but not identical. My niece disappeared the week after she turned thirteen. There is a worldwide market for virgins—did you know that? Upward of fifty thousand dollars U.S. All races. Boys and girls. Three girls—all friends—from the same school went missing on the same night. Never to be seen again. To this day, I search Craigslist each day for her initials: KP. She is called Kala. This is how the ransom demand is made.

“My brother,” she continues, “asked me to get involved, to write about it, to raise awareness in hopes of getting her back. This series won me awards, led to many good job offers. I took the best of these. Yet my niece never came home. My brother says he’s happy for me.”

“Rough.”

“Sometimes life offers a chance to correct one’s previous mistake.”

“I don’t see the mistake,” Knox says.

“The series did nothing to uncover the human trafficking. Did nothing to slow it down. It provided me job opportunities, that’s all.”

“And you’re supposed to feel guilty about that?”

“Whether I’m supposed to or not, I do.”

“If you’d wanted to solve crimes, you’d have been a cop, not a reporter. You can’t have it both ways.”

“Of course I can. What is it you think an investigative reporter does? If we don’t follow an investigation, we cause one.”

“Your niece again.”

“It’s what I do. I shine a light where there is none.”

Knox has spoken before he thought it through, and regrets doing so. “So we’re supposed to find Berna and bring her home. But we don’t happen to know where home is. We don’t know where she is. That’s biting off a big chunk.”

“I don’t define the outcome. I pursue a story, or a series, to where it leads. That pursuit is not yet concluded. The more intimidation, the more inclined I am to believe I’m closer to the truth. It’s really that simple.”

It’s about the money for Knox—Tommy’s endowment, a way to keep him independent. He’s going to need millions; he had barely started before the embezzlement. Now . . . he admires such altruism, but is too pragmatic to dwell on it. He has finished the tea. He reaches to return the mug to the holder. Sonia helps guide his hand, and makes eye contact as she touches him.

“Stay,” she says. “I won’t sleep with a man until he owns my heart, but in India we know a thing or two about pleasure.”

“In Detroit, too,” he says. He shouldn’t have looked into her eyes, not if he’d wanted to keep this uncomplicated. Her eyes have been his downfall since they first met.

—

“THIS NEEDN’T COMPLICATE THINGS,”he says, studying the grain in the cabin’s dark-paneled ceiling.

“Of course it will,” she says, rolling onto her side and staring at his profile. “It already has.”

“There’s something I want you to consider.”

“The answer is no.”

“They clearly have a long reach.”

“They have killed one source, assaulted others, attempted to intimidate me—”

“Kill you.”

“We don’t know that.”

“We’re outnumbered.”

“This is my cause, not yours. Let’s call this,” she says, laying her warm hand between his legs, “our parting gift.”