Page 8 of Cruel Debts
When the followingweek rolled around, I was back like I promised, waiting in the crowd with a band on my wrist. But the girl in the room wasn’t her. And the following week, and the week after that, she was nowhere to be found.
It was like my mystery girl up and disappeared, taking any trace of her existence with her.
Where did you go, my pretty little artist?
And why do I care so much about your absence?
FOUR
TRINITY
It’d beenweeks since I’d painted at the club. After the strange, compelling man I’d painted with a galaxy, I had a few other clients, one of whom hired me to paint murals on every wall in his huge ass mansion. He’d promised to cover all my living expenses, plus a hefty salary for the labor, and the cost of the supplies. I couldn’t afford to turn him down, so I told Minnie, the owner, that I was taking a hiatus, and she promised that when I was ready to come back, the spot would be mine. I hadn’t had a chance to test that promise, though, because the second I stepped foot inside this man’s fucking house, he had me microchipped with a tracking bracelet I couldn’t get off my ankle, and I’d been trapped here ever since.
I should have known the gig was too good to be true.
He made threats of what would happen to me if I tried to run away, and I believed him. I’d seen the kinds of men he associated with. I wanted nothing to do with them. But I was going insane, and no doubt my parents were, too, considering I’d been unreachable for almost a month.
There was no end in sight, either. No telling how long I’d be here, stuck at the beck and call of this man who’d made me strip bare and traipse around his house with paints in tow, makingcolor appear on the canvas of every bare wall in his world. Color he didn’t deserve. Color that it pained me to see whenever I walked past it each day. Color that did nothing to brighten the bleak future I had if I ever ran out of walls to paint.
And heavens help me if he decided anytime soon that I’d be better used as a hole to fuck. For now, at least, he wasn’t pursuing sex with me. Or raping me. Small miracles, I guess. All things considered, I had to take the small wins where I could find them.
I wondered if I’d ever see the outside world again.
Or if I were forever stuck here, painting the colors of a sunset from memory, imagining the night sky without a window between me and the realness of it. If I’d ever feel the ocean swallowing the sand between my toes as it rushed in and back out from the shore, taking a part of me with it.
If I’d ever find Keehn, or what happened to him. That cop wearing his name had to be here somewhere. I just hadn’t managed to unearth him yet.
And I never would, now.
FIVE
LIAM
“She hasn’t been homein weeks. She hasn’t even called. Her phone goes straight to voicemail, and has for a month now. We’re worried something happened to her.”
A voice I never thought I’d hear again cracked on the other end of the line, soft sobs swallowing her words like a black hole of despair. Mrs. McCoy and I had never really liked each other, but we had an understanding. I’d covered her son’s back when we were deployed. And when we got out, I crashed at her house until I found a place to stay. I was like the errant son she never wanted. And to me, she was a grouch ass who never left me alone.
But now, she was asking for our help. A group of thugs she’d never wanted her son to associate with in the first place.
Well, aside from Asher. She really liked him, for some reason.
“Why is she even in Nocturna Beach?” Trinity seemed like the kind of girl whose father would have had her married off to one of his cronies’ sons by now, having cute little rich boys’ babies and jet-setting off to rich locales for summer vacations.
“We’re not even sure she’s there anymore. Last we heard, she planned to look for Keehn there.”
It was no surprise to me that Keehn was missing. We’d known for a while now that his identity had been stolen. But the man who now wore that identity hadn’t been behind his disappearance. And the dead body he’d lifted the ID off of wasn’t our fallen comrade.
Keehn McCoy had just vanished without a trace.
And we never bothered to look for him.
Apparently, though we were busy with other things, his sister, Trinity, had been carrying a torch we should have kept lit ourselves. And now, it might’ve cost her, too.
I couldn’t bear to see her hurt because of this.
“We don’t usually take freelance work, you know?—”
“I don’t know what it is you all do now, but I do know that if anyone can find her, it’s you guys. So please, just—just find our daughter.”
