J. Huss - PANIC

“Oh, fuck, Rook,” Spencer says.

“No, Jon didn’t agree. He was possessive of me. But he did agree to help those guys with their girls. By this time we had already moved out to the country in the serial killer house, that’s what I called it. So these girls would come stay with us and he… trained them in the basement. He liked them a lot better than me, to be honest. He stopped fucking me so much after that. I sorta just became the house slave. Which I could definitely live with, but he got more and more violent.

“And then, I’m not sure how it happened, but somehow he became involved in like, matchmaking. Selling, I guess, since there was money exchanged. They had auctions in our barn, I kid you not. Girls showed up, willing, money was exchanged, and at first I’m pretty sure the girls were the ones getting the money wired to offshore bank accounts. Their contracts had expiration dates. Six months, a year, that sort of stuff. But later, those girls were not there because they wanted to be. They were kidnapped.”

I look over at Ford and he’s slumped over, his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands. Spencer’s got his hand over his eyes, like he’s picturing the scene and wants it to go away.

“Jon came to me one night soon after this started. I’d just found out I was pregnant.”

“Pregnant?” Spencer and Ford say at the same time.

“Yeah, I had just found out I was pregnant and things sorta got better. Jon seemed happy about it, and by this time we were already married, so in a rare moment of trust, he came to me and asked me to help him hide some stuff. In case these partners of his ever decided they wanted to get rid of him or turn him in for what he was doing. He told me it was in my best interest since I was his accomplice. So we went down to the basement where his uncle had already made the hidey-hole underneath the laundry room drain grate. Jon knew about it but he was too big to do anything with it, he needed me to squeeze down there, dig it out and make a safe spot where he could keep me and the important things he had in case anyone ever came to mess with him. I would be his ace in the hole, he said.”

“What happened to the baby?” Ford asks quietly. He’s still got his head in his hands.

“I lost it. Miscarriage.” I continue quickly before they start asking too many questions about my son. “Things got pretty bad after that happened. Jon was angry and I mean constantly. He started beating me. Violently, much worse than any of the stuff he ever did sexually. And then he almost killed me. And that’s when I ran away and ended up in Denver.”

We sit in the silence for a few minutes and I take the opportunity to down my beer and take a shot.

Spencer is still pinching the bridge of his nose and covering his eyes at the same time.

It’s killing me to know what they think of me right now.

“Rook.” Spencer blows out a long breath of air and then opens his eyes and stares straight at me. “You are the bravest fucking chick I’ve ever met.”

I realize I was holding my breath and I let it escape in a rush.

And then Ford straightens up, leans back in his chair and starts talking. “Those drives contain the names of everyone involved in that little trafficking ring Jon was part of. There are seven FBI agents, twelve Chicago cops, a mayor of a small Illinois town, a state senator, two US House members, and a shitload of well-off businessmen. One of whom”—Ford raises his eyebrows at Spencer for this—“is our friend Cooperson Smyth from Boulder.”

Spencer sits up for this bit of news. “No.”

“Yes,” Ford says. “He was part of it so you know what, Spencer? You can stop with your own guilt about that now. He was even dirtier than we could ever have imagined. I never heard about this, did you?”

“No, I knew about the money crimes and what his daughter told Ronin about him…” Spencer trails off as he looks over at me.

“His name is all over these documents. And it makes you wonder, right?” Ford looks over at me now, shaking his head and huffing out a breath of incredulity before continuing. “If this was fate after all.”

Our conversation all those months ago at Coors Field floods back. When I told Ford that I got off the bus because of the film department at CU Boulder. ‘Fate,’ he’d said. ‘Weird,’ I’d replied.

But maybe he was right.

These guys have always been my future.

“That’s just the US people. We have several dozen international men as well. Including one particularly nasty cartel head from Columbia. We have signatures, wire-taps, which are probably not admissible in court, video, which probably is admissible, phone records, bank account numbers and transaction records, passwords, and a complete list of girls—both the ones who were traded by mutual agreement and those who were kidnapped and sold. Jon kept very, very thorough records.”

“Great, so we’re good, right? We can use that to bargain for Ronin, can’t we?”

“Well, Blackbird,” Spencer says from the couch. “Yeah, it’s damn good stuff. Almost airtight, in fact. But the problem is, we might be killed for exposing it. This is high-level shit. People will not take kindly to us barging in on their well-planned crime ring, guns a-blazing, making demands.”

“So what do we do?”

Spencer blows out a long breath of air and pinches the bridge of his nose with his fingers, staving off a headache or trying to beat one back down into submission. “Take them all down at once, knock them out before they see it coming. But we’re down a team member. We need a front man, and it’s gotta be you. Because Ford and I do not, let me make this clear, we do not get involved in the public side of things. We’ve got too much history, Rook. We can’t do it. Ronin is like a brother, but we can’t risk being the face of these crimes. And just so you know, you’re a nobody now. Next year, if we never get involved in this, you’ll be a minor curiosity with the show and the modeling.

“But if you do this you’ll be famous whether you want to or not. People will dig up your past, smear your name, probably send you hate mail and stand outside wherever you live with giant signs telling you you’re going to hell.

“They’ll call you a whore, find every last foster home and get them to talk shit about you, and you’ll never be invisible again. Say goodbye to grocery shopping and say hello to your own Wikipedia page complete with editors fighting over how to portray you publicly for years to come. Your children will grow up knowing you were a sex slave for a sadistic man and watched human beings being auctioned off in your barn. And that’s just for starters, God only knows what could happen. So, Blackbird…” He sighs deeply. “It’s your call. You lead, we follow.”

I chew on my nail a little, thinking it over. I’m so ashamed that I was part of what happened back in Illinois. And if I’m honest with myself, that’s why I always want to run from things. I have no guts. I’m so weak. Ford was right. And I have done so many stupid, stupid things that I’m not sure I can even make up for it.

But I can try.

Even though it will be difficult and I’ll have to admit all these things to the cops and reporters, and God only knows who else—shit, maybe they’ll even put me on trial for not turning them in sooner—I still have to try.

I look over at Spencer and swallow down the fear. “Can you come up with a plan that will make sure the cops believe me? Might they just blow me off? Maybe the person we tell is involved? I mean, I know how far-fetched that is, but there are a lot of names on that list, Spencer. What if that’s not all of them?”

“That’s your risk, Blackbird. This is most definitely not all of them. You can bet that Jon’s whole part in this scheme was small, it’s international. Even if we get all the names on this list, this is probably a small fraction of the people involved.”

“Will they come after me?”

He shrugs. “Maybe. Look, we’re not gonna just leave you to deal with it alone, OK? We’ll be here behind the scenes, but we won’t be fielding questions in front of cameras. You’re the one connected to these people through Jon. Ford and I will just make it more complicated. They’ll start looking into our pasts, they might even try to pin it on us.”

“I might throw up.”

“I already have a plan buzzing around in my head and we’ll just kick back here for a few days and figure it all out. I’m certain I can set it up so at the very least Ronin will get out of jail for the comments about getting him arrested. And we can probably get some of the people on this list arrested, but beyond that, Rook…” He throws out his hands. “I have no idea. They could all walk in the end. That’s just how the system works.”

On day three, rule one and I are no longer on friendly terms. Maybe because orange is not my color or maybe because this shit is like wearing burlap, or maybe because it smells like it was washed in armpits.

I’m not quite sure, all I know is that I’m done embracing the orange jumpsuit.

On day four condition number one is out in full force. Only now I’m talking to Ford in my head, practically begging him to find Rook and figure this shit out.

On day five I break down and call Antoine collect to ask about her. He denies the charges like he’s supposed to and saves my ass.

One day six I stop eating. All I do is think about her. Where is she? Did they find her? Is she safe? Hurt? Fuck, fuck, fuck!

On day seven I’m getting ready to admit to everything because I’m not very good at obeying rule three right now.

But my lawyer stood me up today, so luckily, my temporary insanity cures itself and I come back to my senses.

And this is just about the time I admit I suck at this jail shit. One week without Rook and I’m insane. I know now for sure—not that I ever doubted it, but now I have proof—I am addicted to Rook and this is my withdrawal.

It fucking hurts.

I let out a long sigh just as my door buzzes signaling someone’s on the other side and wants me to come out.

“Finally, fucking lawyer shows up.”

But when the door opens it’s not my lawyer. It’s a big black dude in a suit. “Flynn, come with me,” he says, waving me out of the cell.

Gladly, I think to myself. But now that I’m working I’m all business, so that shit stays tucked. We walk past the door to the visitors’ hallway. We walk past the door to the rec area, which I hardly ever see since I’m in solitary. Another door buzzes and then we enter a large room filled with more guards. “What’s this, beat-the-shit-out-of-Flynn night?”

“It’s ten AM, Flynn.”

“Oh, well, no windows in the cell, how am I supposed to know?”

“You’re not, now just shut up and watch the fucking TV. Hit play, Lenny.”

And just as Lenny hits play I glance up at the screen and see Rook standing at a podium with a shit-ton of microphones in front of her. “What the—”

“Just watch,” black suit guy says.

She looks a little nervous as she begins, swiping at a stray piece of hair that whips across her face in the Denver wind. The crawl at the bottom of the screen says Denver County Courthouse. I listen as she tells her story. Mostly calm, mostly strong, but a few moments of hesitation and eye-wiping to thwart off the tears. She describes what she’s been doing for the past week. The trip to Chicago, Jon, the secret stash, the fire, the rescue.

She tells of corruption in the FBI, calls that bitch Abelli out by name as being one of them, then rattles off a list of people that has the crowd gasping, time… after time… after time. She ends with a name everyone who lived on the Front Range three years ago recognizes.

Davis Cooperson Smyth. The guy we killed in that last job.

Only that’s not how Rook tells it.

Because this guy’s name is on record as being part of the major human trafficking ring Rook just blew up with her statement. And Jon, the guy who tried to “kill” us last summer, was part of this whole thing from the beginning. She uses the word assassin as she holds up thumb drives and an iPhone that contains a video of Abelli—the network shows this video in-screen as Rook talks—beating the shit out of Jon and then ordering him shot and the house set on fire.

Rook’s house in the Chicago burbs. While she was inside. Trying to save people and put the bad guys behind bars.

She even flashes a bit of leg to show what’s left of her burns and the cameras can’t zoom in on her skin fast enough.