29

 

KYRO MOVED FROM THE motel couch to the bed about four times before Joel told him to keep still. The boy held to the notion that he was just trying to get comfortable, but it was obvious he was anxious.

“I merely said you have to take me there,” Joel said. “You’re not going back there to rot.”

“Yeah, but obviously something’s not clickin’ in that sophisticated brain o’ yours. That place is evil.”

“Kyro, I can’t just leave her in there. I have to know. It’s not a choice anymore. I need to know if my little girl’s all right.”

“Yeah, well, when you’re first in line at the pearly gates, don’t say nobody warned you.”

“I don’t think I’m gonna make it there, tell you the truth, kid.”

“Please, whatchu done in your life that’s so bad?”

Time skipped a beat. “I lost a church, lost my daughter. And my marriage is falling apart.”

Kyro leaned up from the mattress. “So, what are you, like, a priest?”

“Sort of. I was. A minister. We’re like priests, but we don’t sing our sermons.”

Kyro was amused. “I don’t know if you’re allowed to be makin’ fun of your own kind, Preacher.”

Joel fought back a tornado of grief in that brief second. He unzipped his bag and pulled out a Bible. Felt the leather in his hands. Stared at the gold-trimmed edges and marveled at the way some of the pages were falling out. “Can’t believe this thing is still around,” he said under his breath.

“Whaddaya mean? How old is that thing?”

“A lot older than you. One of my professors, someone who became a very dear friend of mine, gave it to me when I finished seminary. I was fresh outta school, didn’t have a clue how to run God’s business. I was still rusty on a bunch of the key verses too. Then I got this thing.” He held the thick book tightly in his grip. “It changed my life.”

“Yeah, so they say.”

“That’s not what I meant. I mean, it literally changed my life. This guy, this teacher of mine, he didn’t seem like he believed in anybody or anything except the Good Book. One of those fire-and-brimstone dudes. The whole world is goin’ to hell kinda guys.”

“A real d-bag, huh?”

“Easy. But yes, I guess you could say that. When I graduated, here he is with this warm smile, ear to ear. I remember it all like it was yesterday. Man, it was hard to get my own family to believe in me. But this professor, he shakes my hand and looks at me like the fate of the world rests on my shoulders or something. A real deep look. And it’s like there’s this block of lead in my gut I can’t take. I’m thinking the whole thing isn’t real. How could he be proud of me? How could he show off a grin I’d never even seen before?

“He leans in real close and says to me, ‘This thing changed my life; it’ll change yours. It’ll change the whole damn world.’ It was the first time I’d heard him curse. When he handed me this beat-up book, it wasn’t just a book anymore. He had it highlighted and underlined, stuff scratched into the margins. This was personal. It was special to him. He believed in what it meant, believed it had power to change people.”

Kyro was hunched over, elbows on his knees, chin on his knuckles. “What do you believe?”

“I’m washed up, Kyro. I don’t know what to believe anymore.”

“Well, no wonder you lost that church, man. If I was God, I’da kicked you out too.”

Joel held a look of shock and wonder. No one, other than Aimee, had hit him between the eyes like that. “The big guy upstairs didn’t kick me out. His chosen ones did.”

“That’s real pathetic, Cass. You’re old. Whatcha gonna do now? Sulk? Cat like you don’t got a whole lotta options. You gonna go snag a job at some convenience store? Yeah, that’s doin’ something for the world.”

Joel replied weakly, “A lot of those people have hope. They’re meant to be there.”

“Yeah, but are you? If that’s all you want to accomplish in your broke life, then keep feeling sorry for yourself. Keep being this weak loser. And that’s what you’ll stay.”

“Who do you think you are, kid? I don’t even know you.”

“If you’re smart, you’ll listen to me this time. Shoot, I ain’t a moron. I know when I see somebody that’s got potential and they just blowin’ it.”

“Look in the mirror, Mr. four-point-oh GPA. Why aren’t you at Yale doing something with your life?”

Kyro went blank. “Guess I never really thought about it. ’Til now.”

Joel wrapped his knuckles around the black book’s threadbare skin. His mind was on that platform, shaking hands with a senior professor. But so much was different now. 

“You wanna know why you failed, man? ’Cause you wanted to.”

Joel shot back a hard look of disdain. “You don’t know what I’ve been through. Don’t pretend to know what you’re talking about.”

“Looks like you’ve been livin’ on everybody else’s faith, man. You don’t got any o’ your own. I’m a street kid, but if it’s one thing them streets learned me, it’s that a punk that don’t believe in somethin’ ends up dying for nothin’. Why you got that cross on your neck, man? It ain’t gonna save you. Don’t mean a thing. None of this crap’s gonna save you if you don’t believe in it.” A grin moved across his face. “Shoot, I’m feelin’ a hallelujah or an amen…or somethin’. I’da schooled you in seminary.”

Joel wanted to break down and laugh. He felt a spark in this young boy he hadn’t seen in his congregation or even himself in so long. Unbiased, uncalculated honesty. The truth staring him in the face. Kyro, as dim as he seemed, had a light in him. A church and a street corner really were closer than they appeared.

“You’re wrecked, Joel. You got pages comin’ out your eyeballs, and you’re fadin’ and rusty. But you ain’t dead yet. Drop all that trash you got in your head, man. Shoot, what’s so bad that you can’t let it go? That stuff’ll catch ya quick, leave you for dead.”

Joel’s nose flared out. “I didn’t just lose my daughter or my wife. I lost God. I’m nothing. I’m gone beyond repair.”

“Abraham used to say that’s devil talk. He wasn’t all damnation neither; he was a half-full kinda brotha. Before the end, he talked about heaven and angels and stuff, but I didn’t listen. Too busy…doing my own thing. Sometimes you’re so close, but you miss it.”

“It’s not our job to save the world, Kyro. We can’t make anyone believe.”

“You’re right, so let’s just quit. There is no hope, no heaven, no hell. Just you and me on this wild suicide mission. Look, dude, unlike you, I was always a skeptic. I never really took any of that angel-fairy-God stuff past Sunday mass. But you, you had something. It’s in there someplace. You know it is. I think you just needed somebody else to believe it was there.” Kyro untied his shoelaces and flung his sneakers across the room. They hit the door as he leaned back on the mattress, hands behind his head. “Man, oh, man, cats like you are so desperate for attention.” A gasp. “White people.”

Joel flipped open the Bible.

Kyro reached beneath a pillow and pulled out an issue of FHM.

“Where’d you get that?”

“Your backseat. What’s a priest doing with skin mags anyhow?”

“I’m not a priest.”

“Whatever, man. You got good taste, though.” Kyro studied each individual page at length before turning to the next. “Mama got curves.”

“Give me that. What are you doing?” Joel said, snatching the magazine.

“I could ask you the same question. A religious, married dude like you shouldn’t have such, oooo, naughty stuff. I’m just glad the pages weren’t stuck together.”

“Easy, kid. And I don’t want you going through my stuff again.”

“Yes, massa, no sweat. So sorry, I am, massa.” Kyro quipped, no doubt thinking himself witty.
Less than a minute later, there was a knock on the door. “Hide this,” Joel said, tossing Kyro the magazine.

“Thought I wasn’t supposed to touch your stuff,” the boy returned.

In a panic, Joel snatched it back from Kyro and stuck it in the laptop case, and half-zipped it. When he opened the door, a slender woman with brilliantly crimson hair and a long brown jacket stood there to greet him. Her cool breath invaded the room first.

“Hello, Redd,” he said, lengthening the pause between their stares. Her comely face was precisely what he needed to see. “It’s cold out there, huh?”

“Yeah, like you wouldn’t believe. So are we gonna stand around and talk about it, or are you gonna let me in?”

Joel smacked his forehead and welcomed her inside.

“Who’s the kid?”

“This kid got a name, lady. It’s Kyro,” the boy said rather forcefully.

“Didn’t mean to offend.”

“No sweat. Just keep it real.”

Redd and Joel exchanged mixed glances. “That’s the only dialect he knows,” he whispered.

“I can hear you two,” Kyro chimed.

“So, Joel, tell me what you know,” she began.

“Well, maybe you should go first,” Joel offered. “You’re the…professional.”

She licked her lips and dropped her suitcase on the bed opposite Kyro. He raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything. “My contacts here in the states haven’t really found much of anything. I expected we might run into snags along the way, but the landscape is bleaker than I hoped. One thing you might want to prepare yourself for, Mr. Phoenix, is that your daughter may not be here.”

“Here?”

“In the States. I’ve spoken to a lot of people, a ton of agencies, and some high-ups in government. Things like this happen. I think, given your scenario, your circumstance, we might have to spread out past our own borders.”

“What, like, Vietnam?” Kyro exclaimed.

Both of the adults kept talking as if he’d not said a word. Joel sat down, his body heavy on the sinking mattress. The springs groaned every time he moved.

“It’s a harsh reality, to say the least, I know. But it’s one that, at this point, we really need to accept,” Redd said. “There’s a reason the agencies you hired before me stopped. The rest of the world’s a whole different animal. Those pansies probably never wanted to get their hands dirty. Jurisdiction and foreign policy and all, it gets real complicated, real fast.”

“You’ve dealt with a situation like this before?” Joel asked.

“But why would somebody want to take his daughter out of the States, lady?” Kyro added before Redd could answer.

Redd dropped her hands to her hips, shifted her jaw slightly, and responded, “The farther she is away from home, the easier it is for her to stay lost. There are sick, sick men all around the world in disgusting trades. Sex sells to the highest bidder. It’s filthy.”

“And you think that’s what happened to Emery, huh?” Kyro said, his voice stiff with unbelief. “What do you believe, Casper?”

Joel wanted quiet in the room. He had to think. Redd had decided to meet him here, in some dilapidated motel, to discuss a new lead he’d encountered because of Kyro, yet she was now thrusting an entirely new theory toward him, and he wasn’t ready for it. He knew what Kyro had told him, and he hoped that was the truth.

“I think I know where Emery is.” Joel said it with near defiance. He didn’t care what doubts had permeated through him these last few minutes since Redd’s arrival. Her reality was that his Emery might now be traveling as excess cargo in some filthy, foreign sex trade. But here and now, he was compelled to make a choice, to decide which theory made more sense. Kyro was looking at him with the most honest face he’d seen in this town, and Joel could not ignore the reality warring within him. The reality that he had to believe that, believe what this boy was selling was the truth, albeit an unsure one.

“I think Casper means we,” Kyro added.

 “Casper. Cute,” she said. “What basis are you two going on?”

“There’s a facility called Salvation Asylum. Kyro said he was there as a patient. He knows it inside and out.” Redd did not react. Joel didn’t expect her to have heard about the facility; he never had. So he moved to the desk, where his laptop sat idle with an image of the enormous mental facility in plain view. He drew her attention toward the screen. “This is it.”

Redd’s eyes followed the cursor as it staggered across the screen. New images loaded and came to life before them. Pictures of doctor-patient sessions, a clean facility, and a pledge to keep safe and to protect “your closest family treasures.”

“That last part’s a bunch of horse crap,” Kyro said. “Oh, they sell peace and warmth and happiness, but it ain’t real. That place is evil, and it always stunk.”

“This is where you think your daughter is, Joel?” Redd said, leaning in close. Her hand fell gently on his back, tickling his spine just by being there. Sympathy poured out of her. “I know you must want it to be true. I know you want to say you’ve finally cracked the case and found her, but this place…Emery isn’t there.”

“How do you know?” Joel replied.

“Because in my dealings, I have, once or twice, been there. Sometimes you get brought to strange places doing what I do. And they keep getting stranger with time. There was a firm that had some unpleasant experiences with them. Decided they wanted to file suit. My team was brought in, years ago, to investigate before pushing a procedure into full effect. Turns out it was just a cry wolf. Nothing. We searched that place high and low, interviewed just about every sane soul in the building. It is what it is. A mental institution, put there to help people. Emery wouldn’t be there.”

“Man, this broad’s talking junk.”

“Settle down, Kyro.”

“This is whack, Cass. I was telling you the truth. Why would I make that stuff up? That place is real. Whatever you’re lookin’ at on that screen, that’s the lie. Open your eyes.”

“He seems pretty passionate about this,” she said.

“I have no reason not to trust him.”

“Really? And when did you two meet?”

Seconds of silence intimidated them. “Tonight.”

Redd returned to a straight, stiff posture. “Where?”

“In Boston, some skate park off Boylston.”

“The city? You picked up this juvenile delinquent—” Redd turned toward Kyro “—no offense—in the city at some skate park? Look at him, Joel. His socks don’t even match; he’s dressed like a homeless kid. Doesn’t exactly scream, Trust me.”

“Cass, she don’t know what she’s talking about. I am who I am, lady. Take it or leave it.”

Redd removed her smile as her eyes became two narrow slits. “I think I’ll leave it. Stop wasting this poor man’s time. I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing, kid, but it better stop. After everything he’s been through, to toy with his life like this, it’s demented.”

“I ain’t toying with nobody, Redd, whoever you are. You don’t know the first thing about me, so screw you if you think you got me all figured out. I spent some time in that hellhole, okay? And it ain’t what you think it is, and it definitely ain’t what that computer says it is. I’m not crazy!”

“Talk about a living, breathing contradiction right there, eh, Ky-ro?” She said his name mockingly. “A boy who says he’s been to a nuthouse claims he’s not a nut. Who would’ve guessed?”

“Screw you! I did my time in there, and it messed me up. But I ain’t lost it. I know the things I seen, things I heard. It’s the truth. I don’t give a rip if you don’t believe me.”

Kyro threw himself back on the mattress, tried to get comfortable. With his arms locked inside each other, he started breathing heavily. It was obvious he was hurt by Joel’s mistrust and some detective’s uncertified analysis of him.

Joel cracked his knuckles. “Is that necessary, kid?”

Kyro stewed in frustration. His breathing remained a thick, stifling addition to the already suffocating room.

“How old are we?” Redd asked him.

Kyro gave her the finger and rolled over.

“You’re quite the snake charmer, aren’t you?” Joel said to her.

“Yeah, well, I never got the award for delicate ice breaker, but I’m a straight shooter. You hired me for a reason, Joel. I think you should trust my judgment.”

“Man, forget this. I’m outta here.” Kyro found both his sneakers and put them on without tying the laces. “Good luck finding your girl, Casper,” he added. The spite was enough to make Joel wish he’d at least defended the boy in front of Redd.

In seconds, Kyro was gone, but he left the door ajar, punching it as he walked out. Joel wished he’d called out his name or begged him to come back.

“I’m sorry if I crushed your soul a little bit, Joel. But I had to be square with you. Before I went off on my own with this agency, I worked for some big guns. We searched for needles in that haystack for several months, investigating, checking the books, the staff, room by room, whole nine yards. But we were lookin’ for something that just wasn’t there. I don’t want us to waste any more time than we already have. If we keep running in the wrong directions, we allow more opportunities for Emery to slip right through our fingers. That’s not what you want, is it?”

 He shook his head. Confusion and apprehension blended within him. Joel wanted to hold Emery in his arms and feel her warm skin as they embraced again. Still, however strange, a part of him held onto Kyro’s story. He wasn’t sure which part, but it was there.

Redd’s hand touched his cheek, and she knelt down to meet him at eye level. Her skin was soft on his. He could taste her sweet breath floating closer toward his lips. Several strands of red hair dropped in front of her glassy eyes. Joel could feel his heart racing.

Suddenly, he wasn’t thinking about any of it. Not the case, not Aimee, not Kyro. He was only able to recognize the cracking in his ribs, the thick, pulse-pounding beat of a heart that jolted alive. One breath. Two breaths. He quickly lost count.

“I really should go,” she said softly, almost a whisper.

“No, please stay.”

Redd glanced at the two empty beds. “That wouldn’t be very professional, now, would it, Joel?”

He released a long, shaky breath.

“I can’t be your escape. You’re a good man.”

“You don’t know me. Not really.”

“I know enough. You are. And I don’t wanna be just a mistake one night in your past.”

Joel bit his lip. It was nearly impossible to avoid imagining what it would be like. He was ashamed to admit that he actually wanted it. There was a passion in him that, even now, at his most desperate, made his body long for the warmth a night of romance might bring. He knew he shouldn’t have let his thoughts drift so far away, but the pounding in his chest refused to quit.

“It’s late. We’ll work out the next move in the morning. I was able to get the room next door. Goodnight, Joel.” Redd leaned in and kissed his cheek.

As she stood up to leave, they both noticed a woman standing in the doorway. The door creaked farther open.

“Aimee?” Joel gasped.