By my count, which wasn’t exact by any stretch, it had been about two weeks since I’d slipped the napkin with Griff’s number on it to the young cop at Rusty’s. And every night when we went back to the bar I told myself that tonight Griff would walk in the door. Tonight I would be saved, but hope was slipping away and acceptance taking over. Officer Marshall’s allegiance was to the police department certainly not to some whore in a rundown bar in the middle of nowhere. He’d probably thrown the napkin away as soon as he’d left the building.
Every day was the same. Wake up, eat a bagel and lie on our filthy mattresses until Clive or Myles came to collect us for showers. My teeth had begun to ache from a lack of calcium, my body was no longer my own and nothing I wanted to claim. I detached myself from it and gave it over to the hands and mouths, the fingers and tongues of the men at Rusty’s. I hated every inch of my skin and defiled it every chance I got. I became obsessed with the piece of glass I’d saved from my attempted escape. At night, when we’d return from Rusty’s I’d slide it over my stomach eager for the physical pain, eager to punish myself for what I’d become. When I thought about Griff and Amy the grief was unbearable. I thought instead about the girls at Isaac’s, ashamed of my naïveté toward them. I’d been incredulous that they would call themselves lucky when all they got was a beating and in my ignorance, I’d wondered how they’d ever gotten to that point. Now I too was grateful for black and blue skin instead of a penis thrust in my face or between my legs.
The night was not as frigid as most and I wondered as I sat in the van beside Julia if we were in the annual January thaw and when exactly had Christmas come and gone? We rattled over potholed, muddy roads and finally pulled into Rusty’s familiar parking lot. I used to count the cars parked and estimate the number of men inside, but I didn’t anymore. What difference did it make?
We filed inside. Booger was at the table to my right and smiled. I walked past him not making eye contact. Big George was just beyond him. George preferred using his belt and so did I. I walked over and pulled out the chair across from him.
“Can I sit down?” I asked.
He smiled and nodded. “Stay there,” he said. “I need a drink.”
“Get me something too,” I called after him.
I was halfway turned in my chair watching George collect our drinks when the door opened and Griff walked in. John was behind him and an army of cops followed. I wasn’t sure I was seeing right. I was afraid to move. Afraid that if I jumped up and ran to him he wouldn’t be real and when I reached to touch him I’d wake up on a mattress in Clive’s basement. Worse, I was afraid he wouldn’t recognize me. I was so thin and filthy and bruised. I sat frozen to my chair.
Clive ran for the hallway near the bathrooms, men on his heels. A shot was fired and everything came to a dead stop. Nobody moved for a second or two and then it started again. Chaos. I still couldn’t move, but the knowledge that it was real was sinking in. And then Griff looked at me. Our eyes held and he came toward me. He knelt in front of me and took my face between his hands and pulled me to him, our foreheads touching, our cheeks wet with each other’s tears and finally his lips on mine. I dissolved against him. He was real.
I looked up from his shoulder to see police snapping handcuffs on the men around us. John had corralled the girls into one corner and was desperately searching their faces.
I looked at Griff and shook my head. “She’s not here,” I said. “But she was.”
“John,” Griff yelled over the noise. “John,” he called again.
Detective Stark made his way to us. “Jesus, Britt,” was all he said when he looked at me. There were tears in his eyes.
“She was here,” I said. “We tried to escape, together. We got caught. They sold her. I don’t know where she is.” I started to cry. “I’m so sorry, John, I said. “I’m so sorry…”
I felt John’s hand on mine. He pulled up to standing and wrapped me in his arms. “Britt,” he said. “You’ve done more than you ever should have. I’m the one who’s sorry. Let’s get you out of here.”
Across the room the girls were seated at a table. An officer was taking down their information. Julia caught my eye and smiled. I smiled back at her as I slipped out of John’s embrace and into Griff’s. Together, we walked out of Rusty’s.
A fleet of police cars their lights flashing, were parked in a horseshoe around the front door. I saw Clive in the backseat of a cruiser. He watched me walk past with Griff. I wondered what was going through his head.
“How’d you know?” I asked, hoping Officer Marshall had found the balls he needed.
“A cop called me this morning, young guy, new on the force. Said a woman at Rusty’s gave him my number.”
“Officer Marshall.”
“Yup.”
“Took him long enough to grow a pair,” I said. “And now they’ll kill him.”
“He’s being transferred and more than happy to go.”
We stopped outside of John’s black Suburban. I leaned against the door and looked up at Griff. Every time I looked at him I started to cry partly out of disbelief that he was really here and partly because I was already feeling a sense of loss. How could he stay with me after all that had happened? At Isaac’s I’d planned to lie to him. Lie by omission and keep what had happened to myself, but I knew that was impossible now. He’d walked into Rusty’s, he knew what was going on, knew that I was just another whore and had been for weeks.
“Griff,” I said, the words that were forming already breaking my heart. “It’s okay. You don’t…I mean I understand. So much…I tried not to…but I…they wouldn’t.”
He put his fingers beneath my chin and raised my face to his. “I love you,” he said. “I never should have let you do this. Whatever happened is over. It’s all over. We’re together.” He pulled me against him and buried his face in my hair. “I thought I’d never find you.” His voice cracked. He opened the back door of the Suburban. “Get in. There are enough cops here to handle this. They don’t need me.”
I sniffed back my own tears, wiped my cheeks and was suddenly painfully aware of how I looked. My sheer blouse, wild uncombed hair, bruised body. “I’m sorry, I…” I looked down at myself. “I’m filthy and dirty and, and…”
He put his arm around my shoulders and kissed my forehead. “When I walked into that bar and saw you sitting there, no one has ever looked more beautiful.”
He took a grey wool blanket from the back of the Suburban and wrapped it around me. I leaned against him and we sat in the quiet and watched the arrests being made and the girls being loaded into a police van, taking their first step toward home. Beneath my ear, Griff’s heart pounded in his chest.
John opened the front door and climbed in. Revving the engine, he turned to me. “I know there’s a lot to discuss, but you need rest before we start. He looked me up and down. “Looks like you need this too.” He tossed a gray sweatshirt that read CID into my lap from the front seat.
I smiled and pulled it over my head. “Thanks, John,” I said.
“But you did see her?” he asked.
“More than saw her. We were together for…I’m not sure, but maybe a week or more. She’d been at Isaac’s and was sold to Clive. That’s where I found her.”
“Is she,” his voice broke and he cleared his throat. “She’s okay?”
“She’s strong and careful. She wants to get home. That’s why Isaac sold her. She kept trying to escape.” In the rearview mirror I could see the hint of a smile on John’s face, the proud father. “She feels terrible about what she’s done and what she’s put you through. She loves you.”
He nodded, sniffed and wiped his eye with the back of his hand. “You sure as hell look like you need a good meal. I don’t know what’s open this time of night, but we’ll find something.” He put the car in drive.
“Just no bagels,” I said and settled in against Griff. Something sharp dug against my thigh. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the shard of glass I’d held onto for so long. Leaning toward the door, I pressed the button, lowered the window and tossed it into Rusty’s parking lot.