Chapter Nine

ARTHUR AND KIT park a block away from the meeting site. It’s shortly after noon, Sunday, and a church has let out down the street. Pedestrians crisscross the street in their best, and Arthur wonders if they are conspicuously casual amid the crowd. Kit’s eyes are soft and gray, still sleepy, but he grabs Arthur’s arm. “I want that suit,” he says. He’s wearing tight black jeans, a plain white T-shirt, and a sleek red jacket with the sleeves pushed up. Arthur looks at the well-tailored oxblood he subtly points to. Kit must have the same concern.

“Mm.” Arthur scans the cars parallel parked on the street, checking for a tail. He imagines Ward knows Kit is staying with him by now. He wonders if he’s figured out who he is, or anything about his past, or Maurice. He has a name, Arthur knows, but the name should be it. Most of their records won’t appear in any databases; the government keeps its secrets that well, at least. He wonders if the lack of history will tip off Ward and, in turn, tip off Jameson.

The site is a dull brick building, four stories tall with a poorly maintained fire escape in the alley running along it. Arthur casually does a visual check of the alley. No one lurks by the dumpsters or bins. A panhandler sits outside the front, and Arthur pulls a few bills from his pocket. “Enough for a coffee or two,” he says.

The man looks up at him. “They’re inside, sir.”

“Thanks. We’re clear?”

The man’s eyes sweep up and down the street. “Affirmative. Proceed.”

Arthur opens the door, and he and Kit duck inside.

The building is nearly empty. The windows are papered over, and the old commercial carpet and linoleum are stained and ragged. Gordon Pike stands to one side of the space, and Dominic Ross stands to the other. Maurice waits at the back, Jamie by his side.

“Dom. I didn’t expect you to be here,” Arthur says. “I thought you were more selective about where you get involved these days—at least when the FBI is also present.”

He crosses his arms across his broad chest. “You might say my interest was piqued.” He looks Kit over. “You have information about Jameson?”

Pike lifts a hand. “Just a minute, all right? You don’t even know who this is, and you’re—”

“He’s with Arthur,” says Dom. “Just because you don’t know who he is…”

Kit looks at Arthur, then back at the group of men. “I take it you’re the spies.”

Dom laughs, and Pike frowns. Jamie looks annoyed, then glances at his watch. Maurice shakes his head. “Shall we take this upstairs?” He leads the way.

They crowd into a service elevator and take it to the top. The landing is also stained and run-down, with holes in the drywall and spray-painted profanities on the wall. “What is this?” Kit asks.

“Just a slum,” says Pike.

“No, it isn’t,” Kit argues.

Pike and Maurice both turn and stare at him. “What?” Pike asks.

“This isn’t real.” He points to a bold FUCK, messily sprayed in black paint.

“What do you mean ‘it isn’t real’?” Pike glowers at him but quickly schools his face into something more placid. His eyes scan down Kit, as if trying to decipher him like a code.

Kit brushes his finger along the crumbling white powder of broken Sheetrock. “I mean, someone came in here and tore this up to look like a, I don’t know…opioid den. Is that a thing? Like an opium den but for the twenty-first century?”

Dom eyes Kit, and it makes Arthur nervous.

“Now the downstairs, yes. That shop clearly dried up during the recession and probably hadn’t been maintained before that. But the windows are glass, not boarded, this isn’t a bad part of town—whatever that even means—the elevator works, and someone used a hammer on this drywall, see?”

Pike stares at him, mouth agape.

“It’s stagecraft,” Kit explains. “And sloppy.”

Dom’s laugh is a rumble in his chest. He looks at Arthur. “I see why you like him.”

“Oh no,” Kit corrects him, “he’s after my money and my looks.”

Arthur coughs.

Pike pulls a key from his pocket and unlocks one of the doors, then leads them in. He switches on a pair of lamps. “This is one of our safe houses,” he explains. He stares at Kit again.

Kit looks around, and Arthur tries to see it from his eyes. It’s a dumpy apartment—not unlike Arthur’s actual home. They’re trained to need little luxury. He thinks back to Kit’s cozy place, which he didn’t look at closely but knows felt far homier than anything he’s had in his life. Kit turns to Arthur. “Huh.” It’s as if he, too, is recognizing the Spartan aesthetic.

They take seats around a Formica kitchen table. Pike pulls the chain on a cheap light fixture hanging over it. He sets his phone on the table, and Arthur can see a recording application. “Maurice,” he says, “this had better be good.”

Maurice keeps his hands under the table. “I understand you’ve both been looking into Jameson.” Dom keeps his face neutral. Pike’s jaw clenches.

“No one will touch him,” Dom finally says. “Too many people in his pocket.”

Pike scoffs. “You would know about that.”

“I’ll use your tactics when they’re effective, Gordon; leave me to mine.”

Pike shakes his head. Jamie taps his fingers on the table. Arthur glares at him and he stops.

Maurice nods. “I want to go above the people in his pocket, then.”

“You can’t,” Pike insists. “It goes all the way to the top. Leaders of foreign states. Past and current officials here. I don’t know what he has on these people—”

“You don’t?” Kit asks.

“Why is he here?” Pike asks.

“Let him talk,” Dom says. “What do you mean, Mr. Sullivan?”

Arthur tries to keep his face neutral. He is aware he fails. Spectacularly.

Kit swallows but continues. “Videos, of course. And since he’s in the skin business, I think it’s an easy guess what he has videos of.” He leans forward. “But it can’t just be a scandal for some of them, right? People have affairs all the time. It has to be more.” He reclines in his chair, confident and at ease. God damn, he is attractive, Arthur thinks. “And, based on what I know…I’d bet it’s pretty dark. Probably trafficking, but for it to be that clear in videos, we’re talking young, probably, or…kinky—however you want to put it. Hard stuff. Probably drugs too. It’s a poorly kept secret they fuel shoots with them.”

“Dom?” Maurice asks. “Tell me you have something.”

Dom looks at Pike. “How many people do you know will be tied up in this?”

Pike leans back and pulls a file from the counter, which he opens on the table. He shuffles through it and pulls out a list of names.

Arthur looks over it, and his eyebrows raise. “Some of these… Yeah. That would be big.”

“With something like this,” Dom says, “we have to go high and we have to go public if we’re going to uncover this. Something shocking. Newsworthy.”

“And, even then, they may try to sweep it under the rug.” Pike flips to a photograph. “This is the house he uses when he’s in the city.” It looks like an urban manse, Beaux Arts-style, but nestled in thick woods. “Bayside, of course.”

“How gauche,” says Dom.

“Yeah, it’s all rather Xanadu. There has to be some sort of storage there for these videos though,” Kit says. “He’d either have hard copies on discs or hard drives, or both.”

“Have you been there?” Arthur asks.

“Years ago. I certainly didn’t see anything like that. Back then…he most likely would’ve burned DVDs.”

Pike turns to Maurice. “What do you think you have? If he didn’t see anything.”

“We have another witness who did see things. We’re gathering evidence.”

“Who?” asks Pike.

Jamie lifts his hand. “She may want to stay anonymous.”

Pike and Dom nod. “Jane Doe, then,” Dom agrees.

Knowing Dom, he’ll know it’s Hattie and have her life story within twenty-four hours.

“Gordon,” Maurice says, “I need you to talk. Find out who would be willing to sign off on a raid. Get a team together.” Pike clearly bristles at being ordered, but if anyone can command him, it’s Maurice. He chomps his gum and lifts an eyebrow until Pike nods. “Dom, I need anything you can get me. Security footage. Money transfers. Gifts. Trips.”

“This is going to be a pain in my ass,” Dom says. “The number of favors I’m going to have to call in… You’re going to owe me.”

“I’m sure you’ll think of something you need, and it’s probably going to be Arthur’s help with something.”

Dom looks at Arthur, then over at Maurice. Arthur shrugs. “That’s fine. You got my number.”

“It may be this one I want.” Dom points to Kit.

Kit grins. “Get in line.” He bats his eyelashes.

Dom snorts a laugh.

 

ARTHUR TAKES KIT to lunch at a diner he knows nearby. “My turn,” he says.

“I love it already.” Kit slides into a booth. Arthur orders a patty melt. Kit orders coffee and cherry pie.

“That’s all? You need more than that.”

Kit rolls his eyes and also orders a burger. He looks at his phone. “Oh. Hattie texted. Do we want to go to her place or meet her somewhere else?”

“She wants to meet now?”

“Yes.”

“Can she come here? If we have a tail, I’d rather not lead them to her.”

Kit texts and waits a moment. “She’s on her way.”

 

HATTIE WEARS HER hair in a braid like a crown. She’s wearing an oversized sweater that suggests she wants to blend in. It doesn’t work. She is strikingly beautiful, and Kit embraces her in welcome. “Thank you,” he tells her. “This is… This is very brave of you.”

She turns her striking eyes to Arthur, then back to Kit. “You honestly think he can stop them?”

“We’ll do everything we can to keep you safe,” Arthur says.

“Not stop them hurting me,” she says. “I can handle them. I just don’t want it to happen to anybody else.”

Kit nods. “I know. Do you… Do you want to tell us about it?” It’s midafternoon, and the diner is nearly empty. Arthur waves the waiter over, and Hattie orders a malted.

“I was fourteen,” she says, “when my father died. I was sixteen when I ran away from home.”

Kit nods. Arthur drinks water. He wishes it would magically turn to Scotch.

“A woman found me outside a shelter. She told me she had a better option. I thought she meant a job. I guess she did… Just not the job I expected.” The waiter brings her milkshake, and she takes a sip. “Mm, that’s good. Anyway, she took me to this mansion. It was…paradise. Unlike anything I’d ever seen. They gave me food. I had a bed.” She takes a deep breath. “The thing is—even after I realized what happened, I thought, well, I’m lucky. They made it easy for me, when I didn’t have to…work. Jameson and Mike told me I was so special, so blessed, because I’m pretty. I thought it was wrong to want out because I knew—I knew how bad life can be on the street. And I just had to let their friends…”

“You don’t have to say anything you don’t want to say,” Arthur tells her.

“It isn’t that easy for all his girls. Some arrive the day they’re…needed…and fly back out that night. Not always from here. Don’t always speak the language. They would…cry.” She takes another drink. “It made me think, well, I am lucky. And I thought, well, if I don’t always hate it, it isn’t the same.”

Kit nods.

“I have a support group,” she says. “Therapy. And it’s still different, you know? Most people don’t have this experience. You know, I left. I didn’t tell a soul, and one morning, early, before anyone else woke up, I took everything I was able to carry and walked out.”

“That is incredibly brave,” Arthur says.

“It was incredibly stupid. I still didn’t have a goddamn clue.” Her laugh is bitter. “And how do you tell people you’re a human trafficking victim when you’re wearing Dior? You’ve piled on so much jewelry you’ll set off metal detectors in the next town?”

“Hattie, dear, I wish I knew. You could’ve stayed with me.”

“I knew Mike still watched you. He was furious when you left. Jameson was furious at him. Told him how stupid it was to fall in love with someone like us.”

Kit snorts. “Pfft. What a douche.”

Arthur can’t help but smile at that.

Hattie drinks more of her shake and nabs one of Arthur’s fries. He pushes his plate over to her. “I went to a shelter for domestic violence survivors because I figured they had good privacy, and I didn’t want to use any of the trafficking resources. I thought they’d be watching them.”

“They never found you?” Kit asks.

“It’s a big city.”

Arthur looks at Kit. “How’d you find her if it’s a secret like this?”

Kit smiles. “Oh, Arthur, I am very good.”

He shakes his head. “If you say so.”

“I am! I’m going to become a spy.”

“You are not going to become a spy.”

“Yes, I am. That guy said he wanted me.”

“What guy?”

“The big one.”

“Dom?”

“Definitely not a real name. I know a stage name when I see it.”

It’s Dominic. Arthur doesn’t say it aloud. Not really a stage name, though Ross isn’t his real surname. “If you say so.” He looks at Hattie. “Did you find anything?”

She nods. “I have this fake ID, for one. It gave me a birthdate two years early so I’d look eighteen.”

Arthur swallows his rage and takes the ID. “This will help.”

“I also have a few files on a flash drive… These are videos. Please don’t share them.”

“He wouldn’t do that,” Kit says.

“Thank you.”

“You don’t need to thank me,” says Arthur. “That’s basic decency. Not even decency, actually. Humanity.”

“You’d be surprised,” she says. “Here are a few boarding passes. These are the first times I flew anywhere, so I saved them.” She hands them over. “And this is a magazine clipping.” She slides it across the table. Arthur looks at it, and his jaw drops open. “There were a lot of people at that party. It ended up in the society pages. I thought it was incredible to be in a picture with all those people. Famous people.”

“Thank you,” Arthur says. “This is extremely helpful.” She nods. “They’ll probably have you make a statement. We have a friend, Maxwell, who’s a lawyer. He can help with that.” She nods again. “Before that, though, I want to make sure, again, you’re okay with everything. Do you have questions? Are you comfortable with this?”

“Jameson is a monster,” Hattie says. “I will do everything I can to help you stop him.”

They better lock him up for good, or I’m going to end up stabbing the motherfucker. “How would you feel about having some personal security?” Arthur asks.

“Like a bodyguard?”

“We can set up someone to watch outside your house or apartment; they can sit in or out of your work, whatever you need.”

Hattie chuckles. “Really?”

Arthur nods. “It would be best.”

“That would… That would actually be really nice.”

“Let me take down your address, and I’ll have someone there by the time you get home. I’ll send Jamie. You met him at the café.”

“Oh, the cute, quiet one?”

“Cute?” Arthur asks.

Kit nods. “Yes, that’s him. They’re all like this too. Even the older one.”

“There are more?”

“It’s incredible,” Kit tells her.

Arthur takes another drink and wishes harder for it to turn to Scotch.

 

SUNDAY NIGHT, ARTHUR stands in his kitchen while Kit gathers things and packs his bag for work the next day. “I can feel you staring at me,” Kit says.

“Is that how you met Ward? Did he offer you your first job?”

“I saw him, actually, and flirted with him. He was—still is—an attractive man. I pursued him, not the other way around.” He walks across the room to Arthur and stands in front of him. “Thank you for asking.”

“Mm. But you said he recruited you.”

“Yes, well, I didn’t pursue him for pornography; I pursued him for sex. It was a…symbiotic pursuit.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“Most things don’t at nineteen. Or twenty. I also drank tequila and, when I wanted to impress someone, Jägermeister.”

“Christ.”

“I know. Thank you for doing this.”

Arthur shrugs. “It’s my job.”

“Not really. But that’s okay.” He steps close. “Have they called you yet?”

Arthur feels his warmth. He feels his breath on his cheek. The skin on his arms pebbles into gooseflesh. “No. The lab is closed Sundays. You know that.”

“Unfortunate.” He presses into Arthur, and Arthur wraps his arms around him. He pulls Kit close. He presses his face against his neck. Kit sighs and relaxes into it. “Arthur…”

“Christopher.” Kit trembles, and it doesn’t seem possible this clever, funny, spirited man would ever tremble because of him.

“When you’re with me, I feel like we can actually do this.”

“Mmm.” Arthur grips handfuls of Kit’s shirt. I’m going to go down trying if there’s a single goddamn chance.

“Take me to bed.”

Arthur switches off the lights and leads Kit to his bedroom. In the soft glow of lamplight, he strips Kit down to his boxer briefs and does the same to himself. He presses him onto the bed, covers him with the duvet, and climbs in after him. He turns off the lamp, pulls him close in the dark, and covers Kit’s lips with his.

It’s a soft kiss. Kit yawns, and Arthur moves them so that Kit is nestled against him, draped across his chest. His skin is warm and soft, and Arthur wonders if he’s going to have this after next weekend. His hair tickles. Arthur closes his eyes. He allows himself to squeeze, just a little; then he lies there, eyes closed, and feels for a bit.

He tries to stay awake, but sleep comes anyway.

 

MORNING ARRIVES TOO soon. Arthur’s bed is a cocoon, and he’s tangled up with Kit, far too warm and heavy with sleep. Kit doesn’t snore, but he lets out small pffs sometimes as his breath pushes through his lips. They’ve shifted so Arthur is on his side and Kit is behind him, pressed against his back. His breath stirs Arthur’s hair. His body wakes gradually, and he reaches for his phone.

He has sixteen missed calls, all from the last hour.

Arthur slides away from Kit, who curls up into the warmth he left, pressing his face into Arthur’s pillow. It’s still early—very early. He unlocks the phone and taps to call Jamie back.

“Christ, Arthur,” he greets him. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” he replies in a low voice, stepping into the kitchen. He opens the coffee tin. “What happened?”

“I have Hattie. We’re on the bike. I think I lost the motherfuckers.”

“Where are you?”

“Out on the lake road. I thought I might take her to the cabin until things are further along.”

“Good. No tail?”

“No tail.”

“What happened?”

“After I got the message, I went straight to her house. She arrived shortly after. I set up a camera in the back and took position out front.”

“You decided to do a stakeout on your bike?”

“It’s… You know what my car looks like.”

“I see.”

“You don’t see anything, asshole.”

“She there right now?”

“She’s stretching her legs.”

“She said she thinks you’re cute, you know.”

“What?”

Arthur chuckles.

“You bastard. Don’t fuck with me.”

“I’m not! So did Kit.”

“Heh. Well, I’m definitely cuter than you.”

“You wish. So, you wanted to look cool and took your bike. Took position. Then what?”

“Everything was quiet for hours. She went to bed. These nights are still really, really cold.”

“Yeah, you’re a dumbass. That’s Cooper-level unawareness.”

“Couple of hours ago, so…four or so, there’s movement in the back. I thought it must have been a stray or something at first. Then I saw something on the camera. I had to break through the front door, and they already had her.”

“Shit.”

“Two guys, full tactical gear.”

“Fuck. You okay?”

“Grazed my arm, but it was a clean shot. Flesh wound.”

“Hattie?”

“I mean, it must be terrifying, but God damn, she has a cool head.”

“And the other two?”

Jamie’s voice is tight. “Had to take care of them.”

“Bodies?”

“I called Vaughan. I mean Ross. He’s sending a team.”

“I’ll follow up and see if they get any information off of them. You take Hattie out to the lake house and lock it down, and I’ll be in touch.”

“Got it. And Arthur?” Jamie’s voice goes low and serious.

“Yeah?”

“Take care, buddy. These guys aren’t fucking around.”

“You too.”