The Girl in Cabin 13, page 1
Copyright © 2019 by A.J. Rivers
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The Girl In Cabin 13
A.J. Rivers
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Epilogue
Gone Woman (Sneak Peek)
Staying In Touch With A.J.
Prologue
I slide to the edge of the couch cushion and lean forward. My elbows resting on my thighs, I clasp my hands and force myself to maintain eye contact with the crystal blue gaze in front of me. Those shouldn’t be the eyes of the man sitting in the stiff-backed chair. He’s less than two feet across from the sagging brown and beige plaid couch where I’m perched. Less than two feet and dingy green shag carpeting separate me from hands I know in my gut are soaked in blood. Clear, wide blue eyes like that shouldn’t have seen the things this man has done.
It’s a struggle not to let my expression give away any of the thoughts or emotions swirling in my brain. I can’t let on anything. The men on either side of me are calm and collected; their faces almost blank. They’re hearing the same things I am, but it’s not having the same effect. The words hit me like bullets, searing through my skin, and burning the edges of my mind until I only see red. It’s only worse that I know they’re lies. At the very least, he’s not telling the whole truth.
“Cut the bullshit,” I snap.
Some part of me is aware the man beside me is talking, but I don’t hear what he’s saying before cutting him off. He shoots me a glare through the corner of his eye, his shoulders tightening.
“What do you mean?” the man in front of me says.
His name is Jeffrey, but we’ve been referring to him as Snake. The sheer cliché value of it makes me shudder. No one with that astounding of a lack of creativity should be responsible for the atrocities he’s confessing to. And should have even less to do with the ones he’s keeping tucked close to the vest. Those are what we really need to hear. I don’t want to hear them. I know it will make me sicker. But if he doesn’t, everything else he’s already said won’t matter.
“Give it up. That’s all the same shit you’ve been spouting since the day we scraped your sorry ass off the asphalt,” I say.
“Brittany,” the man to my side, Tank, says. The hint of warning in his voice goes completely ignored. At this point, I don’t care.
“I’m telling you everything,” Snake insists. Again.
“The fuck you are. Do you think we’re stupid? Do you think I’m stupid? I told you, my connections can get you off on some of these petty charges and get you a shorter sentence in a good pen for the bigger ones. But you have to be straight up with us. I’m not going to put my skin on the line for someone who’s too chicken shit to man up to what he did. You’re the one who did it. I’m not going to pretend you didn’t, and neither are the cops. They will rope you up and drag your ass without a second thought. You think they care for a minute what you have to say?”
“Brittany,” Gage, the man to my other side, hisses.
“No. I don’t care. This guy is pissing me off. Where would you be right now without us? If we hadn’t found you and took you in, you think you’d have even half a chance? If you do, you’re fucking fooling yourself. By now, you’d have been passed around the cell block for a phone call home and three packets of ramen. And where do you think you’ll be without us when you get yanked up on these charges? You think you’re smart enough to wriggle your way out of them? Without our help, you don’t have a chance. People like you have a really good habit of ending up as scum at the bottom of the shower drain. So, unless you want the last thing you see to be a pair of hairy legs and mildewed tile, you’re going to cut the shit, stop flapping your jaws, and tell us the truth.”
“I did,” Snake argues.
“You told us about some convenience store clerk you shot, the drugs you stole, and the cop you ran over. You think any of those things mean anything to us? You think we’re impressed?” My throat aches with the tension of the words slicing through it, and my temples throb. “I’ve heard all that before. That’s stuff I pulled off before high school. Tell me about the little girls.”
Gage shifts beside me, his knuckle’s digging painfully into the small of my back. He’s trying to shut me up, but the words have already started tumbling out, and there’s no stopping them. It’s taken everything out of me to make this man part of my life. Befriending him and earning his trust has been harder than anything else I’ve ever had to do.
It will be worth it if he gives me what I want. But if he doesn’t, I’ve wasted this time and opened myself up to filth I’ll never be able to wash away. Worse than that, he might keep going.
“What little girls?” Snake asks.
“Ignore her,” Tank says. “She’s messed up. Partied too hard last night. Probably doesn’t even know where we are or who she’s talking to. Just talk to me. Look, you know why we’re here. You’ve got some pretty serious shit hanging over you, but you’re one of us. We’re not going to let one of our brothers go down. But our brothers don’t lie to us. The only way we can hook you up with our guys is to know everything we’re dealing with. We need the details. You can’t hold anything back from us and still expect us to help.”
“Stop babying him,” I nudge him angrily. “We know what he did. He just needs to spit it out.”
Snake stands up and shakes his head, holding his hands up. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on here, but I didn’t agree to any of this.”
“Yes, you did,” I say, standing up and taking a step toward him to block his way. “When we initiated you in, you knew you had to be straight up with us. Now it’s time to give it up.”
“Whatever you’re on, it’s nasty. You need to have a word with whoever you got it from. I’m leaving.”
“You’re not going anywhere,” I say.
Snake pushes me out of the way, using me like a weapon to knock Gage and Tank off balance. He runs for the door and bursts out before we get a chance to get back to our feet. The men try to keep me in the house, but I don’t listen to them. Chasing after Snake, I reach under my shirt and wrap my hand around the handle of my gun. He doesn’t have a car, but that’s not going to stop the slimy piece of shit from trying to get away from me. After jangling a few handles, he finds an unlocked door and dives behind the wheel. My shot obliterates the back window, but it doesn’t stop him from cranking the engine.
Ignoring the screams of my name behind me, I run down the crumbling sidewalk to where he’s already working the car out of its tight parking spot. Wrenching the passenger door open, I throw myself into the car.
My fist makes contact with Snake’s jaw. He slams on the gas. The car lurches forward and smashes into the back of the car in front of it. I fall forward and land across him but manage to pull my knee up at just the right moment to dig into his belly.
He lets out an infuriated grunt and punches me in the side, knocking the wind out of me. Pain radiates along the side of my body. In the few seconds it takes to recover, he slings me back over into the passenger seat, and lights burst in front of my eyes as my head cracks against the window.
I don’t let it stop me. I jam my foot out, smacking him in the side of his face. His sharp turn of the wheel makes the car spin to the side. Holding the wheel tightly, he leans over to search me and the area around me. I know he’s looking for my gun. The wind whistles through the back window, reminding him of the shots I took at him. Him getting his hands on my weapon and being able to turn it on me is the last thing I need right now. At least for the moment, I’m on my own.
Hitting the control with my elbow, I lower the window and toss my gun out over my shoulder. It scatters somewhere on the pavement outside.
Snake drives faster, sending the car swinging back and forth as he struggles with me.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he demands. “Get off me!”
“No. Not until you pry your balls out of your belly and admit what you did.”
“Do you get off on this stuff or something? You want to hear all the details?” He backhands me across the face, and I fall back. “You want to bring that back to bed with you tonight? Cozy up with all the images in your head of what I did to those little girls? I bet you didn’t know there were boys, too. It’s the most fun when they are so little and young;
He laughs, but I don’t hear it. The blind rage takes over. His voice is still around me, but the words aren’t registering. The next thing I’m aware of is my hands around his neck and my knee buried in his stomach as he struggles to drive around me. Suddenly, the rumble of the engine stops, and the car slows to a stop. He shoves me away, spewing profanity as he tries to start the car again. It’s pointless. He’d have to hot-wire it again.
Seconds later, the door behind me opens, and a hand grabs me by the back of my shirt, yanking me out onto the pavement. The slam of another door tells me he’s gotten out. I struggle to get to my feet so I can chase him. But the man holding me isn’t about to give me that chance. He’s already tearing into me, and I know it’s just going to get worse.
It started raining right after Bruno dragged me out of the car. I’m soaked to the bone by the time he stuffs me into one of the unmarked black cars parked behind the disabled sedan. I haven’t gotten to change, and two hours of sitting in the frigid air conditioning of the office has my dirty blonde hair stuck to my head and my cutoff t-shirt clinging like ice to my skin. It’s penance for the mess I just made of the operation. It’s a little much. The least they could do is let me change into my real clothes.
Finally, the door opens, and Bruno sticks his head in.
“Griffin, get in here.”
I let out a sigh and follow him to the office at the end of the hall. Creagan sits behind the desk, hunched over a file as he scribbles something. Bruno gestures me into the room and leaves as fast as he can. That’s not a good sign. I sit down and watch him. The seconds tick past, and he doesn’t acknowledge me. His office is even colder than the rest of the building, and my skin might start flaking off at any second. When ten minutes have passed, I lean forward.
“Creagan?”
“What’s your name?” he asks.
Considering I’ve been working under him for the entirety of my career, that’s not the question I’m anticipating.
“Excuse me?” I ask.
“Your name. What is your name?”
“Um. Emma.”
That’s me. Not Brittany, like I told Snake. Not Sugar, like a couple of the guys called me before I could stop them.
“Emma Griffin?” he asks.
He still hasn’t looked at me. I have the strange feeling I’ve somehow transported backwards through time and am back at my initial interview.
“Yes,” I tell him.
“Special Agent Emma Griffin, FBI?”
I’m not sure how much longer this is going to go and how many more pieces of identifying information he’s going to tack onto the end of the title, so I try to flash-forward to the end.
“That’s me. What’s this all about?”
He finally looks at me.
“So, you’re not Brittany, also known as Sugar, street runner, and gang member?”
I narrow my eyes slightly.
“Not at this particular moment.”
Red dots appear on Creagan’s cheeks just before he explodes.
“Then do you want to explain to me why the fuck you’re acting like her?”
Oh, shit.
“Look, I know that didn’t go …”
“No. You look. Do you have any idea what you did out there? You could have compromised the entire operation,” he fumes.
“Could have?”
“Somehow, even in the middle of your meltdown, you managed to get him to admit to everything before he crushed the recorder in your bra. He took off running after we disabled the car, but a couple of the guys caught up with him, and he’s been arrested.”
“So, everything worked out.”
“Don’t even try that. It’s an absolute fluke this ended with us getting the information we needed, and the only reason that happened is because of the foundation laid out over the last few months. That saved your ass. What the hell happened to you out there? It’s like your brain just stopped working.”
“Did you hear the things he admitted to?” I asked.
“Yes. And I’ve heard worse before, and I’ll hear worse again. It comes with the job, Griffin. Your job was to get him to admit to what he did so we could nail him. You couldn’t control yourself out there, and it could have gone south real quick. You could have gotten yourself killed, or worse, gotten one of the guys killed.”
“Wow. Thanks for that,” I mutter.
“What is it you want me to say? You went completely off the handle. I’m going to leave my concern with the men who were actually doing what they were supposed to and maintained the professionalism during this operation.”
My face burns, and I cross my arms over my chest.
“I’ve never had my professionalism questioned.”
“You’ve also never given up so much information to a suspect, chased the suspect down, and tried to beat the living fuck out of him while he was driving a car. You could have ruined the entire operation!”
“He could have gotten away.”
“It was a bait car, Griffin! It was put there in case something like this happened. We had control over that car. You know that. You’re the one who begged and finagled your way into this operation, to begin with.”
“I want more serious responsibilities. And my injuries are fine, thanks for asking,” I spit.
It’s petty, but I’m getting angry and don’t want him to know just how far under my skin he’s managed to crawl.
“You wouldn’t have been injured at all if you didn’t lose trust in the team and go bat-shit insane. If you weren’t a lucky son of a bitch, that guy wouldn’t have said a single usable word, and you would have been smashed and smeared across the street. Then he would have been free to find more children to play with. Is that what you wanted?” he asks.
“Of course, it isn’t,” I snap.
“Then you should have had your shit together.”
I’ve had enough. I stand up.
“You’ve made your point. I’m sorry I went off script. It won’t happen again,” I say.
“No, it won’t. Not any time soon, anyway,” Creagan growls.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Until further notice, you’re out of the field. Turn in your gun and find a cushion. You’re riding the desk from now on.”
Chapter One
Six months later
The feeling of riding a train has always put me to sleep. I'm far from unique in that. No matter what time of day it is, every train crisscrossing around the country is dotted with sleeping passengers. Some try to be subtle about it and pretend they aren't really sleeping, crossing their hands over their stomachs and closing their eyes as they maintain as perfect of posture as they can. Others have no shame and dive into it full-bore, slapping on their sleep masks, and curling up under blankets to hide from the trip. I have a far deeper knowledge of that phenomenon now after spending the last sixteen hours in this seat.
Right now, I'm fighting the urge to join the latter group. I have a giant cardigan in the bag at my feet, and I want to wrap myself in it and just block out the rest of the ride. Unfortunately, that's not an option for me. My stop is coming up soon, and for the last seven hours, I've been on strict orders to stay awake. I am officially on duty even if the messy bun on top of my head and my shoes sitting discarded to the side say different. Paying attention to my surroundings is crucial, and I can't do that sleeping.
This is the first time I've been allowed out in the field since the unfortunate incident during my last operation. I'm not entirely clear on why Creagan sprung me from desk duty to put me on this one, but it doesn't matter. I'm tired of shuffling papers and never want to see another highlighter in my life. I can't afford to mess this up.
