The Orchid Tattoo, page 5
The swollen eye wasn’t all. She had red spots on her ribs and thighs from Roman’s kicks, and the swollen bulge between her pinky and wrist. Maybe the injuries would keep her out of commission for a few days, a blessing in disguise.
When she glanced at the window, she spotted a lizard resting on the sill. Rays from the sun made its skin look neon green. Of course, it didn’t feel the heat the way she did. It looked quite content, arching its head back, blinking lazily as if ready for a much-needed nap. Kitten wished she felt that relaxed, but any movement made the pain roll through her.
“You’re awake.” Dulce stood in the narrow doorway, her jet-black hair clipped high on her head by plastic butterfly barrettes. “How you feel?”
Kitten propped herself up on elbows. “A little better.”
Dulce stepped closer, teetering on the platform shoes. Fishnet hose made her thin legs look even skinnier. A shiny gold belt topped her black satin miniskirt. “Bruises look bad. I tell Roman to take you to emergency room.”
“I’ll bet he thought that was funny,” Kitten answered.
She lifted a shoulder in a half shrug. “Si. The prick.”
Kitten snuck a glance at the window; the lizard had vanished. Every inch of her hurt.
“You need to eat something.” Dulce pointed to the small table by the bed where a pack of crackers and glass of ginger ale waited. “Try that. Or you want me to make you a sandwich?”
Kitten took a saltine and nibbled, surprised by Dulce’s concern. When that bit of food didn’t reappear, she braved a sip of warm ginger ale.
“Still have a headache?”
“Yeah.” It felt like doors slamming inside Kitten’s head. Worse was the stark truth that she hadn’t escaped, she remained trapped in a spider’s web she could not escape.
“You probably had a concussion. Good thing you have that hard head.” Dulce grinned, one of her front teeth chipped from a fight with a buyer. “Where were you going?”
“Huh?”
Dulce helped herself to a cracker. “When you ran off. Where were you going? Didn’t you know Roman would come after you?”
Kitten didn’t want to think about that. About the lady who’d promised to come for her, promised a new life away from Roman and the customers. She’d even promised Kitten that she would be allowed to go to high school and get a diploma. What an idiot Kitten had been to believe this woman she hardly knew. Twice she’d been fooled. Never again.
“I’ve never seen Roman so mad.” Dulce spoke softer. “After he got the call, he stormed into your room, then mine. He shook me like he thought I knew where you were. Then he grabbed the car keys and took off.”
“What call?” Who had told on her? The greaser at the 7-Eleven?
“Somebody sold you out.” Dulce sat on the side of her bed. As the mattress shifted, Kitten flinched against a flare of pain. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay.” Kitten took a cracker from the pack, relieved her stomach felt less rocky.
“Roman said you don’t have to work tonight. Maybe not tomorrow. He promised the boss you wouldn’t run again.”
Kitten pictured the curly-haired man in the shiny black shoes. “Who is Jefe?”
“Shhh.” Dulce cast a panic glance toward the door. “We don’t ask questions like that. All you need to know is that he owns you. And me. And Roman.”
Kitten wanted to say that nobody owned her, she owned herself, but that was only a wish. She took a sip of the warm drink. She had so many questions about Jefe. He had come five, maybe ten times since he turned her over to Roman. The sight of him made her stomach curdle. She set the glass on the table and fell back against the pillow.
“Roman threatened to send you to the factory to work. You can’t break out of there. They have guards and shifts running day and night. Be glad he changed his mind.”
“Why?” The factory might be better. Sure, the hours were long, but she wouldn’t have to service men who left their stink on her.
“I worked there for six months. It’s awful, Kitten. Hotter than an oven. They work you till you can’t stand up, then let you sleep a few hours before they put you back on the floor. People get sick. Vomit. Pass out. It is hell. You don’t want that, I promise.” How many businesses did Jefe operate?
“Sounds like the farm.” Kitten had survived hellish days in the orchard when Jefe first got her. Blisters covered her hands; sunburn scorched her neck and arms. The hours in the hot sun had made her dizzy. She prayed she never had to go back.
The front door slammed, and Dulce jumped as though she’d been caught disobeying house rules. Now and then she’d have that kind of reaction, like she was still just a kid, but then the hardened expression returned. “That’s Roman. He wants me to work Two Notch Road tonight. How do I look?” Dulce wore purple and gold eye shadow. Her eyebrows, drawn in black pencil, arched like upside-down smiles. At eighteen, Dulce was only three years older than Kitten, but she looked like she could have been more than twenty. She acted that way, too. Roman let her dress however she wanted, but not Kitten, who had to look like a young girl. It made him more money.
She squinted at Dulce, assessing. “You forgot lipstick. You can use my pink on the dresser.”
Dulce bent to eye herself in the mirror as she dabbed her lips with the pale rose gloss. “I like this color.”
“Not as bright as you’re used to,” Kitten said. Dulce grabbed Kitten’s brush and fluffed her blue-streaked bangs. The butterfly hair clips stayed in place.
“Get some more rest. And stay out of Roman’s way. He’s still pissed.” Dulce tossed the brush on the dresser and tugged the neckline of her sparkly T-shirt off her shoulder. “Be back in a few hours.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
“What are you doing?” Lillian stood in the doorway to Violet’s room where Onyx emptied dresser drawers and stuffed clothes into corrugated boxes with gusto.
“I’m doing what I was ordered to do.” Onyx threw a handful of bras on the bed—red, leopard-spotted, feather-trimmed. Violet loved the variety and paired the lingerie with vivid garters over silk stockings. In her closet hung a collection of costumes—a glittery flapper dress from the twenties, a leather corset that took two of them to lace, a princess dress that she somehow made positively pornographic, each of which was snatched from its hanger and tossed onto the bed.
“Jefe ordered it?” She wasn’t sure how he could have. He’d been gone for three days, as he often did. She knew he had a whole other life she wasn’t a part of, but her efforts to probe only angered him.
“Violet won’t be needing them anymore.” Onyx plopped the items into a box. “Lito took her away. Lito.”
Lillian heard the anger and terror behind Onyx’s words. She didn’t want her girls more afraid than they already were. She needed their energy, which, at times, was happy and playful. This is what pleased their buyers the most. “Because she won’t need those clothes at the farm.”
Onyx froze, her hand gripping a feather-topped stiletto. “The farm?”
“That’s where Jefe said he’d send her. He was so mad about the theft, but I told him that Violet confessed. Guess he decided to show some mercy.” Lillian reached for a cherry-red thong and tossed it in the box. “She’s picking peaches as we speak.”
Onyx resumed packing, her movements less pronounced. “I can just picture Violet in the orchard. She’ll have much to say about the heat.”
“And the hours. And she won’t like the overalls they’ll make her wear.”
Onyx heaved a full-throated laugh. “They won’t let her wear her false eyelashes! The other girls will laugh about that.”
“You know—” Lillian held up the flapper dress. “One of the other girls could wear this.”
“Mei Mei. She loves to wear costumes!”
“And this?” Lillian lifted a sparkly tiara, won by Violet in a highly competitive game of Hearts.
“Willow. But don’t give it to her right away. Make sure she cleans the kitchen better than last time.”
They spent the next thirty minutes deciding who would get what. With reluctance, Onyx accepted a rhinestone bangle that matched her purple daishiki. Lillian kept a bow-shaped hair clip, not because she’d wear it, but because it would remind her of Violet.
As Onyx left the room with the box, Jefe’s man Javier entered, closing the door behind him. Lillian watched with a suspicious lift to her eyebrows.
Javier was Jefe’s right-hand man. He had light brown skin with a constellation of darker freckles across his nose and cheeks. He was well-sculpted from his years as an MMA fighter. While only a little taller than her, he could disable any man who needed it without breaking a sweat. “Is that everything?”
She nodded.
“What do the girls know?”
“I told them Violet went to the farm.”
Javier cocked his head. “Is that what Jefe told you?”
“No. And if it isn’t true, I don’t want to know.” She had the right to her fantasies. To imagine Jefe had shown mercy, and Violet would go on to live a long, full life. She was very good at pretending. It helped her survive.
Lillian could picture Violet standing there, smiling at herself in the mirror, dabbing on a different shade of lipstick. Javier ran a finger across the dresser. “You lied to Jefe, Lillian.”
She stiffened.
“He is . . . unhappy.”
It annoyed her how he measured his words. Always calculating the best way to say something so that he came out looking how he wanted. “I see.” There would be a consequence. When Jefe was angry, they all felt it.
“I told him you did it to protect the girl. That you weren’t betraying him.”
“Of course not.”
“Still. Best to be careful around him.”
“Aren’t I always?” Wasn’t everyone, always, cautious around Jefe?
“He’s been tenser lately. On edge. Surely, you’ve noticed.”
She had sensed a difference because she lived her life according to her internal barometer of his moods. Efforts to get him to talk had been fruitless, so instead, she distracted him. That always—or nearly always—worked.
Javier continued. “A woman was snooping around. She helped Kitten escape. We caught her, but it was a close call. Too close.”
“Roman should keep a better grip on his girls.”
She had never liked Roman. He smelled bad and looked at her like he wanted to taste her skin. She left Javier in the vacant room. She didn’t want to picture the next girl who would use it—someone young and luscious. Someone with much life to live.
No. It was best not to think about things like that. Not if you wanted to survive. And Lillian, above all, was a survivor.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The next morning, I answered Mark Westfall’s umpteenth page by heading straight to the fifth floor of Columbia General. Mark waited at the nurse’s station with a hairy-knuckled grip around his coffee cup. “Your Jane Doe is responding to the anti-psychotics, but she’s still not talking. Thought maybe she’d do better with you.”
I glanced at my watch. I needed to get back to finding my sister, but that would have to wait. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Would be great if we got her name. I’m not wild about medicating someone without knowing their history. And billing keeps asking about insurance info.”
“Well, we all have our priorities.”
He scanned the face sheet on the chart. “You talk to your client, see if you get anything out of her. Page me if you do.”
I punched the five-digit confidentiality code to the psych unit and pressed the large green button that opened the pair of steel doors. At the end of the hall, the door to Room 528 was closed. I rapped lightly but Jane didn’t answer, so I let myself inside.
She was in her bed, staring at the clear bag of intravenous fluid attached to her arm. The open slats of a mini blind let in stripes of sunlight. The air conditioning circulated chilled, antiseptic air.
“Good morning.” I tried to sound enthusiastic, summoning reserves I didn’t have. Jane’s gaze circled the walls of the room. “How are you feeling?” I asked.
She didn’t answer. Black pockets hung under her crusty, dark eyes. Her matted hair splayed out across the pillow like tentacles. I grabbed a chair and slid it over to her bed, watching to see how close she’d let me approach. Her face held as much expression as a sheet of typing paper.
“They’re giving you some meds now. Is it helping?” I waited, determined that if I lingered there long enough, she’d have to answer.
Finally, she shrugged, which I took to mean she understood.
“Ready to tell me your name?”
She turned away.
“Okay. So, we keep calling you Jane Doe.” I sighed. “Here’s what we know. The police picked you up and brought you to us because you were pretty out of it. You kept hearing voices coming through the air conditioning system. Do you remember that?”
A slow nod. Progress.
“Do you still hear them?”
A shrug. She looked at me, eyes narrowed as though assessing. Trust didn’t come easy to her. Me neither, those times I’d fought to crawl out of psychosis.
“You don’t know me, so you’re trying to figure out if I’m safe or not. I get that. I’ve been in your shoes—or rather, your bed, or one just like it—so I know trust is hard.” I leaned forward, but not too close. “Here’s the thing. I’m your social worker. I’m here to help you figure out the next step in your recovery. For now, that may be meds, but it’s also where you go when you get out of here. What you do to stay healthy. That’s why I need you to talk with me.”
She smacked her scaly lips.
“Thirsty?” I asked.
She nodded, so I filled a cup with water and brought it to her. She downed it so fast that droplets landed on the sheet.
“Wow. You were thirsty!” I refilled the cup.
She sipped slower this time.
“Can you tell me about the voices?”
Her eyes widened.
“They scare you.”
She gripped the sheet. “Not they. One. Him.”
“Him?”
“The demon.” She spoke in a whisper, as though afraid to be overheard.
“You hear a demon,” I clarified. “Sounds terrifying.”
“He laughs. It’s horrible.” She pulled the sheet up to her chin as though needing it for protection.
“Is he talking now?”
“Whispers. Just whispers.”
“Quieter than before?”
She nodded.
“Good. Then the medicine’s doing its job.”
Her face twisted in confusion.
“It’s hard to understand this, but that demon you hear? It’s your brain sort of misfiring. You hear it outside of you, but it’s actually in your own brain. The medicine will hopefully fix it.”
She looked up at the ceiling, moving her lips again, probably responding to the demon. “You don’t get it.”
“Okay,” I capitulated. I sensed her closing some internal door and that wasn’t good. “Help me to understand.”
She didn’t answer right away. I watched the steady rise and fall of the sheets, wondering if she’d fallen asleep. Finally, she spoke again. “He’s real. He’s after me and nothing can stop him. He’s like—”
“Like what?”
She shook her head and burrowed deeper into the sheets. I wanted to shake her, to promise her she was safe, to beg her to trust me, but that would accomplish the opposite of what I wanted. When I’d been in her place, I fought these truths, too. Psychosis can seem like an undefeatable beast when you’re in the throes of it.
Time. She needed time so the medicine could continue to do its job. “Get some rest,” I whispered. “I’ll check on you later.”
Clancy let me have another afternoon off which was a real sacrifice, given how her day looked. I didn’t let myself feel guilty; it wasn’t like I was off to the pool to sip daiquiris. I was continuing my search for my sister.
Before I exited the lot, I typed Lakewood Peach Farm into the GPS. According to her calendar, this was the place Peyton had visited last week, out in Pelion. It had been two days since my sister disappeared. The longer she was gone, the harder it might be to get her back.
White clouds marbled the blue sky. The day offered not the faintest breath of wind. A friend once commented that the one thing that separated Columbia from hell was a screen door, and I had to agree. Every summer, I couldn’t wait for my week with Peyton and Lindsay at the beach. When my town turned into an oven, and every plant and every person wilted, I’d think, two more weeks, and I’m at the ocean. One more week and I’m sipping beer under a ceiling fan and watching the sunset over the marsh. Four more days and my toes are digging into a tidal pool as I build a sandcastle with my niece.
What if I didn’t find Peyton?
No. I was never going to give up. Never.
Lakewood Peach Farm was acres and acres of peach trees on both sides of the highway. I parked for a moment, scanning the orange dots between the curling green leaves. I could see workers scattered through the fields, some wearing wide-brimmed hats, with what looked like canvas buckets strapped to their chests, plucking peaches from the trees. A tractor inched along between two of the rows, a long trailer behind it loaded with wide white crates. When the tractor paused, the workers lumbered over to the crates, released the bottom of their chest buckets so that the peaches could tumble down. Then they returned to their picking.
The buckets were a clever device. They rested against the worker’s torso so he didn’t have to bend to pick or unload. Their backs probably liked that, but how did they stand the heat? The peach trees stood eight, maybe ten feet tall, so they offered little in the way of shade. I’d drop dead after about thirty minutes of that kind of work. I looked at the men and women, mostly youngish, moving tree-to-tree, under a parching sun. I could imagine what this brutal work did to them.
