Chapter 24

“Hi, Taylor, right? I’m Jack. We have a couple of classes together. Mind if I sit down?”

I had marched right over. Okay, I hid behind a column until she found her table and I could be sure she was all alone, then I sort of sidled over. Shut up, I was there, wasn’t I?

“Hi Jack! Sit, sit! I was wondering if you were ever going to talk to me or just follow me around all year. You are cute though, and not like the creepy type of stalker, so I figured I would wait it out.”

I must have had a strange expression on my face because she looked up at me and started laughing. When I got up to go, she reached out and laid her hand on my arm.

“Jack, I was just teasing, please don’t go!” She was smiling at me and pulling lightly on my arm.

“I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable, I just, well, I have never approached a girl like this before.” I admitted, trying to tame my blush and failing.

“Never? You mean you never stalked a girl or never asked one out?” Taylor had a twinkle in her eye and a smile on her lips, so I just snorted and let out a big sigh.

“I asked one girl out, but it was to help her out, not because, wait, I mean, we were already friends and she needed a date. It was to the prom, but she was a les... , this is making things worse, isn’t it?” I took a deep breath and though about what Debbie would say, then started again.

“Debbie dated girls all through high school but was my friend. She wanted to go to the prom, so I took her and we ended up being friends with benefits for the rest of the year. There, that’s it. The only time I ever asked a girl out was my lesbian BFF.”

I put my head in my hands and knew, just knew, I had no chance here.

There was a long silence and, when I looked up, Taylor was calmly popping grapes in her mouth and watching me as she chewed them.

“I think that is pretty fucking cool, Jack.” she said quietly. “So why so shy, Jack? Why haven’t you asked other girls out?”

We ended up skipping English class and spending the rest of the afternoon just talking. We started there in the cafe, then continued as we strolled around the campus, ending up in the middle of a big green space, under a tree in the shade.

“So, Cam just left. Went back and has not contacted you since. How bizarre is that?” Taylor said wonderingly.

I had left out a lot of that story. Cam was a girl I met in the Bahamas who was an orphan like me, we got close, she came to live in Key West. Nothing about the slavery, nothing about killing men and nothing about the money.

I had not done all of the talking. Taylor was a middle child, with a brother older than she who attended Texas A&M University and was a Senior there. She had two siblings younger than her too, a brother and sister. Both were in high school, the sister was a junior this year, the brother a freshman.

She was close to everyone in her family and seemed genuinely touched by my story of being an orphan. She said she couldn’t even imagine losing them or, as in my case, not really even remembering them and growing up without them.

She had a plan for her life. She wanted to make things, to build things; to create. She was thinking about architecture but wasn’t certain if that was the right route. In the meantime, she was getting all the prerequisites out of the way while she made up her mind.

She thought it was cool that I was doing the same thing, getting those pesky fluff classes done, but thought it was hilarious that I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life!

“How are you going to choose your classes if you don’t know what you want to do? Why are you even in college? You might want to work with your hands, be a machinist or something. I hate to sounds like a meme, but I can’t even.” Her laughter was light and musical and her smile was inviting.

I had a lot of fun that afternoon. I wasn’t sure if there was a romantic connection there, though she was definitely cute enough. I couldn’t feel it coming from her like I could the girls in school or even Cam. I could tell she liked me, but I thought that she wasn’t feeling the spark.

It was probably a good thing, in the end, since a couple of weeks later she invited me to her home for dinner. Her family lived locally and she lived at home while she attended the university. It was cheaper and she actually liked her family, so it was no hardship.

They lived in a nice suburban neighborhood west of the city, and I still hadn’t gotten around to buying myself a car, so I rode my motorcycle. Taylor thought it was ‘radical’ and assured me that her father would get a kick out of it, as would her little brother. She wasn’t so sure her mother would approve.

It was either that or explain to Taylor why I was driving either Dean’s Ford or Deb’s BMW when I said I didn’t have a car.

I rolled up to the house about twenty minutes early. I had left the apartment early in case I had trouble finding the place but Taylor’s instructions had been very accurate.

I had just put the kickstand down and turned off the motor when the front door of the house opened up and Taylor came skipping out. She was closely followed by a kid about fourteen or so, her little brother I assumed, and a tall, spare man who was definitely the father.

I hung my helmet from the handlebars and ran my fingers through my hair before Taylor reached me and gave me a hug.

“I see you found it okay! I give good ... instructions, for a girl.” she teased, and kept her arm around my waist as she turned to introduce me.

“Daddy, this is Jack McCoy, the fresh ... man I was telling you about,” she giggled and then continued. “This is my brother Charlie, Jack. He’s a freshman too.” I reached out and shook hands with both of them, though Charlie only had eyes for the bike.

We played twenty questions about the motorcycle, with me telling them about rebuilding it from the ground up with a buddy of mine. Dean had morphed from Uncle to Buddy officially the day I started college. It was just easier.

By the time the questions on the bike started to peter out, Taylor’s mother had come out as well and gave me a kiss on the cheek.

“Not so sure about you riding that donor cycle, but as long as Taylor isn’t on the back of it, I guess I have no call to complain.” That was all she had to say on that topic, thankfully.

The last person to come out was Taylor’s sister, Abigail.

Until Taylor elbowed me in the ribs, I hadn’t been aware that I was staring. Abigail had stopped as well, standing on the bottom step with one foot hanging out in the air as though she had frozen solid, mid-step.

When Abigail took that next step, she almost fell over. She had, in fact, frozen mid-step and forgot that the next step was down, and not ahead. When she recovered from her stumble, before falling, thankfully, her face was bright red.

She was ... amazing. Her hair was cut even shorter than her sisters, shaved to the skin on the sides and a mop on top that flopped over one eye. No clue what the original color had been, though based on her eyebrows, probably brown like Taylor’s. Right now, it was a neon rainbow of colors and I laughed when I could point out the entire ROY G. BIV color spectrum like I learned in elementary school.

Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet, all in order and all in, from what I could see, perfectly proportioned stripes.

Once you got past the improbable hair, I could see that she had a great figure. She was long and lean, a swimmer or dancer and not a roller-derby brawler. Her breasts were small and firm like her sisters too, though her hips were narrower. I wondered if they would stay that way and what they would feel like under my hands.

When I noticed that the rest of the family was trying not to laugh, I realized that I had done it again. I was standing there like a love-sick teen, practically drooling.

I turned to Taylor, hoping she wasn’t too mad at me, but she was grinning like this was a rare treat.

“I told my mother that we were friends, that you were sweet and genuine and sexy as the day is long, but there was no spark. I bet her that when you saw Abby, that you would be lost. Moth to a flame, Jack!”

I turned to see what her mother’s reaction was, but she was shaking her head, a smile on her face as she watched Taylor dancing her victory dance in the driveway. Charlie, her little brother and Charles Senior, her father, were standing back and had identical amused expression on their faces.

Abigail had a little grin on her face and she was inching closer. She was still at least twenty feet away, across the double driveway and up the sidewalk a bit, but each half step she took made her look better in my eyes.

When she saw that I was looking at her again, she bit her bottom lip and began to strut. That is the only way I can explain it. You know that walk that the models do on the catwalk, where each step is placed precisely in front of the other? The one that makes their hips do wonderful things and their butts to move in that hypnotic figure eight? That is what she was doing.

I took a second to see what she was wearing and, objectively, it was nothing special, really. She was wearing a t-shirt with a saying on the front, “Abby-Normal” and a pair of short shorts that hugged her hips and thighs. On her feet were a pair of those converse that lace up to the calf and they were fire-engine red.

Her hair bounced as she moved, her breasts bobbling just the tiniest bit, but her nipples were erect and making little movements visible under her shirt. When she reached the far side of the motorcycle, she took her eyes off of me long enough to give it a look and cock an eyebrow as if she was surprised at something.

When she looked back at me, I saw the truth. Beneath that bold, sexy and enticing exterior; beyond that saucy walk and the intriguing gaze, lay a frightened girl. She thought she knew what she wanted, but she was afraid too. Afraid of losing, afraid of winning.

That look, that second of insight, was what I needed. I closed my eyes and took a deep, cleansing breath before opening them again. She was just as beautiful, just as sexy, but she was a person again, a young girl.

“Hello Abigail.” I said softly, holding out my hands. “Taylor didn’t tell me how beautiful her little sister was!”

She looked startled and, much to my confusion, somewhat annoyed. She ignored my hands, her own hands going to her hips. Her head moved forward, a petulant expression on her face.

“She had no right to assign my gender and report it to anyone like, locking me in to her narrow definition of gender roles. My fluid nature will not be confined by some ancient, patriarchal classification locked down at birth by a doctor who had no clue what role I would choose later in life!”

Okay, wait. What?

“Um, sorry, but what? I wasn’t trying to...”

“What? Prejudge me? Assume my gender? Maybe I should just get naked so you can rape me right here in the driveway? I should have known, you riding up here on this mechanical penis extension like we should be all impressed.”

Thinking this had to be some elaborate prank, a joke on the new kid, I looked up at Charlie and Charles Senior. Charlie looked disgusted, like he had bitten into an apple and found a worm. Charles Senior just looked confused and faintly disapproving.

Taylor’s mother, Sandra, looked disgusted as well and her hands, clasped together in front of her, had white knuckles where she was squeezing them together so hard.

Taylor, well, Taylor’s expression told the story a little better. There was anger there, and disgust, disappointment and, when our eyes met, some sorrow too.

Any boom! Any romantic thoughts I had been having, any fascination with this gorgeous creature went right out the proverbial window. Instead of wanting to get to know this young lady, I was determined to get the hell out of there as quickly as I could.

Dean had picked up a bottle wine for me to give as a guest gift, so I dug it out of my saddle bag and stepped over to Sandra.

“Mrs. Briggs, I brought this, just a little thank you for inviting me. I am sorry if this is rude, I mean no disrespect, but I find myself not feeling well and I think it best if I left before I make this evening uncomfortable for everyone.”

I shook hands with Charles Senior and Charlie, gave a silent Taylor a quick hug and got a kiss on the cheek in return. It wasn’t until I put my helmet on and sat on the bike that Abigail realized I was leaving, I guess.

She stood there in shock, her mouth open and confusion evident on her face as I started the bike and let it roll down the slight incline of the driveway. I didn’t even bother to look back, just cracked the throttle a bit and let the bike take me out of there.

What the actual fuck was that shit?

The ride home was confusing as hell, my mind going in circles about what I had just experienced. First, the sudden, visceral attraction to someone I had never met before. If she had walked up and been, I don’t know, anything approaching normal maybe. If she had walked up and been normal, I would have given her anything she wanted, moved heaven and Earth to make her happy.

I guess I can only thank fate that she opened her mouth. My infatuation with the girl was powerful. Even now, with disgust as the foremost emotion in my head, I could feel the attraction. Something about her. It wasn’t the look, that hair that seemed playful had obviously been a battle flag. It wasn’t even the way she moved, I had seen other sensual women in the past.

I got back to the apartment building and parked the bike in the underground garage, my feet taking me up to the penthouse without even really considering where I was going. I walked in the front door to find Dean waiting.

“What happened tonight?” He asked before I had even closed the door behind me. “That girl Taylor called three times already.” He was pointing to the caller ID unit on the table. The unit that Dean and Dave had been able to score was of questionable legality but was capable of displaying the caller even when the number was deliberately blocked. In most cases, anyway.

I opened my mouth to tell him, then closed it again. How do you describe something like that? Taking a breath, I tried again.

“Have you ever met someone that you had a visceral, almost primitive and instant attraction to?” I asked, watching his expression.

Deb, who had joined us in time to hear the question nodded thoughtfully.

“I met a guy in college. The first time our eyes met, I swear to god I had a little orgasm. We had a wild weekend, but he made no bones about his desire to just play in college and it was obvious that the attraction was not as strong on his side.” She shrugged as if to say she couldn’t explain it. Dean just looked confused.

I sat my helmet down on the coffee table and shrugged out of my jacket. Taking a seat in an armchair, I told them about meeting Taylor’s family.

“She is another victim of our educational system” Deb said, shaking her head once she had heard about the girl’s behavior.

“Wait, they are teaching that stuff in schools? Are you learning stuff like that, Jack?” Dean asked, amazed and obviously disturbed by the story.

“Well, kinda. Our orientation was very specific about the use of preferred gender pronouns and other stupid crap like that, but I mostly ignored it all. I just try not to talk to most people, especially if they are dressed like a kook, and I get along okay.”

“What do you mean, dressed like a kook?” Dean asked, curious.

“Look, most kids going to school there are just people. Girls dress to attract the guys or impress other girls. Guys, some of them, dress to attract a girl and the rest are just clueless and wear whatever is cleanest. There are subsets though. There are girls with a pound of metal piercings in their face and heads, with weird hair and stupid, clownish makeup. I avoid them. There are guys who mince around with more flair that the most girly catwalk model, and I avoid them too. If they want to be more girly than the girls, we have nothing to talk about.”

Dean was grinning as he listened. “I have seen some of those. Both of those groups. You can’t be in a college town without seeing them, I guess.”

“Anyway, I guess I am glad that I got to find out about the crazy before I did something stupid tonight.” I said wistfully. What a disappointment that whole meeting had been.

“Hey, you think that maybe she was feeling it too and, I don’t know, panicked?” Deb asked, leaning forward and putting her elbows on her knees.

“You mean that it was an act? I really don’t think so. She was too, how do you say it, too pat? Too comfortable? She was too familiar with what she was spouting for it to be an improvisation, I would think, unless she is already an Oscar caliber actress. With that hair, I think I am safe in assuming she was actually parroting whatever her current influences tell her to say.”

“Ah well. Look, if you get too lonely, I am sure some of these college girls make a few bucks on the side, turning tricks.” She said nonchalantly, though she ducked pretty damn quick when I launched a couch barnacle her way! She ran laughing from the room while Dean just watched and grinned.

After a few weeks, it was obvious that even the friendship between Taylor and I had cooled. She appeared uncomfortable around me now, our conversations strained. I wasn’t sure if she was embarrassed or angry, but our lunch get-togethers quickly went from daily to weekly and then dropped all together. It was a shame, she had been the only real friend I had made so far.

Christmas rolled around and I flew up to spend it with Jake and Liz. It seems they had come to some sort of accommodation because they were clearly living together now instead of pretending otherwise.

Jake’s place was gorgeous, a big twelve-bedroom mansion up in the foothills, hidden in the middle of a two-hundred-acre parcel of land. The center of the sprawling house was a huge A-frame structure with floor to ceiling windows that stretch up at least twenty feet tall and fifty wide.

Centered in that massive wall of glass was a decorated Christmas tree about fifteen feet tall and that wide as well. It turned out that Liz was huge on Christmas and the whole house smelled of pumpkin pies, of turkey and other savories in the kitchen. The rest of the house was decorated as well, and Liz made sure she caught me under the mistletoe for a kiss when I arrived.

“Jake, your woman is hitting on me again!” I called out, laughing and wrapping my arms around Liz. I gave her a quick buss on the lips and a longer one on her forehead.

“Good! I could use the rest.” Jake joked, coming over to shake my hand and wrap an arm around my shoulders. He was looking ... a little frail this Christmas, and it saddened me to remember that he was well into his seventies now, no matter how active he seemed.

We spent the day just catching up, exchanging stories of our lives. Jake had been moving a lot of his investments away from the high-risk side and into more stable areas, quoting a distrust of the current government to keep things stable. He was philosophical about it though, telling me about how he had done the same for several past administrations and come out of some unsure times in a strong position.

Liz was active in the local charity scene and had spent the two months preceding Christmas helping out with a program that had families taking in the kids from the state home, and showing them a warm, loving family holiday in a stable home. She was funding this from her own charitable contributions as well as sitting on the boards of several other efforts.

I got some laughs describing the characters I ran in to on campus, and not just the students. The antics of some of the professors were just as comedic.

While we were safe and sound in Jake’s compound, Dean, Dave, Deb and Steph all took off and left us in the hands of Dave’s well-trained home team. I made sure that Dean and Deb had their bonus envelopes in hand as they left for the airport, getting a kiss on the cheek from Deb!

After the Christmas break, things rolled along smoothly enough, if a little on the lonely side, until finals. I had four finals scheduled, the other two classes excusing students with a 3.5 of better average in the class. I was on my way to my last one for the week and feeling happy about that, when I ran in to Taylor.

“Jack, Hi!” she called, holding out her hand as if to signal me to stop and let her catch up.

“Taylor, how are you? Doing okay with finals?” I asked, curious about what she wanted. She had acted indifferent, almost avoiding me, since before Christmas.

“Jack, I know you have no reason to think kindly of me, but, well, it’s a long shot but I have to ask. You haven’t seen or heard from Abigail, have you?” Her eyes searched my face, hoping I had but probably fearing, what she might see there.

“No, not since that night.” I said. No need to elaborate, I could see by her expression she knew exactly what I meant.

“She, well, she had some weird friends at school. Around Halloween, she started hanging with some even weirder ones, harder ones. She was acting really strange around Christmas and New Year’s, then started fighting with us, with everyone in the family, for even the slightest reasons. A week ago, she just ... disappeared.”

“Disappeared? Did she run away?” I asked, concerned despite my ambivalence about the girl.

“Her makeup and some of her clothes, along with whatever cash she could steal from my mom’s purse and my dresser.” Taylor said sadly, shaking her head. “I knew it was an extreme long shot, but I had to ask. Sorry to have bothered you.”

“Taylor, look, I don’t know what went wrong between us, I thought we were building a very nice friendship, but that doesn’t mean I am not concerned. I have some friends who have contact with law enforcement. Email me a picture along with whatever you can think of that would be helpful. The names of her friends, phone numbers, where she would hang out and whatever. I may be able to help and even if not, another set of eyes looking can’t hurt, right?”

She looked up at me for a moment, then nodded. Surprising me, she kissed me on the cheek. “I’ll email you the information tonight, Jack. You are a sweet guy and more than once, I wondered how smart it was choosing my family over my friendship.”

I watched her walk away and wondered about that but knew there wasn’t much I could do in her case. She had made her choices.

My last test was a real test of my ability to compartmentalize and concentrate on the task at hand. Thankfully, it wasn’t a subject that I really cared about, Sociology filling a humanities slot, so as long as my grade was passing, that is all I cared about.

An email was waiting for me when I got out of class. A relatively recent picture of Abigail, taken at Thanksgiving last year was attached. She still had that amazing hair and her smile still made me think things I shouldn’t, but there was a defensiveness in her stance. She was standing with one arm at her side, the other crossed over her chest and holding it.

That kind of stance spoke of her being uncomfortable in the moment, though there was no way to know why, and it made me feel a bit protective. The rest of the email was what was known about her friends, including phone numbers and places where they knew she had spent money recently, as shown by her debit card purchases or withdrawals.

The family had cut off her debit card after a series of cash withdrawals covering two days, that hit the spending limits her parents had set. They were hoping that the action would prompt her to call home, but the lack of a call probably meant that the card had been stolen.

I hopped on my Ruckus and beat feet back to the apartment. Inside, I sat Dean and Deb down and showed them the email, printing a couple of copies along with the picture, and then told them what I knew from Taylor.

Dean gave me a long look, not saying anything for a bit, then nodded his head. He could tell I was serious about this and, like just a few other instances in our combined past, he knew that it would be useless to argue. Deb took her cues from Dean, thankfully.

First things first, Dean used his Fed contacts to put a BOLO (Be on the lookout) on the girl. The marshals would contact the FBI and pass word to the other alphabet agencies, though they were not likely to care. Who might actually care, and do some good, were the state and local law enforcement agencies. They tended to be more diligent about federal BOLOs than they were about runaway teens.

School was out for the year and I hadn’t planned on taking classes over the summer. There was nothing I was rushing towards, no career that I was anxious to get on with, so taking four years for a degree wouldn’t be any hardship. I had all the time in the world for this.

I agreed, at Dean’s urging, to give it a day before getting involved personally. He wanted to get some intelligence about what we were facing locally. We had kept up the clipping service, getting every service they had, even behind the pay wall, and there just hadn’t been a lot of activity in this area.

Kids went missing, especially girls, with depressing frequency. Teens upset about issues at school, maybe being bullied or maybe just not doing well in classes. Teens being abused, by family or friends or even the person next door. Drugs were often the cause, first becoming addicted and then trying to find ways to support that addition. Whatever the reason, a lot of girls in the US just ... dropped out of sight.

Here in Austin, drugs were the biggest cause. Drugs came across the border by the semi-truck loads. The guys who manufactured, transported and sold the drugs were vicious and ruthless. If getting a teenage girl addicted to drugs made them more money, it was fine by them. Then the girls, literally dying to get their hands on more of the product, were easy targets for pimps and sickos.

According to the local Police departments, the most dangerous parts of the city, and the highest drug crime rates, were in the city center, and along the Martin Luther King / Guadalupe street areas. Then there was Montopolis, Johnston Terrace, Saint Johns, North Burnett ... all areas with low income or Section 8 housing projects, and all areas with high concentrations of gang activity.

We waited two days. Two days for the locals to come up with something, anything. Two days for the Feds to throw their weight around and get us a lead. Two days of pacing in the penthouse, working out and swimming almost obsessively. Two days that I promised Dean.

All anyone could tell us was that the human trafficking issue was bigger than anyone was willing to admit. Yes, girls were going missing and yes, several of them had turned up dead or south of the border. Yes, they had suspicions but they had no proof and they could not, would not, move without enough to win in court.

Fuck that. I didn’t care two shits about winning in court.

“Call them, Dean. Call Dave. Call Luis in Key West and get the guys there or call Tomas LaGrenade and James Yancy in San Antonio. I am calling the Judge, Adam Trujillo and Burt Dowdy. I want an Army on the streets.” I handed out orders like I expected them to be obeyed.

I did and they were. Dean had been with me long enough to know when I was not going to be swayed. I went in to my room and while I was cleaning my pistols, I started making phone calls.

The Judge was relatively easy, though he urged me to be careful and to keep whatever I did legal. If I found something actionable, he wanted me to turn it over to Law Enforcement.

Adam was much the same, saying he couldn’t be involved, but that he would be there if I needed him to defend me. He would also work as a liaison with the DA if needed. I still had a favor or two there from the last time there was trouble in town. I called Terry for good measure, though he was just downstairs. I wanted him to be aware of what I was doing.

My last call was to Burt Dowdy. He cursed me up one side and down the other, threatening to send agents to arrest me for my own good. When I told him to go ahead, I would have Judge Ramirez and Kenny calling the US Attorney General about a writ of Habeus Corpus, he just cussed some more and said that he was coming, to not do anything until he arrived.

That was fine. It would take a day or so to gather the troops. In the meantime, I printed off maps of the city, breaking it down into districts and printing it all out and taping it to the wall in the formal dining room. Sixteen sheets wide and sixteen sheets long, the map was blown up enough to show every street, every alley and I marked out the areas with a highlighter.

I shoved the table against the far wall and arranged the chairs into semi-circles with a view of the board. Dean stood back and watched me, shaking his head but he had a smile on his lips. Deb was there with a shoulder holster on, leaning a pair of rifles against the wall. She had a cold, hard smile on her lips and, when she passed by, she paused long enough to clap me on the shoulder.