Devotion Apart Read online

  When I told them that I'd revealed my name to my dad, and he hadn't reacted, Tyler stopped eating and set his fork down.

  "You mean he didn't say anything about you being his son?"

  "Nope." I shoveled more eggs into my mouth, thankful to be eating food I hadn't hunted or caught. "It was like he was talking to a stranger the whole time I was putting his clothes away."

  "Does he have brain damage?" Janae asked, her face drawn. "Maybe he doesn't remember you because he can't?"

  "I was gone a long time. Too long, I think." I pushed back from the table and wiped my mouth. "It's all a good reminder for me to appreciate who I have around me while I can. Thank you both for being here for me."

  They were silent as I gave Tyler a firm squeeze on the shoulder, then kissed Janae's chubby cheek.

  I drove the Jeep into the city, and across from Progress Park, I pulled up to Bangour Commons where Roger McMaster waited. He wore a suit, appearing as if he'd slept in his clothes and had had no coffee that morning. I honked the horn to get his attention, then opened the passenger door for him to climb in. As soon as he was inside the vehicle, I took off down the street.

  "Are you the one I spoke to on the phone?" he asked.

  "Are you wired?" I turned onto Parkway South. "Open your shirt.

  "They don't wire people anymore." He opened his shirt. "Where've you been, in a time capsule? No, I'm not wired."

  "Where's your bowtie?"

  "The bowtie is for my public image. It's disarming, and this isn't public. Where's my daughter?"

  "I'm taking you to her, but this isn't a simple situation. There are some big players involved."

  "Big players?" He scoffed. "Don't you know who I am?"

  "I know you're in way over your head."

  "Who are you?"

  He turned sideways in the seat, as if trying to make sense of me. I wore no jewelry. My haircut would've embarrassed most thugs. There was no pistol in my waistband, no trash in the car, and I had no tattoos.

  As he was looking me over, I was trying not to think of who he was, a destroyer of lives, marketer of families, salesman of women and children, murderer of fathers, torturer of souls. . . I needed to see him as just a father whose secret sins paled in comparison to the heartbreak of his daughter.

  "Call me Searcher. You wanted your daughter found. I searched and found her, but it's complicated."

  "What's so complicated? Tell me where she is? I told you I can pay you. Whoever's involved, I can make them disappear. There's no one in this city I can't get to."

  "Oh, my friend." I shook my head as I pulled off Parkway under the Frontage Road overpass onto a street that was overrun by a tent city, filled with homeless people. "Your arrogance has made you naive."

  I parked along the street, facing the tent city a half-block away. Garbage littered the gutters. The smell was of human waste and rotten food. To and from Morliam Acres, I'd driven over this area, but this was my first view of it at ground level. And to think there were at least three other tent cities just like this around Devotion, with a population as high as four or five thousand living in each one!

  "This is what we came for?" McMaster leaned forward. "Is my daughter in that sewer of tents and tarps? Why'd I need to clear my whole schedule today for this?"

  "Just wait and watch"

  Downtrodden people streamed to and from the tent city. Nearby businesses catered to the transients by offering laundry services, gambling opportunities, and medication prescriptions. Smoke shops, pawnshops, and liquor stores lined the street.

  "Your daughter's being held hostage," I said softly.

  "What?" The hand on his left knee trembled, which he hid by making a fist. "A hostage?"

  "They targeted her a few months ago."

  "Who did?"

  "People you know paid other people to keep your daughter contained. They were going to use her to control you. It was just a matter of time before you found out. It's the only leverage they could find to use against you, in case you ever fouled up their plans."

  "My daughter?" He panted, struggling to catch his breath. "Who? No one I know—"

  "Everyone you know!" I stated firmly, loud enough to silence him. "Don't be stupid, Roger. You've been peddling flesh for so long; you didn't realize others had started peddling your own flesh and blood."

  "No." He gasped. "I'll kill anyone who. . ."

  "You did this to her. Now the people who you've been selling your victims to have doubled back on you. They came in and robbed you of your daughter. First, they got her strung out on opioids, then they had a pimp turn her out."

  I pointed to a man in sagging jeans and an oversized windbreaker who stood outside an all-night convenience store.

  "Him?" McMaster rubbed his eyes. "I know him."

  "Of course you do. You've sold immigrants to him, at least three that I know of."

  "I'll kill him." He reached for the door handle.

  "Wait!" I grabbed his arm and held him back. "It's not that simple. If you kill him, they'll come for you. Maybe you were just the middleman, getting rich off others while bigger fish were getting richer off you. Drug traffickers have been using your coyote ring to siphon drugs into the States. They don't want you to mess up their pipeline, which is why they've held your daughter like this until they need her to keep you in line."

  "No, the people I work with—"

  "They're all jackals, Roger, just like you. Look." I held up my phone. "This is the guy you make arrangements with down in Mexico. He uses this other guy to send you families through the cartel's coyotes. You sell whomever you want to the highest bidders. Did you think they were just being nice by using someone like you? Now, look at this other guy's photo."

  "I'm going to be sick."

  "This guy is smoking cigars with you."

  He shook his head, too stunned to speak for a moment.

  "I'm trapped," he mumbled.

  "This isn't about you! It's Ruth who's trapped. It's early in the day, and these people are already out on the street, hustling. In a few hours, your daughter will show up sick, get her fix, and then she'll walk the street, usually up toward Parkway East."

  "I'll take her and run. They'd never find me."

  "No, you wouldn't be able to stay away." I watched his reaction closely. "You're a rotten tree, Roger. All you do is bear bad fruit. How is a rotten tree suddenly going to produce good fruit? Don't kid yourself."

  "Stop talking for a minute! Let me think."

  "It's sad to say, Roger, but Ruth may be in a better place right now."

  "How dare you!" His nostrils flared as he glared at me. "They're killing her!"

  "You've killed others. What do you care? Mothers, daughters, children, husbands. What about all the massage parlors, whore houses, all turning tricks for Councilmen Bowtie McMaster?"

  "I never put anyone on the street like this! Not like Ruth!"

  "No, exactly like Ruth!" I forced his face up against the window and held him there. "Look at it! Don't turn away. Ruth is out there because of the choices you've made, and it's your shame. Look at it!"

  He slid down the window, sobs taking his breath. For several minutes, I left him there. There were two kinds of sorrow, and I didn't want to provoke anything but godly sorrow from him—which would produce true repentance.

  "If you stay in the city," I said softly, "they'll kill you or your daughter. I'm not helping you because you deserve it. I'm helping you because your daughter doesn't deserve what's happening to her. Tell me you know what I'm saying."

  "I know." Snot dripped from his face, which he wiped on his pants.

  "What do you know?" I pressed. "Explain it to me."

  "I deserve what they're doing to Ruth. I should be the one suffering."

  "You should be. And the way you've treated others, that's the way inmates would probably treat you if you went to prison. The thing is, you'd likely be handed off to a judge who's in your network already, and his friends are your business partners, an
d they'd make sure you remained in the game. You're replaceable. They'll replace you soon enough, but that's a risk they won't take unless they're forced to."

  "I'm not safe anywhere."

  "I know, but what's today about?"

  "Ruth. Ruth won't be safe anywhere. Everyone I know, anywhere I go, my partners would find me. They'd find us."

  "Maybe you should just let it all continue," I tested. "You could look the other way. Keep your nice apartment, your girlfriends, your reputation, your manicures, and your bowties. Just return to the life you love. Pretend like you haven't seen or heard what I've told you today."

  "What are you saying?" His eyes were bloodshot.

  "You can't keep your daughter safe. So, just go back to your life and act like you don't know anything. As long as you don't change anything, your business partners won't get in your way, and everything can stay the same."

  Anger flashed in his eyes.

  "What game are you playing?"

  "I'm saying, leave Ruth alone. If you try to help her now, she'll find out that you're to blame for her situation—her own father! Maybe it's better to let her waste away. Let her die from an overdose or a predator. Giving up everything you've worked so hard to build isn't worth it. I mean, you can't have your life and your daughter at the same time. One of them has to go. One of them needs to die. Just let Ruth die, and everything stays the same."

  "No." Fresh tears came to his eyes. "She's my daughter. I just can't. . ."

  "What?"

  "I can't protect her."

  "You can't protect her from your partners, and I'm thinking about protecting her from you. You need a miracle, is what you need."

  "What if I left?" He lifted his head. "What if I wasn't around anymore? Would Ruth be safe? Would they let her go? They wouldn't need her for leverage if I was gone. I could disappear alone easier than the two of us."

  "Where would you go?"

  "Does it even matter? As long as I'm missing from the equation."

  "You'd need to disappear."

  "Would it work? Would they leave her alone?"

  "We could arrange for her to go into a women's shelter."

  "You could do that?"

  "Yeah, but we'll be back in the same situation if you resurface. The dog always returns to its vomit."

  "Then I'd never return. I can't."

  "It would be like going to prison."

  "If it'll keep her safe, I'll do it."

  "Are you really willing to walk away?"

  "Yeah, but to where?"

  "I'll tell you where, but first I need to know you're serious. If you think I'm going to risk myself or others on your fake promises, I need some guarantee."

  "A guarantee?" He blinked, and I saw hopelessness in his stricken face. "What guarantee? How? I don't have anything that could prove something like that."

  "That's the most honest thing you've said all day. So, you have nothing to offer, but you're willing to go away?"

  "Yes."

  "You'd be off the grid. Completely. Where I'm sending you, they'll kill you if you try any of your shenanigans."

  "I won't. Who is it?"

  "Does it really matter? You'll be free from all of this, and Ruth will be safe."

  "I guess that's what matters." He looked down, then out the window. "My life is over. I knew things couldn't last forever. I rode the wave, but I knew it had to end sooner or later. I didn't see this reef, but it figures. I was hurting the one I love the most the whole time, thinking I could stay on top. I thought I could be the exception."

  "We all think we're the exception when we're getting our way." I laid my hand on his shoulder. "Until our sins catch up with us. And they always do."

  With McMaster to witness the future for his daughter, I dialed my phone in front of him. Karen answered after one ring.

  "Can you drop everything," I asked, "and meet me at the tent city on Frontage Road? It's important. We have a twenty-two-year-old woman to take in at the safe house."

  "Okay, I'll be there in twenty minutes."

  I placed my phone back into my satchel.

  "You already have things in place?" McMaster asked.

  "I'm a Christian—a follower of Jesus Christ. We have a spiritual network stronger than anything in the world. Ruth will be in good hands, because she'll be in God's hands."

  "God?" he scoffed. "God let this happen."

  "God allowed it, but you caused it. Let's keep the blame squarely where it belongs, Roger. If not for Jesus Christ, there would be no redemption for you at all. If not for God, I would've buried you in a shallow grave. Now, what were you saying about God?"

  "Nothing. I wasn't saying anything."

  "Hey, look at me," I commanded, and he turned his head, a defeated man. "I don't hate you. Let's get that straight. I'm direct with you because your soul matters. And your daughter matters. If you're truly ashamed of what you've done, and you've really seen the consequences of your sinfulness, then that's a step in the right direction. What you need to grasp is how you've offended God, damaging the people He loves, and taking for granted the life He gave you to live for His name's sake. Don't despise the shame and guilt right now. When you're ready for His forgiveness, He'll be there ready to give it. And you'll receive a new life. But the consequences of what you've done won't go away, not in this lifetime. You've done what you've done. Now, you live in the ashes and submit to God's will. Even in the middle of the ashes, you'll find you're not alone, and He can still salvage some beauty from your mess."

  "Ruth will be taken care of?" He wiped at his cheek.

  "She will be. Karen will help her through the next few weeks. Then, we'll get Ruth set up with a job somewhere, an apartment, a new life."

  A few minutes later, Karen arrived in a leased Subaru and parked behind my Jeep. She walked up to my window.

  "We're rescuing a young woman named Ruth McMaster," I told her. "Some powerful people in the city have been feeding her heroin and holding her in a prostitution ring. We need her to get clean before we can figure out how to help her. Are you willing to tackle something this heavy?"

  "I'm here, aren't I?" She smiled. "What do you want me to do?"

  "Can you wait for me in your car? When I signal you, come up and pick her up."

  She returned to her car.

  "A competent woman," McMaster said. "What's her story?"

  "The same as everyone's, Roger. We live our own way until we realize God has an eternal purpose for our lives. Then, we choose to reject God, or we believe in His Son's gift of freedom from sin. You're at that crossroads right now, but I'm confident you'll make the right decision. Wait here. Don't get out of the Jeep. If her pimp sees you, this will all unravel. Tell me you understand."

  "I understand."

  Outside the Jeep, I crossed the street and approached the pimp in the sagging jeans and windbreaker. He pocketed his phone when I walked up to him. His name was Josh Bruning, forty-eight years old from Tennessee, divorced twice, with an active spousal abuse warrant from his second marriage.

  "How's it going?" I asked, standing beside him, observing the tent city residents milling around. "I'm looking for some action, something specific."

  He turned and studied me.

  "I know you?"

  "I'd like for you to know me. Can I just pay you and be on my way?"

  Every muscle in Bruning's body seemed to indicate that he didn't trust me, but his greed won out.

  "What do you like?"

  "I've heard I might like Ruth. You have a girl named Ruth?"

  "That's real specific. I call her Ruby." Now he wasn't just suspicious; he was concerned. "Who sent you?"

  "Why? You an informant?" I challenged. "Just get me Ruth. I like skinny blonds, and I heard she's a good time. How much for two hours?"

  "A hundred. Send it here." He showed me an account on his phone, then called and spoke to someone as he turned his back to me. When he was done, he faced me. "You pay? You better not be trying to play with me, man. Sh
e's on the way."

  "I'll pay you when I see her."

  "You stink like vice."

  "I'm not crooked enough to work vice in this city."

  "Ain't that the truth." He cursed. "Besides, no self-respecting cop would wear a purse like that."

  He was talking about my satchel, but I didn't respond.

  When Ruth appeared on the street, I prayed McMaster would stay in the Jeep. I couldn't deal with more than one person at a time, and by the shady behavior of Bruning, I'd have my hands full if there was a scuffle. And the pimp was probably armed.

  "This is her walking up," Bruning said.

  A tall, slender woman with a black eye and not enough makeup to hide a couple scabs strolled up to us. Her purple miniskirt was torn, but the color matched the stripe in her otherwise blond hair.

  "Got it?" I asked Bruning after I paid him the hundred dollars.

  "Yeah. It's good. Ruby, this is your friend for two hours. You got your phone with you?"

  "Yeah, daddy. I'll be good to this one."

  "Take care of her," the pimp said to me. "I'll remember your face if you don't."

  "I want you to remember my face." I waved Karen up. "That way, every time you see me on this street, you give me exactly what I ask for."

  "What's going on?" He noticed the Subaru zoom up to the curb. "Who are you?"

  "Come on, honey," Karen called from her window to Ruth. "Climb in."

  "Josh?" Ruth hesitated. "Is he the john, or is she? They look like squares."

  "Two pays double!" Josh demanded.

  "My friend's waiting, Ruth," I said, but I was watching Bruning, whose right hand inched toward his hip. "I'm going to stay here a minute and talk to Josh. You two go ahead."

  I sighed with relief when Ruth finally climbed into the passenger seat. Karen drove away, took the first left, and passed out of sight.

  "Whatever you think you're doing," Bruning said, his face twisting, "whoever you are, she'll be back. I own her. She can't live without me. They always come back.

  "Not this time, Josh." I braced for his attack. "Before you go looking for her, you better ask about me."

  "What?"