Whatever he had injected me with, I had my senses about me when he lifted my arm. Threw it over his shoulder and propped me up on my feet. Walked us both past the bathrooms, through the dim hall and back into the club, the floor more crowded, a colorful swirl before me. I tried to reach out a hand, to grab a person, tried to open my mouth and scream for help. Tried to do something other than close my eyes and slump against him.
I heard his laugh, heard words I couldn’t understand, saw the door open, the night dark, my taxi, where was my taxi? I twisted a floppy ankle on the cobblestone streets, pulled against him and felt his hand tighten, to a point of pain.
This was bad. I tried to yell for Brett, tried to lift my head and look up, to the VIP... private party ... and I wondered, for a minute, through the haze, if he was like Brett - a drug trafficker. Maybe I would be a mule, maybe I would...
He threw me in the back seat of a car and shut the door, the hard motion slamming at the bottom of my heel, my knee popping up, my face against a cold vinyl seat. I tried to finish my thought, tried to move my mouth to ask a question tried to... couldn’t ....
BLACK.
“Oh my god, I thought you were gone.” Brett pulled his lips off of mine long enough to whisper the words, the press of his lips against my forehead warm and soft and him. I would never again have to be in that cell. I would never again have to look into that man’s eyes or feel his fists or answer his questions. I was no longer a slave, I was free. My mind choked on that final concept and I pulled away, his eyes widening, his pursuit of me halted as he held himself back. I pulled at the neck of the cheap dress, it choking me, the scratch of its polyester against my bare skin hot and lingering and maddening.
“I have to get this off,” I blurted out, craning my body, trying to reach for a zipper, the act ripping a hole through my awareness, the pain in my side flaring for one searing moment. “Ow!” Sudden tears, they gave me no warning, just came, a drip of them down my cheek as my hands grew frantic, trying to unzip something that some sadist designed just out of reach.
“Here.” His hands soft but efficient, the relieving sound of the zipper, the loosening of the dress and I yanked at it, freeing my upper half, Brett’s quick move off the seat shedding his jacket, the smooth feel of his suit’s lining sliding around me, my arms wiggling into his sleeves. I kicked off the dress with the cheap heels and watched it settle onto the floorboard. Toed off the shoes and watched black soles and silk straps join the dress. Curled into Brett’s chest and let his arms come around me, his head dropping to mine. I was dirty, he would need to burn this jacket. This truck. Everything associated with this event.
“I love you.” I whispered the words that I had said a thousand times into my empty cell, imagining this moment, imagining his smell, his kiss, the desperate relief that I just saw in his eyes. I got all of those things and it took five minutes for me to remember to say I love you.
“Oh my God, Riley.” His hands cupped underneath my bare legs, pulled me onto his lap as he inhaled my scent and placed a long kiss against my lips. “I love you too. I love you so much.”
Riley. I had thought, for long nights in the cell, that I would never hear that name again. Had coveted thoughts of it, like a fantasy I was scared to indulge. I pulled at him, needed more of his kiss, more of his contact, more of the sound of my name on his lips.
Riley. Never again would I be subservient, lost, dead.
I was alive. Free. With Brett, his mouth warm and gentle against my own. My head spun as I tried to process it all. The hope I had held onto for so long… it had happened. I pulled off his mouth and gulped in air. Shook against the strength of his hands. For a moment I couldn’t breathe.
Never again would I be Kitten.
When Elyse disappeared, I was asleep. In my home in Fort Lauderdale, I slept right through the moment when, in a nightclub, she collapsed. Most of her bachelorette party was on the upper floor of the club, drinking martinis around a private table. Elyse and her best friend left the group to go downstairs to dance. Those nearby said that Elyse collapsed on the dance floor and was taken away by a doctor and a helpful bystander, Brittany glued to her unconscious side. Everyone assumed they were taken to a hospital; only Elyse and Brittany never made it to one. They never made it anywhere. My phone rang right before dawn, a bridesmaid’s voice nervously coming through the receiver. She let me know what had happened. I was on a plane within the hour. In a Mexican police station by 7 AM. Six hours too late.
That day cracked the foundation of my life, my soul. The day her body was found destroyed me, a piece of my being forever gone, lost into the cruelty that was this world. I thought, on that day, that I had experienced the worst loss of my life. That, if I ever crawled out of my hole of despair, I’d be a stronger man for it. That I’d be tougher, smarter.
Elyse’s death had destroyed me. Riley’s disappearance … I almost took my life in those days. Had her body turned up in the Mexican desert, I would have. The only thing that kept me alive, kept me breathing, was my mission to find and save her. I wasn’t the same man who had searched for Elyse. I was smarter, more connected, savvier. I was also more ruthless.
That night, in Puerto Vallarta, when Riley had followed me – I was buying girls. Had gone – not upstairs, as Menas had mentioned to Riley – downstairs, into the basement of the club, a giant space that housed over a hundred women. I bought thirteen that night. Climbed back up the stairs, into that salsa club, proud. Happy. Glanced at my watch as I re-entered the club. It was still early. She’d be up, waiting for me. And I suddenly couldn’t wait to see her. I didn’t know that she was already an hour away, in the trunk of that asshole’s car. I walked out of that club a naïve individual. Walked into the hotel still clueless. Didn’t even understand it when I walked into an empty hotel suite, her satellite phone on the bedside table. It took me another hour to fully comprehend it, the moment when I fully accepted it … it was a punch hard into my chest, a punch that broke through bone and gripped my heart and squeezed so hard that I physically ached. I fell onto my knees in the middle of the Puerto Vallarta police station and sobbed like a child. I broke into pieces on that dirty linoleum floor. Then I called my men.
In the nine months of Riley’s disappearance, I killed three men in my search for her. I wasn’t proud of that fact. But trust me, they were men who deserved to die. I wanted to kill this man as well, wanted nothing more than to physically rip him apart with my hands. But that would be Riley’s decision to make. I couldn’t weigh her down with my sins, wouldn’t burden her with the guilt that I would always carry.
Elyse’s disappearance hadn’t been my fault. Riley’s had. I was the sole reason she was in that salsa club. The sole reason she was alone, in that dangerous country, without protection. Nine days would have been too long, much less nine months. I didn’t know how to take that time back, didn’t know how I would love her the rest of her life without smothering her. Because, honestly, all I wanted to do, for the rest of my life, was protect her. Never leave her side. Love her. Treasure her. Marry her. Make her smile. Hear her laugh. Love her sweetly, deeply, and into forever.
I watched her sleep and wanted to touch her, but worried I would crush her with my love.
Carlos Menas made it five steps out of the building, a new slave by his side, when he was taken. The girl was put into one black SUV, he in the other, accompanied by three men. Men who had spent the last four years in Brett’s employ. Men who rescued a thousand girls from men like him. Men who had killed before, and put no value on his life.
At the house, an oceanfront mansion rented for the trip, Brett drew me a bath. Climbed in behind me and held me when I cried. Brought in a team of chefs, a doctor, and a masseuse, all of which were unnecessary. I wanted only to be in his arms, nothing else. The next morning, we climbed up the steps and onto his jet, heading straight home to my family. Jena had been right, sitting in my kitchen eons ago. The jet was twice as big, twice as luxurious as the plane I had always taken. A
hundred questions and confirmations that could all wait for later. I settled into the seat, my hand in his, and didn’t know. Didn’t realize that back in Puerto Vallarta:
Brett’s team tracked down Carlos Menas’ car.
Moved him from their SUV into the trunk.
Drove him back across the border, straight to the address listed on his vehicle registration, a home thirty miles outside of Albuquerque.
Forcibly returned him to his home, leaving him chained in the basement, in a cell that had, less than 72 hours before, belonged to Kitten me. Then they called Brett.
We were in my parents’ living room when the call came. Unbeknownst to me, Brett had become close with my family during the nine months of my capture. Had flown twenty times between Lauderdale and Quincy. Trusted my father with information he had never shared with me. Kept him apprised to the buying trips, to the slaves rescued, to the women - none of which were me. They hadn’t known what had happened to me, hadn’t been certain that I was taken for the slave trade, yet Brett had doubled his efforts there. My father had come to Cancun, and they had watched hotel security footage, had tracked down my helpful cabbie, had spoken to employees of the salsa club. No one remembered me, or reported sightings of the man. We had both, in the events of that night, been unmemorable enough to have never existed.
When Brett’s phone rang, he glanced at the display, then at my father. I caught the look that passed, noticed the curl of my father’s fingers against his pant leg when Brett stood up and excused himself, his voice low when he brought the phone to his ear. My father’s leg jumped, a nervous jiggle, and I wasn’t surprised when he stood up, his hurried steps carrying him outside to the patio, my eyes following them.
“Are you okay?” My mother’s hand touched my arm and I jumped, my gaze skipping to her, the pained look at my response twisting my gut.
I smiled and hoped it looked normal. “Yes, Mom. I’m just glad to be home.”
“God, when I think of what you must have been through...” her hand trembled when she covered her mouth and I noticed the absence of polish on her nails. She’d always worn polish, gets it done on Tuesdays after work, her standard appointment. I suddenly picked up on the other details. The grey at her roots, the dead cigarettes in the ashtray. I was gone for nine months and my mother fell apart. My heart squeezed at the realization. I reached out and clasped her hand, gripped it firmly. “It wasn’t what you think, Mom. He wasn’t bad. Honestly. He was a psychology freak, liked to ask questions. That was most of it.”
She swallowed and gripped my hand. Ran her other one over the top of our clasp, her cold fingers tracing the lines of my veins. “I can see your bruises, Riley. Your winces. I can hear the change in your breaths, the pain in your voice. I am, though I haven’t always been the best, your mother.”
I bit my bottom lip and tried not to cry. “You are the best mother I could ever want.”
“No,” she said softly, “but I’ll try harder to be.”
The kitchen door slammed shut and I looked up to see two sets of grim faces. “Riley,” my father said. “Forgive my interruption, but we need to make a decision and I think you should be involved.”
1 month after rescue
When Brett was born, he was the first of two. Two hearts, two sets of chubby hands, two kicking and screaming sets of skin that burst into the world as the two Betschart heirs — impossible babies born to a barren mother, an early miracle of in vitro before the practice was common. They spent the first ten months of their lives in a space no bigger than a basketball. And they came out inseparable. The day I met Brett, his heart was already taken. He’d given it to a six year old girl who let his GI Joes kidnap her Barbies. A fifteen-year-old who’d sacrificed her best friend to his heartbreaking ways. An eighteen-year-old high school senior who had begged him to stay local then sent him care packages every other weekend when he went to Duke. A girl who, at thirty years old, disappeared while at a friend’s bachelorette party in Cancun. A girl whose remains were found two years later in the Nevada desert.
I stood at her grave and stared down at the headstone of Elyse Marine Betschart. Dug my toes against the leather of my sandals and smelled fresh-cut grass. Wondered if she smelled freedom before she died. If it was in an attempt to escape, or if she died in a cell. Wondered, in her days of pain, if she, like me, held on to thoughts of Brett.
“Let’s go.” Brett’s fingers threaded through my own. His gentle pull brought my forehead to his lips. I closed my eyes and appreciated the moment, the tickle of my hair against my throat, the smell of him when he let go of my hand and wrapped his arms around my torso, pulled me to his chest. We stood there for a moment, the beat of his heart against my ear, the fuzz of his sweater the softest thing against my cheek I could ever imagine. I had worried, some sleepless nights in that cell, that I’d cringe from his touch. That the experiences I’d undergone would scar my psyche in ways unrecoverable. That one day I’d escape, yet always be imprisoned by that hell. My fear had lifted the first time Brett had touched me. Kissed me. Cried my name while cradling me in his arms. He was nothing like that man. His touch nothing like his bite. His words a galaxy away, his love a strength that would protect me until I died.
“Okay,” I said, and let him lead me to the car.
3 months after rescue
“Good morning Ms. Johnson.”
“Good morning.”
“Welcome to Fort Lauderdale.”
“Thank you.” I crossed my legs, then remembered some article about it causing varicose veins, and uncrossed them. Varicose veins. Why the hell was I thinking about that? I smoothed a crease on my new pants. They were a size 6. I’d never worn a size 6; I’d always been more in the 12 or 14 range. But nine months of a slave’s diet put me into this territory, into this body. A body I would have once killed to have and now wanted nothing to do with. I missed my curves. So did Brett. He was trying to feed me at every opportunity, yet nothing was happening. It was like my body was resistant, not letting me move past this moment in time just yet.
“Are you settled in?”
I shrugged. Looked up into the woman’s eyes. “You can call me Riley.”
She smiled. “Okay. Riley. You can call me Nicole.”
I needed my name. Needed to hear it as much as possible. I had the irrational desire to become a teenybopper and plaster it on every surface. This morning I wrote it onto the tag of all my new clothes, like I did when I was eleven and went away to camp. Then I went down to breakfast, the scratch of my nametag comforting on my neck. I told Brett, over eggs and potatoes, that I wanted a tattoo. The script of my name along the inside of my wrist. So I could look down at any moment and see it. So that, if I ever got taken again, I could hold up my hand and stare into his face and say “Look! I am not Kitten. I am Riley!” And never again would I wonder. And neither would anyone else.
“Are you settled in?”
She worked for Brett—this doctor. Worked for the organization that he had secretly run since Elyse died. Brett asked me to meet with her and to give him my opinion. To see if I thought she was effective and a good fit for the rescued slaves. But I knew why I was really here. And I understood that. I thought that, despite the face I showed Brett and my parents, I needed this. I reached for the glass of water on the side table. Took a sip before answering her.
“Yes, I think so. Fort Lauderdale is very different than Quincy. It’s been … an adjustment. But I’m not sure if I’m adjusting more to being back in the real world, or if it’s adjusting to the move.”
“Why did you move so quickly? You could have stayed in Quincy longer.”
I shook my head. “I … I couldn’t go back to work when I got back. I just couldn’t. Couldn’t sit across from someone and discuss a savings account when I had just been … I tried to. But it all seemed so trivial. And without work … I just had no purpose, was just there, taking up space. And Brett was here, helping…” I straightened my shoulders. “I think it’s healing. To help with
the girls. It has meaning. I understand how it’s helped him to heal from Elyse. And I think it will help me heal. Does that make sense?”
She leaned forward and gripped my hand. “Absolutely.” She smiled sadly. “And I absolutely understand it.”
I broke the eye contact and looked down at our clasped hands, noting, with a jolt of surprise, the scars on her wrists. Not that of a suicide attempt. I rolled my wrist over, the same wrist I planned to tattoo, and compared our similar handcuff scars. I squeezed her hand and looked back up to her eyes. My mouth returned her smile but inside my heart cried.
4 months after rescue
“Ms. Johnson, you do understand that you are here of your own free will and are under no obligation to make this statement?”
I nodded. “I do.”
“I have a series of questions to ask, ones to verify the verbal statement you just provided, after which time you will write a written narrative of your events. Do you understand?”
“I do.”
“On October 12th you visited the Cendez Salsa Club in Puerto Vallarta, is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“Why were you alone in the city at night?”
“I was just wasting time. Brett—my boyfriend—was having a business dinner.”
“And in the salsa club you were approached by Carlos Menas who took you into a secluded area of the club and injected you with some form of drug, is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“And your next memory was awakening in handcuffs and ankle shackles in the basement of his home in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Is that correct?”
“It is.”
“How long were you in Mr. Menas’ care?”
“I was a prisoner of Carlos Menas until I escaped about nine months later.” It would have been 268 hatchmarks.