“Jenn? Where are you going?”

  Her throat was tight. “We have work to do, Katie.”

  “This is nuts.”

  “Yes,” said Jennifer. “Yes it is, but we have to do it.”

  “We’re going to need your help,” said Jacob.

  Katie eyed him. “Me? Why?”

  “Keep this,” he handed her a phone, “wait for us to call and give you instructions. Stay with Faisal.”

  “If you say so.”

  “I say so,” said Jenn, smiling weakly. “We’re going to be fine.”

  “This is crazy,” said Katie, “but okay. If you say so.”

  Jennifer had to tear herself away to head down to the basement with Jacob. On his work table, he’d laid out a whole setup. There was a pair of vests made of interwoven, rigid plates of rubbery material. Jennifer picked up the smaller one, assuming it was for her. Shockingly light, she could barely feel it hanging in her hands.

  “What is this?”

  “The exterior is made of overlapped plates of layered ceramics and composites sandwiched together under extreme pressure and heat. The inside is a twi-weave material, a combination of Kevlar fire-retardant Nomex and a proprietary fiber that’s derived from the silk of a South American orb weaver that’s fifty times stronger than steel, by weight.”

  “Sounds expensive.”

  “Very.”

  “Is it bullet proof?”

  “No, bullet resistant. Take a bullet in this and you’ll get a horrendous bruise and maybe a broken bone, but it beats dying. This stuff is in between the heaviest body armor and the suits bomb disposal guys wear in durability. I have arm and shin guards made of the same. Let me help you with it.”

  Jacob tugged the vest into place as she wriggled into it. It was tight, but it moved when she breathed and flexed along with her. She put the arm and shin guards on, and wound her hair into a bun and put her black face mask in her pocket. She helped Jacob into his and he put his utility harness on, then offered one to her.

  His was festooned with his usual gear- a lot of knives and electronic gadgets in pouches, but with the addition of a slick black automatic pistol carried at the small of his back.

  Hers was dominated by magazine pouches on either side, riding over her hips, and a shoulder holster. He slipped her father’s gun into it and opened a long rifle case on the table. Jennifer recognized the design of the weapon, like the one she’d practiced with, but it was sleeker looking and had a collapsible stock and a scope mounted on the top. Gingerly, she picked it up and looked through the optic. The crosshairs glowed, and there was a tiny number along the bottom.

  “What’s that?”

  “Rangefinder. I’ll go through it with you another time. You probably won’t need it tonight.”

  The rife suddenly felt heavy in her hands and she put it down, drawing back too quickly, with a step.

  “You want me to shoot somebody?”

  “I want you to be ready if you have to.”

  “Jacob,” Jennifer said, swallowing. “Practicing is one thing, but… God.”

  “If everything goes right you won’t have to, but you need to be prepared.”

  “I don’t know if I can do that. Who am I to decide if somebody lives or dies?”

  He took her by the arms and looked her in the eye.

  “I don’t have an answer for you. This is dangerous. We’re breaking the law. We’re putting ourselves in danger. We’re going to be outnumbered by people who will not hesitate to kill us. If you’re not ready, stay home. I’m not going to tell you stay behind, but if you’re not fully committed I can’t take you with me. I can’t babysit you and if I give you orders I need you to follow them.”

  Jennifer chewed her lip.

  “I’m not letting you do this alone.”

  “Fine. Here’s the plan. We observe the target structure until we know where the girls are kept when they’re not working. Then we go there, kick ass, get them out.”

  “Kick ass? That’s the plan?”

  “Yes, that’s the plan. Ready?”

  Jennifer nodded, gravely.

  “Yeah. Yeah, I think I’m ready.”

  Jacob carried the rifle in the case and went up first, Jennifer right behind him. Faisal waited in the kitchen with Katie.

  “You two, go down there and lock the reinforced door. We’ll be in touch.”

  “Sir?” said Faisal.

  “Assume someone is going to attack the house. I want full coverage on the perimeter with regular check-ins from our people.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Katie hugged herself and stared at Jennifer.

  With a sigh, Jennifer hugged her.

  “We’ll be okay.”

  “Have I mentioned that this is crazy?” said Katie.

  “Yes. Now go down in the basement.”

  Katie rolled her eyes, but her jaw was trembling. Faisal locked the big steel door and Jacob led the way out from the back door and over to the carriage house and a battered old Plymouth waiting inside. He put the rifle in the back seat and Jennifer got in. When he started the car the engine purred.

  He rolled his shoulders and turned his neck until it popped softly. Jennifer glanced at his chest, hoping those bandages were going to hold.

  “You know,” he said, shooting her a look, “You look good in black.”

  “Uh, thanks,” she said. “Look, if this turns you on it’s going to get a bit weird.”

  “Right,” he said, and put the car in gear.

  The wheel creaked under his grip as he threaded the car down the curvy road to the base of the hill and headed away from town. Jennifer sat back and stared out the windows. The cornfields and the lights of the town in the distance felt strange, fake somehow. Paradise Falls both did and didn’t live up to its name. For the young, poverty and pregnancy and drugs meant her town was more of a place to escape than anything else, especially for the young, but she never imagined it could be this bad.

  Other people could just pass through, she realized. Drive through the sad little town with all the empty stores in the blink of an eye and pass by, if they drove through at all. Most people probably just took the bypass, these days. It was like the town was never there at all.

  Once, when she was a little girl and her father worked up enough courage to defy Jennifer’s mother, he took his girls to see Centralia, the town abandoned after the coal vein underneath caught fire and the toxic fumes made the place uninhabitable. In its own way, Paradise Falls was like that. The poison was hidden under the town, beneath the quaint decay.

  Jacob glanced over at her.

  “Just thinking,” she said.

  “About?”

  “The town. I’ve spent my whole life here, except when I was in college, and I never saw what it was really like. I knew the police would look the other way when Elliot tormented me, but that’s the same anywhere, isn’t it? A Senator’s son in Idaho or something could get away with the same thing. Now,” she shook her head. “Is there anything in Paradise Falls that isn’t tainted?”

  “Yeah,” Jacob said, without skipping a beat. “You.”

  Jennifer rolled her eyes.

  “We’re getting close.”

  She didn’t expect to visit Port Carol again so soon. Jennifer had no idea why the town was called “Port” Carol, and wasn’t sure anyone else did, either. Dozens of little towns out here had Port-something for a name, regardless of their proximity to bodies of water. Port Carol was the image of a one-stoplight town, with the highway narrowing to become the main drag before fanning out again and a few side streets of old decrepit houses and a brightly lit gas station that seemed eerily out of place. As absurd as the idea sounded, most of the population of Port Carol and the other little towns out here were commuters, working either in Paradise Falls in what little industry there was left, or driving even further to the Philadelphia suburbs.

  There was a time when the locals were concerned about ‘gentrification’ and rich yuppies converting barns into open concept houses with granite countertops and vaulted ceilings, but little of that materialized. Jennifer knew of at least one sad remnant of a subdivision being built outside of town, a few empty houses surrounded by the skeletons of unborn homes, covered over in ragged tarps shredded by age and weather.

  On the far side of town was the bar, an illegal strip club. There were plenty of those out in the sticks, and like the ‘massage parlors’ that opened in Paradise Falls before Adam Katzenberg had them shut down, most of them were fronts for prostitution. Jacob parked the car and began setting up his surveillance gear. He had an artificial ear that looked like a satellite dish, and binoculars, and a long range camera. He gave Jennifer a wireless earbud for the listening device and took one himself, and set the cameras out on the hood of the car. In a stand of trees, in the dark, no one near the brightly list honky-tonk would be able to see them. At least, she hoped.

  Just in case, she opened the trunk, and put a live, loaded magazine in the rifle. Jacob nodded as she checked the safety and rested it on the back seat.

  “Oh my God,” said Jacob.

  “What?”

  “Binoculars. Look by the door.”

  Jennifer lifted the heavy binoculars to her eyes and adjusted the focus, and her jaw dropped. Jacob was already working the camera.

  She was five foot eight at least, almost as tall as Jennifer but not quite. Her hair was a brighter shade of red, probably died. She was dressed for the occasion, as it were, in a leather halter top and a skirt so short it barely qualified for the term. She found a dial to zoom in. The girl was covered in tattoos, on both arms and her back. Jacob was snapping pictures relentlessly, and had the video camera going, too.

  The more she looked at the girl, the more two things occurred to her. She was a tall, narrowly built redhead. The resemblance was there. It would be overly dramatic to say she could be Jennifer’s sister, but a cousin certainly. Worse, she was young. Very young. If she was eighteen, Jennifer would be shocked. This had to be the one Ellison was talking about. Elliot’s favorite.

  Jacob shut off the video camera.

  “That’s her.”

  By the look of him, the man that took her arm was a truck driver. He was also old enough to be her father. He led her away from the door, towards the big gravel side lot where a line of semi-tractors parked.

  “Masks,” said Jacob.

  8.

  The mask came down over his face and Jacob breathed deeply through it, sucking in the plastic taste of the artificial fibers. With the mask over his face he felt a change come over himself. His posture contorted slightly and nervous energy quivered in his muscles. Pulled the fabric down over his face felt like letting something out, rather than keeping it in. Tiny cold slivers coiled in his stomach when Jennifer stepped out of the car and looked over before pulling her mask down. He felt a hot stab of of shame at the sight of her decked out for combat, but a strange pride, too.

  The redhead was moving across the parking lot towards the line of parked trucks, following behind the john. Her posture sang of broken spirits and defeat. She hugged herself against the cold and drew in her shoulders, as if by making herself small enough she could disappear. Jacob steeled himself and took a glance at Jennifer.

  She had the rifle out of the case. Just like he taught, she inserted a magazine and gave it a firm shove to seat it, pulled the charging handle and checked the safety, then popped open the bipod and put it on the roof of the car.

  “What do I do?”

  He tapped his earpiece. “Warn me if you see anyone coming. Be ready to shoot. It’s your call, but you need to be ready. You have my back, right?”

  Her head trembled as she nodded.

  A wave of remorse pulled through him.

  God, what am I doing?

  He pushed that out of his head. The john had the girl going into the truck first, climbing up the side. Then he followed. Jacob loosened up, ignoring the flaring agony in his sides and chest and the dull red lines of the wounds etched into his skin. He was a figure of wood. Pain was just an awareness of injury and his injuries would not stop him.

  First, he jogged down the road. He had to get out of the lights, had to avoid being seen. Black was the wrong color. He should have gone with gray and earth tones, in a digital pattern to break up his outline. Black was stylish, though, and in a way, traditional. The second skin of black weave gripped his body, pulled him forward. He circled around behind the parking lot, a wide expanse of gravel and dirt that would turn into a mud pit if it rained again, and moved slowly, deliberately placing his feet to muffle any noise.

  He stopped by the side of the truck and crouched. Big Kenworth with a sleeper box, pulling a load of logs. Jacob mulled over his options, then hauled himself up onto the flatbed, ignoring the strain of the bandages and the screaming, tearing feeling in his core muscles. Working his way up the side of the log pile, he crawled along the top and onto the roof of the cab.

  With his knuckles, he rapped lightly on the window.

  There was a commotion inside. A scuffle. It sounded like a bug fluttering against a window. He knocked again, the sound grew louder and the door swung open. The trucker dropped down, resting one foot on the running board, and looked out.

  “My time ain’t up yet,” he snarled.

  “Yes it is,” Jacob whispered.

  Twisting on the roof, he lashed out with his foot and drove his heel into the back of the truck’s head. He flew forward, arms cartwheeling as he flailed for balance or purchase to arrest his fall before landing in a heap in the gravel, on his side. Jacob threw himself over the side and landed just behind him in a crouch.

  The pain of his wounds and bruised ribs moved inside him, grew. His rage was a living thing, hot and liquid, taking shape and spreading through his body until it buzzed under his skin. The trucker’s cry was cut off by Jacob’s hand closing over his mouth and his knee in his back.

  “Shh,” Jacob whispered.

  No time. He had to get the girl, keep it quiet. He jerked the trucker’s wrists behind his back and zip-tied them with a plastic strip from his belt.

  “Don’t make a sound,” he whispered, then bound the man’s legs. Finally he rolled a piece of black duct tape over his mouth as he rolled him over.

  Wide-eyed, he stared up at Jacob, trembling. He fit the stereotype. Sweaty flannel shirt, worn dungarees, wallet chained to his belt. Jacob pulled the wallet out and rifled through it. A few worn bills, a picture. Trucker had a frumpy wife and a chubby but cute boy. The picture was old. The boy was probably in his teens by now. Probably the same age as the girl.

  Jacob found what he wanted. Commercial driver’s license, issued by the state of Illinois. He took a long look at it, then showed it to him.

  “This you?”

  The truck nodded.

  “This where you live?”

  The trucker nodded again.

  “Listen carefully. I ever find out you’ve taken a pit stop on your route to pick up an underage prostitute again, I’ll be paying you a visit. We clear?”

  He nodded. Hard.

  “Don’t make a sound.”

  Jacob rolled him under the truck and fought the urge to kick him in the ribs. He grabbed the rail by the door and pulled himself up inside. The inside stank, smelled like sweat and stale beer and fear. The girl was huddled up in the bunk bed in the back, wrapped up in a dirty blanket. Her overdone, coquettish makeup only made her look younger and the way it was smeared heightened the effect even more. Her hair would probably be a bright orange in the right light. He’d put her at seventeen, at the oldest.

  It would be an exaggeration to say she could be Jennifer’s sister. A cousin, maybe. The resemblance was there, though, and strong. Jacob moved to her side and she hissed and pulled back, pressing into the corner.

  “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  “W-what do you want?”

  “I’m here to help.”

  The blank confusion on her face stung him.

  “What?”

  “I’m here to get you and the other girls away from here.”

  “Why?”

  “Don’t worry about that. How many are inside?”

  “There’s me and four others. I can’t go anywhere.”

  “I know they give you drugs. I can take care of that. I have a doctor.”

  “It’s not that. My sister…”

  Jacob tensed. “What?”

  “My sister’s out at the trailer.”

  “Trailer?”

  “That’s where they keep us when the club is closed.”

  “Where is it?”

  “I don’t know.” Her breath hitched and she curled up in a ball, pulling her knees to her chest. “Don’t hurt me.”

  “I’m not,” he said. “Tell me your name.”

  “Star.”

  “Your real name.”

  “Kirsten.”

  “Okay, Kirsten. Who’s your sister?”

  “Hailey.”

  “Kirsten and Hailey. I’m going to get you both out of here.”

  “You can’t. If I’m bad they’ll put Kelly in the box.”

  Jacob’s stomach tightened. “What box?”

  “The box is where you go when you don’t do what you’re told.”

  “Trust me. Nobody is going in the box. Can you tell me where they keep you during the day?”

  “I don’t know where it is. The van has black windows and they give us the drugs first.”

  He nodded. “Okay. Come with me.”

  “I can’t. He only paid for fifteen minutes. If I don’t come back…”

  God damn it.

  Jacob clenched his fists and the girl flinched, tucking the blanket up under her chin.

  “Okay,” he said, forcing himself calm, making his voice as even as he could. “Here’s what I want you to do. Go back inside and do what you have to do. Don’t say anything and act normal. This is your last night here, I promise. You’re going to be okay.”

  “Alright,” she said. “Can I g-go?”

  “Yes. Go on.”

  Jacob moved to the side. The girl got up and adjusted her meager coverings and dropped down out of the truck in a practiced motion, and ran back towards the bar with her arms wrapped around her body. Jacob dropped down and found the driver still lying on his belly under the trailer, pulled him out, and shoved him inside.