Page 43 of Roma Queen
“Oh, no. I’m fine, thank you, Sugar. I had a migraine earlier, but it’s gone now. Oh, oh, okay, well…” There’s a scraping sound, and then a clatter. My eyes meet Pasha’s—he’s just as tense as I am as he strains to hear what’s happening. We both duck down, leaning closer to the small speakers. “What the hell are you doing?” Sarah asks. Her voice is light and playful but edged with the beginning of panic. Another loud scraping sound distorts the recording, and then a loud shout follows quickly after. “No! No, I don’t want—”
Sarah’s objection is cut short. She lets out a panicked scream, but it’s silenced almost immediately. A staccato sound, like a knuckle tapping against a door, comes next, but it isn’t that. The rhythm is way off, all over the place. It’s something else. It’s…
God, I can’t place it. Don’t know if I even want to.
A loud slam puts an end to the tapping.
Sarah lets out a sob. “Please,” she whispers. “What have I done? Wh…why?” She sounds bewildered, utterly confused by what’s happening to her. I’m in the same boat. I haven’t heard a single thing so far that might tell me who has taken her.
An engine starts up, and Sarah’s quiet, frightened sobs continue as the rumble of tires returns, this time louder and closer. From what I can gather, she’s inside a vehicle at this point.
I bite down on my thumb nail, trying not to lose my shit. “Is that it?”
Pasha checks the digital read-out on the Dictaphone. “No. There’s another thirty minutes.”
Oh, lord. How the hell am I going to get through another thirty minutes of this? It’s going to be impossible. As if he can read my mind, Pasha hits the fast-forward button on the recorder once, then again, and again, when there are no other sounds on the recording bar the background noise of the vehicle and Sarah’s weakening crying. The fourth time he scrubs forward and then hits the play button, everything is silent. And then, there’s a squeak and a moan—the sound of a stiff door swinging open.
“Look. I don’t know what any of this is about, but you don’t need to do this. If she said she’d paid you…if she told you I had money…I can promise you she was lying. Wait, wait, no. Forget it. I’m not…I’m not going down there. What did I tell you. If this is some kind of practical joke, then it really isn’t funny okay? I don’t wa—”
Whatever she had been about to say dies on her lips. Sarah falls silent, but a range of noises are still picked up by the bug’s microphone. More rustling. The groan of an iron gate. The sound of heavy footsteps. The quiet rushing of running water, far away, and over it all, the slow pull and draw of someone breathing very heavily.
The quality of the sound changes, as if Sarah and her captor, up until now in a small, tight space, have entered a much larger venue.
Then a deep, male voice, off to the right. “What the fuck? She looks half dead. I said knock her out, not kill her.” There’s a pause, and then, “Put her down on the trolley. Use the straps. Get rid of her clothes first. She’ll try and run when she wakes up. She might think twice if she’s naked.”
Bile burns hot and bitter at the back of my throat. I want to throw up. Poor Sarah. Whoever took her stripped her of her clothes? A series of horrific images carousel around the inside of my head and I can’t put a stop to them. God, if they’ve hurt her. If they’ve…doneanything to her. If they’ve…fuck, if they’verapedher, I’m never going to forgive myself.
The recorder picks up another sound—a numb, dazed moan that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand to attention. “Where?” Sarah’s voice says, distant and confused. She mumbles something too quietly for it to be audible, but I hear the next thing she says perfectly fine. “Stars? Underground?” she mumbles. “They’re sopretty.”
* * *
PASHA
I hate lying.I seriously fuckinghateit. It’s the biggest act of betrayal there is between two people who trust one another, but right now I have no choice. I need to keep Zara safe, and I’ll break every oath I’ve ever made, and I will lie to every last person who matters to me, including her, if it means I’ll be able to accomplish that task. She’s pacing the kitchen, practically tearing her hair out as she tries to decipher the meaning behind the recording, and I play along, worrying at my lip, frowning deeply as I drum my fingers against her kitchen table.
I’mnottrying to figure out the recording, though. I had it figured out in real time, as the seconds ticked by on the Dictaphone read-out and my ear drums registered each new sound. I know where Sarah is. No, I’m beyond worrying over the recording. I am trying to figure out how the hell I’m going to make sure Zara stays safe while I leave her and take care of this mess. She’s going to be furious later on, but I’ll happily deal with her wrath after the fact, once Lazlo is either dead or in police custody, and my aunt is back in her apartment.
“No wonder the Petrovs haven’t figured out where they took her. None of it makes any sense. There were no ambient sounds to tell us where they ended up. Y’know, like in movies, when the cop hears a ship horn or a plane engine or something that leads them to the docks or an airport or whatever. Unless we missed something when you fast forwarded through the recording. Maybe we should listen to that part again?”
“Probably a good idea.” I scrub back though the recording, hitting the play button as we listen to Sarah get locked inside the back of a van once more, and Zara sits down opposite me at the table again, gnawing on her finger nails. I am submerged in a sea of conflict, wondering where the hell I can take her for a couple of hours, where she won’t become immediately suspicious and try to come after me.
The perfect place strikes me like a lightning bolt out of the goddamn blue. I already regret this first lie I’m about to tell her, but I swallow down my guilt and force myself to deal. More lies are going to follow after this first one, so I might as well get used to it. Reaching out, I pick up the Dictaphone and stop the recording.
“The road sounds are too loud. The engine’s blocking out all the finer details. The audio needs to be cleaned up.”
Zara stills. “There’s a mixer at the dispatch center. The transcribers who type up the 911 calls use the E.Q. on it to clean files that are difficult to hear sometimes. That could work.”
I feel shitty as fuck as I shut down that idea. “You’re still suspended. They wouldn’t even let us inside the building. I know someone in Korea Town. He’ll be able to run it quicker than us, anyway.”
Zara considers this. A look of hope forms on her face, and I decide I want to throw myself from the fucking roof for being such a piece of shit. “Okay. If you think he can help, then we should go.” She gets to her feet, heading for the door.
As I follow after her, a desperate mantra repeats itself inside my head, over and over again, until the words form a somber rhythm.
Forgive me, Firefly.
Forgive me, Firefly.
Forgive me, Firefly.
