“Good. Then you stay here with the munchkin and I’ll start getting things packed to go. Are you thinking more park or beach? We can also take her hiking.”
“Park,” Maisy answered. “If we go hiking, you’ll probably end up carrying both of us back to the car.”
I chuckled and rose. “You say that like I’d mind in the least.”
“Hey, Tangaloa?” she asked as I headed to grab some clothes for the day.
“Yeah?” We weren’t whispering, but we also were keeping our voices low so as not to disturb Samantha.
“What’s a ‘munchkin’?”
I blinked, startled by the question, and turned. “Well, apparently after the park today we’re going to have a movie night where I get to introduce you to the cinematic masterpiece that isTheWizard of Oz.”
Between the seven-plushour flight and the time difference, it was late morning by the time we touched down in an airfield in north Texas. Her second time on a plane, Maisy was fascinated by the ins and outs, and due to the lack of comfort in the back of a cargo plane, I had the co-pilot switch seats with her once we were at cruising altitude so she could talk with the pilot, see out the windshield, and have a more comfortable chair to sleep in. Personally, I would have much rather laid her down in the back with me, but I also loved seeing the joy on her face as she spoke with the pilot. Watching something as widely known asTheWizard of Ozwith her and Samantha last night only reminded me of how secluded and limited her experiences had been so far.
As much of a homebody as I was, I wanted to show her the world. So if she wanted to sit in the cockpit learning about flying as she stared down at the open ocean, while I sat on an ABS plastic crate, then that was what she got to do. The little smiles she threw over her shoulder at me every so often were my prize.
The co-pilot was less than pleased with the arrangement, but fuck him. He was getting a small fortune out of me for sneaking us onto the Mainland.
From a criminal’s perspective, the beauty of the Mainland was that it was vast, and when something was that big, smaller things tended to slip through the cracks. As long as we arrived undetected, crossing state lines would be simple. Since I planned on getting bloody on this voyage, I wanted no record of our entry or exit—even though I had no plans of leaving any physical evidence behind of our time here. Additionally, Maisy didn’t legally exist, and it would have taken time for Neo to get fake papers for her.
I didn’t mind paying out the ass to get us onto the Mainland, so long as it ended her parents’ lives sooner.
A roll of hundreds in the hands of a crew member on the ground got us off the plane before customs agents arrived. Dressed like the airport’s flight crew, we walked across the terminal like we belonged as we made our way to the employee parking lot where aHondaCRV waited for us.
Maisy’s tiredness was completely overshadowed by the bright smile on her face as she got into the passenger seat. “I know I’m new to the world of criminals, but breaking the law isfun. It’s such a rush! I’m terrified,” she held up her hand to show it was trembling, “but I also feel like I just drank a gallon of coffee and a pound of sugar!”
I chuckled as I turned on the cage. Sneaking across the border of a country I was technically a citizen of wasnothing. When I waswith Kalea, I tried to shield her from the darkness of my world. Kayl was entirely to blame for what he’d done to her, but there was no denying that the outcome of his ultimatum might have been very different if Kalea knew the extent of my world and the things I did on a daily basis to earn a living and protect my business.
I would not make the same mistake twice. My relationship with Maisy was completely different than mine with Kalea, and at the end of the day, there was no comparison. I did not regret my time with Kalea. It shaped me into the man I was today, a man who loved Maisy with every fiber of his being and would share everything I was and am with her.
I would show Maisy my darkness, and would rest peacefully with her in my arms because she knew that darkness was there to protect her.
Lorna and Carl Donovan lived on 57thStreet in New York City. Even without knowing what they had done to their own daughter, I would have murdered them for making me enter such a hectic and disgusting concrete forest. How did peoplelivelike this? When was the last time any of them touched a speck of grass or breathed mountainous air or swam in uncontaminated waters? I felt sorry for the boat we took on the Hudson River, having to live out its days in such squalor.
It has been five days since we arrived on the Mainland. Our trek northward was delayed slightly by a detour to stop by Okalani’s college, but unfortunately, Kahoku’s daughter was not at her apartment. Based on the amount of mail in her box, she hadn’t been there for a while either. I called Neo so they could start tracking her down. It had been over a month since we’d tied a weight to Kahoku’s ankles and sank him to the bottom of the sea. Even if she hadn’t been told her father was dead, there was no doubt she knew he was missing. Unfortunately, other than her college credits, Okalani did not have much of an online presence,which was odd for someone her age. Then again, it wasn’t like Maisy was doom scrollingFacebookeither, and they were roughly the same age.
Aloiki wasn’t happy when he learned about Okalani’s absence from school. There wasn’t a lot that my brother regretted doing, and I was sure it was killing him that he’d ordered Kahoku’s death on false allegations.
There was no doubt we would be paying for Kayl’s lies and crimes for some time to come. I had no intention of lying to Okalani about her father’s death either. We made a mistake, and we needed to own that. Neo wasn’t the only one of us who was suffering from the guilt of our colossal error. The only solace that I could offer was that the orchestrator of the lies that led to Kahoku’s death was also dead.
Not wanting to waste time waiting around for Okalani when it was obvious she hadn’t been in her apartment for some time, Maisy and I continued north to New York, where only a few months ago I had the wayward thought that I would never be back in this area to wonder if “Downstate New York” was a geographical expression.
I had no intention of ever being back here a third time.
“Did you grow up here?” I asked Maisy as we rode the service elevator up to her parents’ floor in the high-rise apartment building. The fact that these people required “staff” to use a different elevator, instead of one of the eight offered to them, annoyed the shit out of me too. Maybe I’d leave the place a bad review:
1-Star: Treat staff like dirt. Also several residents are pedophiles and rapists. Would not recommend.
Neo had found evidence that the Donovans were not the only residents in the building who’d hired one or more of the four tutors Maisy remembered from her childhood, but we were only here for her parents. The rest we were leaving for the Atlantic City and Yonkers Chapters to deal with.
Maisy shook her head. “They must have moved here once I was with…” Her voice trailed off. “Calling him ‘That Bastard’ seems ridiculous now. I should be able to say his name without feeling like I’m going to have a panic attack.”
I squeezed her hand. “Personally, I like ‘Pedo’, ‘Fucktard’, and ‘Skinless’.” When she looked at me quizzically, I shrugged. “Aloiki wanted to test the most efficient way to skin a man alive, and Jones was his guinea pig.”
Maisy’s eyebrows stayed raised as the red floor numbers on the LED sign above us continued to grow larger. Then she burst out laughing, wrapping her arm around her middle as she doubled over. “That should not be so funny, but I can’t stop!” she cried out. “Oh, God, I’m going to pee my pants.”
Her humor was infectious, leading both of us to be laughing our asses off when the elevator opened to her parents’ floor. Thankfully the hallway was empty as I guided Maisy off. Neo might be able to erase our presence on the cameras, but they couldn’t erase eyewitness memories.