Exit Fee Read online

  She said, “I’m not so sure.”

  Amena took it seriously and jumped up, saying, “He meant it. He wants to see the art. Don’t stay here. Come with us.”

  Jennifer laughed, draped her arms over my shoulder, and kissed me on the cheek, saying, “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

  Amena beamed, racing to the front door. Jennifer leaned into my ear and whispered, “You keep that up with her, and you’ll regret it tonight.”

  All innocent, I said, “What? What did I do?”

  She latched her teeth onto my earlobe, gave it a little nip, and said, “Be on your best behavior.”

  I said, “I can’t do any less with you in the mix.”

  Amena was in the doorway, waiting. She said, “Come on!”

  We both chuckled at her eagerness and followed her out the door.

  Ten minutes later, Jennifer and I were sweating on a bench in Waterfront Park, the Charleston harbor behind us, while Amena splashed with other children in a large fountain, laughing and squealing.

  I said, “You know we have to figure this out sooner rather than later. She’s taking on an edge, and I honestly don’t blame her. She’s starting to fight me on everything.”

  Jennifer took my hand and said, “She just wants to be a child. She wants to be American. She doesn’t understand your concern. I think she believes you’re ashamed of her.”

  That took me by surprise. “What? Why on earth would you say that, after all we’ve done for her? I’ve explained to her—”

  And she cut me off. “It’s not about the words. It’s about the deeds. She has no friends, she isn’t enrolled in school, we don’t let her out on her own. It just builds up in her mind.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Unfortunately, yes. We know we mean well, but put yourself in her shoes. She’s had a traumatic life. Her entire family has been killed, with her brother and father slaughtered right in front of her. We don’t let her do anything, and yes, you’ve told her why, but I don’t think she believes it. Trust isn’t something she’s willing to give right now.”

  I took that in, then said, “So what do we do?”

  “Maybe we give her a little more room. I know it’s a risk, but we can take baby steps here.”

  Before I could answer, Amena came running up, her clothing damp from jumping under the spouts of water. She pointed up the road and said, “The kids in the fountain said there’s an Italian ice cart up there.”

  I stood and said, “Yeah, those things are all over the city. Come on. I’ll take you.”

  She pushed me back into the bench and said, “No. I want to go by myself.”

  I looked at Jennifer, and she gave me an imperceptible nod. I gave Amena a ten-dollar bill and said, “Okay, but bring me back a blue raspberry. And keep your phone on you.”

  She grinned, snatched the money out of my hand, and took off running down the right side of Vendue Range. I stood and shouted, “It’s on the left side!” But she didn’t hear me.

  I sat back down, my eyes on her fleeing form, and Jennifer said, “Baby steps.”

  Amena stopped at a table outside of an ice cream shop, apparently asking for directions. The next thing I knew, she sat down with the people at the table. I tensed up, and Jennifer said, “What?”

  “She’s talking to someone.”

  At the table was a young woman of about sixteen or eighteen and an older man. He was too young to be her father, but much too old to be a date. He gave off a weird vibe. I leaned forward, causing Jennifer to say, “What?”

  “Nothing. Just watching.”

  She followed my eyes, and said, “Maybe she decided on ice cream instead of Italian ice.”

  I said, “Maybe so.” And then we both watched Amena rise, skipping farther down the avenue before she was lost to the crowds.

  Jennifer said, “Doesn’t look like anything bad happened.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. But that guy isn’t an angel.”

  She laughed and said, “Because he looks a little rough? Have you checked a mirror lately?”

  She had a point about the mirror. I wouldn’t win any modeling contracts unless they were looking for a pirate. With a scar that tracked all the way from my eyebrow to my lower cheek, I was the guy on the street you instinctively looked away from for fear of pissing me off. But that wasn’t what I meant. The man was actually good-looking in a foreign sort of way, but he was giving off a vibe I didn’t like. But maybe that was just my overprotective instincts kicking in.

  I said, “I’m not talking about his looks.”

  She gave me a sidelong glance, but said nothing. I caught sight of Amena coming back down the road on the opposite side of the man at the table, trying to eat her Italian ice while carrying mine. It brought a smile to my face.

  She reached us and gave me my blue raspberry, then slid in next to Jennifer. I said, “Change?”

  She said, “That’s my tip for going to get it.”

  I let it slide, asking, “Who was the man you were talking to?”

  “I wasn’t talking to the man. I was talking to the girl. She’s new here too.”

  “Well, be careful what you tell them. We’ve talked about this.”

  I saw the anger building and held up my hands, saying, “I’m just trying to protect you.”

  She said, “No, you’re not. You’re trying to keep me locked up. So what if I talked to them? What’s the big deal? What are you afraid of? Me learning my way around and not needing you anymore?”

  I said, “Amena, that’s not it at all. I’m just trying to keep you safe until you have the required paperwork.”

  And without even meaning to, I set off some sort of time bomb. She jumped off the bench, saying, “What you want is to keep me under your thumb. I’ve been here for four months and all I do is sit in your apartment. I’m sick of that.”

  I looked at Jennifer and said, “Whoa, there. That’s not fair.”

  She pulled out the phone I’d given her, tossed it into my lap, and said, “I’m going exploring.”

  I stood up. “No, you’re not. Amena, stop this. I’ll call my people again. See if I can speed things up, but you’re not going running around on your own.”

  She went from me to Jennifer, then said, “Yes, I am, and you’re not stopping me, unless you want me to start screaming that I’ve been kidnapped. Which I practically have been.”

  My eyes about popped out of my head. I said, “Jenn?”

  Jennifer said, “Amena, I know you’re frustrated, but Pike is right here.”

  She said, “I’m going exploring. Without you two. I’ll be home later.”

  And just like that, she took off running back up the avenue. I stood there with my mouth open for a second, looked at Jennifer, then started to follow. Jennifer shouted, “Pike!”

  I turned, and she said, “Let her go. She’ll be home tonight, and when she comes home, we’ll have a heart-to-heart. Let her get some of it out of her system.”

  “But what if she gets into trouble? She doesn’t even have her phone. There’s no way we can help her.”

  Jennifer said, “How much trouble can she get into in Charleston?”

  Chapter 4

  Amena sprinted down the street, waiting on Pike to snatch her collar. She felt nothing and slowed to a walk, glancing behind her. She saw him standing up next to Jennifer, but he made no move to catch her.

  So he really doesn’t care.

  As much as she fought him, she wanted to believe in him. Wanted to believe that he loved her for who she was. That what he said was true, and he was keeping her in a cage because it was the best for her.

  She stopped next to a store selling tourist flotsam for the cruise ships that came and went, watching him sit back down, the visitors swirling around her. Like she had in the past, she judged the ebb and flow of patrons, and realized she could blend in here just like she had in Monaco. Easier, even.

  If Pike didn’t want to chase her, she could make it on her own. She’
d done it for years. She turned to go and felt a tug deep in her heart. A yearning not to leave.

  Come for me. Please come chase me.

  She saw Jennifer lead Pike away from the fountain, holding hands. It broke her heart.

  She watched them disappear behind a building, her anchor in this world shrinking with every step, and made a childish decision. She couldn’t be faulted for that. She was, after all, a child.

  She glanced down the street and saw the same girl who’d given her directions earlier. She walked at a crisp pace until she was next to her.

  The girl looked up, surprised. Amena sat down and said, “Where’s your friend?”

  “He’s inside. Getting some ice cream. What are you doing here?”

  “I can do what I want. I don’t need permission.”

  The girl glanced at the front of the store and said, “You need to leave. Get out of here. You don’t want anything to do with us. Please.”

  The comment confused Amena. She said, “I thought you guys were visiting here like I was?”

  “We are, but we don’t want anything to do with you.”

  Taken aback at the hostility, Amena said, “Why were you so friendly before? What did I do?”

  The girl leaned in and hissed, “Get the fuck away from this table.”

  Amena stood and felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned and saw the man from before. He said, “Hey, what’s going on here, Beth? A little catfight?”

  Beth ducked her head, the hostility gone. She said, “No, nothing like that. She said she needed to get home.”

  Amena said, “That’s not true. I can stay for a little bit.”

  The man sat down and said, “Before your family starts looking?”

  Amena sat down next to him, unaware of the danger. “I have no family. They’re gone.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  Amena remembered what Pike had told her, and said, “Nothing. Just that I don’t have any immediate family.”

  The man said, “My name is Slaven, and I think we are more alike than you know. I’m from Bosnia, and I lost my family in war. I never got over it.”

  Amena heard the words and felt a kinship. He was like her. She said, “I lost my family in Syria. How did your family die?”

  He rolled his head back, looking at the sky, and said, “They died because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Nothing else.”

  He came back to her and said, “And your family?”

  She hesitated, then said, “The same thing. The exact same thing. Where in Bosnia are you from?”

  “Do you know it?”

  She leaned back, embarrassed. “No. Not really. I was in France once, but I don’t know Bosnia.”

  He grinned and said, “That’s okay. I’m from a small town called Zvornik, in the Republic of Sprska. A spit of land that is attacked daily in the press for no reason. Have you heard of it?”

  Amena said, “No, but I’ve learned that most people in this world don’t understand the fight that happens outside of their view.”

  The girl grabbed Amena’s hand and said, “You’re right about that. You are right about that. Maybe it’s time you went home.”

  Slaven put a hand on Beth’s shoulder and she shut down. He said, “You want to go with us to Folly Beach? We have a house there on the water. You want to come?”

  Amena thought about it, and said, “Can you bring me back? I don’t have a car.”

  “Of course. I’ll bring you right back here.”

  Beth said, “I don’t think that’s a good idea. You should probably go home.”

  Amena looked at her and saw pain. Slaven put a hand on Beth’s shoulder and said, “One more would be fun, I think.”

  For the first time, Amena felt a sliver of danger. She said, “Maybe it’s not a good idea. I don’t want to intrude.”

  Slaven turned on a hundred-watt smile and said, “You’re not intruding. We came here for a vacation. You’ll enjoy it, unless you’re worried about your family coming to find you.”

  Amena glanced back down the avenue, seeing the empty bench. She said, “I don’t have a family.”

  Slaven said, “Then we’ll be your new family. Isn’t that right, Beth?”

  Beth forced a smile and said, “Yes, it’ll be fun. It’s the beach.”

  Amena nodded, banishing her nascent fear. If Pike didn’t want to spend time with her, she would find her own friends. She stood and followed them to a parking garage, reaching a beat-up Toyota Corolla. Slaven opened the door and said, “You hungry? You want some food before we go? It’s about thirty minutes away.”

  The generosity was a soothing lullaby to Amena. What bad person would offer to buy her lunch after just meeting? She said, “Nope. I’d rather see the beach.”

  Slaven nodded, and she slid into the seat in the back next to Beth. She spent the drive answering question after question from Slaven. Not wanting to get Pike in trouble, Amena spouted out answers that carved out a space around both Pike and Jennifer. As far as Slaven knew, she was on her own in Charleston.

  Eventually, they pulled up to a clapboard beach house with a balcony surrounding it, the Atlantic Ocean spilling out to the horizon behind it. Amena opened the door and said, “This is beautiful.”

  Slaven smiled, then said something confusing. “Beth, since Amena’s here, you’ll be going on your own tonight. Is that going to be a problem?”

  Beth said, “No. I understand.”

  “Be sure and take your phone. I’ll be checking.”

  She nodded, and Amena followed them up the stairs to the porch, wanting to ask Beth what that meant. The door opened, and she saw a man who looked straight out of Game of Thrones. Tall, at least six-foot-five, he had a receding hairline and a face that broadcast cruelty.

  In Serbian, he said, “Who’s that?”

  Slaven said, “Maybe a replacement. She’s our guest.”

  The man nodded, and Amena stumbled on the stairs at his appearance and the unfamiliar language, seeking purchase with her feet going back down. Slaven caught her and laughed, saying in English, “Hey, don’t break your leg.”

  Amena just looked at him, her gut instinct inside telling her to flee.

  Slaven turned on the smile and said, “Come on. We have sandwich stuff. And then we can go to the beach.”

  She tentatively nodded and followed him into the house. Slaven said, “Beth, you don’t have a lot of time. Go take a shower and get ready.”

  Amena said, “She can’t come to the beach with me?”

  “She can later. She’s got to get ready for work. Come on, I’ll make you a sandwich.”

  Beth went upstairs and Amena followed him into the kitchen, seeing the expanse of Folly Beach outside the window. Hesitantly, trying to regain the camaraderie of the car ride, she said, “This is really pretty.”

  Slaven said, “Radovan, get me some bread from the pantry.”

  The cruel man did as he asked without a word. The entire sequence was putting Amena on edge. She said, “I have to use the bathroom.”

  A knife in his hand, cutting up a tomato, Slaven pointed with the edge and said, “Go up to Beth’s room.”

  She did so and heard sobbing coming from a bedroom as she walked up the stairs. She stopped and listened, hearing Beth talking about an exit fee, another woman in pain, then talking about her. She entered, finding Beth sitting on the closed toilet in the rear of the bedroom, crying, another woman above her rubbing her shoulders. They saw her appear and jumped up.

  Amena said, “What’s wrong?”

  The other woman looked over Amena’s shoulder in fear, like someone might be behind her, then said, “Nothing. Nothing’s wrong.”

  Amena squinted her eyes and said, “Something’s wrong. What was that about another woman? Is someone hurt?”

  The woman glanced toward the hallway, trying mightily to remain calm. “No. Really, no.”

  Amena followed her eyes, glancing behind her, then said, “Is she in the other room?” />
  Beth jumped up and said, “No! She’s not.”

  And that was enough. Amena backed up, holding her hands in front of her, wondering what she had entered. She reached the hallway and saw another door farther down. She went to it, put her hand on the doorknob, and Beth reached her, saying, “You need to go. Now. While you still can.”

  Amena opened the door and saw a woman on a bed, ghostly pale, with an intravenous drip above her head, the tube ending in a vein just below her biceps. On her abdomen was an angry red wound, the stitching haphazard, like someone unskilled had done it.

  She turned to flee and ran headlong into Slaven.

  He said, “Little one, you could have had a few good days here before I put you to work. Why did you go exploring?”

  Chapter 5

  Lannister McBride checked the clock and saw it was closing in on 5 p.m. It would take him about thirty minutes to get from the Naval Weapons Station at Goose Creek to downtown Charleston. He still had some work to do and thought maybe he should have selected a later time to meet.

  A civilian subcontractor working at the Naval Nuclear Power Training Command, he was partially responsible for the quality control of the two nuclear-powered submarines that the students used as training vehicles. A graduate of the Naval Nuclear Power School himself, he’d served twenty-one years in the navy, on both nuclear aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines.

  He had to be close to the Naval Weapons Station and because of that, unlike at the navy base at Norfolk, he was far removed from the action of downtown Charleston. Norfolk was a navy town, and as such, it catered to the military. Charleston used to be that way, but in one of the multitude of base realignment closures during the Clinton years, Charleston had lost its naval base—and with it, the distinction that the Norfolk Naval Base still held.

  Once the largest port of nuclear submarines in the United States, the Charleston Naval Base had shrunk down to the Charleston Naval Weapons Station, becoming an appendage of crumbling warehouses and shuttered buildings that were slowly being taken over by hipster breweries and flea markets. The only thing left of note was the Nuclear Power School, but there was no support on the base anymore. No hospitals, no commissaries, no base exchange, no feeling of being on a military base at all. They didn’t even have any on-base housing for people like him anymore, forcing Lannister to stay at a long-term hotel outside of the gate. The final nail in the coffin had come when the command for the navy had merged with the Charleston Air Force Base, becoming “Joint Base Charleston,” with the naval forces now holding an office building at an air force installation, of all places.