Instead, he drove them to his house that was settled by the mountains on the outskirts of town. There, he proceeded to rape and torture them for two days until he ultimately shot them both in the back of the head.
For two years, we didn’t know what happened to them. Until Officer Gill kidnapped another girl, and unlike my sister and her friend, she escaped and lived to tell the police force what an evil man they had working for them.
After that, they searched his house and found Olivia, Kelly, and seven other girls buried on his property.
All I could think was that if my sister and her friend had never gotten shitty IDs, James Gill would’ve never entered their lives. Would’ve never put them in the back of his car and senselessly murdered them.
In my fourteen-year-old stupid-ass brain, I thought I was avenging my sister by learning how to make legitimate fake IDs for young women. It didn’t take long before I realized I was only allowing them to enter an environment full of equally evil men. They weren’t any safer and had my sister gotten in the bar that night, there’s no guarantee a different man wouldn’t have committed the same atrocious deed.
So, for a while, I had a skill that I didn’t know how to utilize.
Until one day, a kid a few years older, David, came to me and asked if I could do more than just make him a new ID. He wanted a new life.
His dad was a general in the Marine Corps and highly abusive. David felt his life was in danger every time he went home and was convinced that if he just simply ran away, his father would find him. I guess his old man had threatened as much.
It took me two weeks to figure out how to get him a new social security card and birth certificate. I even managed to get him a job on a fishing boat.
It sparked a passion I didn't know I had. Turns out, making people disappear would be how I'd save them.
I turned eighteen and started my own business, Black Portal, an electronic store that sells TVs. But that was only my front. I sold my actual services by word of mouth in the beginning. Eventually, I got Legion's attention from one of my clients who knew him, and he liked what I could do and sent more clients my way. He helps bring me business; in return, I help him with favors.
My only rule—I don't help rapists or pedophiles, which isn't an issue since Legion makes those types disappear in a more permanent way. Murderers, I take case-by-case. I've helped bad guys get away, but they weren’t lacking the moral compass I require if they want my help. There is such a thing as a gray area, mainly when it comes to murder.
“Jesus, is that who I think it is?” Silas whispers, his question saturated in disbelief.
My heart stops beating the second I lay eyes on her.
Molly fucking Devereaux is heading toward the counter, her eyes darting in every direction. Her shoulders are curved inward, and she's picking at her nails anxiously. Dark brown curls are deliberately arranged around her face, but those sad, green eyes and the scar on the apple of her cheek… it's a dead giveaway.
She was plastered all over the news when she went missing. And then her baby sister, Layla, eight months later. Most assume their father took Layla and ran, but neither has been seen since. Both girls with strange disappearances, which still haven't been solved to this day.
It's been almost six years since she disappeared. Now, here she is, in the flesh. And she looks no less sad than she did in her missing person poster .
“I got this one handled.” I jerk my chin at Silas, signaling for him to leave us alone. Without a word, he disappears in the back.
“They say that people who have eyes like yours are destined for a tragic death.”
There's a slight pause to her gait, but she pushes forward until she's a foot away, only a counter between us.
“Sanpaku eyes,” I clarify. “When you have a gap below your irises.”
“Do you greet all your guests by telling them they're going to go out in a ball of flames?”
“That's typically why they come to find me. I'm the one who saves them from the fire.”
She hums, distracting me from counting the freckles on her nose. I only got to fifteen, but I don't mind restarting.
“I'm just here for a TV,” she lies.
My answering grin is involuntary. “Sure, what kind?” I question.
“Uh—” She glances around and then points to a fifty-inch flat screen. And if I had to guess, far out of her price range. “That one.”
“That'll be five hundred dollars.”
Her wide eyes fly to mine. “Jesus,” she mumbles. “That's literally so unnecessary.”