What I was Paid To Do

Chapter 9:

Kael was between us before I could move.

Not aggressive. Not even tense. Just — there. His body angled so he could see both of us at once, one hand out flat toward me, the other one loose at his side. Like he was born doing this.

"Ella," he said. "Look at me."

I looked at him. My eyes were doing something weird. The hallway was spinning a little.

"Breathe," he said.

"I'm breathing."

"You're not. Breathe."

I breathed.

"Good. Now sit down."

"I don't want to sit down."

"Sit down anyway."

I sat down. Right there on the floor of my hallway, back against the wall, in my pajama shorts with my knees up.

My mother was still standing by the door. She hadn't moved. She had her hands in her pockets and her shoulders up around her ears like she was cold.

"Colleen," Kael said. "That's your name, right? Colleen."

She looked at him. "How do you know my name?"

"I know a lot of things. I want to know how you got up those stairs."

"The door was open."

"The street door."

"Somebody was coming in. I walked in behind them."

Kael's jaw moved.

"That's a problem," he said. "That's a real problem. We'll talk about that later."

He turned his head and said something quiet into his shoulder — a radio, I realized. He had a radio clipped inside his cut.

I hadn't noticed.

"You want to tell me why you're here," Kael said. "Now. Before I decide you're a threat."

"I'm not a threat to her."

"You're at her door at four in the morning with a photo of her kid in your hand. You're a threat until you're not."

Colleen looked at me.

"I didn't know it was going to be like this," she said. "I didn't know he'd have people."

"He doesn't have people," Kael said. "She has people. I'm her people. Get used to it."

I looked up at him.

He didn't look back at me. His eyes stayed on her.

"Talk," he said.

---

Colleen sat down.

Kael didn't sit. He stood with his back against the wall by the window, arms crossed, eyes on the stairs. Like he expected someone else to come up.

"Your father died when you were twelve," Colleen said.

I said, "I know. I was there."

"I know you were there. I'm saying — after that, there was no money. The house was in his name. The insurance didn't pay out. His brother came around asking for things I didn't have."

I sat there.

"I got a letter in the mail when you were fifteen," she said. "No name on it. Just a phone number and a time. I called it. A man answered. He said he had an offer."

"What kind of offer?"

"Money. Every month. Enough to live on. Enough to move away. Enough to start over."

"In exchange for what?"

Colleen looked at me.

"In exchange for you," she said.

The hallway got very quiet.

Kael didn't move. But something in his shoulders changed.

"Explain that," he said. His voice was flat.

"He said there was a family. A family that was interested in me. In my daughter. He said my daughter had been promised to a man in that family. And he said the man was going to come find her when she was older, and they wanted to make sure she was ready."

I said, "What?"

"I didn't believe him. I thought he was a pervert. I told him to go to hell."

"And then?" Kael said.

"And then my hours at work got cut. And then my landlord raised my rent. And then a man came around the house asking about my daughter. Asking how old she was. What school she went to."

She looked at her hands.

"I took the money," she said. "I moved. I left you with my sister. I left a note and a hundred dollars and I told myself it was to protect you."

"You left," I said. My voice sounded weird. Far away. "You left me."

"I left you."

"With Aunt Carol. Who hated me."

"I know she hated you."

"You knew and you left me there anyway."

"I know."

"And you took money from a man. A man you didn't even know. A man who told you I was promised to somebody."

"I know."

I put my face in my hands.

"Ella," Kael said.

"Don't," I said.

"Ella."

"Don't, Kael. Don't."

I heard him move. Felt him sit down next to me. His shoulder bumped mine.

"Okay," he said. "Take your time."

My mother was still talking.

"The payments came every month," she said. "For eight years. Cash at first. Then a wire. Then a company name. I never met him again. I never even knew his name. But the money was always there and every month I told myself it was the last month I'd take it and every month it wasn't."

Kael said, "When did it stop?"

"Three weeks ago."

He went very still.

"Three weeks ago," he said.

"The last payment came three weeks ago. And in the envelope was a piece of paper."

She pulled it out of her pocket. Folded twice. Handed it to me.

I unfolded it.

One line, in black ink, in handwriting I'd never seen:

The Blackwood boy found her. It's starting.

---

Kael took the paper out of my hand.

He read it. Once. Twice.

Then he stood up. Walked to the window. Pulled the curtain back an inch.

"You said you took a photo," he said. "At the diner."

"Two days ago. I went in to see her. Just to see her. I sat in the back and I ordered coffee and she didn't even look at me."

"She was carrying four plates," I said. "I dropped a plate. I didn't see you."

"I know. I saw you drop it." She paused. "I took the photo when you went to the back. Your little girl was sitting on the stool by the counter. I took one picture with my phone and I left."

Kael said, "And then?"

"And then the next night somebody knocked on my door in the motel I was staying at. A man. He didn't say anything. He just handed me an envelope and walked away."

"What was in the envelope?"

"A phone. A cheap one. Prepaid." She swallowed. "And a note that said, 'Use this to talk to her. Don't use your own phone.'"

Kael turned around.

"So the phone I called," he said. "That's the phone."

"That's the phone."

"Who else has that number?"

"I don't know."

"Did you tell anyone you were coming here tonight?"

"No."

"Did you tell anyone you found her?"

"No."

"Then how did you know she was here? In this building? She moved two years ago. You've been gone for eight."

Colleen looked up at him.

"Because he told me," she said.

"Who told you."

"The envelope. The last envelope. The note. It didn't just say the Blackwood boy found her. It said she lives on the second floor of a building on Willow Street with a broken front door and a daughter named Lily and a bike that needs a new back tire."

Kael didn't move.

"Somebody's been watching her," Colleen said. "Not tonight. For months. Longer. And they want me to be the one to go to her door. Because they want her scared. And they want her scared of me."

She looked at me.

"I'm sorry, Ella Rae," she said. "I'm sorry I took the money and I'm sorry I left you and I'm sorry I'm the one they're using."

I couldn't answer.

Kael walked over to the window. He looked out at the street. Then at the roof across the way. Then he pulled out his phone and dialed.

"It's me," he said. "I need everything you can find on a motel in the east end. Somebody was in and out of it two days ago. And I need it now." Pause. "No. Not the local boys. Keep it in the club."

He hung up.

"Colleen," he said. "You're gonna stay here tonight. In the apartment. On the couch. And in the morning you're gonna tell me everything you remember about the man who paid you. What he sounded like. What he wore. How he stood. Whether he was left-handed or right-handed. Everything."

"I don't remember much."

"You're gonna remember more."

I stood up.

"Kael," I said. "I need to talk to you."

He looked at me. Then at my mother. Then at me again.

"Colleen," he said. "Sit on the couch. Don't touch anything. Don't go near the window. If you hear a knock, you don't answer it."

She nodded. Went to the couch.

I walked into the kitchen. Kael followed.

I turned around.

"Was it you?" I said.

He didn't blink.

"Was it me what."

"Were you watching me for months? Before Rita? Before Webb?"

"No."

"Was it your father?"

Kael's jaw moved.

"Say it," I said.

"I don't know," he said.

"You don't know."

"I don't know."

"What do you know?"

Kael was quiet. Then he said, "I know my father has been out of prison for a month and he hasn't called me once. I know he has money he shouldn't have. I know there were people at that club before I ever ran your name, asking questions about a girl from the east end. And I know I didn't put them there."

I sat down at my kitchen table.

"Somebody's running this," I said. "Somebody planned all of this. My mother leaving. The money. Me ending up in Ridgemont. You finding me."

"I know."

"How long have you known?"

Kael looked at me.

"Since the parking lot," he said. "The night I found you. I knew there was something wrong. But I didn't know what."

"And you didn't tell me."

"No."

"Kael."

"I didn't tell you because I had nothing to tell you. But now I do."

He walked over. Sat down across from me.

"Ella," he said. "When I called that number tonight, the woman who answered said he's looking for her and he's not alone."

"I know. I was there."

"She didn't say who."

"No."

"She didn't say the man who paid me. She said he. And she said not alone."

I looked at him.

"Kael," I said. "Who is your father?"

He didn't answer for a long time.

Then he said, "His name is Marcus Blackwood. He ran this club for thirty years. He went to prison when I was twenty-four for something he did when I was nineteen. And he's been sitting in a cell for ten years thinking about what he'd do when he got out."

"And what's he going to do?"

Kael looked at me. His eyes were flat and cold and I realized with a sick drop in my stomach that he wasn't cold because he was angry.

He was cold because he was scared.

"Whatever he promised you to," Kael said. "That's what he's gonna collect."

Somewhere in the apartment, Lily coughed in her sleep.

Chapter 9 Ends.