Claimed Darker by Em Brown
Chapter 44
BRIDGET
Past
Ibarely slept. The couch isn’t comfortable at all and smells like stale beer. I can’t stop thinking about Amy and Simone, and my bizarre call with Felipe. I don’t have any answers that would explain the strangeness of it all.
Darren calls me in the early morning, but I decide not to answer. I’ve got to focus what little attention I have on my stats final, which I end up bombing.
Afterward, my phone rings. Felipe’s number shows up, so I answer it.
“I can be in Berkeley in thirty minutes,” he says, his tone grim. “You know a place where we can talk privately? With no one around?”
What in the world is going on?
“I’m crashing at my roommate’s boyfriend’s place,” I suggest.
“Will we be alone?”
I text Kat asking if Brad and his roommate will be around. She responds that they’re playing a game of pick-up basketball right now and will probably head to the student union afterward for lunch.
“Their apartment isn’t far from the BART station,” I tell Felipe. “I can meet you there.”
I had hoped to stop by the hospital to check in on Simone, or possibly go back to the apartment to help box up Amy’s belongings so that Mrs. Liu won’t have to. Hopefully whatever is agitating Felipe won’t take too long.
I pass by a couple holding hands on the way to the Downtown Berkeley BART Station Plaza, where two little kids laugh and chase a robot on wheels. A group of young men sing a cappella, to the delight of bystanders. On this sunny day, there’s a lot of joy and love around me. But I feel like my world is crumbling. Why would God allow Amy to survive a shooting, only to have her end up dead from carbon monoxide poisoning?
When Felipe arrives, I throw my arms around him and hold him tight. I can feel the tears I’ve yet to shed pressing against my eyes, but something is clearly troubling him, so I step back.
“Sorry,” I say, “I’m a little bit of a wreck at the moment.”
He looks at me with sympathy. “We can talk as soon as we have privacy.”
We walk to Milvia Street and then toward Durant. When we reach Brad’s place, I reach under the mat for the key he left me. Felipe seems jittery the whole walk over but relaxes a little when we’re inside.
“Ugh,” he says. “The smell of a straight man’s place.”
“There’s my place,” I offer.
“No. You do not want to go back there.”
“You know about what happened? Was it in the news?”
“No. I overheard the man who did it.”
I’m not sure I heard him correctly. “The man who did it?”
“The heating unit in your apartment was messed with. On purpose.”
I understand the words, but I don’t truly comprehend them because it’s hard to believe.
“Who is this you overheard?” I ask skeptically.
His eyes downcast, Felipe shuffles his feet. “He’s a fixer. He was hired to take care of you and Amy.”
My mind reels. “What are you saying?”
He looks at me with anguish. “I am so sorry. You’re such a wonderful person, Bridget. You don’t deserve this. And I’m so, so sorry I never said anything.”
I want to believe that he’s acting, that this is some sick joke, a very sick and unfunny joke. But Felipe speaks with too much earnestness, too much sincerity.
I study him more closely. “What you’re saying makes it sound like what happened to Amy was…homicide.”
He has no reaction. I start to shake. “That’s just…that’s just crazy! Why would anyone want to kill Amy?”
He stares at the floor again.
“You said you overheard some guy talk about Amy?” I press.
“He was talking to another guy who does similar work, griping that he has the worst luck because you weren’t there last night and how pissed off JD is going to be.”
I feel like my brain just exploded.
“What does JD have to do with this?” I ask, my voice starting to quiver.
Felipe continues to hang his head and murmurs, “He ordered the hit.”
My legs don’t feel sturdy, so I sit down. My mind doesn’t know what to think. Did I hear Felipe right? JD hired someone to kill Amy?
I look up at Felipe. “You’re frickin’ kidding me, right?”
It’s a plea that, deep down, I already know the answer to.
He looks at me. “You think I’d pull this kind of joke on you after your friend just died?”
Of course he wouldn’t. I put my head in my hands. I’m still confused.
“If what you’re telling me is true, it’s—why would he do this? Is he really that tired of Amy pursuing him?”
Felipe starts to pace the room. “I don’t know for sure. My guess is that Amy found out something. JD’s not the most cautious guy.”
“Found out what?”
His pacing picks up speed. “Probably something to do with his line of work.”
“Importing chemical compounds?” A realization hits me. “Are these illegal chemical compounds?”
“Usually. Or closely regulated stuff like pseudoephedrine, which is used to make meth. But it’s not just chemicals.”
I’m not sure I want to know more.
“More recently, he’s been importing…women.”
I suddenly remember Amy’s research on sex trafficking. That’s probably not a coincidence.
“How can you be sure?” I inquire.
Felipe looks like I punched him in the gut. He kneels down in front of me and grabs my hands. “Bridget, what I just told you could get me killed. Promise you won’t tell anyone.”
I look into his imploring eyes. Of course I don’t want to get him into trouble, but if everything he says is true, how can I not go to the police?
“How long have you known this?” I ask.
“Several years.”
Several years?!
“Why haven’t you gone to the police about this?”
He drops my hands and looks down as if he’s too ashamed to meet my gaze. “Because I was a homeless drug addict before Darren. Working for him turned my life around.”
“Wait! Does Darren know all this?”
“Well, he’s part of the Jing San, too.”
“The what?”
“Jing San. A multinational triad.”
The room is spinning all around me. My poor brain can only handle so much. Felipe’s wrong. Darren a part of organized crime? That sounds ridiculous.
And yet…I’ve always felt like Darren had an edge, a shadow to his personality that never came into focus for me. I thought it was the BDSM. But it wasn’t that after all. I think about his trip to Hong Kong for a so-called business opportunity.
I narrow my eyes at Felipe. “When you say that Darren is part of this triad, are you saying that he’s also involved in the illegal stuff? Like the same thing JD does?”
“I don’t think so, but I can’t say for sure. As a bartender at The Lotus, I hear a lot of stuff. Way too much. But Darren plays it pretty close to the vest. He’s not as active as his cousin, from what I can tell. Maybe he didn’t want to end up with the same fate as his father.”
I snap to attention. Darren rarely talks about his father. “What happened to his father?”
“His father was head of the counterfeiting division. One of his former associates ratted him out in a plea deal with federal prosecutors. Darren’s father went to jail while Darren was still at UCLA. There was some kind of fight in the prison. Darren’s father was stabbed and died.”
How did I not know this?
“You can Google it, if you don’t believe me,” Felipe says.
I believe him. I kick myself for not doing an Internet search on Darren earlier because I’m old-fashioned. I don’t like getting to know people via the Internet. But in this case, knowing Darren’s past would’ve opened my eyes. I might not have allowed myself to get entangled with him, to fall in love with him.
I feel sick to my stomach.
“I should’ve told you to stay away from Darren and JD and The Lotus. I honestly didn’t think that you’d be with Darren this long, and I didn’t know that we’d become friends.”
Friends? Do I even know the person in front of me?
A noise outside, the sound of someone walking past the door, makes Felipe jump to his feet. He starts pacing again. “I know this is a lot to process, but you can’t stick around here. You’re a target.”
I know that’s what he had said earlier, but this part is just now starting to sick in. It was pure luck that I wasn’t at Darren’s place. JD wouldn’t have known that I would go there to retrieve my notes and end up falling asleep. If it weren’t for that…
“My guess is that whatever Amy knows, JD’s worried she might have told you,” Felipe continues. “My advice is to get the hell out of here as soon as you can before they track you down.”
“But if what you’re telling me is all true, I can’t not go to the police.” I think about JD. Is he really someone capable of murder? I shake my head. “JD wants me dead? I can’t—it’s so hard to imagine that he’s someone who could do this.”
“It’s not the first time. Darren and JD dropped Manny—”
My eyes bulge. “They did what?”
“I don’t know if you ever met Manny. He was kind of a stocky guy, wears black Armani suits.”
I remember the guy. He was always eager to talk to Darren,
“JD wanted the word on the street to be that no one messes with him and Darren.”
I feel like I’m falling off the edge of a cliff, and I desperately need something to save me from the abyss below, but there’s nothing and no one that I can cling to.
“Darren had this guy killed?” I ask in a whisper.
“For the shooting.”
“But Sergeant Trawley said it was some random gang member.”
“Sergeant Trawley does cleanup for the Jing San. The triad has dirty cops in a lot of places, even the FBI. I remember this woman, Maggie, a few years ago, was in witness protection, and they found her before she had a chance to testify. You’ve got to trust me, Bridget. You’re not safe. Your best bet is to just disappear and hope that they never find you. If you go to the cops and tell them what you know, I’m dead, too. I don’t think it would take Darren much to figure out that I’m the one you could’ve learned all this from.”
The blood drains from me. “Darren wouldn’t…”
I feel like retching.
“I wish I could tell you that he wouldn’t do anything. I think he has feelings for you. More than I’ve ever seen in him before. But he grew up in the Jing San. He’s following in his father’s footsteps. JD, the triad, it’s all family to him.”
“Does his mom know?”
He nods. “I don’t think she’s that keen on him getting more involved, but she knew everything her husband did.”
Oh my God.
I sit in stunned silence until Felipe touches my shoulder.
“Go somewhere they won’t find you,” he says.
“Like where?” I wonder aloud.
“The Jing San operates mostly in California and New York and a little bit in Washington and Texas. Avoid those areas.”
“My mom’s in Europe,” I think aloud.
“They exist in Europe, too, though I can’t remember which countries. England for sure. Probably Belgium and Germany. But the sooner you get going, the better. And don’t say anything to anyone or you put them in danger, too.”
I stare at Felipe. Though part of me is angry to find out that he’s complicit in this triad business, I’m also grateful that he’s risked himself to tell me all this.
“But what about Amy?” I cry. “She deserves—her family deserves to know what happened! How am I supposed to let people get away with murder?”
“You think the family would be better off knowing that their daughter was the victim of homicide, rather than think that their daughter died because of equipment malfunction? And what good would it do to have both you and Amy dead? If you stick around here, it’s only a matter of time. Bridget, please. Like I said, I’m risking a lot to be here right now. I am a dead man if anyone finds out.”
“But won’t it look suspicious if I just disappear?”
“You just suffered a tragedy. Maybe you need time to yourself?”
“What about Darren? What am I going to tell him?”
We both pace in thought.
“Maybe I can say you were distraught seeing pics of him with another woman?” Felipe suggests. “You’re convinced he cheated on you.”
I mull it over. Since I can’t think of anything better at the moment, that may have to do.
“If I were you, I’d ditch your cellphone,” Felipe says.
“Why? You think they can track me using my phone?”
“Maybe, maybe not. The Jing San has access to technology you don’t even know exists. For example, all their mobile calls go through an app that encrypts the calls so they can’t be wiretapped or recorded. And I’m sure they have hackers working for them.”
“Okay, okay.”
It’s hard to think straight when I have a hundred and one thoughts buzzing in my head, and it feels like my life is crumbling into pieces with every passing second.
As if seeing my distress, Felipe says, “I’m sorry.”
He takes out his wallet and hands me all the cash in it. “I’d avoid using credit cards.”
This is insane. I’m a fugitive. Not from the law. Not for doing anything wrong. But from a criminal organization. I guess my crime is having fallen in love with a gangster.
After Felipe leaves, I contemplate going to the police. But there are too many unknowns. I’ve never had to face such a difficult quandary in my life. I decide that I can always inform the authorities later, after I’ve gotten myself to safety.
I need help. This is too much to figure out on my own. I need Aunt Coretta. A last-minute plane ticket to Denver will be too expensive, so I look up Amtrak and manage to get a ticket for less than two hundred dollars. Most of my clothes are still in the suitcase, and I’m not going to bother with what belongings are still over in my apartment. I send off a few emails, jot a hasty note for Kat and leave it on the table.
With trembling hands, I exit the apartment. Suitcase in hand, I leave my life as I know it behind.
