1
There was once a time when I too believed in miracles, that the tide would eventually turn and give way to clear water. But everything changed when Kara disappeared. I was her older brother; I was supposed to protect and keep her safe. When our parents passed away that night on Christmas Eve, I promised them, to whatever might existence beyond this vast universe, that I would make sure she lived each and every day without feeling their absence.
But I failed. Bitterly so. Unforgivably so.
Even now, as pink water embraced my still form and every thought drowned along with my body, I could do nothing but feel sorry. Sorry that I could not find her in this lifetime. I should have done more. I should have been there for her. So, why did I spend that precious time slaving to the bone? What for? In the end, none of that mattered – whether it was the promising career, the girlfriend I thought would be there for me through thick and thin, and the friends I lost along the way. None of that mattered. Never did.
My lungs burned now, slowly filling with steaming water, the bathtub overflowing with the mix of water and blood. My own. Dripping steadily from my wrist, the last cut too deep, too painful for plain words to describe. But I felt neither the jarring pain nor the way my arm tingled with each trickle. All I could feel was this pang in my chest, the way it pulled and tightened around my body, and how each breath caught in my throat.
In the background, through the ajar door, the radio crackled to life. I did not remember turning it on.
“Missing girl found dead in Prospect Park Lake three miles from home. Police rules out foul play.”
It stirred something in me, those words.
Submerged, I slowly opened my eyes and listened to the radio. My vision was blurry and the pink water stinging, but I did not fight the inevitable. I wanted to end my existence, to free my soul from the pain of not knowing what happened to my sister, to break free from it all, and join Kara in the afterlife. A decade had passed already. Had she been alive after all those years, she would have reached out to me one way or the other and explained herself no matter how upset she was with me.
It was my fault she never confided in me, never told me about her addiction. If I had known earlier, I would have done everything in my power to help her out of whatever haunted her. But she told me nothing. On the contrary. The week leading up to her disappearance was one of our best yet; she even talked about visiting our parents.
Our parents passed away when she was fourteen, and never really got over their sudden deaths. For a long time, she blamed them for leaving us. She was just a child going through puberty at the time, so I did not try to convince her otherwise, thinking she would eventually get over it. But it just kept getting worse and worse. It was like she was never really there, like the smile never truly reached her eyes no matter how hard she tried.
When the authorities said she had run away from home, like how girls her age do, I wanted to believe them. I convinced myself that had to be the case, for why else would she disappear just like that? But with each passing year and no words from her, that tiny piece of hope I harboured in my heart slowly ceased.
She was gone; I had no reason to live. In a way, I owed her this life of mine. When our parents passed and it seemed like the whole world had come to an end, she was the beacon of light that helped me navigate through the hurricane and find my way home. Without her, I would have perished long ago, anyway.
The radio died.
I shut my eyes anew, welcoming the warm kiss of death, coming to terms with my life-long guilt and the pain that tore my insides out every waking hour.
Ding-dong.
I let my body sink deeper, let the pressure of the steaming water dilute my cut veins.
Ding-dong. Ding-dong.
Air bubbles escaped on the surface of the tub.
Ding-dong. Ding-dong.
Memories took over my hazy mind; Kara waited for me in front of her high school, smiling, waving at me to quickly come over. I smiled, too—
“Ethan! Wake up! Ethan!”
She used to hate it, whenever I picked her up, said I was embarrassing her by being overprotective. But she did not hate it this time. She kept waving me over. Smiling so brightly. How I missed that smile. How I missed it so terribly...
“Ethan! Wake up! You must—save me!”
My eyes fluttered open before I knew it, my limbs thrashing against the porcelain as I coughed up the mix of liquid and slime pooled inside my lungs.
“K-Kara?”
I knew not how I managed to pull myself up, I just knew I did. But even as I frantically searched the entire place, I could not find her. But I had heard her! It was her voice! Where... where was she? Why did she hide from me? What did I ever do to her to warrant such—
My bloodshot eyes narrowed.
On the table lay something I had not seen in ages. I used to bring the leather journal everywhere with me back at the height of my career as an investigative journalist. I did not even recall where I last put it. My eyes drifted to the door; it was locked. Did someone enter my apartment?
Save from a flickering lightbulb that should have been changed months ago, the second-floor landing was completely dark and desolate. I opened the door still and examined the frame; no signs of intrusion. Was I losing my mind? Perhaps I did find the journal but forgot?
When I returned to the living room, the first thing that arrested me was the entry in the open journal. But it did not belong to me. The curves and strokes were completely the opposite of mine. But that was not why my eyes widened and my feet almost gave way under me. It was Kara’s handwriting. I would have recognised it anywhere.
SAFIYE
It was a name; one I had heard before but from where?
I leafed through the entire journal trying to find a clue, something that could help me recall. That was when the journal, stained crimson now, slipped from my hand and a grainy photograph I did not remember ever putting in there dropped at my feet. It showed two girls at a park, holding hands and smiling to the camera. One of them was my sister, the other was... Safiye?
The pages turned as I was about to pick up the photograph, landing on one of the last entries I had written. It was more a reminder to myself than an actual note from back in time, back when I thought I could find Kara alive.
Does she know something??
It occurred to me then that I wrote this on the same evening I was laid off work. I had spent the entire day, several months, looking for Kara. That evening, after interviewing several of Kara’s classmates, I managed to reach out to a young woman by the name of Safiye. She was two years older than my sister and had been introduced to the glamorous nightlife far too early, the one wolves in sheep’s clothing showed afflicted women, before the ugly truth became their reality.
During our brief interview, she told me that she started out as a charity youth programme recruiter for a well-known foundation, and from there, was slowly introduced to invite-only charity galas and political donor events where powerful men attended under a false guise. She said everything seemed harmless at first, that the men she was in charge of genuinely wanted to help her and others in her situation. It was not until she received her first beaten after refusing the advances of an older donor that she realised she was being trafficked, that the programme itself had been a trap from the get-go. By then, however, she was too deep in to escape her prison.
When I asked if she knew where Kara was, if she too had been introduced to this nightlife, she told me she did not know – that Kara was not the type of person to seek fame or fortune by lowering herself to their level – that she had a loving home and an older brother that would do anything for her. I bought it.
I did not find out about her struggle with drugs until several months after, by then, I could not reach Safiye again. She had disappeared. All I had left of our brief conversation was these entries and a phone number that I had tried untold times to call.
With a towel wrapped around my wrist, I pressed firmly to stop the bleeding. My eyes were fixed on the phone number, counting the seconds in my head. I did that whenever I needed to catch my breath, debating within myself whether to give her one final call after a decade. Would she even remember me?
I raked my fingers through my wet hair and hunched forwards from where I sat, feeling all kinds of conflicting emotions. I was getting ahead of myself again. She would not have kept the same phone number after all these years, and even if she did, for all I cared and knew, she too had disappeared. Calling the number would only disappoint me, put my failing heart under more pressure than it was designed to withstand. But what if I was mistaken?
Hope was such a powerful yet destructive feeling. It was the root of all miracles but also the start of the kind of nightmares that had no end or closure. Once it got under one’s skin, it festered and seethed, until it either broke through the surface or sucked the life out of its host like a parasite. So, which was it for me? A miracle taking root in my heart or the beginning of a nightmare with no escape?
I wished I had an answer; I did not.
So, I hit call instead and several beats passed. No one answered. I knew that much, but I did not end the call. Not yet. That was how hope worked, leaving no room for logic or reasoning, it just appeared and made a fool out of one. Still, I did not end the call, even as my heart threatened to rip out my chest and my hands trembled unchecked. I just waited. I did not know what for. I just did.
Then—
“Hello? Who am I speaking to?”
Was it her voice? So many years had passed already, I could not be certain. The young woman I talked to back then had lost all hope for a better tomorrow and her voice reflected that sombreness. But the voice on the other end of the line had life in it and hope for a lifetime of memories. It did not belong to a sad woman at the end of her ropes.
“Is this... Safiye?”
A paused followed this question but it was so quick that I could have easily missed the hesitation.
“Who? I’m sorry, you must’ve got the wrong number.”
“Please, don’t hang up!” I changed ears in haste, desperate to make the call last longer. “It’s Ethan! Ethan Calloway.”
“Et...han?”
“Kara’s brother. Do you remember me?”
“I—”
“I won’t take long. Please. Just hear me out.”
“My husband is at home. He doesn’t know... my past. I can’t afford to lose him. I’m a mother now.”
“I-I’ll call back later! Does tomorrow work? Please, say something. Anything!”
“I don’t know what else I can tell you. It’s all in the past now. I hardly remember anything from my life back then. I’ve changed. I don’t want to bring back those... those horrible memories.”
“I don’t want you to.”
“Then what do you want from me?”
“A name.”
“A... name?”
“That youth programme; give me a name. Who recruited you? Who brought you to those charity events? Who did you see there? What kind of people did you meet?”
“You think—” Her voice dropped lower. “—that has anything to do with Kara’s disappearance?”
“You tell me. Does it?”
A long paused followed this. I could hear her breath through the line, the way her breath slowed and became irregular with each passing second as she weighed whether to tell me everything she knew or forever remain mute.
“Mercer. Jonathan Scott Mercer."
“Mercer?”
The line went dead.
I knew that name. Everyone remotely interested in politics did. Mercer had made a name for himself at a very young age as the head of a security firm contractor active in NGO programmes, as well as the spokesperson of several charity foundations as a key political figure and the younger brother of the residing president’s son-in-law. And though it seemed normal for a private security firm to hold charity events and galas, beneath the surface, another truth lay.
Back when I was still working as an active journalist, several of my colleagues at the small press were systematically removed from their positions and forced out after attempting to uncover Mercer’s operations. He was a powerful figure backed up by not only his brother and his affluent clients, but also the president himself. It was in everyone’s interest to keep whatever secrets Mercer hid within their own circle.
I knew the guy was dangerous and somewhat under the radar, what I did not expect was his involvement in human trafficking. His record was too clean, too impeccable; though the police caught several human trafficking rings connected directly to the wealthy, his name was never once given away or even mentioned in the official papers.
From what I could recall from my days in the office, he was more or less a recluse. Only a handful of people knew what he looked like. Back then, rumours had it that he deliberately kept his identity hidden, so that the few undercover journalists that managed to infiltrate the charity events, could not write up articles about him.
Safiye was but one of god knows how many young woman who was trapped in this scheme. She had no reason to lie to me. Moreover, someone in her position and status, would not have heard of Mercer’s highly confidential involvement in the trafficking – not unless she heard or witnessed something herself.
I had to look into it, make sure no stone was left unturned. But where would I even begin? That was when it hit me. Or rather, that was when a name crossed my mind, one that caused a bitter smile to tug on my lips.
Kamran and I went way back. We started out as bandmates back in college, played a few gigs and thought we would make it big, until life happened and we graduated. We tried to keep in touch every now and then, before I cut all ties with everyone, but that did not mean we were not there for one another when we needed it the most.
When he lost his sister during a terrorist attack in Tehran last June, I was the first person he called. I figured he knew I was the only one who could understand what losing someone felt like. After that incident, he quit his job and settled in the country with his wife Ashley and their two twin daughters, working the fields. He swore never to join the intelligence again, that the entire system was broken beyond repair and corrupted to the core. If anyone could help me find dirt on Mercer, it had to be him.
