This novel takes some time to build up to the heart of the story, but while it has this slow burn there is the witty banter between Jojo and Gator to keep you amused.
When it heats up, it gets dark....really dark.
When reading novels of this variety, you get used to the protagonists always managing to get out of ugly situations at the last minute, perhaps with some bruises, scrapes or an occasional gunshot wound. Not in this book.
Jojo finds herself in a situation which is every woman's nightmare. I don't want to give any spoilers so I will not provide details, but I was truly shocked that the main character endured what she did.
The novel travels a path of fear, abuse and pain, followed by retribution and attempts to heal - mentally and physically. It also delves into a real world situation that is much more rampant that you might think. You will discover just how easy it is to make a woman disappear into the sex slave trade, and to make them not try to escape.
This is not a light-hearted read. It does draw you into Jojo's emotional state, and you can feel her fear and anguish....but also her strength and strong will to survive and come out on top.The question is, will that strength manage to overcome her experiences in the end?
Down & Out Books
April 9, 2018
Description
After helping a frightened girl who flagged down their Kenworth in Austin and delivering her to safety, trucker Jojo Boudreaux and co-driver Gator Natoli believe that’s the end of it. Until they find her again in Oklahoma City, and this time she doesn’t want to be saved.They soon find themselves pulled into dangerous territory. Somali Mafia territory. A place where powerful people manipulate a hundred-billion-dollar industry of prostitution, drugs and international sex trafficking. A place where innocence dies at a cost no one should have to pay.
It’s not long before Jojo is drawn in deeper, fighting for her own life in this violent world of corruption, abuse, and addiction. Armed with her wits and will, the only way to survive is to trust others, accept help from unexpected places, and never, ever give up hope.
_______________________________________________________________
Chapter
1
Someone
once told me, if you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life. As
a long-haul trucker who spends three hundred and fifty days a year exploring
the contiguous states of America, I’d say I was on permanent vacation.
Last
month, I shared this wisdom with my co-driver and boyfriend, Gator Natoli.
He
said, “It’s not the same, you’re still working.”
“But
it doesn’t feel like work,” I said stretching and cracking my back.
“That’s the beauty of it.”
“Wait,”
he said. “Let me get this straight. You have to go where someone tells you to
go, be there when they tell you to be there, wait for as long as they tell you
to wait, submit their paperwork in their designated manner, deal with their
rules and regulations, even telling you how many hours you can work, when and
where to sleep and then, maybe then, you’ll get paid—after the government takes
their share, of course—and that’s a vacation to you?”
Shit.
“Well,
when you put it that way…”
I
flipped my long, brown hair over my shoulder and stared out the window. We’d
stopped Sabrina, our custom Kenworth T-800, at a truck stop diner outside of
Austin, en route to Los Angeles. I’d been craving hash browns, and not for the
reasons some women crave things, I just liked potatoes. The crispier the
better. Add cheese and I might kiss you.
The
waitress had been sweet, one of those bless her heart sorts who talked about
her grandkids so much I figured she was probably raising them, wondered if that
was why she was still working at her age, and with that bum knee. I wanted to
give her a much bigger tip, but Gator said it might insult her.
I
was sitting at the kitchenette thinking about that, one’s pride verses a pair
of orthotic shoes when Gator opened the rear door of the sleeper.
“You
okay?” he asked.
“Yeah,
sure. Why?”
“Looking
a little spacey,” he said, bending down to kiss my cheek, whiskers tickling,
hand cool on the nape of my neck. Before I got the wrong idea, he slid the fuel
receipt across the table, patted me on the back, then headed to the driver’s
seat.
Not
that there wasn’t time for the wrong idea. I leaned forward to catch Gator’s
face in the small mirror we’d installed on the dash. He smiled back at me and
winked. Yep, there was always time for the wrong idea.
I
blew my man a kiss, then waved him off and scooted down the bench seat to my
portable office, where I scanned the receipt and added it to our books. As the
truck began rolling, I opened the laptop to check out the day’s news from
trucker pals and less reliable sources.
I’d
barely updated my Facebook status when the truck pulled hard to the right, then
lurched to an abrupt stop, knocking my bottle of water off the table and
sending it rolling across the floor.
“Hey!”
I yelled over the hissing brakes.
“Sorry.
Some girl ran in front of the truck.”
I
closed the laptop and went up front where Gator was telling a girl to get out
of the way. We were hardly out of the truck stop lot, half on the shoulder, the
road empty in both directions.
The
girl waved her arms. “Wait! Please.”
Gator’s
grip tightened on the wheel as she ran to the driver’s side.
“I
need your help,” she called. “Please?”
Even
if I hadn’t been able to hear her, the look on her face was enough. I tapped
Gator’s arm. “Pull over.”
Gator
maneuvered us off the road, set the brakes and gave me his best I hope you
know what you’re doing look.
I
motioned for the girl to come around to the back door of the sleeper, then
rushed to unlock it. She barreled in, headed straight for the window over the
sink and pulled aside the small curtain.
I
could smell fear on her and something else. It reminded me of my grandmother’s
cellar on rainy days.
She
was pretty with dark shiny hair and almond eyes. Her face was heart-shaped,
with perfectly proportioned childlike features, the kind of face a camera would
love. Sporting a modern canvas messenger bag over her navy miniskirt and white
top, she might have stepped off the pages of a teen magazine’s “Back to School”
ad. The only thing that threw me was the cork platform wedgie sandals and
purple-painted toenails.
“It’s
my boyfriend,” she said. “My ex-boyfriend. He….”
She
looked at me, then at Gator in the driver’s seat, then back again.
“It’s
okay,” I said. “He’s okay.”
The
girl nodded, like we had an unwritten agreement, something only people with
estrogen understood.
“What
happened?” I asked, looking at her closer. “Did he hit you?” I was ready to
beat the shit out of a guy I’d never seen, ready to right centuries of wrongs.
She
shook her head and turned from the window, apparently satisfied that the
boyfriend hadn’t followed her. Her shoulders dropped an inch. “No. It’s not
that, it’s…well, he wanted me to do something I didn’t want to do.”
I
looked over the girl’s shoulder at Gator and mouthed, See?
“How
can we help?” I asked. “Do you need to call someone or should we report—”
She
grabbed my arm. “No. I mean, no thanks.” She met my eyes and drilled into me. I
squirmed. She ran her fingers down my sleeve and leaned in, my conspirator.
“Could you, maybe, have him drive me somewhere? It’s not far. I’d be…really
grateful.”
Oh.
She
was good.
My
eyes never left hers as I called, “Gator? Start driving.”
“Where
to?” he asked.
The
girl mouthed Thank you, then called out to Gator, “Just go straight
until you hit Primrose.”
Gator
reached back and drew the curtain between the cab and our living quarters,
before he pulled the truck back onto the road.
“Have
a seat,” I said, moving to the kitchenette, as the truck picked up speed.
She
slid in, put her bag on the bench beside her, tucking it in close.
“Skipping
school?” I said, tipping my chin toward her bag.
She
shrugged, pulling a lock of hair over her shoulder and twirling it.
“What’s
your name?” I asked.
“Candy,”
she said, in the way you give the answer you’ve been supplied.
I’d
seen enough shit in Bunkie and other small towns of Louisiana to know when
someone was living deep in a lie. Question was, did this involve me? And, did I
want it to? I looked toward the drawn curtain, thought about Gator, the
handsome, gentle man I’d fallen in love with, and then was quickly reminded of
Boone, the first man I’d driven with. The man I’d thought I’d be with forever.
So, no. That was the short, clean answer. This was not my deal. We’d drop the
girl off and that was that.
Candy
stared at our flat screen TV, the decked-out kitchen, the polished wood floors.
“This is nice,” she said. “Real nice. You fix it up yourself?”
“Not
really,” I said. “It pretty much came like this.”
“Wow.
Most trucks don’t even have—I mean, I thought most trucks just had
cubbies and a small bunk.”
I
smiled. “You’d be surprised what you can buy these days.”
She
looked away. ‘“Yeah, I guess.”
Before
I could ask her about the boyfriend or school or why she seemed so fucking
sad—I mean seriously, she was young and beautiful with her whole life ahead of
her—Gator pulled the drape and said, “Coming up on Primrose.”
Candy
stood, slinging her bag across her chest. “Take a right and you can stop
anywhere after the green space.” She bent to see out the windshield, confirming
the location, then went to the back door where I’d let her in.
Gator
hit the brakes and we glided to a shushing stop. I expected this was the first
time a semi like ours had traveled these suburban streets.
Candy
grabbed the doorknob. “Tell him he should be able to make the turn in half a
block, it’s wide enough and pretty slow this time of day. Two miles and you’ll
see signs to get back on the highway.”
“Okay,”
I said, wondering why I suddenly felt like the student.
“Hey,”
she called, stepping out onto the platform. “Thanks.”
And
she was gone, jogging off to a gated neighborhood, The Estates of Something or
Other. Her ponytail swinging shoulder to shoulder as her messenger bag—a bit
too light for a serious schoolgirl—smacked her thigh.
“We
good?” Gator asked, as I came up front, tucked the curtains back, letting in
the light.
“Yeah,”
I said, pausing to kiss his cheek. “We’re good.”
I went
back to my laptop and tried to not think about Candy and her little life glitch
that we’d been a part of. Because maybe that was all it was—a fight with a
boyfriend, a moment that would be forgotten soon enough—written off as a bump
in the road for a good student from a decent enough family, with a dad that
played golf on the weekends and a mother who took banana bread to sick people.
Just a glitch.
My
father, Manny Boudreaux, taught me that people come into your life and you can
choose to make it matter—for them or for you—but never both at the same time.
In other words, somebody’s gonna be on the giving side and somebody’s gonna be
on the taking side. I don’t know a soul in this world who would disagree with
that statement, and if they do, they’re either big fucking liars or rich-ass
preachers. Which may be the same thing.
I
replied to a few emails, checked the weather for our route, then read for a
while, catching up on other truck drivers via blog posts and comments on the
trucking forums. Every so often I’d read something funny and repeat it for
Gator. He was beginning to understand who was who—the rookie who used to be a
rodeo cowboy, the lesbian couple with the truck cat, and the old timer who
collected donations at every truck show so he could get dental implants—though
I think his wife might be behind that movement.
The
world of trucking is more than shifting gears and delivering loads. It’s about
the people, the community. We’re the subculture that keeps the world going.
Without truckers on the road, life would cease to exist as you know it in less
than three weeks.
That’s
some serious fucking power right there. You’d think we’d get paid better or at
least get thanked daily by a total stranger. Yeah, not so much.
I
logged off and went up front.
“How
are you doing?” I asked, buckling into the passenger seat.
Gator
lowered the radio. He’d recently begun listening to strange public radio
stations that featured true stories and quirky scientific finds and other nerdy
stuff. It was better than the country stations he used to tune in, so I wasn’t
complaining—not out loud anyway.
“I’m
good.”
“Good.”
We
sat in awkward silence, neither one of us ready to break it. I closed my eyes
and listened to the whirr of tires on pavement, the slight high-pitched whine
from the engine, the solid rumble underneath like a tiger’s chuff. The custom
seats supported my back and legs. There was no bounce or shudder like in
regular truck seats. Instead it felt like two large hands were holding me,
patting me, like a momma saying, there, there, child. And for a
few seconds, I let myself be happy.
“What?”
Gator said.
I
opened my eyes and looked at him. “I didn’t say anything.”
“I
know, but you looked…I don’t know.” He shook his head, glanced in the side
mirror and changed lanes, preparing to exit and take us west.
I
closed my eyes again, but the feeling was gone. And worse than that, I sensed
Gator staring at me.
He
cleared his throat, then said, “Would you have done what she did?”
I
figured he was talking about Candy, but it wasn’t up to me to make conversation
easy on him.
“Who?”
I asked.
“That
girl,” he said. “Would you have climbed inside a total stranger’s truck and
asked them to help you?”
“Given
the same circumstances?” I asked.
“Yes.”
I
shrugged. “Probably not. But then again, I know jujitsu, and I carry a
knife.” I flicked my right wrist and produced a blade, scalpel thin, spun it
twice, then stowed it away without a trace.
“Impressive,”
Gator said, grinning. “Would it be crude of me to say that was a chub-worthy
move?”
“Crude,
perhaps,” I said, smiling and glancing at his crotch. “But I’ll take the
compliment.”
I
waited until we’d merged with traffic and settled into the slow lane, cruise
control on, before I spoke again. “I did think it was weird that she and the
boyfriend were even at the truck stop. I mean, there were other gas stations
along that road and most of the food places were across the street. You know?”
Gator
nodded. “I know.”
“So
either the boyfriend is a driver—”
“Or,
he works at the truck stop,” Gator added. “Don’t forget that.”
I
ran my thumbnail over my bottom lip.
“Uh
oh, look out. She’s thinking,” Gator said.
“Shut
up.”
We
could have gone on like that for hours. But my phone rang—an obscenely loud
Zydeco version of Don’t Mess with my Toot Toot. I let it play long
enough that we got to sing the refrain. It made Gator laugh every time.
“Hey,
Père.”
Gator
whispered, Toot Toot, as my father answered on his end of the phone,
“Hey, Shâ.”
I’d
missed his voice, the honey and whiskey purr, the way he could curl up a word
on his tongue and unleash it like a chameleon after a fly.
There
was a song in the mouth of every Cajun, and none knew how to sing it as well as
Manny Boudreaux. I’d put him through a lot in the last year and a half. I owed
him my life. Without his support I might never have recuperated from the
crash—physically or mentally—even though I was a tough ass Boudreaux through
and through.
I
clicked on the speaker and set my phone in the cup holder, figuring this way I
wouldn’t have to try to regurgitate the conversation to Gator later on.
I
said, “How’s everything in Bunkie? Pilar treating you right?”
“You
know she is. I got me a fine woman.”
“That
you do,” Gator said.
I
rolled my eyes and shook my head, surprised that my man still fell into that
weird accent whenever he talked to my father.
What?
he
mouthed.
Toot
Toot, I
mouthed back.
Père
told us he was concerned about heating all the rooms in the plantation house,
now that winter had settled in and they had begun hosting hunters on overnights.
“Overnights?
And that’s a good idea, why?” I asked.
“Men
under the same roof are easier to gather up in the morning and get in the
field. Men at night under the same roof are bound to buy more product,
seeing their counterparts buying the same product.”
“Product?”
Gator asked.
Père
chuckled. “Pilar and me set up a small shop in the den. Simply some necessary
items a hunter might have left at home.”
“Uh
huh,” I said. “This product would not be bottles of Grand Père’s
Rumdelicious, now would it?”
There
was a pause on the other end. Père coughed. “I gotta go, Shâ, Pilar be calling
me.”
Uh
huh.
“All right. Listen you go down to see Ivory Joe in town. He’ll know where you
can get some safe electric space heaters that look like fireplaces. If he has
any questions, tell him to call me. Hell, tell him to call me anyway. Been a
coon’s age since I heard from him.”
He
said he’d do that and we should have a nice day, then added a bit of Cajun
lingo just to fuck with Gator.
I
clicked off the call and hit the touchscreen to check emails.
Gator
said, “Okay, so I know podna is for partner, but what did he mean by tahyo?
And what was that other thing he said, a boog?”
I
laughed. “He told me to take care of you, because you’re more like a little
boy—a little bug—than a big, hungry dog.”
Gator
stared at me long enough that the truck drifted over the lane line. “He did
not,” he said, pulling on the wheel, getting us back on track.
“Okay.
He didn’t,” I said, going back to my phone and the word game I was playing with
a faceless man in Missouri. I counted to five.
Gator
said, “I’ll show you a hungry dog. You just wait till we park this thing. I’m
telling you.”
“Uh-huh,”
I said. It was almost like we were married.