In Disguise of the Storm
​Chapter One: Poison for Breakfast

 
                  In normal times on an average day, anyone who saw Shane Geller would have seen a middle-aged suburban dad who was probably more at home mowing the lawn on weekends, cooking out with neighbors and attending church on Sundays.
                  Geller was indeed a father, but today he did not resemble the easy-going, thirtyish, C-suite executive he had nearly a year before — back when he and his wife and family had lived a quiet, unassuming existence on the outskirts of Atlanta.
                  On this particular Monday morning in late summer, Geller’s hair was uncharacteristically longer than usual. It had been many months since his last haircut and, along with the lengthy curls reaching well down his neck, it was showing streaks of grey-white for the first time in his life.
                  His blue eyes held a weariness and, with worry lines now etched around them and the unkempt long hair, his haggard look was even more pronounced.
                  Though it was not yet nine o’clock in the morning, the Texas sun of early August was already hot on his skin. Sweat rolled down the small of his back and Geller could feel it beading up along his hairline as he approached a large summer home, one of the nicest on Bolivar Peninsula, that faced out onto the bay. 
                  Unbeknown to Geller, and perhaps to most of the residents there, the peninsula just east of Galveston Island was named for Simón Bolívar, a political leader from South America who had helped lead independence movements for several Latin American nations in the 1800s, and that the island itself was once used by pirates, including Jean Laffite, as part of the pirate stronghold established around Galveston Bay.
                  If he had had the time to read up on the area’s history, Geller would have indeed found it ironic that the peninsula had at one time been part of an overland slave route between Louisiana and South Texas.
                  For on this day, he prayed he was at the end of the search for his seventeen-year-old daughter, Victoria. Geller expected she herself was being held as a modern-day slave — and that the owner of the bayside home he was going to might have the answers he needed to find his only daughter and get her back home again.
                  Earlier that morning, as he drove to the port to board the first ferry  from Galveston to the western end of Bolivar Peninsula, and during the subsequent twenty-minute ride over the water, Geller questioned himself over and over.  Should he contact the local police instead of going it alone?
                  He was rightfully concerned that the police would give him only lip-service when it came to actually helping him find his daughter. And he was equally justified in wondering if he should just take the man’s word if he should say that he had no knowledge of Victoria or her whereabouts.
                  The ‘man’ was Rishi Bhakta, better known by locals who frequented the dance bars he operated in Galveston and Plant City by his nickname, Risky.
                  It had taken Geller nearly six months of visiting every bar, brothel, bus station, truck stop, rest area and cheap motel between Georgia and Texas to finally discover a good lead that took him from Austin to Galveston: a productive meeting with, of all people, a bartender who had an ‘in’ on all the semi-legal and illegal activities apparently going on throughout South Texas — especially in the string of coastal towns.
                  Although he told himself that he had been a good father who looked out for both of his children, Geller still felt crippling guilt that he had not taken a more serious interest in Victoria’s  first boyfriend Erik Anderson after they began dating.
                  At first, Geller just saw it as the typical fresh infatuation with a first love, still looking at his daughter as the cute middle-schooler she had been before she became a teenager; before she entered the  rebellious time he remembered all too well from his own youth.
                  Victoria had already been caught skipping school to be with Erik, which seemed so typical of any high-schooler that Geller had not taken it nearly as seriously as his wife had — especially since Geller remembered sneaking off his own high-school campus many times for various reasons during his own senior year.
                  After she had been grounded for a week, Victoria seemed to calm down and things appeared to return to normal. But as the weeks progressed, his daughter spent less time at home … and more time out with ‘friends’ every night.
                  Again, compared to his own high-school years, her increasing absence didn’t seem out of the ordinary.
                  It all changed one weeknight, well after her eleven o’clock curfew. 
                  Victoria didn’t come home.
                  After calling the homes of all of her girlfriends, and at the prodding of his wife Angela, Geller finally called the police around one a.m. The officer pulling dispatch duty that night said they would keep an eye out for her and her vehicle, but that Geller couldn’t file a missing person report for at least twenty-four hours, implying that she was probably just shacking up with the dude or that she was a runaway.
                  Geller provided a physical description for his daughter: long strawberry-blonde hair, five-feet, ten inches tall, weighing about 135 pounds, wearing faded jeans and a yellow blouse.
                  His wife had stayed up reading, sitting in a chair in the living room while Geller dozed fretfully on the couch throughout the night. Victoria’s car finally pulled into the driveway just before dawn.
                  Shane and Angela had been worried, filled with concern and dread, and both were on the verge of getting truly sick from lack of sleep. Neither was in the mood to listen to their daughter’s excuse for being out all night — even if it was a reasonable one, which it wasn’t.
                  After saying that she had fallen asleep at her girlfriend Hannah’s house — her parents had already confirmed she had not been there — Victoria finally confessed that she had spent the night with Erik.
                  The three argued for nearly an hour, all while the couple’s young son Miles stayed in his bedroom upstairs, away from the fray, until Shane had had enough and began to get ready to go to work.
                  By the time he had made a cup of coffee and was heading out the door with the edict that “we will talk about this at length when I get home tonight,” his daughter had retreated crying to her bedroom and his wife was still in the kitchen in tears. Shane and Angela shared anger and relief that Victoria was safe and back in her room, but neither parent was content to simply let it go.
                  In the office, working at his desk, Geller considered throughout the day of what manner of punishment they should impose on Victoria.
                  He had no inkling that his daughter might not be there when he left his office for home.
                  As he tried to focus on his work in the late afternoon, and as Angela, emotionally and physically exhausted, was napping, Victoria had already planned her escape.
                  With whatever clothes and toiletries she could cram into a single suitcase, she sneaked out of the quiet house and down the driveway to her car — leaving a note on her bed telling her parents that she and Erik were getting married and she never wanted to see either one of them ever again.
                  His wife was still asleep when Geller came in the door early that evening … and so it was he who found the note.
                  It wasn’t until after they had called all of Victoria’s friends over the course of that night and the next day, with no success, after they’d left countless messages on Victoria’s cellphone that went straight to voicemail, and after they’d finally been allowed to file a missing person report with the local cops that the nightmare had truly begun for the Geller family.
                  Though Georgia law required women to be eighteen years old to marry without a parent’s consent, the police did not seem concerned for Victoria’s safety, since she had told her parents her intentions in that note. And besides, she would be able to legally marry Erik in less than a year.
                  So after two weeks of cajoling the lackadaisical police to continue searching for Erik’s vehicle to locate their daughter, and with the local police offering no leads, Geller asked for a leave of absence from his job at the Georgia Department of Transportation. His understanding boss immediately granted the request.
                  Shane Geller, the father, became Shane Geller, the detective.
                  As one of the police detectives had suggested, Geller followed up those initial phone calls to the parents of all Victoria’s friends from middle school and high school. Drawing from his scant sleuthing experience but learning more every hour, the conversations the second time around were more thorough. He wanted to be sure that what he’d been told the first time was the truth; he’d be able to tell if anyone was changing their story about where and with whom Victoria might have gone. They all repeated what they knew, which was pretty much nothing. No one had heard from her yet.
                  By the second month of his investigation, Geller was contacting hospitals and jails throughout Georgia. Then he expanded his search area, getting in touch with similar institutions in Florida, South Carolina and Mississippi, but he was still coming up empty. It was frustrating and heartbreaking.
                  Geller had also reached a dead end with the boyfriend, Erik Anderson — and the more he found out about the young man, the more grave were his concerns for Victoria’s safety. 
                  He learned that Anderson had dropped out of high school, a little fact they hadn’t known when Victoria began dating him. Geller also learned Anderson had been orphaned at a young age, bouncing from one foster home to another until he ran away from the last pair of foster parents when he was seventeen. And he was shocked to find out that the guy was actually twenty-three years old, not nineteen as he had let on when they had first met him.
                  However, it was more disturbing to discover Anderson had done at least three stints in the juvenile penal system when he was younger, for assault and battery and breaking and entering.
                  It was no surprise, by then, to find out Anderson had abruptly quit his job at an auto parts store the day after Victoria ran away.  However, Geller was disturbed to find there was no paper trail for the runaways: no credit card purchases at hotels or gas stations and no trace of his 2001 Toyota Camry anywhere.
                  It was as if they had vanished without a trace.
                  While the officers and detectives he spoke with said the lack of an electronic trail was peculiar, it was not surprising, since the couple obviously did not want to be found.
                  But Shane and Angela Geller knew their daughter. Even after a bad argument like the one they had been through, she would’ve called after a few weeks just to let them know she was all right. 
                  Instead, Victoria’s cellphone had been deactivated on her end — by her or someone else — and with still no communication between her and any of her friends from school, Geller knew his daughter was in serious trouble.
                  And now, it was up to Geller to find her.
                  As law enforcement interest in his daughter’s case waned, Geller studied and learned and followed police procedure, continuing his own search. He uploaded information to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System database, printed fliers and then he, Angela and Miles enlisted as many of their friends and coworkers they could round up to post at least two or three at major intersections all over the vast Atlanta metropolis. They papered gas stations, grocery stores, post offices, banks, drugstores, libraries, college campuses, churches, hospitals and homeless shelters. There are twenty-eight counties considered to be part of the area and Geller had fliers tacked up in every single one.
                  They received a few calls from the herculean effort, but every possible sighting led to a dead end.
                  It was well into the third month that Geller began to reach out to jails, homeless shelters and hospitals outside of Georgia — faxing and emailing the fliers to anyone who would post them and even to some folks he wasn’t sure would even try. But he sent them out all day long, for weeks.
                  In early August, after five months of intense activity, he finally received a call from a minister in Austin, Texas. It was while he had been working at a homeless shelter that the good man had met Victoria briefly a few weeks earlier. This was after his daughter had been picked up for prostitution, then released near a bus station just off Interstate 35, north of Downtown Austin.
                  Geller emailed several photos to the minister to look at, just to be certain it really was Victoria. Then he notified the local police that he had finally gotten a lead on his daughter’s whereabouts. While that police department connected with their counterparts in Austin regarding the missing person investigation, Geller had packed and was at the airport within a few hours, heading for Texas.
                  He took the earliest nonstop flight available and was in Austin around ten-thirty p.m. He rented a car and got a room at the Holiday Inn Express in the downtown area. He actually expected to be able to sleep that night. He did not sleep, however, but showered and dressed just after sunrise and then made his way to the homeless shelter.
                  He met the minister, an African-American in his early thirties who was called ‘Pastor Jacob,’ at the same state-operated homeless shelter where Victoria had been spotted. On the phone, Pastor Jacob confirmed only that he had seen the girl, but when the two men met face to face, the pastor finally shared his suspicions that Geller’s daughter had turned to prostitution and was living on the streets.
                  At first, Geller was incredulous. Then he was bewildered. Then he was angry.
                  The questions spilled out of his mind: How could a seventeen-year-old high-school senior from the suburbs become a prostitute in such short order? The bigger question was, of course, why did she do it? Where the hell was Erik and why didn’t she call home if she was in trouble? Worse, though, was his growing fear that maybe she couldn’t call home.
                  It was only after Pastor Jacob introduced him to two people at the shelter, both of whom had spoken to Victoria, that Geller reluctantly had to accept the pastor’s observation about his daughter. The two young women, in their early twenties, had spoken to her and told Geller they suspected the same thing as Pastor Jacob. One of them mentioned that she thought Victoria was “strung out on drugs or something.”
                  The pastor had only observed Victoria and had not spoken with her, since she’d spent only a half-day at the shelter. She had been picked up by a man driving a white SUV in the late afternoon and she had not returned.
                  Although it had been nearly a month since the shelter staff had encountered Victoria, Geller was relieved to know she was still alive — had been a month ago, anyway. This buoyed a surge of renewed hope for him and Angela and Miles; maybe someday soon he’d be bringing her home. They could set things right again, go back to their normal way of life. He almost believed it himself.
                  Geller had two new clues to keep him going forward: There was a white SUV, and Victoria had mentioned to one of the women that she’d be “heading toward Houston” with a friend.
                  Geller decided to keep the new speculation — it wasn’t a known fact, after all — about Victoria’s apparent fall into prostitution to himself. He did plan to call Angela to share the good news that the sighting in Austin had been confirmed, but he wanted to know more about what had transpired before he gave those details to his wife.
                  He made his way to Houston. After weeks of searching some of the seediest areas of the city, in bars, hotels and on the streets where the local Houston police had suggested he go, knowing streetwalkers and hookers were active there from time to time, Geller happened upon another fresh lead at a jazz club in Pearland, just south of the city. A bartender recognized Victoria’s photo, noting she was much thinner than the two young women she was with. They were strippers who worked at some of the so-called ‘gentlemen’s clubs’ south of the city and along the coast.
                  The search narrowed more quickly then as Geller hit strip clubs scattered throughout South Texas — and a name began to emerge again and again: Risky Bhakta.
                  Geller soon learned from some well-connected locals that, in addition to music venues and bars, this Bhakta character owned several strip clubs in South Texas. Geller’s new contacts, including some local police he talked to, were familiar with Bhakta. They all agreed that Bhakta was strongly suspected of heading up a growing prostitution ring along the Gulf Coast.
                  After going to several false addresses he’d been given — were they smokescreens to give Risky some lead time? — Geller had a strong hunch he would find Bhakta at the place farthest away from the area he was searching in now: a secluded home on Bolivar Peninsula.
                  Geller decided to confront Bhakta, man-to-man, and ask for his help in the quest to find Victoria.
 
* * * * *
 
                  The question of whether to involve law enforcement or not still nagged him as he made his way up a wide concrete stairway that led to the entrance of Bhakta’s house. Geller ignored his inner voice as he knocked on the front door and, after no response, began to ring the doorbell over and over.
                  Finally, Geller heard some movement inside and the door opened slightly: a thick chain lock restricted the gap to only a few inches.
                  “Can I help you?” A man’s voice came from behind the door.
                  “Yes, I’m here to see Mister Bhakta.”
                  “Mister Who?”
                  “Mister Bhakta. I was told he lives here.”
                  “Oh, well, yes, sometimes … this is one of his rental properties.”
                  “I see. Well, is he here today?  It’s very important that I speak to him.”
                  “What is the nature of your business?”
                  “I’m looking for my daughter … I think she may be in his employ and I really need to get in touch with her.”
                  Geller suddenly realized he needed a more compelling fact or request to force the issue.
                  “You see, my wife is gravely ill back home, and I need to let my daughter know … and Mister Bhakta is my last hope.”
                  The man’s face now appeared in the crack of the door. He was a stout, muscular fellow, just under six feet tall, with a ruddy complexion. From his darker skin and jet-black hair, he appeared to be from India. He looked at Geller briefly, then peered beyond him, apparently checking to see who was with him. 
                  “I’m alone,” Geller said. “My rental car is parked down the street.”
                  “What is your name?”
                  “Shane Geller … my daughter is Victoria. I have a picture of her here.”
                  “No need to show me. Give me a moment.”
                  The door closed; about two minutes went by, then Geller heard the chain being unlatched. The same man flung open the door.
                  “Mister Bhakta says he will see you in a few minutes. Please come in.”
                  The man led Geller down a hallway and through a living room, out to a patio facing East Bay. There were several lounge chairs and two wrought-iron tables and chairs shaded by wide, white umbrellas stationed around a placid swimming pool.
                  To the right of the pool was what appeared to be an artificial pond of some sort, about fifteen feet in diameter and probably six feet deep, with a waterfall cascading through rocks and tropical plants and pouring out in an outside aquarium pool filled with several species of fish.
                  The man gestured to a table set up between the two pools.
“Please have a seat,” he said. “Mister Bhakta will see you in a moment. Would you like some coffee while you wait?”
                  “Yes, that would be great. Black, please. Thank you.”
Geller took a seat, feeling somewhat relieved by the gracious treatment so far. 
                  Maybe I’m wrong and this isn’t the man I’m looking for after all, Geller thought. Or maybe he’ll be more helpful since I’ve said there’s a possible death in the family.
                  The man brought the coffee. It was piping hot, so Geller gave it a few minutes to cool. He took a few sips.
                  “My assistant says you need my help,” a voice informed him from the doorway. 
                  Rishi Bhakta did not look like any of the men that Geller had envisioned — he’d expected to see a fat, greasy-looking pimp-like character join him on the patio. Instead, here was a slender, well-built man in his mid-to-late thirties, wearing tan business slacks, a crisp, white, collared shirt and a dark blue blazer. However, in contrast to this business attire, he had long black hair that fell about two inches below his collarbone, and a black, closely cropped beard and mustache. The facial hair, along with deep-set dark brown eyes and high forehead, gave his host a slightly sinister look as he approached the table.
                  “Yes, I do,” Geller said, standing up. “And I do appreciate your time.”
                  The two men shook hands. When Bhakta made no move to sit at the table with him, Geller remained standing.
                  “My name’s Shane Geller … and I’m hoping you can help me find my daughter,” he said, retrieving the photo from his shirt pocket as he spoke, handing it over to Bhakta. “Her name’s Victoria. I’ve talked to several people who think she’s working for you in … in some capacity.”
                  Bhakta laughed.
                  “In some capacity,” Bhakta repeated, laughing again knowingly, barely looking at the picture as he laid it on the table. “I have hundreds of people that I employ, so it would be hard for me to know every one of them. This one I do not recognize.”
                  “You hardly looked at her photo,” Geller said, snatching it up off the table and holding it steady at Bhakta’s eye level. “Please look at it again. As I told your man earlier, my wife is extremely ill and it’s very important I get in touch with my daughter as soon as possible to let her know.”
                  Bhakta stared at Geller, looked at the picture once again, and shook his head slightly.
                  “You know … you know, on second thought, perhaps I have seen her, but I can’t quite be sure,” Bhakta said hesitantly. “Let me look and think for a moment.”
                  As he studied the photo, Bhakta walked away from the table and strolled nonchalantly toward the pond. Geller followed a few steps behind him, sweating slightly as he moved from the shade of the umbrella into the sunshine. He could now see that there was only one species of fish in the pond, but Geller didn’t think it was a Japanese koi or another popular fish. He’d have recognized those. This was a different fish altogether.
                  Bhakta strolled, photo in hand, for only a few seconds, but it seemed to Geller that several minutes had gone by before Bhakta finally spoke.
                  “Mister Geller, I may know of this girl … this Victoria,” he said. “However, if she’s working in the capacity with us that I think she is … well, let’s just say that in my line of work, a young woman with her looks represents a certain value to me over the course of her employ. Do you understand?”
                  “I’m not sure that I do.”
                  “If she is one of our girls, then she is probably a popular one, based on her looks and young age, meaning she could bring in fifty, sixty or perhaps seventy thousand dollars or more to our business each year,” Bhakta said matter-of-factly. “That’s quite a bit of money.”
                  Bhakta let the comment sink in for a moment.
                  “You see, I have worked hard to build up my businesses to the point where I have all the money I need to live the lifestyle I’ve become accustomed to … and I have developed some very expensive tastes over time,” Bhakta said. “This home is one of many I have to choose from, and all are furnished with some of the best furniture and artwork in the world.”
                  Bhakta pointed toward the pond.
                  “This outdoor aquarium, for example,” he continued. “These are pufferfish — better known as blowfish — and I have them shipped in from time to time. They aren’t native to the oceans in this region of the world, so they have to be harvested and transported to me from various tropical seas around the globe. They are a delicacy in Japan and Korea, where they are called fugu. I first experienced their taste several years ago, and I have my chef prepare them as a treat for me, or special guests, on occasion.”
                  Geller looked at Bhakta quizzically.
                  “So, to my point, I’m allowed these and many other experiences because I can afford them,” Bhakta said. “Further, I’m assuming that if I put you in touch with your daughter, your hopes are that she will return home to see her ailing mother, is that correct?”
                  “That would be up to her, but I think she will.”
                  “Exactly. My problem is that with any loss of revenue, or profit I should say, would mean I may have to forgo this delicacy and others, which I am not willing to do. However, if you are able to provide compensation for the loss of profit that comes with this … this transaction … then I will do my very best to help you locate your daughter.”
                  “I see,” Geller said. “So what you consider a ‘fair’ price?”
                  Bhakta looked at the photo again.
                  “It’s difficult to say,” he answered. “But let’s assume she would stay with me for at least five years. Based on that, I think a very fair price would be three hundred thousand dollars.”
                  “What?!”
                  “You heard me.”
                  “You must be joking!”
                  “Not at all. She is one of my working assets,” Bhakta said, with a light chuckle at his play on words.
                  “I’m not a rich man. There’s no way I could afford that.”
                  “Then I’m afraid we are at an impasse, aren’t we?”
                  Geller didn’t notice Bhakta’s assistant as he reappeared at the patio door upon hearing his boss and the visitor raising their voices. 
                  “Regardless of whether she comes with me or not, you must let me see her,” Geller pleaded.
                  “Actually, I don’t have to do anything,” Bhakta said, rubbing his beard thoughtfully. “She chose to work for me. If she wished to talk with you again, she would have contacted you, wouldn’t she have?”
                  “If she was able to, I think she would have … but I think you’re keeping her from doing it somehow!” Geller shouted. 
                  “Mister Geller, trust me, she’s working for me because she wants to, not because she has to.”
                  Geller thought for a moment.
                  “Sir, if you won’t help me, you don’t leave me much choice,” Geller said. “Now that you’ve confirmed you do know Victoria, and she is one of your girls, I’ll be back. We’ll find her. She isn’t your slave.”
                  Bhakta nodded.
                  Before Geller could turn around, Bhakta’s assistant grabbed both of his elbows and slammed him down on the gunite deck. With the assistant’s weight squarely on the visitor’s lower back, he was totally immobile.
                  “Mister Geller, I would really like to help you … truly I would … but my help comes with a price that, unfortunately, you aren’t willing to pay,” Bhakta said. “Also, I don’t suffer threats lightly, so Rudra will hold you here for a moment while I consider my options.”
                  Bhakta stroked his beard again, gazed out at the bay, then looked into the pool of fish.
                  “There’s something I forgot to share with you about these pufferfish that I enjoy on occasion,” Bhakta said. “Did you know that they are also one of the most poisonous creatures on the planet? You see, there’s a very strong neurotoxin that’s in the fish’s skin, muscle tissue and internal organs. I know, because my personal chef is especially licensed so he can avoid these things when preparing them for me and my guests.”
                  Bhakta spoke to the hamstrung guest as if he were talking to a child.
                  “You see, the toxin is more than a thousand times more poisonous than cyanide,” Bhakta continued. “Because of that, fishermen avoid the spikes on the fish, which they extend from their skin when they’re threatened. If a person comes into contact with these spikes, even after the puffer is dead, the toxin is usually fatal. First, there’s the deadening of the tongue and lips, followed by dizziness, vomiting, heart palpitations, difficulty breathing, muscle paralysis and eventually … .” His host’s voice trailed off.
                  “You’re crazy … let me up!” Geller exclaimed, now struggling harder to get free.
                  Bhakta’s assistant leaned forward, keeping Geller firmly pinned against the rough patio deck.
                  “Let me go … I’ll find the money.”
                  “I’m sorry, but the chance for you to take advantage of that opportunity has already passed.”
                  Bhakta walked to a plastic storage unit near the patio entrance and opened the lid, returning with two lengths of nylon cord. As his assistant held Geller down, Bhakta tied the man’s wrists together tightly, then, as Geller kicked, Bhakta grabbed one foot, then the other, and Geller was hogtied on the patio. 
                  “Rudra, take care of this, please.”
                  The assistant, having dispatched similar enemies for his boss in the past, kicked Geller in the stomach twice, hard, forcing him to roll over to protect his abdomen.
                  As Bhakta walked back leisurely into his house, the man called Rudra hoisted Geller by his shoulders and ankles, carrying him up to the edge of the fishpond.
                  “I’ll pay … I’ll pay!” Geller screamed as he was rolled into the cement pond. His body hit the water. He thrashed as well as he could, trying to break free from the nylon cords. The movement only excited the pufferfish in the water with him. Their toxic spikes suddenly hardened, ready with their poison to pierce Geller’s exposed flesh and penetrate through his clothes.
Geller struggled at the bottom of the pond, with one hand grasping at a metal filter cover in a futile attempt to secure something to use in fighting off the fish.
                  He was still gripping the filter, cutting his fingers on the thin, sharp stainless steel in the process, when he lost all feeling in his limbs.
                  On his back at the bottom of the pond, Geller’s eyelids were frozen open and he watched the blue sky beyond the surface of the water as it faded away — oddly, he couldn’t feel the water in his mouth. Then it flowed into his lungs and the air was suddenly gone from his body.