by Sophia Reed
I wanted something between me and the judge that would slow him down if he decided to test drive the merchandise.
I carried a burner phone. Probably nobody would question me with that. Phones in the '20s provide protection. My real phone, with Cole's number embedded (not that it wasn't now memorized) was hidden inside a large bottle of hair gel in multiple baggies, ringer off.
The police did give me a ride, and stood outside my apartment, front and back, despite my being on the second floor. They gave me half an hour.
I spent most of that pulling together a safety plan. Until this had happened, I'd only had outlines. Now I slid sharp blades like those in disposable razors into the hem of my camisole, already set up for that. The hem was elastic, the thing ending at my waist rather than tucking in. The blades were super sharp plastic. Not much chance there wouldn't be metal scanners.
I texted Cole the name of the store, the name on the security goon’s tag, the name of the judge. And I reburied that phone in setting gel for curly hair.
I ran a hand over the back of my neck where the smallest of scabs marked the site of the chip. I slipped on prepared sandals. The heels had a small plastic knife in one and nothing in the other.
At thirty minutes I was as ready as I was going to be.
They cuffed me for the ride to the courthouse, and attached the cuffs to a ring in the door. I must have looked really threatening as they slid me into the cage. I hoped to hell my landlady wasn't seeing this. Maybe I'd never spend another day in that apartment, but I'd liked her. Too late it occurred to me I should have left the gel open so it would dry out and no one would think to keep it with anything they kept if I didn't come back. Then I could have dropped the bottle in the bathroom trash and hopefully no one would ever find the phone with Cole's number.
It that was the only mistake I made, I'd be doing good.
39
Cole
She was already on her way to meet with a judge.
Anticipated. Expected. What we set out to do.
Sitting and worrying was all I could do. I worked with the techs. I tried to work with Flood on the spa idea but my heart wasn't in it and I was glad when he was out of the office, scouting locations for some other project.
I tried to Zoom with clients in Brazil. The meetings went sideways. We rescheduled.
I watched the chip on the screen. And waited.
40
Annie
Same courthouse. Different security at the metal scanner. This time there was a very thorough pat down.
"Hey!"
"Shut up." The woman doing the search was definitely too interested in what I had hidden under my almost not there camisole. But other than lingering a bit, she did nothing obvious.
Of course not. The lobby area or whatever the downstairs of a courthouse is called was too open and too surveilled. It had to look like what the fuck, the judge was in his chambers and had time to arraign and let go some down on her luck girl.
Little Miss Curious Hands did find the metal knife I had in my shorts.
Good girl. Kept her from exploring the hem of my shirt or the heels of my shoes.
Different suite of offices. No receptionist. It was Sunday. Just the judge's big sunny office, door open. The electronic buzzer announced we'd entered, me and two very large men in uniform that I wasn't one hundred percent sure were police after all.
Interesting. I had played mnemonic tricks with myself across town. Made pejorative words for each of them, describing facial features and mannerisms, speech patterns and reducing each to strings of letters that spelled out words.
Twatface for one. It wasn't perfect but I bit the tip of my tongue, running it over my incisors as I repeated the acronym, a physical memory trick to go with the mental. Tall, white, acidic-green-eyes, tremor – that wasn't perfect because it was only the slightest trace of a stutter. It would have to do. His nametag read Franklin. The rest of the acronym meant nothing.
The other guy was harder to place but by the time we were going through security I had something on him that would stick.
The judge's name I'd already texted to Cole. He wouldn't be able to hide. He really was a judge. In the 30 minutes I'd had, I'd checked my records, even though I already knew.
Judge Townsend was one of the judges who saw a lot of pretty larceny – I meant petty larceny – cases.
Right before the girls disappeared. No one had ever put these things together because we're supposed to trust people in positions like his.
"Should we stay, sir?"
The judge tilted his head in a confidence-building uncle-y way. "I think we'll be all right, don't you, Lily?"
"Sure," I said in a drawl.
The officer holding my arm shook it and dropped me into a chair. "Show respect."
Right.
I glanced up as they left. I'd already checked out the door when we came in. Deadbolt arrangement. Opened on a key. Hopefully the judge knew where his keys were because I heard it lock behind the two probably cops.
When I turned back to the judge, I didn't have to pretend to be afraid.
"Do you know why I asked the police to bring you here today?" He had honestly been wearing his robe and now he took it off to reveal jeans and a button down. He came around the desk. I'd been deposited in a more likely chair this time. Probably the old, the fat, the unattractive who actually got an audience with the judge were seated here.
I didn't think it meant anything that I was too.
Judge Townsend swung his leg. His hands were folded one over the other on the thigh of the swinging leg. The other was braced on the floor, keeping him comfortably perched on the desk.
"Yes, sir? I think – I thought. Arraignment?" God knew Lily had been through enough imaginary arraignments to know the term. "Only I thought …" I trailed off.
He filled in the blanks. "No, you're right, we don't usually do arraignments on the weekends. But a pretty little girl like you doesn't belong spending the night in jail if she doesn't have to and besides, it's a small matter."
I gushed. I leaned forward, letting the cami pull tight. "Oh, yes, sir. Your honor, I really didn't mean to. I've got –" I ran a hand through my hair. I wasn't cuffed. Which wasn't great. Probably it meant the judge was armed or the cops, real or not, had never left the outer office. "I needed to do my hair. And nails! I've got an interview day after tomorrow and I haven't had a job in a while. I've been –"
"Inside, I know." He gave me another of those avuncular sympathy looks. "But Lily, didn't you get in trouble for this before? Wasn't that why you were in jail?"
"It was only for a little while!" I said as if that meant anything, then hung my head, as if realizing that was stupid and I was sunk.
Honestly I felt stupid and sunk. I'd worked in narcotics. Drugs. Not sex crimes. I was out of my depth and didn't have a good idea what to expect.
And something had changed. It made no sense, because the last thing Cole St. Martin did was respect my boundaries or body or personal space. But somehow I'd come into a place where I wasn't anxious to sex my way through any of this.
Granted, Judge Townsend was in his fifties and he wasn't in bad shape but he was no Jesse.
He was no Cole St. Martin.
Maybe I'd just gotten picky.
"There's a way we can make this all go away," he said in a kindly voice. He'd been scoping me up and down and now he'd made his decision. He looked down his nose at me. "You know you're going to have a hard time getting a job now you’ve spent some time in jail."
"Yes, sir."
"Wouldn't you like to expunge your record?"
I didn't understand why he was doing this. He had me here and he'd made his decision. Once he sent me into the ring it wasn't going to matter if I was willing to get on my knees to make a petty shoplifting charge go away. The kind of jobs Lily always got stuck with didn't care about her record anyway. They were just grateful she didn't steal from her job.
I gave him a look as uncertain as I
actually felt. "What would I have to do?"
I was expecting sex, a blow job, whatever his going currency was and then he'd call security because he'd sampled the merchandise as either was his prerogative or for all I knew, his job.
He had a thumb under his lower lip, pushing it up in thought, his elbow resting on his other forearm. He looked like somebody's college professor deciding if they can really go for extra credit.
"Do you like to cook, Lily?"
"What?" I blurted it out because that wasn't what I was expecting at all unless it was the world's worst sexual innuendo. "I mean, I don't know. I don't do it much."
He nodded. "There's a women's shelter in town that's chronically short-handed. I think you could deal with it because you've had kind of a rough background, haven't you?" He was actually looking at my – Lily's – file.
I nodded at him, dazed. "I don't understand what that has to do with cooking."
He glanced up at me. "Don't be smart."
I wasn't. I said so. I told him I was confused. I was confused. Because if Judge Townsend was on the up and up, everything had just gotten harder. I'd end up apparently doing community service, which was fine. Maybe I'd find someone to help there. But I'd also have lost the scent and I'd have to either create a new persona and get her in trouble, which would be hard because mug shots already existed of me as Lily, or Lily would just have to be a total idiot and get herself picked up again and somehow get a different judge.
The judge was telling me about Mi Casa where they needed help cooking for the women and started telling me about this great opportunity to give back to the community, make some money, not a lot but I'd be doing good, all women, all safe, all good stuff and the penny dropped.
They had to use different ways to get the girls out of the courthouse. He couldn't have that many girls coming to his office and developing some kind of problem that required them being taken out in an ambulance.
Like Conway was.
We hadn't guessed wrong. This was step one. The fact that I was about to be trafficked was a weird thing to feel relieved about.
"But what about the shoplifting charge?" I asked him, trying to sound as stupid as I'd actually been seconds earlier.
He slid off his desk then and walked over to me. Whether or not Townsend let me out of here unscathed, I was going somewhere bad and if I saw him again, I could figure out what happened next.
Or, shit, what did I know? Maybe he just gave off super creepy vibes while doing good.
"The shoplifting charge can be a minor incident in your life or a major one. You agree to take the job at the shelter and you stay there long enough –"
What's long enough?
Like, forever?
"And the shoplifting charge just –" He made a stupid scurrying motion with his fingers – "Goes away."
"Seriously?" I put some squeak into my voice.
"Of course."
"Oh, thank you! I'd so much like to do that! I didn't know how I could pay off a fine, I just got an apartment and I don't know anybody in town yet!" I was gushing, my hands clasped together in a ridiculous parody of girlish thankfulness.
I was gushing.
He was unzipping.
I froze, both Annie and Lily going still. "Sir?"
He tilted his head back and forth like someone agreeing, yes, yes, I know what we agreed on but things have changed sort of way. "I thought you could show your appreciation. Just so you know, security is on its way to collect you."
"Security?" I was distracted by that news, and by his cock. He might be in his fifties but he was hefty and long and really super hard.
I didn't want him in my mouth.
Only I couldn't not think of all the other girls being forced to do that and worse, those girls who tried to run and died, those girls thrown into brothels so illegal and filthy their life expectancy was months.
"Lily?"
I knelt and took him in my mouth.
41
Annie
Other than the BJ, we seemed to be maintaining the illusion that I was going to be escorted – because sometimes girls took advantage of poor old Judge Townsend, and ran – to a women's shelter where I'd help cook.
Sure, I believed that. I also believed Cole wore little pink lacy panties when no one was looking and that the tooth fairy existed.
Every step of this journey my self preservation barked up into my face and asked me if I was a fucking idiot? Probably. Because I couldn't stop seeing exits from everything going on and not taking them.
This was being a hero. Or a martyr. Or an idiot. I could have turned this over to a multi state taskforce on trafficking.
I was here because I didn't want Cole dragged into it.
That, and I was an idiot.
The van for the "law enforcement" trio that came for me was windowless. Even convicts driven from job to job to jail to job get windows.
There were three of them, to take me somewhere I'd agreed to go.
Keep going? I didn't think there was any such shelter or any such job.
The van kept ploughing through Vegas, taking corners fast and running yellows. I goggled at the streets as we passed until the guard in the back with me said, "All right, Lily. Time to take your clothes off."
I squinted at him. "What?"
He started to slap me but the other guard who wasn't driving caught his hand. "Calm down, dude. She didn't say no. She said what. You can understand why she'd be surprised."
"Do they search the women going into the shelter?" I asked. Because there was a teeny tiny possibility of that. Except it would be done by another woman or a medical professional. And not in a moving vehicle. And not by anyone stupid in uniform and pulling out his camera.
"Lily?" asked the guard in the back. "You need to take your tops off and show us your tits. Then you need to take your skirt off and show us what you've got between your legs."
"I will not!" I cried. "Stop the van!" When they didn't, I turned to the back and pounded on the door there. "Stop the fucking van!"
I heard him before he reached me. Simple expediency. He wrapped an arm around my neck and pulled me to the front of the van where the shotgunner was removing his safety harness and climbing back with us.
I was supposed to have access to my blades! To Cole, maybe! I was supposed to be in a big space where I could move and why hadn't I ever considered this?
I fought and bit and almost got hit but one guard reminded another I was to be delivered unharmed.
Then they simply tore the clothes off me because apparently that wasn't harm. They took their photos. My face, my hair, my upper body. My boobs, my full body front and back, and then, horribly, unbearably, they pulled my legs apart and took photos there.
"Get dressed," said the shotgunner, returning to his seat. He sounded bored as he started sending photos to whoever these were for.
"Not so fast," said my companion. He was tugging on his belt and I felt the bile rise up my throat again, I was going to get raped and after that, who knew what. I thought the pattern would be U.S. exclusive group, U.S. prostitution, and then shipped overseas to somewhere with more violence, more use in countries that weren't as able to police their sex trades.
And then I'd be dead.
I swallowed hard and reminded myself of the chip and the reason I was here. I wasn't some stupid girl trying to sleep her way out of trouble. I was here on purpose.
And I was about to be raped when I knew I could take this guy before he could lay a hand on me. This was taking one for the team. I shuddered, reached for my clothes as if I didn't understand him, and he grabbed my wrist, tight, hauling me to him, his other hand fumbling between my legs before it went back to his belt, as if he couldn't decide what to do first.
The guard in the front pulled his baton and hit him on the arm. "Unharmed means untouched. There's a huge price for first time even if they're not virgins. And he's gonna be the one if anyone does her."
The guard holding me had just gone st
ill. Now he shoved me away from him like I'd been the one making trouble.
"Get dressed," said the one in the shotgun seat.
"Thank you," I said.
"Bitch, I didn't do it for you."
"Thanks anyway, asshole."
At least he had the decency to laugh.
The van continued rocketing through Las Vegas.
42
Cole
"Sir? She was arrested this morning."
I catapulted up off the weight bench. One of the techies had been delegated to come tell me the news.
I had no idea why they were afraid of me. They always chose someone else to come give me news.
This wasn't bad news. Or good news. I couldn't think or eat or work. But it was also what she and I had agreed to and now she was doing it.
"What do you have?"
The tech was a tiny woman who looked like she came from some Nordic country that didn't believe in sunlight. Or a vampire.
She consulted her tablet, then offered it to me. I didn't take it. I gestured for her to go on.
"She was picked up or shoplifting at a grocery store somewhere around noon. Two uniformed officers responded and picked her up."
"Any record of them on the force?"
She frowned. "There's no record of them anywhere, but that makes sense. They were like her cab. They took her to be arraigned."
Alarm bells went off. They were all the bells for all the things that were supposed to happen but they were still loud. "It's Sunday."
"Yes, sir. It was unusual. Apparently the judge released her."
"Where are you finding all this?"
She did look reticent this time. Not like I could duplicate what my people did and fire them but I understood.
"Cell phones. The chip we inserted is a tracker but also a GPS."
I knew that. There was no point in using a chip just to identify her like a lost cat turned in to the Humane Society.