The Lost Girls

by Allison Brennan

  Siobhan gasped. “Angelo? Angelo Zapelli?”

  “I don’t know,” Loretta said, her voice weak.

  Lucy looked at the pills that Loretta had been taking. Oxycodone, prescribed to someone else. She had no idea how many the woman had taken, but she was loopy and fading rapidly. She heard the ambulance in the distance. She texted Nate to bring them in immediately.

  “Who’s Angelo Zapelli?” Lucy asked Siobhan.

  “Marisol’s employer in Monterrey was Antonio Zapelli—his son is Angelo. RCK ran a background on both of them, said the family had no ties to any drug cartels or human trafficking.”

  “We need to talk to both of them.”

  “I have his information. I’ll call him.”

  “Not without me,” Lucy said. “Siobhan, this has always been serious, but it’s gotten much more dangerous. If Loretta is to be believed, Marisol gave birth and left the baby at the church, sought help, and is now looking to get her sister back. She must have an idea of where they are. We have to find her, find these people. They will kill her. They killed Eloise, they’ve been selling babies, we have no idea how many—”

  “Seventy-two,” Loretta whispered.

  Lucy and Siobhan both looked at the woman. “What?” Lucy said.

  “I’ve delivered seventy-two babies in the last two years. You’ll never find them all. Too many women, they’re foolish, believe anything because they want to believe.”

  “Eloise was chained to a bed!” Siobhan said.

  “Only after Marisol ran away. Raoul chained them all. But I haven’t seen them … I came home. Came home to die.” Loretta’s voice trailed off.

  Nate opened the door and escorted the two paramedics inside. Lucy talked to them, showed them the pills that Loretta had been taking, and informed them that the beating happened six to seven days ago, probably on Thursday.

  The day Marisol ran away.

  While Siobhan was making calls trying to locate Angelo Zapelli in Monterrey, Lucy pulled Nate aside. “I want to place her in custody. Anything to keep her safe and to keep her from running, if she survives. She knows more than what she’s said.”

  “I called the assistant sheriff,” Nate said. “Villines.”

  “Good.” She glanced over as the paramedics lifted Loretta onto the gurney. “Seventy-two babies, Nate. She said she delivered seventy-two babies in two years. She wasn’t threatened or imprisoned or exploited, she did it for money. Maybe she didn’t start out being a criminal, but she figured out what was going on and she remained silent and continued to participate in criminal behavior.”

  “Did she admit that they were selling babies?” Noah asked.

  “No, she didn’t. If she survives—and honestly, I don’t know that she will, she’s in bad shape made worse by the fact that she’s been popping pills all week—she needs to confess to everything and face consequences for her actions. Let the powers that be decide what to do with her.”

  Noah asked the paramedics what hospital they were going to, then returned to Lucy. “We don’t have a warrant to search her house. Possibly probable cause, but depends on what judge we get. Still, if something is in plain sight—we need to search and clear the house anyway.”

  Lucy concurred. “If Loretta is telling the truth—and I’m inclined to believe her, considering she was on so many painkillers I don’t think she could have consciously lied—then Marisol went to her old boss for help. Jasmine and her people probably didn’t know what Marisol was going to do, so they shut down the house and moved the girls as soon as they could.”

  “Except Eloise.”

  “She was sick. Maybe she’d already had a seizure. Maybe they planned on going back for her after Macey and her baby were gone. We don’t know, but they might have been short on space if the girls had to be moved quickly.”

  “And then the FBI comes in and starts asking questions.”

  “Loretta didn’t deliver Eloise’s son. She couldn’t have, not in her condition. But whoever did it had some medical training. A nurse, possibly. Maybe a doctor, one in a different field who knows the basics but without specialized training.”

  Siobhan walked over to them. “I just spoke with Antonio Zapelli. He said Angelo left work on Thursday at the regular time, but didn’t come in on Friday. He didn’t leave a note, just told his mother that he had to help a friend and wouldn’t be home for a few days. He’s not answering his cell phone.”

  “But he has one?” Lucy asked.

  “His dad said he did. I’ll call him—”

  “No, not yet. I’m going to check in with Noah. We might be able to trace it.”

  “But what if he’s helping Marisol—maybe he’s with her, he can let me talk to her!”

  “We don’t know, Siobhan, and right now this whole thing seems fishy to me. Just wait a minute, okay?”

  Siobhan didn’t want to wait, but she pocketed her phone.

  Lucy glanced at Nate, and he nodded. Good. He was on the same page as she was. For some reason, she was beginning to doubt her instincts—and her compassion. She’d known almost immediately that Loretta was in bad shape, yet she interrogated her when she could have administered aid. Though, to be honest, there wasn’t much she could have done for the woman other than make sure she didn’t move around until the paramedics arrived.

  Lucy dialed Noah. She wanted to search Loretta’s house now because there could be vital information in finding Marisol and the others. Noah could trace Angelo’s phone, find out when he’d come into the States, maybe even where he was staying.

  This was their first real break at finding Marisol, Ana, and the others … and learning what happened to all those babies.

  Seventy-two. Seventy-two babies taken from their mothers and sold.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Noah answered on the fourth ring. “Yes?”

  He sounded rushed, so Lucy got to the point. “We have information from a nurse who delivered dozens of babies for Jasmine and a man named Raoul. Marisol disappeared after giving birth and hasn’t returned. She contacted a friend in Monterrey—the son of her employer—who disappeared last Friday, according to his father. That would be the day after Marisol left her baby at the church. We have his cell phone number, but I’m skeptical about giving him a heads-up that we’re looking for Marisol.”

  “Why? He may know where she is.”

  “Because she may run from the authorities. She’s scared, Noah. And after what happened to Siobhan on Sunday, I understand why. And honestly … why would he drop everything and come here to help her after more than two years? Without telling his father that he heard from her? Or calling Siobhan, who has made it her mission to find the girls? It’s just … I don’t know, my gut is telling me to tread carefully here. Loretta admitted to helping these people deliver seventy-two babies. Where are they? How many girls were used as breeders? What happened to them after they delivered? Were they killed or sent back into the sex trade? How many of these … these … breeder houses are around here? Marisol may have the answers.” She stopped herself. Her emotions were getting the better of her, and she had to get them under tight control or she would lose it. She felt that churning, deep down, that she was on edge.

  She cleared her throat and continued matter-of-factly. “Loretta Martinez was assaulted last week after Marisol left. She couldn’t have performed the C-section on our Jane Doe in the morgue.” Eloise. “She’s on the way to the hospital. I don’t think she’s going to survive—she has extensive internal injuries and was self-medicating. But I want permission to put a guard on her door and, if she survives, to place her under arrest.”

  “Talk to Villines, do what needs to be done. You’re on the right path. Villines called me a couple of hours ago, said it wasn’t urgent but wanted to talk. He might have information, but I’m sitting here waiting to talk to a judge and get an expanded warrant for that damn property management company. Hooper is on his way from Sacramento, and he’s already been a huge help with this legal bullshit.”r />
  “Do I have probable cause to search Loretta’s house?”

  “Yes, but we do this by the book. Jasmine is a lawyer. If we find anything on her and she thinks we obtained the information under duress or without a warrant, she’ll make our lives hell. I don’t want to blow this because we went the easy route.” He paused. “Did she let you into the house?”

  “Yes.” Sort of. She hadn’t said no when Lucy came in.

  Go away.

  That wasn’t an explicit no. It was a gray area, and Lucy wouldn’t lie on the stand, but Loretta was self-medicating and very sick. “I think Loretta knows exactly where Ana de la Rosa is, or has a good idea. I want to question her as soon as the doctor clears her.” Or before, if Lucy could get away with it.

  “Because she let you into the house, if you see anything in the open, go for it. But don’t tear the place apart. I’ll contact Lopez in the local RA and ask them to work on a warrant. You call Villines, get a guard on Martinez, see what information he has for us. Call Zach and have him run this Angelo Zapelli, as well as the father. He may be able to get a procedural warrant to trace his GPS. Then send me a nuts and bolts report. I gotta go, the AUSA needs me.” He hung up.

  Lucy conveyed the information to Nate and sent an email to Zach about Zapelli. They left Siobhan outside and walked through the house, both of them wearing gloves. They looked carefully, but didn’t open drawers or toss any furniture.

  This was an older woman. If she kept a record, where would she keep it? A journal? An address book? Lucy looked around for a desk. There was a small stationary desk in the dining room. She itched to go through the drawer, but she didn’t. Still, the desk was cluttered, and there were slots at the top of the desk, like an old-fashioned post office. Everything in the slots was in the open. She looked at the mail—bills, some paid, some unpaid, sorted in different slots. An address book—with names and addresses. She flipped through it, but nothing jumped out at her.

  There was a book that appeared to be tax records, but when Lucy opened it, she saw that it was a list of dates with notations.

  August 2 ~ 5:15 p.m. Boy 6 lbs 6 oz 20 in ~ Cristina

  October 4 ~ 3:30 a.m. Girl 5 lbs 14 oz 19 in ~ Joy

  December 24 ~ 2:10 p.m. Boy 7 lbs 12 oz 20 in ~ Marisol

  There were other notations in each entry, as to the health of the baby and the mother. But Lucy couldn’t see anything. She had to get out of here. Clutching the book, she ran outside, into the humid air. But it was better than the house. Better than the death that surrounded it. Better than knowing what had been going on for more than two years.

  Marisol. Elizabeth wasn’t Marisol’s first baby.

  It could have been a different Marisol, except that Siobhan had been looking for the sisters for two years. Loretta had been delivering babies for two years. Twenty-five months, according to this book.

  Nate came out of the house and said, “Hey, you okay?”

  She nodded, unable to speak.

  He was going to push it, so she cleared her throat and showed him the book. “Names, dates, births.”

  He stared. “This is so fucked.” He put the book into an evidence bag, signed and sealed it. Something crossed his face

  “Nate—”

  “I was adopted,” he said suddenly.

  “You know that is completely different.”

  He stared at Loretta’s house, but didn’t appear to be looking at any one thing. “I found my birth mother.”

  “If you don’t want to talk about it—”

  He shook his head. “I love my parents. They were good people. They had my older sister—Jenny. She’s a biologist for a huge pharmaceutical company. Very smart and nerdy.” He smiled. “Anyway, she’s twelve years older than me. They tried for years to have another baby, but my mom had three miscarriages. Jenny had been a difficult pregnancy, I guess. They had been trying to adopt for more than a decade. They went through background checks, medical exams, psych exams—because they were good people. They did it the right way. And by the time they got approved, the counselor said that they may not end up with an infant because they were nearly forty.” He scowled. “They ended up going through a church-run group. All legitimate. My biological mother was sixteen, her boyfriend got her pregnant. She picked my parents out of over one hundred couples who wanted to adopt. She didn’t know their names, just saw their pictures, their facts, and letters that they each wrote about why they wanted to adopt.”

  “They love you and wanted you.”

  “I know that.”

  “What happened when you found her?”

  “I found her, I didn’t get a chance to talk to her. She died of a drug overdose when she was twenty-three in Chicago. She was pregnant at the time. I got the file from the coroner’s office a few years ago. After she had me she ran away from home, got mixed up with lowlifes, started doing hard drugs, and died from it after prostituting herself to feed her drug habit.”

  Lucy had nothing to say. Nate wasn’t a big talker, and she hadn’t realized how difficult this case was for him. She’d only been thinking about herself, the fact that she couldn’t have children, that she’d been raped, not that other people had other stories no less powerful.

  “I didn’t mean to dump that on you.”

  “I’m glad you did—you needed to get it out.”

  “You keep things bottled up, too.”

  “But I have Sean to talk to. And you know, if you ever need to talk to anyone, we’re here.”

  Nate smiled sadly. “I know. Thank you.” He cleared his throat. “There’s a medical bag on her chair—I didn’t go through it, but there may be DNA evidence that tracks to the missing girls. And I found this.”

  Nate showed her a business card. It was high-quality card stock, blank except for a handwritten phone number. “We’ll trace this,” he said. “May not lead anywhere.”

  Neither of them believed that.

  Siobhan rushed up to them. “We are so close to finding Mari! And you’re dragging your feet. What are we still doing here? What’s going on? Shouldn’t we go to the hospital? Call Angelo? Something?”

  Nate said, “We are doing this the right way. Do not call Angelo—we get a warrant to trace his phone and find out where he is, then hopefully we get to Marisol as well.”

  “What? She’s not a criminal,” Siobhan said.

  “We didn’t say she was,” Lucy said. “She’s a victim, but she’s also in danger. And I don’t want either her or Angelo to know that the FBI is looking for her. Not until we bring her into protective custody.” She put her hand on Siobhan’s arm. “Trust me, Siobhan. We know what we’re doing. If she is so scared of the authorities that she wouldn’t go to them to save her sister, that she would abandon her baby at a church, she’s not going to believe we’re here to help her if we talk to her on the phone. We find her, convince her. You can help with that, Siobhan. But you need to do exactly what we say.”

  Reluctantly, she nodded. But she didn’t look happy.

  * * *

  Lucy and Nate met with Assistant Sheriff Adam Villines in his office.

  “Thank you for coming down again, I know it’s a long drive,” Villines said after Lucy introduced him to Nate. “And I appreciate the heads-up about Loretta Martinez. How did you track her down?”

  “Siobhan Walsh, the photojournalist, told us she received an anonymous tip.”

  “Do you believe her?”

  “No,” Lucy said. Nate raised an eyebrow. “I should clarify, I believe she received a credible tip, and I didn’t push her to tell me who it came from. I’m certain it was the reporter Noah and I spoke with earlier this week. They’re friends.” She’d dug around a bit last night when she couldn’t sleep and learned Siobhan and Eric Barrow were the same age and had both been raised in northern Virginia. It stood to reason that they had known each other since high school.

  “Were you able to get a guard on Martinez?” Lucy asked. “Our resident agency is working on minimal staff right now, but N
oah said they can take over tomorrow.”

  “We can cover her for the next twenty-four hours. Are you putting her under arrest?”

  “Most likely, but I’m going to wait to hear her prognosis and see if I can get more information from her. And jurisdictional issues are between you and my boss,” Lucy said. “I don’t care who prosecutes her or which facility she’s housed in. I just need her to talk.”

  “I spoke with the hospital staff. She’s already in surgery. X-rays showed multiple hairline fractures on her ribs and internal bleeding. She was unresponsive by the time she arrived at the hospital. You very well could have saved her life by showing up when you did.”

  “Luck.”

  “Or divine intervention,” he said.

  Lucy believed, but she didn’t have any sympathy for Loretta and didn’t know if she wanted her to survive … except to interrogate her for information. She felt cold, and the fact that she had no remorse for these cold feelings disturbed her.

  She said, “You called Noah with information. He’s been at the courthouse all afternoon and since we were here he asked us to stop by.”

  “You might think this is odd, but if you knew my brother-in-law, you would understand.”

  “You’ve lost us already,” Nate said. “Your brother-in-law?”

  Villines nodded. “Johnny. Johnny Honeycutt. He came to see me yesterday after classes—he teaches math and science at one of the local high schools. A good kid—well, he’s not a kid. He’s twenty-seven, but he’s my wife’s youngest brother and was ten when I got married, so I’ve always thought of him as a kid. He had some hypothetical questions that I don’t think were hypothetical. He wanted to know specifically what the law was regarding asylum for foreign nationals who were brought illegally to this country for the purposes of sex trafficking. Now, he didn’t ask the question flat-out, he talked around it, but that’s what he was looking for. He then saw the photos of Baby Elizabeth on my desk and the photo you brought me of the de la Rosa sisters. He left awfully quick. I called my in-laws last night and my mother-in-law said George and Johnny had gone out and she didn’t know when they would be back. Now, you have to understand my mother-in-law. She is as honest as the day is long. The most Christian of Christian women, but with a spine of steel. I pushed a bit, put on my cop attitude you could say, and she lied to me. Told me that they went to fix the tractor and left their cell phones in the house. I know for a fact that they couldn’t fix the tractor because Johnny told me the parts he needed were back-ordered. For my ma to lie? No—I didn’t want to believe it. But she did.”