“You have to stay back, man. That’s the only way you’re helping her. Let the police do their job.”
With something between a sigh and sob, Tyler slumped over and placed his hands on the hood of his car, breathing hard.
“Come on,” Josh suggested. “Let’s all wait in one car. It’s freezing out here.”
All three climbed back into Molly’s car and silently watched as the police entered the motel. Tyler could feel his heartbeat in his temples. Adrenaline stimulated every nerve in his body. God, please protect her.
“Let’s pray. Right now,” said Molly.
The trio joined hands, and Josh began to pray for Katherine’s protection, for God to lead the police straight to her, for the entire operation to go smoothly and without incident.
Tears burned Tyler’s eyes. “Oh, please God!” he wailed. “Please help her!”
Josh and Molly squeezed his hands.
It was up to God now. There was nothing he could do. He had to trust the Lord with his daughter’s life.
He caught sight of his own face in the rearview mirror. His skin was a pale shade of winter—his eyes heavily lidded with lack of sleep and worry.
The three of them sat motionless, barely breathing.
Tyler shivered with cold, fear, and anticipation, while silently watching the doors of the motel.
Molly turned the vehicle on and cranked the heat.
Time ticked by with only the sounds of cars moving up and down Herndon Parkway, distant sirens, the sound of their breathing, and the rustling of their coats.
Flashes of blue moved around the side of the motel—two officers who had been investigating the back entrance and now made their way to the front.
“Look,” Josh said. “Here they come.”
Tyler, Molly, and Josh scrambled out of the car as Abbie marched through the front door of the motel flanked by officers holding onto three handcuffed kids and leading them toward the police cruisers. One of them was unmistakably Katherine.
Tyler gasped, his heart pounding. “There she is.”
What a terrible and wonderful sight. Tyler moved toward his daughter but was stopped by Josh’s arm.
“Wait. We’ll meet them at the station.”
Tyler’s hands shot through his hair, pain and anguish assaulting him. He longed to snatch his Kaki up in his arms, keep her safe from any more harm. “She…she looks cold,” he whispered.
His little Kaki, dressed in skinny jeans, a T-shirt, and a lightweight jacket. Elevated on heels that were too high for her slight frame, Katherine tripped and leaned into the officers escorting her. She looked scared.
Tyler climbed into Josh’s car, and they rode silently up the street to the Herndon Police Station.
“Will they charge her with anything?” Tyler finally asked as they turned into the parking lot.
“Not if I can help it,” Josh said.
They all climbed out of the police cruiser and entered the station.
Tyler spotted Katherine right away, sitting on the bench beside Abbie.
“Katherine!” He rushed to her.
She was still handcuffed. Her facial expression was hard and angry, her mouth a solid, frowning line, and her eyes dark and emotionless. She would not look at any of them.
Tyler squeezed her, holding her head just under his chin as he kissed her head. After a few moments, he pulled back from her and touched her hair, which looked and smelled like it needed washing.
She jerked her head away, refusing to make eye contact.
“I love you, honey,” he said. She stiffened at the words.
Abbie motioned for Tyler to speak with her a few feet away.
Molly moved in and took his place.
“Hey, could you take the cuffs off of her at least? I mean, why is she cuffed?”
Abbie motioned to one of the other officers to remove Katherine’s cuffs. “We had to handcuff all three of the kids. When we arrived at the door of the motel room, the male suspect who was with them pulled a gun on us. The girls tried to run out the sliding glass doors and out back, but we already had officers on that side of the building. They caught the girls pretty quick. Another officer came in through the glass doors and got the boy, too. The driver—we think that’s probably your daughter’s pimp, Damien Rosas-Diego—he got away.”
Tyler groaned. “Who is the other boy?”
“His driver’s license says he’s nineteen. Name’s James Hubbell. He goes by Hubby, apparently. He has a few drug charges on his record from a couple of years ago. Spent a little time in juvie. I’d say once we pick a little more, we’ll find he’s up to his eyeballs in gang activity.”
“What about the other guy—Damien?” Tyler couldn’t stand the idea of that guy getting away. When he thought of what he had done to his daughter…he wanted to kill him.
“Don’t worry. We’ll get him. He’s very engaged in this area with gang activity. He’s got a long list of drug possession and violent assault charges on his record, and maybe now we’ll have cause to go after him for human trafficking.”
Tyler looked at his daughter with watery eyes. Why hadn’t he protected his child? His head was reeling…he didn’t know what to do. Where did one begin with a girl who was probably so damaged, so angry?
“Mr. Jones,” Abbie said, turning to him. “I’m sorry to do this, but we need to question Katherine. Afterwards, we’ll release her to you. You should take her to the hospital right after. Have her checked out. There are no charges against her at this time, but we need to try and get information if we can. There’s still a missing girl.”
“I understand.” Anything to catch that monster.
“But I’ll be honest with you,” Abbie continued. “These girls coming out of traumatic sex-trafficking situations don’t talk, so I don’t have high expectations of her giving us names or much information. And the other thing is, once you get her home. You can’t just settle back into normal…like nothing’s happened. These girls have been programmed. Police are bad, parents are bad, and anyone trying to help them is bad. Yeah, they may be scared of their pimps, but I can’t even tell you how many girls end up back with their traffickers because they think they’re in love…or they’re better off with them.”
“How could they even think…” Tyler broke off. He was over trying to figure all of this out. Now, he just needed to get help for his family.
“She’ll need intensive help and rehabilitation. And she’s high risk for running away again. Especially with her trafficker still out there.” Abbie tucked a card into Tyler’s shaking hand. “Here’s the number of a local group who works with girls coming out of trafficking and prostitution. Call them today. Don’t wait.”
Tyler swallowed hard and nodded. “OK.”
Molly approached slowly from the side and put her hand on Tyler’s arm. “Tyler, Josh, and I will take Celia, and Micah for a few days—as long as you need them to stay with us. You take care of Kaki and Brandon.”
26
Kaki
Tuesday, January 10
Kaki slept for twenty-four hours straight. Lana’s hidden bottle of vodka under the bathroom sink was still there—right next to the container of cleanser. She drank it all down in one go behind a closed bathroom door. She still had a couple of sleeping pills, too. She’d taken those as well. And blissful, all-consuming sleep had taken her from Sunday night into Tuesday morning.
There had been arrests. She had been one of them. Then they’d questioned her for over an hour. They’d asked her about Damien—they knew all about him, it seemed. Then they’d questioned her about Sydney. Her heart hurt with the memory of her friend. They were still looking for her. Still wondering if she was alive. And I know where she is. She couldn’t tell them. Damien had sworn he would kill her. Maybe he still would. But nothing mattered anymore.
Kaki stumbled from her bedroom into the hallway.
Brandon was there, sitting on the floor by her door. He slid his back up the wall and his eyes looked like a
startled animal. “Dad!” he called out. “Dad! She’s awake!”
“Shh,” Kaki’s head hurt. “You don’t have to shout it out to everybody.”
Her dad’s footsteps clumped up the staircase, and he seemed out of breath when he reached the top. He grasped at his chest. “You’re awake. Oh, thank God.”
“It would be better for everyone if I’d just died.” She turned away and closed the bathroom door. She filled a disposable cup with water and gulped it. She met her own eyes in the mirror. Disgusting. Disgusting. Ugly, nasty ho. You are the most hideous thing that ever lived. She swilled a mouthful of water and spit it at her reflection. I hate you.
Opening the cupboard, she looked for anything—aspirin, ibuprofen, anything she could swallow in large quantities. Anything that might kill her. But everything had been removed. With a scream of anguish, she sank onto the toilet, pulling at her hair. She could feel the sweats coming on. Could she text Damien? She couldn’t remember what had happened to him…
Her skin was crawling...and itching. She looked at the inside of her forearm. Blue and black ink. Scabbed over. No. No! No! She turned on the faucet, immersing her hand in the running water, scrubbing the image and the words—MOS.
You’re a Masters of Sin girl now. You belong to us. You belong to me. You’re my slave.
“No!” she shrieked long and hard, her voice echoing in the tile of the customized bathroom.
Someone was knocking on the door.
She had to remove this tattoo. She scrubbed and scratched until the skin burned, stung, and then broke open and bled. Only then did she sink to the floor with a sense of relief, her head dropping to rest on the tops of her knees, her tangled, dirty hair falling over her face. The blood would wash away the pain and the stain. But that wasn’t just any blood. That was something about the blood of Jesus…
“Hey, Kaki.”
She gasped.
“Hey, what’s there to do around here…you know, like, for fun?”
Shaking uncontrollably, Kaki raised her head, peering at the source of the voice through a veil of blonde strands. A girl with a long, black ponytail and cat-eye makeup shimmered before her. The image was blurry, but the voice was unmistakable. “Sydney?”
“What are you doing? Why haven’t you told them where I am? Do you know how cold it is out here in the woods? Do you know how gross it is being buried under a bunch of dirt and leaves and stuff?”
She reached out to touch Sydney’s form. She couldn’t feel anything. The image disappeared. “Sydney!” she screamed.
“Girl, you’d better tell them where I am. I’m gonna come mess you up if you don’t. You’d better…”
Kaki choked. She gasped, clutching at her throat, and crawled toward the door…
“Kaki! Unlock the door! Kaki! Come on, let us in!” The voices of her brother and father eclipsed that of Sydney’s familiar, scolding tone.
She flipped the lock and flung the door open. Then her dad was sitting on the floor with her, holding her in his arms. “It’s OK,” he breathed against her ear. “You’re OK. You’re safe. No one is going to hurt you.”
“I need to tell someone—I need…” she screamed.
“What do you need to tell me? I’m here, baby. I’m listening.”
At first the words wouldn’t come, they were stuck at the back of her throat, constricted behind a sob like Celia’s breath-defying shrieks. When the words came, it was as though they were shot out of a cannon. “I know where Sydney’s body is. I know where she is!”
27
Tyler
Tuesday, January 9
Every day, Tyler prayed Psalm 51. “Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your unfailing love and Your great compassion…blot out my transgressions…and cleanse me from my sin. Against You, You only, have I sinned and done what is evil in Your sight … wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness…Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.”
It was the same prayer King David prayed after the prophet Nathan told him the parable of the man whose pet lamb was ruthlessly sacrificed. When King David reacted in rage to the story, Nathan revealed that the parable was about David himself. He’d committed adultery with Bathsheba and had her husband murdered. David was devastated by his own sin just as Tyler was devastated by his own.
Tyler had not entered this twilight zone of impossibility by accident. This was his own doing. As he stood at the precipice of the woods across the street from Runnymede Secondary School, he was all too aware of the fact that they were there for one reason: his daughter knew where a body was buried, and they were there to find it.
Tyler, Kaki, Josh, Detective Jackson, and several officers advanced through the weeds and into the thick woods that spanned the space between the school and a housing subdivision. The forest was deep, crowded with trees, brambles, and deadwood. As they entered, Tyler heard the sound of the bell releasing the students for the day.
Officer Mendoza unleashed an expletive as he stepped into a particularly icy area and nearly fell over, catching himself with his right arm and rappelling against the mud and ice into an upright position. He wiped his wet hand on his pants, leaving a trail of dirt and bits of twig.
“Whoa—watch out,” Josh warned. “This is kind of like a frozen swamp back here.”
Mendoza, an older, stocky, muscular guy, wore no coat even in these freezing temperatures. His police uniform and the flak jacket over it was his only protection against the cold. He breathed heavily and pointed up ahead. “Is it up here, Katherine?”
Kaki’s face was pale, her lips a strange color. Her equilibrium appeared off, and she seemed weirdly sedated. Almost as though she were drunk. “Yeah,” she said, her hand limply signaling in a pointing gesture. “Yeah, it’s up here.”
Their shoes crunched and sloshed through the slushy, melted areas.
Detective Jackson‘s winter coat was pulled tightly around her, a purple scarf poking out of the top as her breath made frosty phantoms against the waning light behind them. “You don’t believe in coats or something?” she asked Officer Mendoza, a smile spreading over her face as she motioned to his bare arms.
He laughed. “I’ve gotten used to going without one.”
“That’s a good way to get pneumonia, you know.”
“Yeah, that’s what my wife says. But I haven’t been sick in ten years.”
“Well, OK,” Abbie chuckled. “Can’t argue with that.”
The group made their way over the frozen ground. Abbie nearly fell as her foot skimmed an ice-laden trap. Josh caught her arm and held her upright, as rigid branches and leaves slick with crystallized water crunched under their feet. There was a pain to the silence pulsating all around them.
The day was gray with only the sun’s pink and gold rays beaming in the distance, visible through spaces between the tightly-wedged tree branches.
“Look,” Abbie exhaled softly, pointing some thirty feet in front of them toward a coyote, it’s long, lean body slinking past them. It kept its eye on them until it could safely run farther into the woods.
Tyler hadn’t seen a coyote in a while in the densely-populated suburbia.
“Was that a wolf or a coyote?” Abbie asked.
“Coyote,” Josh confirmed. “We see them around here in the winter sometimes looking for food. That’s usually what they do when they see a person, though—they run.”
“And that’s a good thing,” Officer Mendoza said.
“Well, I know you weren’t going to try and pet it,” Abbie joked.
“Uh, no, ma’am. No way, no how. They leave me alone, and I leave them alone.”
Farther into the woods, the shade grew darker, and the temperature dropped.
Tyler began to have a sick feeling in his stomach. How far into these trees would they have to go?
They maneuvered over fallen tree trunks, kicking aside trash ba
gs and cans and drug paraphernalia left behind by truant kids.
Maintenance tried keeping the woods next to the school clear of all of the trash, but the kids still found ways to use the grounds—at night, on the weekends, and on days when there were too many things going on inside the school to man the woods outside. Over the past few years, the county had mandated exterior cameras, security doors, and extra security guards. But at the end of the day, if the kids wanted to do drugs, skip school, or steal something, they’d find a way to do it surreptitiously. They were clever and ingenious in their methods.
“I don’t see anything out here,” Officer Mendoza said. “Are you sure this is where it is?”
“You gettin’ cold, Mendoza?” Abbie asked, pointing at the goosebumps on his arm.
“No,” Mendoza shook his head. “I’m good. I’m tough. The cold don’t bother me.”
“Uh-huh. That’s why you want to give up so easily.”
“I didn’t say I was giving up,” Mendoza said, forging on.
Tyler was beginning to hope they didn’t find anything either. The dread he felt at unearthing a body—one his daughter claimed that she helped to bury—was more than he could process. He had to consciously shut down his emotions. The only way he could get through this was with constant prayer.
A shoe. Just one—a white tiger pattern with a red platform sole resting heel-down in the brambles. Katherine pointed.
They gathered around the pump and stared at it.
Abbie pulled a pair of gloves and a plastic bag out of her pocket. As she snapped the gloves over her hands, the air vibrated with the sound of cars passing on Dranesville Road and the rattle of the bag as Abbie placed the shoe within it.
“It’s up here,” Katherine said, pointing straight ahead.
Wordlessly, they continued, crunching over the branches and the ice, their breaths panting rhythmically, forcing clouds of dew into the air.
Tyler stopped short.
An outstretched hand connected to the frozen, mutilated body of a young woman was just ahead.
He quickly looked away, simultaneously grasping the back of Katherine’s coat and pulling her back. He didn’t want her to see that. That image would be burned into her brain forever. As if it wasn’t already.
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