Suburban Dangers

by Megan Whitson Lee

  “Who’s going to carry this thing?” Tyler called out to no one in particular. “This weighs a ton.”

  “I’ll do it,” Micah volunteered.

  Tyler ruffled his son’s hair. His brave boy who had endured so much yet remained generous and giving. Tyler prayed Micah would be blessed one day for his selflessness. “Thanks. But I was just kidding. I’ll carry it. It’s too heavy for you.”

  “I can do it,” Micah said, as he began to half-carry, half-drag it across the floor toward the front door.

  “All right, kids!” Tyler called upstairs. “Everyone come down and grab something. It’s time to hit the road!”

  His cell phone buzzed against the countertop. Swiping at the phone, he carried it with him into the hallway, ignoring the ring until he’d made sure all the kids were working together to move items out to the car. When he was sure everyone was pitching in, Tyler looked at the incoming number. “Hey, Dad.”

  “Just checking to see how everything was going over there.”

  “Just walking out the door. We’re on the way to King’s Dominion.”

  “Oh,” his father said. “That’s great. I just called to see how things were going. It…it’s been a few days since we’ve talked.”

  Tyler stared out the window as his kids gathered around the car. He recognized the beginnings of dissension. Soon they would be debating about who was sitting up front. “You and Mom OK?”

  “Oh, yes. We’re fine. Your mom is out in the garden this morning. Everyone here is fine.”

  Tyler tapped his fingers on the countertop impatiently. “Yeah, Dad, I really need to go. World War III is going to break out if I don’t get outside.”

  “I understand. I understand. I’m just…very proud of you, Tyler. Your mother and I both are. You’ve really stepped up to the plate.”

  Tyler wasn’t sure he’d heard his father right. Had he just heard Lyman Jones say he was proud of him? No. He was hallucinating. “Thanks, Dad,” he said. A warmth rose inside his chest just as a lump swelled in his throat.

  The horn honked. Tyler glanced out the window. Kaki was reaching through the driver’s side window and pressing down on the steering wheel. There was probably a squabble breaking out between Micah and Celia. He had to get off the phone before something bad happened.

  Lyman sniffed and continued gruffly. “Yeah, well, anyway. You should probably get out there to the kids.”

  “I love you, Dad,” Tyler offered.

  “Yes, yes. Talk to you later, son.”

  He smiled as he clicked off the phone. The love part was a little too much for his dad just yet, but he’d told him he was proud of him. That was a great start.

  ~*~

  Tyler put the gas nozzle back in the pump, pulled his receipt from the slot, and opened the car door to climb in.

  “Dad…that’s him.” Kaki’s voice was shrill, panicked. Her blue eyes were wide and filled with terror.

  “Who?”

  “It’s Damien. He’s right there. That’s him!”

  Tyler swung his head to look.

  It was a black car, and a guy with black hair sat inside. His arm, a sleeve of tattoos, hung out the driver’s side window. A young girl came out of the gas station mart holding a bag. She moved toward the car, her long, dark hair falling over her face as her head bent over a cell phone. She appeared to be walking and texting simultaneously.

  Tyler couldn’t really tell how old she was, but she looked young.

  As she moved to the passenger side of the car, the girl pulled at the edges of the short skirt that barely covered her thighs, as if suddenly embarrassed at how little it concealed. She climbed in beside the man Kaki had identified as Damien.

  “Hey!” Instinctively, Tyler called out, slamming his door and moving around the front toward the black car.

  Instantly, the driver floored the gas and sped out of the gas station, headed for the main road.

  Tyler pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed 9-1-1. He climbed into his van just in time to see the black car run the stop sign and T-bone an on-coming car in the right lane. Both vehicles skidded into the ditch on the opposite side of the road in front of a child care center.

  “Driver rammed another car on Dranesville Road, just in front of Petunia Child Care.” Tyler spoke to the dispatcher on the line.

  Kaki began to take quick, loud, desperate breaths. Hyperventilating. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close to him. “It’s OK, honey. It’ll be OK.”

  Tyler looked at Brandon sitting wide-eyed in the backseat. “Was that him?”

  “Yeah. That was him.”

  Tyler turned back to the accident. Across the road next to the childcare center, a police vehicle was parked. An officer scrambled out and approached the accident, holding his radio to his lips as he moved toward it.

  “Daddy, what’s happening?” Celia asked from the backseat. “What’s wrong with Kaki?”

  “She’s fine, honey.” He held Kaki tighter against him, not taking his eyes from the cars in the ditch. “There was just a car accident across the road.”

  “Where?” Micah asked, peering over the backs of the front seat for a better look. “Whoa. Look at that!”

  Other cars pulled off the road and people climbed out of them—some just to see what had happened, others to see if they could help. The familiar peal of sirens rang out in the distance. As the officer approached the car on its side in the ditch, the door on the driver’s side of the vehicle popped open as if on springs, and a man wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with a wrap-around, elaborate dragon propelled himself out of the car, his arms pumping back and forth as he ran with a distinctive limp. Immediately, the officer broke into chase.

  “Whoa! Look at that! He’s chasing him!” Micah called out.

  Kaki gasped and looked up.

  Tyler grabbed her hand. “It’s OK. They’re gonna get him. Don’t worry.”

  Celia climbed over the front seat, kneeling on the console to see better.

  “Celia, move!” Micah squalled. “I can’t see.”

  “Celia, sit down.” Brandon directed.

  The officer caught up to the injured man within a few seconds and reaching out his hand, grasped the dragon’s tail on the back of his shirt. The officer pushed off of his front leg, leaped forward, and tackled him from behind.

  Tyler, Brandon, Kaki, Micah, and Celia watched, transfixed, as the officer grasped the man’s arms and wrestled them behind his back, managing to hold him down as he cuffed his wrists.

  Two police cars quickly flanked the scene, just as the cop yanked the cuffed man to his feet, his black eyes staring straight ahead with all the humanity of a lizard.

  Officers stuffed him into the patrol car, while another one approached the black car in the ditch as the young girl crawled through the driver’s side—the passenger door inaccessible due to the embankment. As soon as the girl was free, she too broke into a feeble attempt at a run in her five-inch high heels. Three strides in, she toppled over, falling into the same ditch where the car rested.

  “I can’t believe we’re seeing this, Dad,” Brandon breathed.

  Tyler couldn’t believe it either. They were less than a mile from their house.

  The girl fell to her knees. One of the officers caught her upper arm and lifted her to her feet, supporting her weight against his side as she limped toward his police cruiser.

  Tyler looked over at Kaki.

  Her breathing was slowing, but her vacant expression looked eerily similar to the one he’d seen the night he got her back from the clutches of the traffickers. He started the car. “Kids, I’m sorry. But the amusement park will have to wait for another weekend.”

  Celia started to cry.

  Tyler ignored her and left Micah to explain to her that sometimes circumstances altered things—words that could have been spoken from his own mouth. He backed up the car, turned around, and drove back into their neighborhood, squeezing Kaki’s cold hand the whole way.
/>
  ~*~

  Tyler settled the three younger kids in front of the television with bowls of popcorn and a funny family film. Celia loved this movie. She could quote every line. Micah and Brandon tolerated it.

  Kaki hadn’t spoken a word since they’d gotten home.

  Tyler had made her chamomile tea, something Molly had told him would be soothing. “If that was him, Kaki, they’ve got him. Right?”

  “It was him,” she said glumly.

  “So that’s a good thing, right? You saw him being arrested.”

  Kaki’s eyes were empty of emotion. It was as though she had reverted to that girl he picked up from the police station in January. “You don’t know him, Dad. Damien’s been arrested tons of times. He always gets off. He knows too many people—friends who’ll bail him out.”

  Shaking her head, she slid off the kitchen stool and returned to the den to sit with the other kids.

  The doorbell rang.

  Through the beveled glass, he recognized Abbie Jackson.

  As he swung the door opened, he tried to get an early read on her face. Was she here with good news or bad news. Her face was blank. Somber. He braced for the worst. That wasn’t Damien. They couldn’t hold him. The charges didn’t stick.

  Abbie followed Tyler into the kitchen, a safe distance from the kids in the den.

  He didn’t want Kaki or Brandon to hear the verdict just yet. They’d been through enough disappointment.

  “Can I get you anything to drink? I’ve got lemonade in the fridge.”

  “No, thanks.”

  She paused by the island, her eyes dropping to the floor.

  Uh-oh. This didn’t look good.

  A smile spread over her lips as she shot him a look. “We got him.”

  Tyler felt like he’d just come up to the surface after holding his breath too long underwater. “What?” he whispered.

  “We’ve got charges galore—including one count of murder.”

  “Murder!”

  “Yes. A girl in Pennsylvania. We think that’s where he’s been the last couple of months. Until now. He was the focus of an FBI sting operation up there. But he got away that time. There was more than one warrant out for his arrest.”

  Abbie’s gaze shifted to something behind him.

  His daughter was standing in the doorway—her face ghostly pale. “Was it him? Is he going to jail?

  Abbie nodded. “He is. He’s behind bars. Without bail.”

  “So it’s over?”

  Abbie nodded, her face somber. “We’ve won this battle. But there’s a larger war. The trouble is, there are a lot more out there like him.”

  “One at a time, right?” It wasn’t a smile that graced Kaki’s lips—it was more like relief.

  “Right.”

  Kaki’s eyes were haunted but bright with tears. She almost looked happy. Slowly, she turned and joined her brothers and sister in the den.

  Tyler saw Abbie out to her car. “Thanks, again.” he extended his hand.

  “This is a labor of love for me.” Her expression hardened, her mouth stiffened. “I was one of those girls, too.”

  “What?”

  “Nineteen ninety. I was eighteen years old. His name was Carlos.” She stared off into the street. “Took me four years to get away from him. Four years, a broken nose, two black eyes, a knocked-out tooth, and two trips to the hospital for overdoses. I know the Damien Rosas-Diegos of this world all too well.”

  Tyler stood in stunned silence.

  Abbie climbed back in her car and backed out of the driveway. It was hard to believe that such a strong, confident, capable woman had ever been the victim of a trafficker. It gave him hope for his own daughter.

  His energy completely spent, Tyler dragged himself back inside. He needed to think about making dinner. Or maybe he’d just order pizza. He called out to them from the hallway. “Hey kids! Wanna order pizza tonight?”

  A resounding “Yeah!” from the other room made him chuckle. He stood in front of the refrigerator, his eyes scanning over all of the magnets, looking for Joe’s Pizza Place.

  The doorbell rang. Tyler’s shoulders slumped, his eyes closed. “What now?”

  “I’ll get it, Dad,” Kaki called out.

  Still a little wary of who might show up at the door, Tyler attempted to beat her to it. “No, it’s fine. I’ll get it.”

  But she was already opening the door.

  Josh’s left hand held a black and white puppy, it’s paws scrabbling in the air. In the right hand, he held a fawn-colored puppy that licked his fingers.

  Kaki’s face lit up. A smile that he hadn’t seen in years dimpled her cheeks.

  Josh smiled, too. “Hey, Kaki. These little guys just told me they were tired of hanging out at our house and it was time they went to their new home.” He looked up at Tyler and winked. “They’re ready for a new beginning. I think they’re going to fit in well over here. Don’t you?”

  Author’s Note

  A few years ago, the school district where I teach put together a video in conjunction with JustAskVa.org to warn teenagers, parents, and educators about teen sex trafficking. The public service announcement outlined the methods traffickers used, profiled the types of girls they victimized, and discussed where it was happening.

  Traffickers often look like the homecoming king or the captain of the football team; the girls they traffic don’t have a “type”—they could be the girl next door, or the girl down the street living in a wealthy neighborhood; and the trafficking is happening within the schools. Girls are being recruited by other girls who work for the traffickers. A trafficker (a pimp) might be that straight A student from math class or they might be a gang member.

  Although my first novel was about sex trafficking, I focused on international rings or connections between prostitution and pornography. After watching this documentary, I followed up with more research and found many news articles pertaining to teen sexting scandals, high school prostitution rings, and parties sponsored by traffickers for the purpose of sexual exploitation. I couldn’t believe how many news stories I found. It seems sexting is epidemic, and in-school trafficking is on an upward trend.

  Just this year, a former student of mine—the homecoming princess of the junior class—went to a party where she was given miscellaneous, crushed-up drugs to snort. She later mixed that with anti-anxiety medication. She made it home, climbed into bed, and never woke up. This party took place in a wealthy neighborhood, and the parents were home at the time.

  Drug use and sex trafficking go hand-in-hand. As a teacher in the public schools, I have seen and heard far too much to delude myself that these things don’t happen. They happen every weekend, in every state around the nation, in every socio-economic demographic. We live in a time where kids are sacrificed on the altar of busy lives, high-powered jobs, and dissolution of the family unit. Many teenagers have no moral code and think everything they do is up to chance; nothing they do matters.

  Even so, there are some kids who stay above the fray. They have a sense of right and wrong, a need for God in their lives, and an obligation to serve others. I’ve had the privilege of knowing some of those wonderful kids. They remind me that God is on the move amongst today’s youth.

  For more information on teen sex trafficking, sexual exploitation or pornography addictions, check out these resources:

  Just Ask Prevention Project

  http://justaskprevention.com/

  Polaris Project

  http://polarisproject.org/

  National Center on Sexual Exploitation

  http://endsexualexploitation.org

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