Redemption Lost

by Cindy M. Hogan

Soon the houses and businesses spread out and were fewer and farther between. They left the flat lands and entered a rolling landscape of hills and valleys, lakes and streams. Her breath caught at the beauty of it. The longer they drove, the more magnificent the vistas. She longed to get out of the car and explore, but she knew that wouldn’t be happening.

  As they neared the two-hour mark, they came upon more and more little houses and finally came to a stop at a looming building that appeared over a rise. A huge factory-looking building with the name Alivio Unido, United Relief, painted on the stucco façade. It jutted out from a fenced-in area that was so vast, she couldn’t see the end of it.

  The almost silence ended as they parked and Miller began to speak. “It’s time you know everything. We’re here and it’s impossible to hide my sins any longer.”

  Jeremy said nothing.

  Marybeth licked her lips. Finally, everything would be explained. She pulled into the parking lot and parked at the opposite end of the parking area. Her stomach fluttered in anticipation and she turned her head toward Alvarez’s limo as if that would make his confession easier to hear and understand.

  Jeremy said nothing.

  “After we got married, we discovered my wife couldn’t and would never be able to have children. She was heartbroken. We discussed adoption, but it was so time consuming, difficult, and public, my wife wasn’t comfortable with it. She was depressed, and I thought I was losing her. We started searching for other ways to acquire a child, and that’s when Senator Alvarez told me about a back door to adoption that was fast and discreet. He told me he had just adopted a boy through these people and it worked like a charm. My interest was piqued, and I looked into the little operation. It seemed to solve all our problems as long as it stayed a secret.

  “We paid good money for our first son and it went so well, we repeated the process a little over a year later. Senator Alvarez did the same. I knew it wasn’t advised to pay for a child like we were doing, but what other choice did we have? My wife was so happy. You should have seen her. She was suddenly full of life. I had my wife back. My conscience started pricking me—we had no idea how they’d acquired the babies and frankly, we didn’t want to know.

  “Not long after our second child arrived, Alvarez came to me with a business proposition. He wanted to create a business that provided the same service, only not through the black market. We quickly discovered it was impossible to create such a business with existing laws. We reasoned it out and justified creating this business anyway. We set out to match physical descriptors of the parents in the children and everything. We created portfolios, and the prospective parents got a file with them all to choose from.”

  The files Marybeth had seen. They were portfolios of the girls. She swallowed hard.

  “When it came to determining where we would get the babies, Alvarez thought of going to all the alternative high schools and offering the service to the administrators. That worked for a while, but then we started getting all kinds of requests. We needed to expand. I thought of all the prostitutes and druggies on the streets. I thought we could save them. We could detox them and save them from their johns and pay them handsomely for the babies they had through artificial insemination. We could even train them and give them experience they would need to transition back into the world. It wasn’t a hard sell, but the transition period from addict to baby producer was long and hard, and expensive.” He stopped. “Oh, dear. Here I am giving justifications. I need to stop that. It was wrong. It was wrong from the beginning, and I knew it and I did it anyway.”

  Jeremy was silent. Marybeth would give anything to know what he was thinking right now. Her own thoughts were reeling with the implications.

  “While I saw it as a way to help others, I quickly discovered Alvarez’s main motivation was the money. I told him I wanted out, and he said he would never let me out of our contract. That we were in this together. He held my children over my head. He was basically blackmailing me.”

  Now they knew what the two things were that Alvarez was holding over him. His children. Alvarez was a very, very bad man.

  “Luckily, I was in charge of infrastructure and I started a system of houses for the girls to live in and put caring individuals in place to watch over the girls. I wanted to follow through on my promises to the girls by offering them on-site job training. That’s when I started this company here—housed in this building. It’s a factory at the most fundamental level. The women produce products, that are quite popular actually, and they get paid for it. I just wanted them to have some of their own money and things.”

  He shook his head. “We saw a need and tried to fill it. It just got out of control. But let’s just go inside.”

  They got out of their car, and Marybeth hesitated for only a second before following them. She had to go in there with them. Let Jeremy figure out how that was going to work.

  Miller unlocked the factory door and he and Jeremy walked in. Marybeth scurried in silently behind them. Miller didn’t even notice.

  Her eyes adjusted to the dim light, and she looked around. Fifty girls were working, creating handmade dolls, crocheted hats and mittens, as well as fashionable metal mobiles and fun stuff like that.

  Immediately, Jeremy switched off the act as the door shut behind Marybeth. He pushed Miller into a little alcove at the back of the room. Marybeth ran to stand next to him.

  Alvarez’s eyes opened wide, and he screwed up one side of his mouth.

  “We’re with a black ops division that cleans up after and stops people like you and Senator Alvarez. We came here to shut this place down.” The senator took a step back, his face growing pale.

  “You tricked me?”

  “We’re here to do exactly what you were attempting to do. We can help you. We can put an end to this.”

  “What? You have armies here? You have men surrounding this compound?”

  “Not at this moment. We came to uncover exactly what was going on and find our colleague.” The senator opened his mouth like he was going to cry out.

  “Senator, we’re on the same side. But before we can take this place down, we must find our colleague.”

  “I don’t know anything about your colleague.”

  “You wouldn’t. She came here as one of the call girls that Alvarez chose.”

  “Call girls? You mean prostitutes?”

  “The girls from the dating app.”

  The senator brushed his hand over his face. “He started snatching those girls?”

  Both Marybeth and Jeremy nodded.

  “Listen.” Jeremy said as the senator balked. He pressed his gun against the senator’s stomach. “Two things are going to happen here. Number one, we’re going to find my friend who Senator Alvarez kidnapped and had brought here. I’m sure she’s the one causing all the trouble. Number two, we’re going to follow through with your plan to shut this place down. We’ll gather all the girls—as many as we can and bus them to the airport to free them. Understand?”

  Miller nodded.

  “Now, take me to the trouble maker and we’ll put an end to this terrible place.”

  “Wait,” Marybeth said. “Alvarez is on his way. I saw him at the airport as we were taking off—this is the first chance I’ve had…”

  “What?” both Jeremy and Miller said at the same time.

  She nodded.

  “We better get a move on then,” Jeremy said.

  “If Alvarez is on his way, we don’t stand a chance.”

  “We will succeed,” Jeremy said. “Now move. It would have taken him a while to get a plane. We have at least ten minutes.”

  The three of them rushed through the factory, passing rows of girls working on all sorts of crafts. Miller showed the guards at the tunnel entrance his ID and they let them pass into the courtyard.

  “Listen, whoever you are. I haven’t been here in a long time. We may meet with a significant amount of pushback. Alvarez is king here. Not me. If he gets here before we get th
ese girls out, our plan is over.”

  “How much farther?”

  “She’s in that white building across the courtyard. It’s the infirmary.”

  They met no resistance as they ran into the infirmary. Miller led them to a door with a guard standing in front of it. Miller showed him his ID, and the guard stepped aside. Stairs led down.

  At the bottom of the stairs, they followed Miller into a room with strange boxes of varying sizes. On further inspection, they discovered four were covered with black coverings. Christy was not there. Perhaps there was another room.

  “Looks like we’ve got four,” Miller said.

  “Four what?” Jeremy said.

  “Four prisoners. Matron Halls and Senator Alvarez came up with this particularly cruel form of punishment for the girls who caused trouble…”

  Jeremy growled and immediately started ripping a cloth off a box.

  To Marybeth’s horror, she saw a girl squashed in that box, her feet on the bottom of the box, her back and knees pressed up against the sides, her head curled down. It appeared she could almost burst the seams of that box, she was squished in there so tightly. Yellow liquid that had to be urine had collected at the bottom of the box.

  Marybeth squealed with indignation and ran toward the other three boxes and lifted the black coverings, afraid that Christy was in one of them. The second girl was exposed. Not Christy. Then the third. Not Christy. Her hands trembled when she came to the last box and lifted the black cover. It was empty. No Christy. Jeremy was beside her, his hand over his mouth. Jeremy grabbed hold of the empty, but locked box and closed his eyes, exhaling loudly. “Get these girls out!” he shouted. Miller grabbed a large ring from the wall with keys on it and shuffled through until he found one and started to open the boxes.

  “Where is she?” Jeremy’s voice was almost a moan.

  “Escaped?” Marybeth asked.

  “No.” He shook his head. A hopeless, confused gesture. “She would never leave these other three girls here. Never.” Both Marybeth and Jeremy moved on instinct as the senator unlocked the other two boxes and helped the girls out. Jeremy moved as if in a daze toward the stairs with one weak girl in his arms. The senator held another. Marybeth helped the last one, who was in the best shape of them all and could stand. She moved quickly to Jeremy. “She could have already escaped the compound.”

  Jeremy continued to move, taking the first step up the stairs, not acknowledging Marybeth’s words. The senator followed Jeremy up, and then Marybeth assisted her girl up. Once Marybeth and the captive were halfway up the stairs, Jeremy came back down and grabbed the girl, lifting her with no effort at all and racing up to drop her off on an empty bed.

  When Marybeth at last reached the top of the stairs, she heard Miller cry out, “We need a nurse. Now.” A nurse rushed past the basement opening right as Marybeth took a step out.

  “Excuse me,” a large woman with fierce gray eyes said and stepped in front of the Senator, two guards flanking her. “No one gave you permission to remove those girls from punishment.”

  “You know who I am,” the senator said. “I can do as I please.”

  She cocked her head to the side. “I don’t think so. Alvarez called to tell me you were no longer a partner and that you might show up here. I was instructed to hold you for him.” She grinned a terrible grin, and the two guards moved toward him. Jeremy stepped in and in a few swift moves had immobilized the guards, relieving them of their guns and leaving the woman standing there, mouth hanging open. He gave her a sassy smile and then pulled his gun on her.

  “Is there a place we can put this trash?” Jeremy asked Miller.

  “Yes. Her office is probably best.”

  They tied the three of them up in her office and then moved back out to the main section of the infirmary. The senator looked out a big picture window onto the courtyard between the houses. “We need to leave.”

  “No. We rescue my colleague first.”

  “We don’t have time for this.”

  “You said the senator would be here under the minimum amount of time. That leaves us a spare four minutes to find our girl and get her out.”

  “What about all the other girls?” His eyes swept the buildings.

  “We’ll get Christy and go for now. We can send in a crew of men to carefully and calmly get these girls out. All of them.”

  “What’s the girl’s name? Christy?” He marched back into the infirmary and headed to the office where the guards were stashed. The woman scowled at them as they entered. He got onto her computer. She wouldn’t give the password until Jeremy held a gun to her head then she yelled it out in fear.

  “What’s her name?” Miller asked.

  Marybeth and Jeremy looked at each other and then he said, “Do you keep their real names?”

  “No. Not usually.”

  He tapped his finger to his lip like he was thinking of another way.

  “Can you look by the date they arrived?” Jeremy asked.

  “I’ve never done that, but I believe I can.” He typed away.

  “She came in somewhere between last week and this week. He put the date range in the search bar and a list of girls popped up. Marybeth’s stomach clenched as the seconds ticked by. She kept looking out of the office. Miller was right. Alvarez was quick. She knew from working with him for so many years. He was faster than quick and if something needed to be done, he anticipated it and had it done before anyone else noticed. She had no doubt that he would be there quickly.

  The computer popped up a list of thirty girls. “She came in the last shipment.” The senator clicked through each girl’s file, moving through them quickly until Jeremy gave the signal. Finally, they found her. Ryann McClellan. Black hair and green eyes. Jeremy’s shoulders relaxed and he breathed out a gentle breath of relief. “That’s her.”

  “She was placed in House Seven. But—”

  “Where is that?” Jeremy asked, already heading toward Marybeth and the door.

  “That’s impossible. She would have to go through the cleansing, first.”

  “Where is House Seven?” Jeremy asked again. Insistent.

  “The first house on the left. Closest to here.” Jeremy ran out the door. Marybeth wanted to hear what the senator had to say. He clicked on a couple more buttons and when he said no more, she began to retreat.

  The senator called out, “Wait! This says she was taken to the boxes.”

  “But she wasn’t there.”

  “I don’t know.” His eyes fell on the woman. He kicked her. “But Matron Halls knows. Where is this girl, Ryann?”

  Halls shook her head, lips pursed. The senator kicked her again and pulled down her gag. “Where is she?”

  “In the boxes.”

  He kicked her again. “No. She’s not there. We just liberated the three girls that were there. Try again.”

  She shrugged. He kicked her a couple more times until Matron Halls cried out. “I put her there this morning. I did it myself.”

  “She’s not there. Where is she?” She shook her head, and the look on her face told Marybeth she was speaking the truth.

  Marybeth put her hand on the senator as he raised his foot to strike again. “She doesn’t know. She’s telling the truth.” They both ran out of the room into the hall.

  Miller ran to the guard at the top of the stairs. “Who exited this door since the matron left?”

  “No one after Matron Halls left.”

  “Are you sure?” Marybeth asked. “Think.”

  “Matron Halls was the last to leave. I’m sure.”

  Marybeth ran down the stairs. Miller waited at the top. She searched every nook and cranny of the basement room, but something told her Christy had found a way out. There must have been some reason she couldn’t help the other girls. Marybeth knew it must have been agony for her to leave them behind.

  If she didn’t go out through the door at the top of the stairs, that meant there was another way. Three horizontal, narrow wind
ows sat in one wall. She ran over to them and sure enough, one of the latches was broken. There was a smear of mud on the narrow windowsill. She slid one of the prison boxes over to the window. The telltale signs of someone climbing out were there. She turned and ran upstairs, but stopped before taking the last step. Senator Miller was being taken down by four guards. Marybeth hurried back down the stairs and to the window.

  She shoved her go bag out first, having to take a few items out so that it would slip out. She then slid out herself. She grabbed her go bag, picking up the contents and stuffing them back in. She followed the impressions of four footprints. Christy had had help escaping. Marybeth ended up at a door. She had no idea where it led. The two escapees had gone this way, but should she go in too? They had to know where it led before they entered. Did she dare go in? She heard the flap of the window open and knew she had no choice.

  It was locked. She breathed hard and pulled out her lock picks. She prayed out loud, begging God to grant her favor. One hand reached out the window, then another. Why hadn’t she practiced this more? Finally, the click came. She tried the knob and it opened.

  She wished she’d taken the time needed to brush away the footprints. She would be followed. She locked the door for good measure, bottom and top, hoping that would slow them down.

  She was not in the infirmary anymore. It was a coffee and copy room for some type of office. Only one other door led out, and she knew she had to get out that door or she was a sitting duck. She’d always heard, “Just act like you belong and people will believe you do.” She looked in the tiny mirror by the door. Her face was fine. She brushed imaginary wrinkles out of her clothes and walked out to whatever she might find.

  Her adrenaline surged as she stepped out and then it plummeted, crashing when she found herself in a long hall with a couple of bathrooms and openings at either end. She had a 50-50 chance. She thought the one path most likely led to the back of the office and the other somewhere in the middle. Again, she straightened her shoulders and then relaxed, taking a deep breath as she heard someone banging on the back door. She walked into the room and told the first person she saw, “There are some guards at the back door. I wasn’t sure if I should let them in.” The woman looked at her and then quickly stood up. “I’ll take care of it. Those guards think they can cut through here or use our restrooms whenever they want. We locked it for that purpose.”