by Alan Lee
Hyrum shrugged. “I been there. Most of us have. We keep stuff there.”
“You keep girls there, amigo?”
“Girls, yeah. Sometimes. And stuff.”
“Based on this paper…one sec…” said Beck. “Okay. There’s one house just north of Maryland. Two in Virginia. One in North Carolina. And two in South Carolina, not far from Georgia. All near the coast.”
“Some, there will be people. Some might be empty. Do not mention me,” said the man. “But Hyrum’s not my real name.”
Beck was looking at the map on her phone. “There’s too much ground to cover. We need to call in help.”
“No.” Manny stood. “Police will screw it up. They play by rules and don’t care about Ronnie. We do this.”
“It will take too long!” said Beck.
He grabbed her arm and hauled her up. “Not if I drive.”
Rocky smiled sadly at Beck. “Our date was too short. But I understand.”
Manny jabbed a finger at Rocky and Hyrum. Both flinched. “You two? Better pray I find her. If not, I’ll be one angry Latino.”
Friday Afternoon
Ronnie
Hugo brought Ronnie a late lunch. A chicken biscuit from McDonald's. She was sick of that place.
She was sick of everything. Sick of being exhausted. Sick of the infestation noises that kept her up at night. Of the fear. She hated the cold ward and the isolation. Exhausted with that damn television down the hall.
Hugo didn’t leave. He stood in the door. He was squeezing his fists, nervous.
In Spanish he whispered, “You will help us?”
She smiled flatly. “I cannot help you. I am trapped.”
“If you are free?”
“I answered that, Hugo. Yes. I will help you all.”
“How?” he said.
“I will get you visas.”
“No. How? How is it done?”
She paused.
The truth was complicated. Because the laws were complicated. In order to help the woman, she’d need to get them before a judge for some other reason, not related to a visa. They were minors, so that meant adoption or custody or truancy contexts, most likely. Once they were in process, she could add in SIJS findings and the ball would be rolling. Special Immigrant Juvenile Status was the key.
Getting them in front of a judge was the tricky part, and she’d need to carefully orchestrate it.
Helping Hugo was even more convoluted. Essentially he’d need to get himself arrested for something minor; his situation required jail time before she could help.
Or did it? She pursed her lips thoughtfully. New presidential administrations often brought sweeping changes.
She was too drained to think clearly.
Either way, how could she explain the truth to Hugo?
She couldn’t. Not here, not now. The truth was frightening, and he looked ready to crack.
“How is it done?” he repeated.
“A judge will help us.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s the law.”
“A judge decides? What if he says no?”
“He or she won’t say no,” said Ronnie.
“What about the baby?”
“The babies will be American. I think they will all stay here.”
“But what if—”
Behind him, Mario and the other man appeared. The cruel man with bulging eyes. They had approached as Ronnie and Hugo talked.
The cruel man hit Hugo with a crowbar he carried in his right hand. The connection reminded her of the sound a softball makes being hit with a metal bat. His knees gave and he slumped forward. The angry man hit him again as he fell, a glancing blow to the forehead. The skin above his eyebrow split open.
The man pointed the crowbar at Ronnie.
“Eres la siguiente, puta.”
You’re next, slut.
Ronnie gasped and backed away on the mattress.
Mario stood like an unmoving mountain in the doorway.
In Spanish, “What did he say to you?”
Ronnie shook her head. “Nothing. We were—”
The angry man clanged the crowbar on the bed frame and the metal rang. “No mientas!”
Don’t lie!
Down the hall, a woman started crying.
In English, Ronnie said, “It was nothing! He asked why some people stay in America and some are sent home.” Half angry, half pleading.
Blood poured freely into Hugo’s eye and pooled on wooden floor. He wasn’t moving.
“I heard him. He spoke about a judge,” said Mario quietly.
Ronnie nodded. She couldn’t tell them everything. Just enough. Fear was an ice storm in her chest. In Spanish, “I told Hugo judges make decisions. He asked why do judges decide. Then you hit him."
The angry man said, “Extiende tu piernas.”
Stick out your legs.
“Why?”
“Extiende tu pierna o te la romperé!”
Stick out your leg or I’ll break it!
“No,” she said. Her fists clenched. She had no weapon, no way to fight. Terrified but calm.
Mario came into the room. Walked around the bed, floorboards creaking. He stepped over Hugo.
“Mario, don’t,” she said.
The giant took her ankles and pinned them to the mattress. He held her as effectively as concrete would. She hit him twice with her fist, but it was like beating on a boulder. Useless.
The angry man produced two sets of cuffs. Snapped her ankle to the frame. Then the other ankle. Her ankles were attached to different posts, forcing her legs apart. Not uncomfortable, but not ideal. Vulnerable.
The angry man laughed at her. “Te gusta este puesto?”
Mario told him, “Ve por más. Hugo."
The smaller man left and clumped down the stairs.
Mario produced a phone. He ran a big thumb over the screen a few times and held it up. He’d dialed someone.
The someone answered. The voice of Darren Robbins.
He said, “Darren here, go ahead.”
“She is tied up,” said Mario in halting English. They were talking over the phone, no video cameras.
“Ron, babe! Aren’t you sick of that place yet?” Darren’s voice buzzed brightly through the speakerphone. He laughed.
Ronnie trembled. In fury and fear, humiliation and pride. She bit her lip and closed her eyes.
“Tell you what,” he said. “How about you come with? We always had a ball, me and you. I’m flying to the far side of the world, Ron. Paradise from here to eternity. Could use the company.”
Eyes still closed. Hot tears on her cheeks.
She shook her head. No. No no no.
Mario said, “She says no.”
“Can she talk?”
“Yes. But she does not.”
“Ron. Listen, champ. Are you tied up? I think you are. You should be. You want to die in that position? Your rookie cop August is out of time. Or maybe he doesn’t care?” Darren laughed again.
Ronnie breathed deeply through her open mouth to suppress a sob.
She could do this. She could do this. She would do this. She would survive.
Darren called, “Ron? You hear me?”
“She hears you,” said Mario.
“You’re going to die, babe. Strapped to that bed. Unless I come get you. Mario’s going to kill you after he’s had his fun, if you can't give me reason to call him off. Don’t throw your life away, kid.”
Ronnie kept shaking her head. Eyes still closed.
No no no.
“Ron? It’ll be lonely without you. Get out of that house. Come with me, yeah? Ron?”
She stayed silent. Her chest was pumping despite her best efforts. Too much fear, too much cortisol and thyroid hormones dumping into her veins. She believed him. She believed Darren would take her to the island. He wanted the company and the sex. This was no empty offer. But it was also only a stall. He’d tire of her. There was no happily ever after, no paradi
se until eternity. He’d toy with her for a while, that was it.
If she accepted, she’d buy time.
But.
But Mackenzie had promised. Just that morning, over a video conference.
I promise, he said. I’m getting you out.
She believed in Mackenzie. She trusted in him.
But even more than that, she believed in herself. She had to. She could do this. She could do this. Mackenzie might be making promises he couldn’t keep, for her sanity and for his, and she couldn’t fault him for it. But maybe, in this instance, she had to rely on herself more than on others.
She shook her head a final time.
“I’m not leaving,” she said. Quiet.
“Ron? What’d you say, babe?”
“She say she’s not leaving,” Mario repeated.
“Ron! Veronica! The hell is the matter with you? This is life or death.”
Her breaths lengthened. Her pulse was lowering. Getting control.
“Fine. Fine, babe! Your choice. That’s the good thing about prostitutes. There’s always more. You’re dismissed.”
The call ended. She felt the disconnection in her bones. For a brief terrible instant, she wondered if she’d made a mistake.
The cruel man came back. Using cords and duct tape, he and Mario tied Hugo’s hands behind his back. Then they bound his feet, and attached them to his hands, bending him backward. Hugo groaned, half awake. His face dripped scarlet.
The angry man picked up Ronnie’s lunch, the uneaten chicken biscuit. He tossed it across the room, outside her reach, and he laughed at her.
Friday Evening
Manny
The route from Prince William County, Virginia to Ocean City, New Jersey was circuitous. Manny was forced to drive north through Washington and Baltimore, up to Wilmington and then south, and he cursed all two hundred miles.
En route, he and Beck updated Mackenzie—they had six potential houses near the coast to search, and the informant felt it likely Ronnie would be in one. Mario had recently dropped off the MS-13 grid, so the informant couldn’t be sure.
Mackenzie told them the house contained multiple girls and multiple captors. From what he’d seen, the house was secluded and surrounded by pine trees. Most likely near a small airport.
The closest house was north of DC and it was a trailer. Using Google Maps, Beck examined the location, just outside Ocean City in Marmora. The ‘house’ checked a lot of Mackenzie’s boxes—near Ocean City Municipal Airport, nearby trees, near the coast—but perhaps not secluded enough; it sat in a trailer park.
Only one way to be sure, though.
Manny made the trip in two hours. Three police cruisers tried and failed to pull him over, his license plate warding them off.
The eastern horizon was already empurpled when Manny parked at a carwash near the trailer park. They approached through a strand of pine trees, Beck guiding them with her phone. The trailer they wanted was on Dimstead Road, halfway down. They stopped in an evergreen copse and Beck pointed across the street at a trailer rusting through at the edges.
“That one.”
“Good place to keep girls. Close enough to run them into Ocean City,” Manny said.
“Our world disgusts me.”
“Not the world, Beck. It’s the people."
Marmora was cold and the trailer park sounded dead. No dogs barked, no children played.
The trailer they watched had no car out front and the lights were off. They watched for five minutes—nothing of interest.
Manny held the Glock in his right fist despite the protesting shoulder. His .357 revolver rested ready on his hip.
“I go first, through the front door. You circle behind. Anyone flees, let them. If they have Ronnie, shout. Comprende?”
She nodded, shivering. From the cold and from adrenaline.
Manny quick-walked across the street, pistol held low beside his thigh. Beck followed and darted to the side of the trailer when he pointed.
Nothing moved anywhere. Not even the clouds.
Manny took two steps across the brown grass, like leaps, and kicked the front door with a straight leg. The cheap locking mechanism broke and the door banged inwards.
Three young men were lounging on a couch. Staring vacantly at their phones. Or they were until Manny burst though and aimed his pistol. The oldest couldn’t be more than seventeen. They raised their hands and ducked their heads and shouted.
Manny said, “No te muevas. No estoy aquí para ustedes, amigos. No tardaré mucho.”
Don’t move. I’m not here for you, my friends, and I won’t stay long.
The trailer was small. Manny could see most of it—the old couches, the disused kitchen, the collapsed ceiling tiles.
Ronnie wasn’t here, that was apparent. He knew without checking, but he did anyway. Keeping his gun on them, he walked sideways to the bathroom. Then the bedroom. Finally across the trailer to the far bedroom.
The boys were alone.
“Beck! House’s clear. No Ronnie,” he called.
The boys’ hands were still raised and they watched him, expecting to die or be shot by the handsome policeman with a gun.
Using his left hand Manny withdrew his wallet. Pulled out the cash, six twenty-dollar bills and a five, and threw the wad at the floor.
“Compra boletos de autobús. Ve a Baltimore y dile a la policía que te traficaron. Comenzar de nuevo. Encuentra una iglesia católica. Entender?”
Buy bus tickets. Go to Baltimore and tell the police you were trafficked. Start over. Find a Catholic church. Understand?
This was too much for the boys to process. One of them laid down and laced his hands behind his head.
Aye, had Manny ever been so young and stupid?
No. Definitely not.
Beck arrived at the front door. The rear had been locked. “Empty?”
“Kinda. Vamonos, señorita.” He left, pulling Beck and walking across the grass and the street backwards, to monitor the door. He knew the kids wouldn’t take a shot at them. But just in case. They reached the perimeter of the evergreen trees.
“Did you give them cash?” asked Beck, in the copse they’d vacated four minutes ago.
“No.”
“But—”
Manny was grinding his teeth.
“First house down, Beck. Five to go.”
Friday, 8:45 pm
Mackenzie
I would wait for Stephanie until nine that evening.
After that, I would bang on her front door and get obstreperous in a hurry, which was unprofessional for a stalwart detective.
It was no idle threat. I knew where she lived—I’d followed her husband home.
My dignity was saved at 8:45, however. The burner phone rang. I stopped my pacing.
Stephanie.
It was about damn time, Mrs. Griffin Robbins Douglas Cole Hart.
She spoke quietly, like she was hiding in a spare bedroom. “Okay, Mackenzie, I’m in. Let’s bust my ex-husband. If you agree to one demand.”
“Which is?”
“My current husband can’t find out.”
“I offer a seventy-five percent guarantee,” I said.
A pregnant pause.
She said, “Only seventy-five?”
“I’m being honest with you. Sometimes things don’t go according to plan. Shocking isn’t it, with this hair.”
“What? Your hair?”
“I’ll do my best. All goes well, your current husband will never know,” I said.
“Ugh. Fine.” She did a noise, like sonic reluctance. “What’s your plan?”
“We’re going to catch him.”
“How?”
“Darren hacked my iPhone to monitor my whereabouts. I didn’t know the phone was compromised until recently, and now I’m using it against him. One of his demands is I have to meet you in person. That didn’t bother me until—”
“Until you realized he would follow your phone straight to me,” she said.
/>
“You’re good at this.”
“Keep going. Don’t patronize me.”
Yikes.
I said, “I think you’re right, he intends to follow me and observe our meeting. Which is precisely what I want him to do.”
“No. No way.”
“I don’t want him to just observe our meeting, though. I want to trick him into interrupting it. If you and I meet in a public place, he’ll watch us from a distance. He’ll see you, see what you look like, maybe follow you. We want to avoid that.”
“Ugh, no shit.”
“Besides, in that scenario, I can’t shoot him in the head.”
“You’re going to shoot him in the head?” she said.
The answer to that question was still up for debate. So I skipped it.
I said, “If you and I meet in private, he’ll be tempted to show himself. I believe he’s desperate to do that. That’s when we catch him.”
“So. I’m bait.”
“Yes.”
“I’m fucking bait,” she said.
“I understand your dismay.”
“I don’t think you do. Not really. Nothing’s changed. Everyone wants to use me.”
“Stephanie,” I said. “You’re right. I am. But in exchange for your services, I offer freedom.”
“I’ve been told that before.”
“I know you have. By Darren. Or at least that’s what I’m guessing. The difference is, I don’t lie, and this time tomorrow I’m long gone.”
“Ugh,” she said. Her favorite word.
“I’m good at this. And I’ll recruit some help. I think it’s better than your other option.”
“Which is?” she said.
“Live the rest of your life in fear. Wondering. Because you know he’ll hire someone else eventually.”
“I know. Ugh, you’re right. I got myself into this mess. Okay. Okay okay. How do we do this?”
I’d been pacing. I stopped.
There was much I wasn’t telling her.
The timing of my plan depended on mi amigos Manny and Beck. Could they search all the houses by tomorrow? They had to, because Ronnie’s time was up. I felt that in every syllable Darren uttered. If I captured Darren before Ronnie was released, Mario would execute her. But if Manny freed Ronnie before I had Darren, Darren would vanish.