by Willow Rose
I told them the address and what they would find when they got there. I also advised them to bring someone from a local shelter. I usually recommended a place called No More Tears since they seemed to be doing a good job of taking care of victims of human trafficking. I then threw the burner phone in the trash and got into the car, where Sydney had kept the engine running. I looked at her, then smiled, exhausted, before we took off, tires screeching across the asphalt while leaving the small strip mall.
This was the ninth of these types of spas that we had turned over to the police somewhere in Florida over the past three months. I couldn’t believe how easy they were to find. Just a simple Google search had led me to the first one not far from my own home in Cocoa Beach. In a forum on the Internet, the all-male customers discussed vividly what you could expect to get there, what services they provided. They didn’t even try to hide it. And so, I went to check it out. In the back, I found about ten girls, ages twelve to seventeen, ready to entertain the men who came as customers. To imagine that this was going on right beneath our noses, was terrifying. These girls came from all over the world, and some even from right here in Florida. And they were being held captive right here, right under our noses.
The only issue was that what I had done made me a criminal in the eyes of the law, and now they had put out a warrant for my arrest. Aggravated assault. I had lost it in the first place we took down and beat the crap out of the owner. If Sydney hadn’t stopped me, I was certain I would have killed the guy. Still, I wasn’t sorry I had hurt him. I was just sad that a surveillance camera had taken my picture as I left the shop.
Sydney looked briefly at me as she hit I-95 toward Miami. I held back my tears and tried hard to erase the images of those young girls in that room, and their big eyes staring back at me, pleading for my help. Hopefully, they would at least be liberated from their hell now. I could only pray that those who pulled the strings would be prosecuted as well, but I wasn’t getting my hopes up. Those sleaze bags had a way of keeping themselves out of jail.
Meanwhile, we were going for one of the big guns. The man they called the Iron Fist. We didn’t know much about him, but the little we knew made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck.
“You wanna grab a coffee and something to eat before we continue?” Sydney asked.
I gave her a look. She had been so amazing through all this, constantly taking care of me. I didn’t know she had this side to her; I had to admit. This was very far from the entitled drama queen and Hollywood actress that I had taken her for, and I felt so thankful, yet I had no way of showing her. I was still so angry at her because of what had happened to Olivia. I knew it wasn’t her fault. There was no way she could have known who her boyfriend was, yet I couldn’t help myself. I needed someone to blame; I needed someone to take the fall, and she was the closest.
“I’m not hungry,” I said and glanced out the window. “Although, coffee sounds about right.”
She nodded. “Okay. I’ll stop at the next rest area, and we can take a break.”
“We should probably ditch the car too,” I said.
“Again?” she asked tiredly. “I thought you said it looked like the strip mall had no cameras?”
I nodded with a sigh. “I could be wrong. Besides, there’s always a witness; there’s always someone who will have seen it and who will call the cops. We need to get rid of it.”
Sydney nodded again. “Okay. We’ll do that after we get our coffee.”
Chapter 7
Matt stared at his screen. In front of him smiled Eva Rae in a picture taken four months earlier on the beach. It was a great day, he remembered. They had brought all the kids together, her three and his Elijah. Matt had hoped that Alex and Elijah would bond if they spent the entire day together, but that hadn’t happened. Elijah had sat underneath the gazebo all day, grumbling because he wasn’t allowed to play on his computer. Matt remembered how hard Eva Rae had tried to get him to play with the other kids. She had even built the biggest sandcastle with Alex and kept asking Elijah if he didn’t want to help. It wasn’t until she pulled out Alex’s kite and put it up, running down the beach holding it, that Elijah had suddenly gotten interested. He had crawled out and played with them, laughing when it fell down, and Eva Rae fell flat on her face in the sand.
Eva Rae was the only one in the world who had made Elijah laugh. Matt didn’t know how she did it. But that was just her.
That’s how amazing she was.
Gosh, I miss you.
She had been gone for three months now, and he had no idea where she was. It was probably for his own sake that she didn’t contact him, but boy, it hurt. Matt had followed the investigation into what happened at The Bridge Spa in Rockledge after she beat a guy half to death in there. And he knew that the two detectives at the sheriff’s office who had put out a warrant for her arrest had no idea where she was either. He also knew it was good that he didn’t know because that would put him a dilemma if they came to question him. Eva Rae had known that, and that’s why she had left without telling him where she went.
He had seen it in her eyes on the day he last saw her. It was at the CBPD station when they were questioning Anthony Piatkowski, the man who had targeted Eva Rae and then kidnapped her daughter, Olivia, who was only fifteen years old. They had grilled him for days on end, but he kept saying that he didn’t know where Olivia was, only that he had taken her to the airport where the Iron Fist’s men had picked up the girl. After that, he had no idea where she went. It was out of his hands.
Unfortunately, it turned out he was speaking the truth.
After weeks of going through his affairs, all they had found on his computer were the brief coded messages where they had agreed to the details. There was no trace of this Iron Fist or Olivia since.
That was when Eva Rae decided to take matters into her own hands, and once Matt heard about the manager at the spa getting attacked, and then how the police had received a call telling them where to find ten trafficked girls, he immediately knew in his heart that this had Eva Rae written all over it. He also knew there was no going back for her now, and that it would be a long time before he saw her again. If he ever saw her again.
Matt didn’t know for certain, but he assumed that her sister had gone along with her since she had been nowhere near her house since. He hoped he was right in his assumption that the two of them were in this together since he didn’t like for Eva Rae to be alone. She had to be feeling awful, and he was so frustrated that he wasn’t able to be there with her to comfort her and hold her close. It tormented him not to know how she was feeling or to be able to help her. He wanted to fix this so badly.
There had been silent calls to his landline late at night that he suspected might be her. He believed it was her way of letting him know that she was okay and that she was still around.
But now that another month had passed, he was beginning to get anxious. What was her plan? And would she ever be able to come back?
Sgt. Mason pulled him out of his thoughts as he approached his desk.
“Chief wants to see you,” he said. “Asap.”
Chapter 8
She slept on a stained mattress in a room with six other girls. There was no furniture in the house she was kept in and only one toilet.
Every night, she was taken out of the house and put into a van. They then drove for about an hour till they reached a factory, where they cleaned dead chicken and put them into a liquid that killed all bacteria before they were packaged and sent away.
They had given them no gloves to protect their skin, and now Olivia had gotten a rash and was itching all the way up her arm. The night before, she had complained about it to one of the men guarding them, but he had pulled her outside the factory and slapped her till she couldn’t stand on her feet anymore, then yelled at her that she wouldn’t get any toilet breaks for the rest of the night.
Now, as she lay on her stinky mattress, Olivia kept crying. She was thinking about her mother
and her siblings and missed them terribly. It was daytime out, and the other girls were asleep, but Olivia couldn’t find any rest. She was so scared, and she felt so hopeless. She hated the house, and she hated the factory even more. It stunk of rotten meat. There were chicken blood and innards all over the floors. But that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was that she never got to see the sun. There were no windows in the factory, nor in the house where they were kept. Armed men guarded the doors, and if they tried to escape, they were beaten. On one of the first days Olivia had been there, there had been a girl, Mya, who had tried to crawl out of the small window under the ceiling in the toilet. The guards had caught her in the yard, and Olivia had heard them as they beat her up all night. They had never seen Mya again.
Some of the girls had been to many other places before this, and they talked about being raped over and over again. They liked it better where they were now because at least they weren’t raped. They were beaten again and again, but they’d take that any day over being raped by so many men you couldn’t even count them.
The thought made Olivia cry even harder. Was that what was in store for her next? Would they sell her to some pimp? Would they move her out of state?
Mom, where are you? Are you looking for me? I am here, Mom. I am right here. I just don’t know where here is.
One of the girls lying next to her, Juanita, was crying in her sleep. Olivia looked at her, then placed a hand on her shoulder to calm her down.
It worked. The girl stopped whimpering and continued to sleep. Olivia exhaled and looked at the other girls in the sparse light from the small lightbulb dangling from the ceiling. She wished she could sleep like these girls. She wished she could just disappear into a world of dreams and forget where she was for a few hours. She would dream of a day on the beach with her family. She would even want her dad to be there, even though she was so angry with him for leaving them and finding another woman, one who didn’t want his kids around.
Still, she wanted him to be there with her because she missed him. She missed the life she had, with everything it contained, even the problems of high school and going through a divorce. At least that was all normal stuff. What she was living through now wasn’t normal.
It was Hell on Earth.
Chapter 9
THEN
They hadn’t seen each other in five years. Helen Wellington looked at her old friend Angela, who smiled and waved at her from her seat at the restaurant Ariete. Helen waved back, then walked to her, a sense of dread in her stomach.
Was it a mistake for her to come?
“Helen,” Angela said and rose to her feet. She reached out her arms and pulled Helen into a hug. “Let me look at you. Dear Lord, it’s been forever.”
“Not since Kylie’s wedding,” Helen said and sat down.
Angela was still smiling. “Has it really been that long?”
“You look amazing,” Helen said, then looked down at herself. She was underdressed compared to her old friend, who was wearing a gorgeous yellow pencil dress and had impeccably styled hair. Helen used to be like that; she used to be the best dressed anywhere she went, and the one to radiate in a crowd, but not anymore. The past two years had been a struggle.
A waiter arrived, and they ordered lobster, pasta, and white wine.
“So, how have you been?” Angela asked.
Helen sighed. Angela had contacted her on Instagram and told her she was back in town and asked her if she had time for lunch.
“To be honest, I’m going through a rough time right now,” she said.
Helen was surprised at her own openness; she hadn’t expected to want to be since she wasn’t usually, but this was her old best friend. They had known each other since third grade, and there was just something about Angela that made her want to open up.
“Really?” Angela said. “How so?”
Helen bit her cheek. She felt the sadness inside of her. It was like this monster that never slept but was constantly looking for a way to show its ugly face. Helen didn’t know how to keep it down anymore.
“I’ve recently discovered that I can’t have children,” she said.
“Brian and I tried for years, and then we finally got checked out, and lo and behold, I was infertile. Having children was the biggest dream for Brian, so he left, and so, well… here I am. Probably going to be alone for the rest of my life. To be honest, I feel like I have nothing much left to get out of bed for.”
Angela put a hand to her chest. “That’s awful, Helen. I am so sorry.”
The wine arrived, and Helen took a long deep sip. She still hadn’t quite gotten used to telling her story yet, and it was a lot harder than she had thought it would be.
“Yeah, well, that’s life, right?” she said.
Angela tilted her head. “It doesn’t have to be.”
Helen sipped more wine, then looked at her old friend suspiciously and a little offended.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Angela drank too, then exhaled. “Nothing. It’s just… well, I used to be miserable like you — two years of depression and anxiety. I was popping all the pills you can imagine, and nothing helped. I could barely get out of bed. So, let’s just say I know how you feel.”
Helen scrutinized her friend when the food arrived. She looked down at the seafood but didn’t have much appetite. She had lost a lot of weight over the past several months because she didn’t feel like eating.
“But you’re better now?” she asked as she had swallowed the first bite anyway. “I mean you look great and you seem really happy? How did you get out of it?”
Angela sipped her wine, and a smile spread across her lips as she put the glass down.
“I thought you’d never ask,” she said and leaned forward. “If you want to, I can get you what I have. I can help you.”
Chapter 10
“So far no one has claimed responsibility for the July 9th attack on the Metrorail, and the authorities are still asking for help from the public. If anyone has seen anything that might help progress the investigation, then please come forward and call the number on the screen.”
I stared at the TV in our hotel room. Sydney had gotten us a room at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Coconut Grove, Miami. I thought it was silly to stay in these expensive surroundings, but she insisted that she would pay for everything.
“It’s the least I can do.”
Now, she was in the shower while I watched TV without really listening. They were talking about the July 9th gas attack on the Metrorail in Miami, as they had been for the past month since the attack had happened. According to what the authorities now knew, there had been three bags onboard the Orange Line going southbound in the morning rush hour. Three bags with a liquid gas in them that had killed seven passengers and left around fifty passengers still hospitalized. It was an act of terrorism, they said, but still, no one knew by whom and why. ISIS, most people guessed, but they had yet to claim it, as they usually did. According to experts, it had ISIS written all over it, but I wasn’t so sure. ISIS had never used Sarin gas before.
“Sarin is a highly toxic and volatile form of nerve gas developed by Nazi scientists in the 1930s,” the anchor on the TV explained. “It’s five hundred times more toxic than cyanide gas, which was used to execute people in gas chambers. It can be produced by a trained chemist with chemicals that are available publicly. The packages onboard the train leaked a thick liquid onto the floor, and people in the cars began to feel dizzy and lose their eyesight. Stinging fumes hit their eyes and struck them down in a matter of seconds. It left them choking and vomiting, while some were blinded and even paralyzed.”
“Don’t you want to watch something a little more uplifting maybe?” Sydney asked as she came out of the bathroom.
“I like to keep myself updated,” I said.
She shrugged and dried her hair with a towel. She was so beautiful it was almost unfair. I never thought an actress could be prettier in real life than on the scr
een, but she was.
“Filling yourself with all the terrible things going on in this world?” she said.
“It makes me forget,” I said. “It makes my problems seem less. I look at this and think at least my daughter isn’t one of the dead ones on that train. Not that I know of, that is.”
Sydney sat down on her bed and began moisturizing her legs with some expensive looking creme. “You sure you shouldn’t call home? Ask how the children are doing?”
I exhaled and bit my cheek. Sydney kept asking me this, and it was every bit as painful every time.
“I know they’re fine.”
“I know you do. Mom is taking good care of them.”
“Their dad is with them too. He moved to Cocoa Beach, remember? He knows how to take care of them. He got himself a condo, and he promised me he’d take good care of them all while I was gone, no matter how long it took.”
Just get our daughter back, were his words. I could still hear them in my head. I called him on the day I had decided to leave, and he said he had found a condo and that he would come down the next day. I never got to see him face to face, but we made an agreement on the phone that day. He would take care of the kids, make sure they had everything they needed, while I brought back our oldest. Chad trusted the police to be able to get her back just as little as I did. I knew I could do better, even if it might end up costing me my entire career and maybe even jail time. Before I left, I had sat down with my mother and explained everything to her as well before asking her if she could help with the kids while I was gone. She had always loved Chad, even after he cheated on me, so it was not a big deal for her. Together, they would hold down the fort, we agreed.
