by Lisa Harris
He turned, grasping the girl’s arm with one hand while holding his gun to her temple with his other hand. “Stay back, Detective.”
“You don’t really think we’re going to let you leave this island, do you? Let the girl go and end this before someone gets hurt.”
Avery caught the look of terror in the young girl’s eyes. She couldn’t be more than sixteen or seventeen. An image of Tala flashed in front of her. This had to end. Today. Right now.
Sourn glanced toward the shore, then back to Avery. “Call your men off and let me go.”
“You know I can’t do that.”
“I will kill her.”
“I don’t think you’re going to do that.”
“Don’t be so confident, Detective. I’ve killed before, and I’ll do it again.”
Avery chose her words carefully. “We got a full confession from your wife today. We know you didn’t kill the other girls, and I don’t think you want to add murder to your list.”
“Does it really matter? If you talked to my wife, I’m sure by now you have enough to put me away for the next hundred years.” Sourn kept walking backward toward the shore, dragging the girl along with him. “The way I look at it, I don’t have anything else to lose.”
“Think about it, Sourn.” Mason had made his way to the shore and was now slowly moving toward Sourn from the other direction. “Detective North is right. We can tie you to arms dealing and human trafficking, but murder has never been your MO. Let the girl go.”
“So what are you telling me? If I let her go, you’re going to cut a deal so I walk away from all of this?”
“You know that can’t happen, but you don’t want to make things more difficult on yourself. I can promise you that the DA will look at your situation in a different light if you let her go right now rather than kill her in cold blood.”
Avery clicked on her radio while Mason kept talking to the man. “Tell me what you’ve got up there, Carlos.”
“We found the girls. About twenty-five of them locked in one of the bedrooms in the house. Rice, who clearly was working for Sourn, is now in custody. He surrendered without any fight and he’s talking.”
“What’s their physical condition?”
“I’d say the emotional trauma far outweighs the physical, but most seem malnourished and dehydrated.”
After weeks confined on a boat with little food and water, the situation could have been worse. “Have the medic treat the girls. Be ready to move, but stay in the house until this situation is resolved. We’re going to need to call in another boat to transport them back to the mainland.”
“I’m on it.”
Avery turned her attention back to Sourn. Here was a man who had worked hard his whole life to get ahead until he forgot the defining line between right and wrong. The value of human life and dignity. This situation wasn’t the result of a onetime decision; instead, multiple decisions had led him to this moment.
Avery took another step forward. “What’s her name, Sourn?”
Sourn backed toward the dock. “Does it matter?”
“It matters to me.”
Avery turned to Tory. “Ask her what her name is. Tell her we’re going to do everything we can to make sure she’s okay.”
Tory spoke in Vietnamese to the girl, who stood shivering beside Sourn in her thin, pink dress.
She glanced up at her captor with wide, almond eyes, then back to Tory before she finally spoke.
“Her name is Mia,” Tory translated. “She has a family back in Vietnam, and she—”
“Stop.” Sourn waved his gun in front of him. “You’re stupid if you think that this is going to convince me to let her go. I’ve been doing this for too long now to turn back simply because I feel sorry for her. Do you know how much money I can get for each of these girls?”
“Can’t you see it’s already too late, Sourn?” Mason said. “The girl doesn’t have to be involved in this.”
“And what happens if I let her go? You’ll just let me go as well, because you’re so nice?”
Avery held her gun steady. “Like I said, let the girl go, then we can talk about what happens next. No one has to get hurt.”
Sourn took another step toward the water. “I’ll tell you what happens next. I’m going to get on that motorboat docked beside your fancy Coast Guard rig with the girl, and you’re going to let us both go.”
Sourn was now less than six feet from the dock.
Avery evaluated the situation. If Sourn managed to get away, there were a hundred places he could vanish in these chains of islands alone. And Avery had no doubt that he had access to money somewhere offshore. Disappearing wouldn’t be difficult. If they didn’t bring him in now, they might not get a second chance.
“You follow me onto the boat, and I swear I’ll kill her.”
“Don’t let things end this way, Sourn.”
“It’s already over.” Sourn grabbed Mia’s hand, pulled her toward the boat, and untied the line. The motorboat rocked beneath them as they stepped into the bow, but he managed to keep his balance, using her as a shield.
Avery jumped onto the Coast Guard boat in front of Mason and Tory, then addressed Petty Officer McMillan. “Follow as close as you can without putting anyone on this boat in danger.”
A bullet hit a metal post behind them.
The Coast Guard boat veered to the right as McMillan moved away from the dock and out of range from another bullet. Avery’s shoulder slammed against the aluminum pole, the boat’s movement almost knocking her off her feet, but she blocked out the pain. She’d deal with it later. For now, they had a girl’s life to save.
Sourn pushed the electric start button on his outboard motor, his left arm wrapped around Mia while still gripping the gun. The boat had already drifted a dozen feet into the water, but the motor wouldn’t catch.
Avery shouted across the water. “It’s over, Sourn. Let the girl go.”
“Let me take a shot, Avery.”
She glanced at Mason, knowing if anyone could make the shot, he could. “Wait until you can guarantee you won’t hit the hostage.”
Their RB-M kept its distance but was still close enough for Mason to hit his target. Sourn continued to drift away from the shore as they hit the rougher waters between the two islands. A swell hit the side of Sourn’s boat. He reached for something to grab on to and lost his grip on Mia.
“Now,” Avery ordered.
Mason fired, hitting Sourn in the shoulder. The boat hit another swell, but this time Sourn couldn’t absorb the jolt. He grabbed for Mia. His gun dropped onto the floor of the boat as he fell backward, pulling her into the Atlantic with him.
Avery watched them plunge into the water, arms flailing, and a trail of blood from Sourn’s wound drifted to the surface. The petty officer maneuvered the RB-M into the water beside them. Time clicked by in slow motion, frame by frame, but it only took Avery a fraction of a second to react. Mia floundered in the water, gasping for breath. She had no idea how to swim.
Avery set her weapon down and dove over the side of the boat into the ocean. As she surfaced, she saw Mason and one of the Coast Guard crew members swimming toward Sourn’s body. Avery felt the searing pain of the stitches in her arm rip as she reached for the girl. Panicked, Mia pushed Avery away, then went under again. Avery grabbed for the life preserver someone had thrown into the water. Holding on to it, Avery coughed up a mouthful of seawater, then pulled Mia into her arms.
A moment later, it was all over. The RB-M was beside her. Someone pulled them out of the water. Wrapped blankets around them. Told her to lie still and breathe.
Tory hovered over her. “Mia is going to be okay.”
Avery felt the movement of the boat beneath her as the RB-M headed back toward the shore. “What about Sourn?”
“He’ll live. And I just heard from Carlos. He said Rice is squealing to make a deal. Which means that along with Sourn’s wife’s testimony, we have enough hard evidence to put Sourn away for a very long time.”
Avery struggled to sit up, then started wringing the water out of her hair, her arm still throbbing. “Why bring the girls here?”
“According to Rice, new boats arrive with weapons or young girls. From here they can split up their cargo, then transport them to different landing sites on the mainland, making it easier for them to reach their final destination.”
Avery pressed her hand against her chest, waiting for her heartbeat to return to normal. Waiting for her mind to believe that it was all finally over.
Mason sat down beside her. “You okay?”
“Yeah.”
“You did a good job out there today.”
“Thanks. You didn’t do too bad yourself.”
“I guess it’s too much to think we could be friends again.”
“Today was a start.”
“That’ll have to be good enough for now.”
Avery looked up at him. “Why does it matter to you if we become friends or not?”
“Because losing Michael changed me like it changed you. I think we have more in common than you think.”
She wasn’t ready for the comparison but knew at the same time that her father had been right. She might not be able to forget, but not forgiving would only hurt herself in the end.
“Your arm’s bleeding.” Mason grabbed a long strip of gauze from the medical kit sitting on the bench beside him as the RB-M stopped alongside the dock. He pressed it against her arm. “You’re officially off duty, Detective North. I want you to go see a medic.”
Avery looked toward the house. “I will, but first I want to see where he kept them.”
Officers were already transporting the girls to the second RB-M that had arrived moments before. The scene was being processed as Avery walked into the house where twenty-five girls had been crammed into a room not much bigger than her bedroom. Besides a small kitchen and a few chairs, the house was empty.
They’d been left with no escape, miles from home, completely defenseless. Raw emotions washed over Avery as she walked into the bedroom filled with a pile of dirty mats to sleep on. Girls sat against the walls, looking dazed and confused. She breathed in the stench of unwashed bodies and backed-up sewage from the bathroom and felt the room begin to spin.
She wished that Mitch were here to help her pick up the pieces. Wished Jackson were here to hold her and tell her all of this wasn’t real.
But the faces of the girls being escorted past her one by one toward the dock were all too real.
Tory stopped beside her. “How do you ever get over something like this?”
Avery shook her head. “I don’t think you do.”
“I’ve told them they are safe now, but I can tell they don’t believe me.”
“Why should they? They’ve been lied to, treated like animals, threatened . . . Another day or two in these conditions, though, and we’d be looking at an entirely different situation.”
“In a few more hours they would have been gone and we’d never have found them all. North to DC and New York. West to Houston . . . There’s no telling where they would have ended up. How many would’ve survived the next few months in some back-alley brothel or illegal factory?”
Avery leaned down beside one of the girls still waiting to be taken to the boat. “What’s your name?”
Tory translated the question.
The girl ducked her head. “Kim-ly.”
Avery reached out and let her fingers brush the still-red edges of a magnolia tattoo branded on her shoulder, then slowly helped the girl to her feet. She took a blanket from one of the officers, wrapped it around Kim-ly’s shoulders, and started back with her toward the boat.
Sourn wasn’t the last predator they would face, and this wasn’t the last girl whose life would be affected, but for today, for these girls, what happened today mattered.
40
Malaya sat on the mattress with its soft blue bedspread and pulled the pillow against her chest. The walls of the bedroom were painted yellow and pretty lace curtains hung on the walls, but even here she didn’t feel safe.
Sleep should bring relief from the constant fear, but instead it brought with it its own terrifying dreams that jolted her awake in the middle of the night. At first she’d been afraid that she’d wake up in the small, windowless room on a dirty mat on the floor, but now a new fear had settled over her.
He’d promised he’d find her if she escaped.
“Malaya?”
She jumped at the sound of her name and pressed her body against the wall behind her as Detective Lambert entered the room.
Malaya let out a small breath of relief. “Detective Lambert.”
“It’s okay.” She sat down on the edge of the bed and smiled. “I just wanted to come by to see how you were doing.”
Malaya drew her legs up to her chest, not sure how to answer the question. This morning she’d woken up in a room with three other girls with similar stories to her own. Everyone told her she was supposed to feel happy and safe here. Instead she felt lost. Nothing could protect her from the evil lurking in the shadows.
She forced a smile. “Everyone here is nice. I have my own bed, a bathroom, and plenty to eat. But I don’t know how to not be afraid.”
“You’ve been through a lot, Malaya. The feelings you have are normal. It will take time, but the fear and the sadness will fade one day.”
Memories from the past few days swept over Malaya until she could barely breathe. It might get better, but things would never be the same.
“I thought you might want to know that we caught the man who kidnapped you. He’s not going to hurt any more girls.”
“What about the other girls that were with me on the boat? Did they find them?”
“Eight of the girls were working in a factory and picked up yesterday.”
“Only eight?” That wasn’t even half of the girls.
“We’re going to keep looking for the rest of them.”
Malaya squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. “I can’t forget their faces, and knowing they’re still out there . . . People can do such terrible things.”
“I know.”
“And Teo. What will happen to him?” She looked up at the detective. He was the one person she didn’t want to leave behind.
Detective Lambert shook her head. “He’ll go live with someone else. A family who will take good care of him.”
“I hope so.”
“I wanted to give you something before you left.” Detective Lambert pulled something from her jacket pocket. “I thought you might want this picture. Tala had it with her when she died. I thought it might be something for you to remember her by.”
Malaya ran her thumb across the photo and felt a tear roll down her cheek. “We had the pictures taken a few days before we left for the United States. We thought we were the luckiest girls in the city that day.”
Detective Lambert’s brow rose. “You’re the other girl in the photo.”
Malaya looked up at her and nodded, her eyes still rimmed with tears. “We were cousins, but we grew up as best friends. It was her father, my uncle, who found out about the opportunity to send us to the States. He convinced my father that we would have a better life, and that maybe one day, our families could join us.”
“I’m so sorry, Malaya. For everything.” Detective Lambert reached out and squeezed her hand. “Are you going to be okay?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know how to forget what happened here. How to forget that she’s dead, or how I will tell my family that she isn’t coming home.”
Guilt mingled with joy from the knowledge that she was going home. She was one of the lucky ones who’d survived and would see her family again. Malaya stared at the photo, her stomach aching over the reality of her loss. If only Tala had been so lucky.
41
Avery’s feet dangled beneath her on the front porch of her parents’ home. She’d sat in the same spot for the past hour, escaping the stress of the past few days with a good bo
ok and a tall glass of iced tea.
For the past five minutes, she’d stopped reading to study a hummingbird hovering at her mother’s nearby bird feeder for a late afternoon drink. For Avery, the ruby-throated flyer had become yet another needed confirmation of God’s presence in a world that lately seemed to be spinning out of control.
Today had ushered in the new week with a mixture of both relief and regret. Relief that her case was closed and justice would soon be served. Regret because justice had come too late for Tala and Mitch, and had left in its wake a jagged hole in her own heart. Healing might come slowly, but it would come. For the moment, though, it was the support of family and friends that was keeping her going. That and the growing anticipation of a relationship with Jackson.
She looked up at the sound of an approaching car. Jackson pulled into the driveway, invoking the familiar ping of her heart for the man who’d managed to stir something within her she’d never thought could happen twice in a lifetime. But it had, and if anything, it had become clear over the past few days that she was ready to give her heart a chance. Life could be over in the blink of an eye. She wasn’t going to waste precious time worrying, only to lose him forever.
She watched him exit the car, then head up the driveway, dressed casually in gray cargo shorts and a rusty red crew-neck T-shirt. Perfect.
“Hey.”
“Hey back at you.” He took the stairs up to the porch, then stopped in front of her. “I was told you were following doctor’s orders, but I have to say I wasn’t sure it was true.”
“Book in one hand, a tall glass of iced tea in the other . . . I don’t think you’ll ever see me more relaxed than this.” She set the drink down on the wicker side table, then smiled up at him, savoring the feeling of completeness and balance he brought when he was with her. “Besides, I was told if I didn’t take the next few days off, I’d end up with a mandatory two-week leave.”
“Why am I not surprised that it would take the threat of not working to get you to slow down?” He sat down beside her, smelling like citrus, the outdoors, and a hint of antibacterial cleaner. “There’s even a bit of color in your cheeks again today. A little sun and rest have gone a long way.”
