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  “Mom?”

  I looked over and saw Lila holding her helicopter.

  “Where is Angel?” she asked.

  She must have overheard me. I stood up straight. “Lila, I think everything is going to be okay,” I said. “Your mom is upset. Can you give us a moment?”

  Lila looked at her helicopter. “Angel used to help me build things with my K’NEX. I miss her.”

  “I know you do, sweetie. And we’re going to bring her home.” I hoped like hell I wasn’t lying to the little girl.

  “Do you know when?”

  “Not right now. That’s what we’re trying to figure out. So, can you go build something that she might like?”

  She bit her lower lip. “She always used to build these robotic animals. I’ll make her a robotic dog.”

  “Great idea.”

  She walked back to her room, and I turned to her mother, whose gaze hadn’t even moved to look at her youngest daughter. Was she at a point where she was unreachable? I wondered if I needed to call Stan and see if we might need to get her committed to an institution. But first, I needed a name.

  I sat next to her on the couch and put my hand on hers. “Jill, I can see how painful this is for you. It’s got to hurt. But it’s not too late. We can help Angel. You can help Angel. Just please give me a name.”

  Nothing.

  I looked ahead for a moment. I reached into my pocket and took out my phone. I saw a text from Cristina. Something about the meeting with the school district had been moved to later today. I’d deal with that later. I scrolled through my recent calls until I found Stan’s number.

  “Bennie Baldwin,” Jill said. “That’s the fucker who took my daughter.”

  “How do you reach him?”

  More silence.

  “Jill, how do you reach this Bennie person?”

  “I call a voicemail. Then he calls me back. Sometimes I meet him somewhere.”

  Baldwin had to be screening his calls. An extra form of security. “Where do you meet him?”

  “It changes, but usually in Navarro Park.”

  I put a hand to the side of my head. Navarro Park. “Is that off Commerce in western San Antonio?”

  Jill blinked, but she was back in her catatonic state.

  “Jill, I need for you to call Baldwin and set up a time to get some more pills.”

  Her eyes shifted to me. “More pills?” She sounded like a little kid asking for more dessert.

  “Jill, this is about Angel. You want to help your daughter, right?”

  She nodded slowly.

  “Then you need to set up a time to meet Baldwin. I’ll go in your place and find out where Angel is.”

  “Okay,” she said with a sigh. But she didn’t act.

  I lifted her hand that held the phone. “Are you going to call him, or do I need to dial the number?”

  She swallowed and sighed again. It was as though I’d asked her to run a marathon. I was about to slap her back into reality. “Jill.” I couldn’t let my anger get the best of me. Lila might hear me and become upset. That was the last thing she needed.

  “Okay, okay,” Jill finally said. She tapped the phone a few times and then put the phone to her ear.

  “Go ahead and tell him in the voicemail that you’ve got the money to pay off the debt.”

  “But I don’t. And he’ll hurt us unless I pay him off.”

  “I’ll have the police put you and Lila in protective custody if necessary.”

  She left the voicemail. Her voice cracked half the time, but I was sure he was used to hearing calls like that.

  “How long until he calls back?” I asked.

  “A couple of minutes.”

  “Can I get you some water?” I walked toward the kitchen when I heard her phone buzzing in her hand. I quickly jogged back. She looked at me for a second. I nodded. “You can do this, Jill. For Angel.”

  She swallowed and punched up the call. “Hey, Bennie.”

  I leaned in closer to hear his voice.

  “What do you know—someone gets desperate and they call the Ben-master.” He chuckled. “You got my five grand?”

  “Yep.”

  “How you’d do it?”

  “You got your ways. I got mine.”

  “That’s my Jilly. Crafty when you need to be. Right, Jilly?”

  “Sure, Bennie. When can I get my pills?”

  A slight pause.

  “Same park. One hour. Don’t forget the five grand on your debt, plus five hundred for today. You got that, Jilly?”

  “I got it, Bennie.”

  “Good.”

  The line went dead.

  Jill tossed the phone on the table, put both hands over her face, and began to sob. “I sold my daughter to a drug dealer. What kind of mother am I?”

  “You need to get help, Jill. You need to go to a detox center and not come out until you’re clean and you can take care of Lila.”

  She nodded. “You’re right. But what about Lila?”

  “You need to tell the police that Gerald didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “But he…” She put a fist over her mouth, then shook her head as if she were trying to rid herself of all the hate and vitriol. “There’s always a ‘but’ with me, isn’t there?”

  She was seeing the light, at least temporarily. Yet I knew her clairvoyance might last no more than an hour or two. Even addicts with the best intentions could be robbed of their thoughts by the smallest things. These were called “triggers,” because they opened the door to the side of the brain that included fear and control. Combining those two emotions in the wrong way, for some, created a mix so toxic that it sent them spiraling…mentally, emotionally, and even physically.

  The strange thing was that those triggers could come from something as mundane as the smell of a certain kind of food or a certain phrase used by somebody they don’t even know. It would remind them of a time when they had suffered trauma. And in mere minutes, a positive person could be a very desperate person, willing to do anything to get their fix. Apparently, that included selling your daughter, in Jill’s case.

  “I don’t want to give you excuses, Jill. It’s important you own your decisions. But you’re starting in the right direction.” I saw a framed picture on a side table of girl with a headful of curls and a wide smile. I picked it up. “Is this Angel?”

  Jill nodded, fighting back tears.

  “Mind if I take a quick picture of it?”

  She shrugged indifference, so I took the picture out of the frame and took a picture using my phone. I dialed Stan’s number while glancing out the front window. I saw a woman getting out of her car. She had a portfolio tucked under her arm. She didn’t look familiar, but I was almost certain she was with CPS. I told Jill that I needed to speak with someone out front. I stepped outside and asked the woman to hold up a minute before going inside. Stan had just answered the phone. I explained the situation to both of them, starting with Jill admitting that Gerald was not at fault and that she would go into a detox center. I said it was important that Gerald—and not a foster parent—take care of Lila. Stan said he only needed a statement from Jill to start the process of releasing Gerald. I asked the CPS caseworker if she would wait with Jill and Lila until Stan sent an officer over. The woman said she would, and then she went inside. I walked to my car, still on the line with Stan.

  “Didn’t you say something about another daughter?” he asked.

  “I did, yes.”

  “And what’s the scoop?”

  I knew if I brought up what I was about to do, Stan would throw a shit fit. He’d demand that he and the police get involved. But I knew we didn’t have time for that. I also knew that if Bennie saw any cops around, he might disappear into the bowels of San Antonio. If that occurred, we might never find Angel. And this was still under the assumption that she was still alive. I hadn’t wanted to upset Jill any further, but I had doubts about Angel’s safety at this point. She’d been away from her home for over
a week, and she hadn’t reached out to her parents—not that I knew of. That told me that, most likely, she wasn’t in control of her own actions. She was either being held against her will, so drugged out that she didn’t know which way was up, or she’d been killed.

  I decided to tell Stan a partial truth. “Jill says her teenage daughter, Angel, is staying with her sister in California.”

  “Do you believe her?”

  “Do you believe anything an addict says?” I countered.

  “Point for you.”

  We agreed to keep in touch. I got in Black Beauty, called up Cristina, and explained the plan that I’d just thought of.

  20

  Alex

  A wet goo coated my skin. I knew it had to be part of the brain matter and other parts of Nixon’s face. My only remorse was not getting information on the whereabouts of Erin and Becca. Now, I had nothing. I had less than nothing. My mind spiraled into a hopeless abyss.

  I lay on the ground for a period of time, literally eating dirt—it crunched between my teeth. My muscles felt like they’d been zapped of all their power. The sun hit me like a laser on the side of my face. My neck stung from the wire Nixon had used to strangle me. My jaw was still sore from when I’d been punched. And none of it mattered. I’d let down Erin and Becca, and now I might never see my daughter again.

  The gears in my battered mind cranked just enough to try to understand Carter’s endgame. He knew that if I survived the perverted advances of Grant Valdez, I would have ended up back at the compound. I would have called him and asked where everyone was. The fact that I pretended the car had broken down before I reached the compound could have made their lack of an explanation that much easier.

  Instead, Nixon swapped out cars at the abandoned gas station and insisted I follow him out here. Maybe they thought I had contacted law enforcement, after all, and so they were taking precautions to protect their sex prison and their drug-trafficking business. They’d actually moved their entire lurid operation—at least it seemed so—because they thought I might bring the heat with me. But to be sure all was safe, they’d lured me into this desolate canyon to make sure I wasn’t being followed.

  I wondered what the street value of the drugs in the back of the Chrysler was worth. Had to be seven figures, if not eight.

  The drugs and Carter were gone, though. And my daughter wasn’t in the trailer. Part of me knew something was up when Nixon had waved at me to follow him. I’d wanted to find her so badly that I let irrational thoughts drive my actions. Not that anything I could have done would make Erin appear out of thin air. But I could have put the gun on Nixon and threatened him until he told me the truth. Of course, Carter had been hiding nearby, so it was anyone’s guess exactly how it would have played out.

  Erin. My sweet little girl. My independent, brave daughter.

  Back to the endgame. Where was she? What had Carter done with her and Becca? Were they at the new compound, and where was that? Had they been taken to Carter’s personal residence? Could he have just discarded them on the side of the road? That was wishful thinking. And then the opposite thought stabbed at my heart: were they even alive?

  I squeezed my eyes so hard I felt something akin to a brain freeze. Tears rolled off my face. A few found my open neck wound—reminding me that I was alive. Reminding me that I’d failed to find Erin, to protect Erin. A mother should never outlive her children. The circle of life wasn’t meant to work that way.

  “Oh God, why?” I clawed at the ground until I felt the pressure of dirt under my fingernails. “Why, why, whyyyy?” My voice bounced off the rocky walls.

  And then I thought I heard something else.

  I stopped moving. I stopped breathing. Maybe it was a hallucination.

  “Mom!”

  I shot up to a sitting position and looked all around me. Nothing. My mind was playing games. Tears welled in my eyes again.

  “Mom, it’s me!”

  It was like a burst of a supernova—I saw Erin running out from behind the trailer. Becca was right behind her. I jumped to my feet, rubbed my eyes again, still not completely convinced of what I was seeing.

  “Erin?” I couldn’t catch my breath. “Erin!”

  She barreled into me, and we hugged like we’d never hugged before. Becca came up, and I put an arm around her, and the three of us didn’t let go…couldn’t let go.

  “Erin, where were you?”

  She pulled back, and I saw the deep scrape down her cheek. I reached for her face, but she turned her cheek away.

  “Are you okay, Erin? What did they do to you…to both of you?”

  Erin and Becca glanced at each other. The kind of glance that said there were things they didn’t want to repeat. Tears formed in Becca’s eyes.

  “You don’t have to tell me, Becca.”

  She took in a breath. Her cheeks were pink, which accentuated all the freckles on her face. Both girls looked like they’d been dragged through a mud pit.

  “Honestly,” she said, gasping out a breath, “I’m not completely sure.”

  “They smacked us around some,” Erin interjected. “So don’t freak out when you see some bruises on my back and stomach.”

  I took Erin’s head in my hands and studied her cut. She pushed my hands away. “Mom, I’m okay.” Her eyes went to Becca. I followed her gaze.

  “Becca, do you want to share anything?”

  “Well, after they put that needle in my arm—later…I don’t know exactly when—I remember waking up, and…” She looked at Erin, and then they grabbed hold of each other’s hand. Becca continued with her head down. “I didn’t have on any clothes, and some man was getting out of bed. He had long hair tied back in a ponytail. He was real skinny. I think he was on something. Well, just about everyone we met was on something. But I think he did stuff to me.” She put a hand to her head as tears poured from her eyes.

  Erin took her in her arms. I wrapped my arms around both girls. “I’m so sorry, Becca. We will find the people who did this, and they will be punished. You have my promise on that.”

  She sniffled. “Thanks. I’m just not sure that will take away the nightmares,” she said, her voice barely audible. Then, with her glistening eyes, she looked at her best friend. “But with friends like Erin, I have hope. She was so strong throughout this whole thing.”

  I took a long look at my daughter. She knew I was looking at her, but she focused on Becca. Erin wasn’t breaking down or losing it. How was this possible?

  “Erin, are you okay…I mean, besides your face?”

  “We saw them murder a girl.” Erin’s lower lip quivered.

  “Oh no…” I shook my head. “When? How?”

  She huffed out a breath, pushed hair out of her face, as if that would give her the fortitude to continue. “Right after we escaped. It was when they were moving everyone. I found a baseball bat, and I hit this one guy on the head with it. We ran off, tried to get some other girls to go with us. But they were either too scared or too drugged up to move.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “At first, we just ran, and then we stopped once we got behind this hill with rocks. We looked back and wondered if we could figure out a way to rescue some of the other girls.”

  I shook my head, my jaw hanging open. “So when did you see this other girl, you know…?”

  “Just after that. I remember her from inside. At one point, she told me she was from Texas, but that’s all I got out of her. When we were all ushered out of the building, she was so whacked out, she could hardly move. They started smacking her around outside. And then, out of nowhere, the guy who wore the Jimmy Carter mask came up with a pistol and shot her in the head.”

  I almost choked on a piece of dirt.

  “Yeah, Ms. T., they buried her behind the shed,” Becca added. “We watched them dig a hole and dump her body in there.” She took in a ragged breath.

  I looked at Erin. She nodded. “It’s something I’ll never forget. That poor girl. But al
l of them are being abused, Mom. It’s so sad, and I just don’t know how it can go on and no one knows about it. There were men in and out of that place all the time.”

  “Nothing happened to you?” I asked.

  “Like I said, they beat us up. But I fought back pretty hard. Kicked this one guy in the nuts, and then I grabbed his needle and broke it.”

  The girls giggled. I tried. “But did you end up…?”

  “They never put their China town or tango and cash, or whatever you want to call that crap…they never gave it to me. Well, they tried to get me to swallow a pill, but I spit it out. I felt a little woozy after that, but I still stayed awake.”

  I wondered what they were planning for Erin since she hadn’t let them drug her and force her to have sex with their so-called customers.

  She put a hand to her cheek. “After I kicked the guy in the nuts, he got mad. He had one guy hold me down, and he took a razor blade and cut me. I screamed bloody murder.”

  I touched my own cheek and imagined the pain that Erin had endured. It felt like someone had taken pruning shears to my heart.

  “Yeah, I think I might have heard her screaming. It scared me,” Becca said.

  The girls grabbed hands again. Damn, I was glad they had each other during this ordeal.

  “Erin, you’re still the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.”

  “Mom.” She had mastered saying my name using two syllables.

  I looked at Becca. “You’re beautiful too, Becca. And both of you are so brave.” I glanced around. “But how did you two end up here?”

  “Just dumb luck,” Erin said. “We knew we couldn’t get near the road, so we just kept walking deeper into the hills. We were hoping to find another house, but we were so far off the road, we wondered if we might just get lost and never be found. We were on the other side of that hill when we heard cars driving. When we got to the top and looked down, we saw you and that guy in the Nixon mask fighting. Well, at first, we didn’t know it was you. But after a minute, I told Becca I was pretty sure it was you.” Her eyes went to the SUV where Nixon’s body was. I saw flies hovering around the window.

  “Mrs. T., you were badass. You killed that guy, didn’t you?” Becca had a smile on her face.