I close the door and walk around to the driver’s side, open the door and set the backpack on the front seat, peel off my latex gloves, and shove them in my pants pocket. I start the car.
Before I pull out I look at her through the rearview mirror and I realize I can’t go to the cops. It doesn’t matter that I’m a former cop turned PI and still have a couple of friends I can trust. And seriously, there’s only two.
Yeah, I can make up a good story. I’m not worried about that. Hell, I rescued a little girl. Exigent circumstances. Those words alone allowed me to kick in plenty of doors back in the day. But the fact is, if I take her somewhere like the Third District, which is the closest station, I’ll be there most of the day answering questions and making up stories. I don’t have the time for that shit.
And I can’t just take her home. Cops would still get involved, and Fairfax County PD would be slow-cooking my ass for even more hours than DC. Whatever choice I make, cops are going to get involved. I just have to do it in a way that minimizes my exposure and allows me to get back out here and do what I gotta do before they move on it first.
Then it comes to me.
Costello.
I’ll take her to Costello’s office downtown. She’ll know how to handle it. She retains me as an investigator for some of her bigger defense cases. All this other shit I do, well, that’s just sustaining a lifestyle I couldn’t afford otherwise.
I look at my wristwatch. If I hurry, I might have enough time after I drop off the kid to come back and make a quick run through before those Salvadoran mopes return. I’ll just have to give Costello the condensed version of a story I haven’t thought of yet.
Four
I take Georgia Avenue south until it turns into 7th. Howard Hospital is behind me. I think about turning around to take her there. I look at the rearview again, notice her wrapped in my suit jacket, unexpressive and gazing out the window.
My mind’s been racing, but like I said, taking her to Costello’s might buy me the time I need to finish up what I spent days planning so I stay the course.
“How old are you, Amanda?”
I see her break away from the window as if something jarred her.
“Sixteen.”
“You look a little young for sixteen. When’s your birthday?”
She doesn’t answer. It’s like she forgot.
“Amanda, can you tell me your birthday?”
“October eleventh.”
“That was like a couple days ago, huh?”
“Yeah.”
Damn, what a way to spend your birthday.
“Did they kidnap you, Amanda?” I ask directly.
She disappears again, somewhere in her head or out the window.
“Did they kidnap you?”
“No,” she says, just as directly.
“Tell me what happened. I need you to focus now because I’ll need to explain it later.”
She is looking at me watching her through the rearview mirror.
It takes a moment, but she says, “There’s a boy,” then pauses, thinks. “He goes to my school, Edgar. He took me there once. He said they were his brothers and I should meet them because he wanted me to be his girl.”
“So you dated Edgar before that?”
“Yeah, I guess. He has a car, and we’d drive around sometimes, maybe go to the mall.”
“The first time you were there, is that when they kidnapped you?”
“No. They took me to a mall and bought me stuff.”
“Your parents ever say anything about that?”
“They never knew. Don’t tell my parents,” she adds desperately.
“I won’t tell them.”
I can guess the rest. Shit like this has been going on for a while. It even hit the news recently, how some of the gangs are moving to the suburbs to recruit impressionable high school kids, especially teenage girls. Cute young gangbangers wooing them, buying them shit, taking them places, and giving them the kind of attention they crave at that age. Next thing they know, they got them smoking weed and moving up the chain, to harder drugs. The bigger gangs around here are notorious for this shit. After that they either put them to work at a brothel or on the streets.
“What school you go to?”
“Lake Braddock.”
“This is important, Amanda, so I need you to listen carefully, okay?”
“Okay?”
“What I do is very sensitive, so I can’t just drive you up to a police district and drop you off.”
“So you’re going to take me straight home?”
“Someone else is going to take care of that.”
“What, why? Why can’t you just take me home now?”
“It’s not that simple. There’s a lady I know. She’s a lawyer—”
“I don’t want to go there. I just want you to take me home.”
“You are going home. This lady works with the police all the time, not just me. She’s a very nice lady, and I gotta take you to her office. She’ll take care of you and call your parents.”
I’m telling her all of this assuming Costello’s going to do it. For all I know she’s going to tell me to go to hell and take her to headquarters, which is not even a block from her office. I’m hoping if that happens I can convince her otherwise.
“It’s how things like this work, Amanda,” I lie.