I’ve been told we’re waiting for my attorney. The one Mr. Nash set me up with. Mr. Nash’s FBI friend, Special Agent Carter, sits at one end of the table, babysitting me. He’s not so bad. At least he didn’t cuff me and make me ride in the backseat of his car. Beau and Mr. Nash are waiting for me in the reception area. They weren’t allowed to come back with me. I’m relieved about that.
Agent Carter gets a phone call. There’s not much talking on his end, nothing to give away what the call could be about. When he ends it he tells me that my attorney will be here shortly. Sure enough, a petite black woman in a fire-engine-red suit with matching shoes, lips, and nails enters the room. She breathes confidence the way fish breath water. Agent Carter gets to his feet. They whisper to each other and then the agent leaves, closing the door behind him.
“You must be Gwendolyn,” she says, holding her hand out to me.
I haven’t been called that name in so long it takes me a few moments to respond. I take her hand and she gives it a couple brief pumps.
“I’m Shayla Reese. You can call me Shay.” She takes the seat next to me and tosses her briefcase on the table like she doesn’t give a fuck if she dents it.
“Nice to meet you.”
She opens her case and pulls out a couple files. “Ed gave me copies of his files for my records and copies for me to give the FBI. I’m fairly up to speed on what’s happening here.” Stacking her hands on the files, she turns to me. “But I want to hear it from you.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything. The condensed version. The Feebs are hungry to get in here and grill you.”
I give her what she wants. She asks a bunch of questions for clarification. All the while she takes notes. She smells like a fashion magazine. When I was about twelve I’d go to the pharmacy down the street from my foster home and rub the scent strips from the magazines on my wrists, dreaming of the day when I could buy perfume that smelled like that—expensive, beautiful, desirable. The kind of scent that would make men want me the way the male models in the ads seemed to want the females. That was when I used to dream of such stupid things. Huh. I hadn’t thought about doing that in a long, long while. It feels like forever ago.
Shay takes out her laptop and fires it up. She holds her palm out. “The thumb drive.”
I hesitate. Not because I don’t trust her, but because this is the final step off the cliff. I’m really doing this. I’m really putting Javier’s nuts in a vice. I’m really becoming witness number one at his trial. I’m really giving up control of my life for the foreseeable future, maybe forever. I’m really giving up Beau. That last realization strikes a blow. My chest hitches and I can’t feel my hands as I reach into my bra and give the thumb drive to Shay.
It’s done.
She plugs it into her USB drive and clicks the file open. I know what’s on it. I pretty much have it memorized. It looks like gibberish at first, until you know what to look for. Then it’s like ripping the curtains wide open on the fucked-up world of underage sex trafficking.
He has us listed by the names he gave us—Cherry, Bunny, Kitty, Angel, Cinnamon, Porsche, Mercedes, Lexus, Diamond, Pearl, Crystal, Jasmine, Misty, Bambi, Brandi, Desiree, Scarlet, Ariel, Lola, Candi, Rain, Chanel, Lucky, Amber, Ginger, Jade, Star, Paris, Dallas, Tawny, Roxy, Coco, Trixie, Fantasy, Heavenly…and Eden—the name he gave me. Thirty-six girls from ten to seventeen years old. Older than that and you got downgraded to truck stops and strip bars.
There’s a price list per act, from blowjobs to anal to threesomes to BDSM. The more perverted, the higher the price. The younger the girl, the higher the price. The riskier the behavior, the higher the price. Bareback cost extra, and guys had to show they’d been tested to get on the special list. One positive AIDS test and both the guy and the girl were out. If I have anything to be grateful to Javier for, it’s that rule.
I walk Shay through every bit of it, right down to the bank account numbers and password codes. Those are likely useless now. He would’ve changed everything once he realized that the thumb drive and I were gone. But the credit card numbers—how his clients paid—those can be easily traced back to their owners. Javier billed his clients using the fake company name Opentech. It was generic enough to sound like almost any kind of business on their credit card statements. The clients can provide the money half of the equation and where it all goes. They can also give up the houses where the girls are kept. I tell Shay everything…including the one thing I couldn’t tell Beau.
When I’m done, she sits back in her seat with tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she whispers.
“Don’t, okay? I don’t need that from you or anybody else. What I need is Marie back safe and sound. And I need Javier to not get tipped off by that fucker right there,” I say, pointing out the window.