“Yes, after.”
Bryce leaned forward and Angie felt a little jump of excitement. He smelled a bit like mint. There was a reason minty toothpaste was so popular. Bryce had a lot of attractive features—his smile, for one; the short hair; a perfect amount of scruff; and a jaw line even Mike couldn’t help commenting on. But it was Bryce’s eyes Angie found most alluring. It wasn’t just the color, though his shade of blue was indeed striking. It was more how his eyes sparkled with a sense of adventure, but conveyed wisdom and compassion at the same time.
Something about Bryce Taggart wasn’t typical of the law enforcement types she had encountered over the years. She was curious about him.
“Well, the Americans will be treated differently from undocumented foreigners. That’s for starters.”
“How many Americans?”
“Five out of the fifteen, including Nadine.”
“Five,” Angie repeated.
“These guys could make tens of thousands of dollars per week per girl,” Bryce said. “It’s huge business. Thirty some odd billion dollars per year according to some estimates I’ve seen reports estimating two hundred thousdand CSE victims in the US alone.”
CSE—commercial sexual exploitation. Angie knew the acronym, but thought Bryce’s figure was low. She’d heard it was more like three hundred fifty thousand children, but it might include all of North America. It certainly doesn’t account for women and men over the age of 18. That number would be much higher.
“It’s just slavery wearing a new disguise,” she said, deciding not correct his number.
“They were still grooming Nadine for more. Some of the girls were sold to dozens of men a day. Not everything took place in the basement. Some girls worked different motels in the area.”
“Where did he find them? I know he got Nadine at the shops at Union Station. What about the others?”
“Not sure about the Americans. But the foreigners are from Eastern Europe mostly,” Bryce said. “Markovich must have access to a smuggling pipeline. We’ll figure out how got them here. That I’m sure of.”
“That’s great. But what’s going to happen to the girls now?”
Not all the runaways Angie tracked down ended up being trafficked for sex, but enough did to give her experience with the cruel irony of rescue. Without their traffickers, a lot of the girls had no place to live and no means to support themselves.
“There’s help out there,” Bryce said. “The government might seem big and bloated, but undocumented juveniles and adults have access to pretty good resources from the Department of Health and Human Services. The Office of Refugee Resettlement, I’ve heard, has an outstanding program and is pretty well funded through Catholic Charities. They won’t be abandoned.”
“So no jail?”
“No jail.”
“And Tasha? She was Nadine’s lifeline in there.”
“I’m guessing they’re all going to apply for T Visas. It’s for trafficking victims and it allows them to stay. ORR helps with that, as well.”
Angie frowned. “You and I both know a lot of those girls are going to end up working in strip clubs.”
Bryce shrugged. “Not saying you’re wrong. We found a lot of narcotics in the apartments. I wouldn’t be surprised if Nadine’s hooked on something. I also wouldn’t be surprised if some of the girls want a good payday to fuel their habit.”
Angie was disgusted by it all. The adage “sex sells” was meaningless to most people, a slogan and nothing more. But it was real for her. It was the face of many of the kids she tracked down.
“How’d you get into this business, anyway?” Bryce asked.
Angie took a sip of her tea. Her throat was unusually dry and she wasn’t sure it was from the stale hospital air. “You want the whole story or the Cliff notes?”
The twinkle in Bryce’s eyes flared. “The crew at McSorley’s isn’t missing me.”
Angie told Bryce about Sarah Winter and her friend Madeline Hartsock. She described how she’d become a PI, and Madeline a prosecutor, because Sarah’s disappearance inspired them to make a difference. Angie felt comfortable opening up to Bryce. She told him about her mother’s death, and her father’s health problems. She shared more with him in a few minutes than she’d done with men she’d dated for months.
“What about you?” Angie asked. “Former military?”
“Why do you ask?” Bryce said. “It’s my bad-assery, isn’t it? I’ve been told I radiate it.”
Angie laughed. “No, it’s just that a lot of marshals come from the military. My dad’s best friend was in the service.”
“Oh yeah? What’s his name? Maybe I know him.”
“Walter Odette.”
The name didn’t mean anything to Bryce, but Walter was long retired.
“I’m not military,” Bryce said. “I’m not really your typical U.S. marshal, either.”
“Oh? What are you?”
“English major,” Bryce said. “Poetry, in fact.”