Livia considered. It was a good point, and she hadn’t thought of it.
“Okay,” she said. “You can tell the other police you trust. But I want this . . . just please, I need your help. Please.”
“All right. Okay.”
“You won’t tell?”
“I won’t tell.”
“Do you know a Thai policeman?”
“You mean, a certain Thai policeman?”
“No, no, I mean, do you know Thai policemen. Any Thai policemen.”
“I don’t. But I work with people who would know the Thai police, yes.”
All right. It wasn’t quite what she’d been hoping for, but it would have to be enough.
She told him how her parents had sold her and Nason. She described Skull Face and Dirty Beard and Square Head, leaving out the parts she couldn’t talk about—parts she thought he might sense regardless. Most of all, she described where her parents lived, in enough detail so that the Thai police could go to the village.
“But you can’t tell any Thai policemen where I am,” she said. “I don’t want my parents to know. I never want to see them again. Ever. I don’t even want anyone to contact them now, but they’re the only ones who know who they sold us to. So maybe they can help find Nason. And”—her eyes filled up and she blinked away the tears—“I love her. Even more than I hate them.”
“You don’t even want your parents to know—”
“No. They don’t deserve to know anything. Not even where I am. Not even if I’m alive.”
He nodded. “All right.”
She thought about how her people hated the Thai police, whose only job seemed to be to stop the hill tribes from cutting land in the forest where they could plant food. Some people tried to pay them bribes. The police took the money, then drove the people off their land anyway.
“And also,” she said, “the Thai police will tell you they visited the village, but that my parents didn’t know anything. Then you’ll pay them, and they won’t have”—she groped for the word, got it—“they won’t have earned it.”
“Livia, no one’s going to pay the police—”
“I don’t know how it is in America. But in Thailand, the police aren’t good. They don’t let my people farm the way we need to. If you ask for something, they expect something back. So they’ll lie and tell you they did what you asked, so they can make you do something for them in return. You need”—she struggled again, then remembered the word—“proof. Proof they did what you asked. Otherwise they’ll lie.”
“All right. What kind of proof?”
“My mother has a photograph. Of Nason and me. The Thai policemen should take it. And send it to you. Then I’ll know. I’ll know they really went to the village. I’ll know they really asked my parents. At least I’ll know that.”
Maybe she should have said, “We’ll know that.” But even though he seemed kind, she knew Rick wasn’t an ally. She didn’t have allies. And she didn’t want them. In the long run, the only person she could depend on was herself.
26—THEN
Livia passed the first day of spring semester in a daze of nausea and shame. The day before, Mr. Lone had come to her room. That much she had been expecting—it had been almost two weeks since the last time, and with Rick and the sons gone, and Mrs. Lone at her bridge club, one of his visits was inevitable. Livia had just wanted for it to be over so she wouldn’t have to dread it again, at least for a while.
But it didn’t happen the way it usually did. Mr. Lone had screamed that he had found her pads, the ones she used for her period. He accused her of hiding things from him again. And then he shoved her onto the bed, knelt on her back, pulled down her sweatpants and underwear, and pushed his fingers inside her, all the while whispering, “Now we’ll see, now we’ll see,” while Livia cried and struggled.
She hadn’t slept at all that night, and no matter how hard she tried, the next morning she couldn’t push away the memory, the disgusting invasion of his fingers moving and stabbing inside her, the helplessness of being held down like that. The worst part was that as awful as it had been, she knew it was nothing compared to what Skull Face and the other men had done to Nason, and knowing this only magnified her own pain.