“We need to find Marisol, who can testify against Zapelli. But we are also looking for her sister, who is nearing the end of a high-risk pregnancy with twins, and up to twelve other women whom we believe were impregnated solely to deliver babies into the black market. All the evidence we have uncovered shows that this was done to them against their will. They are the victims, and they need to be treated as such.”
There were a few questions, but the assembled force seemed eager to hit the streets. Villines made the assignments, even sending two officers to Del Rio to check out the place Zapelli was parked overnight. He finished by saying, “If you find these girls, contact me immediately. Siobhan Walsh, the photojournalist, personally knows them and she can help facilitate their cooperation so they know we’re here to help.”
Lucy glanced at Siobhan, who was standing in the back of the room. Siobhan looked like she was running on fumes. Lucy had assumed that Siobhan had seen bad stuff as part of her job. Lucy had seen many of her photos—poverty and pain interspersed with beauty and love and the simple life. The Sisters of Mercy primarily worked on helping poor villages learn to care for themselves in the basics of hygiene, agriculture, building homes, medicine. But in that, there was death and poverty and tragedy, like the mudslide that had killed half the people in the de la Rosas’ village. To Lucy, that would be emotionally and physically devastating, yet what was going on here seemed to overwhelm Siobhan, and Lucy didn’t understand why.
When Villines was done, Lucy approached her. “Are you okay?”
She nodded, but Lucy didn’t believe it.
“What is it?” she pushed.
“Why didn’t she call me? Why didn’t she come to me for help? Didn’t she know I would drop everything, fly from any corner of the world, to help her?”
Lucy didn’t know how to respond. All she could say was, “She believed Angelo would help her. She probably was in love with him, trusted him. She was wrong. You don’t know what she’s been thinking over the last two years. But—she kept your locket. She put it around her baby’s neck. That means something.”
Siobhan nodded, but her eyes were a million miles away.
Noah said, “Let’s go. Siobhan, wait for us here.” She didn’t answer, but let them go.
Lucy followed Noah out. “Where’s Nate?”
“He went with Villines. You and I have two places on our list. Villines gave us a deputy who knows the area.”
A young deputy walked up to them. He had the darker skin of a Mexican-Indian and the long black hair to match. “Deputy Ezekiel Medicine Crow. Call me Ike. I’m a rookie, but I was born and bred here in Laredo. I can get you anywhere.”
Noah handed him the map Villines had given him. “These two places. Closest one first.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I know this address,” Lucy said. “This is Loretta Martinez’s house.”
“It’s the first stop he made before going to Freer on Friday,” Noah said.
“He may have been the one who beat her up. I just assumed that she was attacked after Marisol escaped.”
“You didn’t ask?”
Lucy shook her head. “It was a bad assumption. She denied being beaten, said she’d fallen, and I was looking for information about Marisol.”
“We’ll drive by, see if there’s anything else there, then hit the second place.”
There was nothing useful at Loretta’s house. It was clear no one had been back since the paramedics took her in. Villines had reported that she was still in critical condition, but Lucy didn’t know the status of her injuries or if the surgery had been successful.
The second place was a warehouse outside of town that Zapelli had visited right before he went to the airport. It was isolated at the end of a long line of large square buildings, half seemingly abandoned, some with faded FOR LEASE signs, the others a hodgepodge of services: an auto-body shop, a moving company, a printing press.
“We have no way of knowing which he visited,” Lucy said. The GPS puts him in this general area, but not in an exact spot.”
Ike said, “Most of these businesses have been shut down for years. We had some problems out here with gangs, and there was a meth lab running in one of the empty buildings for about eight months before the DEA shut them down, but nothing recent.”
They got out and looked around. Talked to the businesses that were open, showed his photo, but no one claimed to know Zapelli.
Lucy was going to suggest they inspect the empty buildings, but Noah put his hand up and answered his phone. “We’ll be right there.”
He hung up. “That was Villines. They found some of the girls. It’s bad.”
*