He’d also tell her to be careful, and she was trying, but since she’d arrived yesterday she’d run against brick wall after brick wall. Father Sebastian was scared but determined to find the mother of the child he’d called Elizabeth, and this house—this woman—was her best lead.
Siobhan couldn’t stand on the street too long; she didn’t want anyone to notice her. Even though she’d stuffed her long curly red hair under a baseball cap and wore faded jeans and a black T-shirt, it was clear that she was a stranger.
She touched the old crucifix beneath her shirt. It had been her mother’s; she’d wanted to bury her mother with it, but her father had said Iona wanted her to have it.
“She lives in your heart, she lives in your compassion and hope. Don’t let her death lead to your despair.”
Her mother should never have died; her mother was stubborn and strong and had the biggest heart in the world. Siobhan knew she’d been sick, and still she’d gone to the States because her mother had promised her father that when Siobhan was fourteen, she could choose. Siobhan chose high school in America. The chance to spend a few years with the father she barely knew, but loved with all her heart.
A year later her mother was dead.
Siobhan shook away the memories. Now wasn’t the time or place.
She walked around to the back of the house, past the old truck that looked inoperable, sticking to the shadows as best she could, easier now that it was nearly full dark. All the windows were nailed shut from the outside, Siobhan noted. Dark curtains covered them. The two doors, front and back, had security screens that looked more like prison bars.
Father Sebastian was right—this mission was foolhardy at best and dangerous at worst—but that girl was in trouble. If there was any sign of another person inside, Siobhan would leave. But if it was just the girl, she had to try to help her.
Siobhan wasn’t a novice in rescuing girls from the sex trade, but she wasn’t as experienced as those who actually worked in the field. She was aware that some girls were so brainwashed that they would do nothing to help themselves and, in fact, might even resist a rescue. Some had been threatened with the lives of their families if they left their captors. Some were convinced that this was the only way of life. But Siobhan had to try. She had to do something, because doing nothing was not an option.
She walked almost entirely around the house, except for the side yard piled high with junk, metal pipes, and moldy furniture. She stood in the back and listened.
Silence.
Then she heard something. A faint sob? Maybe. Or was that wishful thinking?
Siobhan tried the back door; locked. She bit her lip and considered her options. She didn’t know how long she had before the people returned; could be an hour, could be days. She didn’t know if someone else was inside, other than the woman. But if she left to find help, whom would she ask? She didn’t know any of the police here; they were in a small county, an hour from the border town of Laredo. Father Sebastian seemed to think there was corruption in the small sheriff’s department but wouldn’t discuss it with her. What about the deputy she’d spoken to in Laredo yesterday? He seemed aboveboard, though he hadn’t shared anything with her.
For a split second Siobhan felt lost and depressed, the kind of lost she’d felt after her mother died, when she didn’t know what she should do; when the simplest of decisions had seemed impossible. Where were these emotions coming from? Lack of sleep? Worry about Marisol and Ana? Frustration that Kane hadn’t even once called her to say he was okay and out of the hospital and she had to hear it thirdhand from a mutual friend?
Stop it, Siobhan.
She couldn’t do Mari or Ana any good if she didn’t have the courage to do what was right. She refocused her attention on the house; the sights and sounds.
She saw no one, heard nothing. No cries, or voices, or movement.
Before she could change her mind, Siobhan pulled a lock pick out of her front pocket and worked on the screen. It was a new lock—odd, for this prewar house—and it took her a couple of minutes to get it open. The door was also locked, but that latch popped easily.
The door creaked as it swung open. She froze, listened. Heard a television somewhere—in a basement? It was low, a sporting event maybe, but she couldn’t make out anything but mumbled dialogue. She closed the door behind her as quietly as she could.
To the left was a small, tired kitchen with an ancient sink and stove, and a refrigerator with rounded corners that looked like it was from the 1950s. The wallpaper had mostly peeled off revealing soot-stained walls. But the counters had been wiped down, and the dishes had been washed and stacked in a drying rack. A bowl of fresh fruit sat in the middle of the table, bright and colorful in the dingy house. The house smelled clean, both lemony and antiseptic, neither pleasant nor pungent.