Shattered (The Protectors 11)

I laughed and asked, “How old were you?”

“Nine or ten, I guess.” I saw his smile falter, then he dropped his eyes. I had no doubt he was thinking about how his life had changed so drastically just a few years later, since he had been only thirteen when his father had touched him for the first time.

I gripped my milk hard enough that some of it spurted up the straw and dripped onto my hand.

“I haven’t had one of those things in a while,” he murmured. He lifted his eyes again and managed a half-smile. “Guess we all have to grow up sometime, huh?”

I lifted the milk and said, “Not completely, no.”

He nodded and took a sip of his milk. “You have a sister?” he asked.

I automatically flinched at the question, though I’d known it would eventually come up, since I’d let it slip earlier when talking about my father’s sweet tooth.

I nodded.

Something must have clued Caleb in because he fell silent, then began to fiddle with the straw. I knew he wouldn’t ask me what he obviously wanted to, so I bit the bullet and said, “I don’t know where she is. She’s been missing for almost two years.”

Chapter 6

Caleb

I hadn’t been expecting him to tell me anything after he’d tensed up when I’d mentioned his sister, so I was momentarily shocked into silence at his admission.

“What happened?” I finally asked. I knew it wasn’t any of my business, but I was desperate to know more about Jace, and while it wasn’t exactly the best topic, I’d take anything he gave me. In the two years since he’d gotten me out of the psychiatric hospital, he’d never once talked about himself.

“She and her boyfriend went to Europe a couple years ago for a long backpacking trip. Everything was going fine until they got to Germany. She used to call me like clockwork every week to check in. Just like that, the calls stopped. There were no more posts to her social media pages, either. Her boyfriend’s parents didn’t hear anything either. The German authorities said they’d likely just run away together… decided to cut ties and just not come home. They refused to even consider her missing until about three months later when her boyfriend’s body was discovered in a field outside Berlin.”

Although Jace’s voice was even as he spoke, I could see the tightness in his jaw and the spark of pain in his eyes.

“There was no word of your sister?” I asked.

Jace shook his head. “It was like she just disappeared off the face of the earth.”

“How old is she?” I asked, careful not to use past tense.

“She’d be twenty-four now. Her name is Maggie.”

“I’m sorry, Jace,” I murmured. “I can’t even imagine,” I began, but then shook my head. I understood the pain of losing a loved one, but knowing Nick was dead was somehow easier than imagining him being out in the world and not knowing if he was okay or not. “Your parents? How are they dealing with it?”

“Our parents died when I was fifteen and Maggie was five. She and I were sent to live with an uncle, then later my grandmother.”

I could tell by the tone of his voice that there was more to that particular part of the story, but I refrained from asking about it. “Is your grandmother still—”

“No,” Jace cut in. “She died a few months before Maggie left for her trip. Maggie used her part of the inheritance our grandmother left us to pay for it.”

“God, I don’t even know what to say,” I managed to get out. I looked at him and said, “No, scratch that, I do know what to say. It fucking sucks, Jace. I can’t even imagine how hard all that’s been on you.”

Jace sent me a small smile, but he didn’t say anything.

“Are the police still looking for Maggie?”

“Not really. Once the news of a pretty young American girl going missing dies down, so does the interest in finding her. I go over there every time I get a new lead, but they’re few and far between.”

“Lead?” I asked in confusion. “Do you… do you know who took her?”

“I don’t know who,” Jace responded. “But I do know why.”

When he didn’t elaborate, I debated whether I should just let the terrible conversation die a natural death. If he’d been anyone else, I would have. But he wasn’t just anyone – he was the one person who’d been there for me when I’d been at my most vulnerable. Just hearing his voice as I’d been strapped to that hospital bed, my brain addled by countless drugs, had helped me feel a little less alone.

“Why was she taken?” I asked.

Jace hesitated, then pulled in a deep breath. “Have you heard of sex trafficking, Caleb?”

My throat threatened to close up as I nodded. I’d seen stories about it on the news every now and then. But it also hit closer to home.