Chance Taken

Veronica

I tried to get back to work once I was alone in the office, but I couldn’t concentrate enough to hear what the woman on the screen was saying, let alone edit it into the video I was working on before we left for lunch. I used to be able to forget everything and anything when working. So why can’t I anymore?

My mind was buzzing with questions about Chance. Questions that have no answer, because the one I thought I had—the one that he’s a bad guy who abducts women—just doesn’t fit anymore.

Another coffee didn’t wake me, nor did the half an hour of yoga I did in the dark room where I do the interviews when I do them here. Chance forgot to take his phone with him and I spent over an hour trying to find his home address online with a vague notion of returning it in person, and possibly getting a chance to talk to his mom. I already knew she lives somewhere in the area, but I’ve never been able to figure out where and I had no more luck finding her address today.

It was a stupid idea anyway. He knows where to come for his phone and I highly doubt he still lives at home.

The other question buzzing around in my mind, and which I’ve also been trying to ignore in vain, is growing louder and louder. Does his mom know what he does? Is she in on the trafficking? Is that why she was able to get all that information on the gangs she took down with her articles and documentaries? Was all that just getting rid of the competition for the biker gang he, and possibly she, is a member of?

I feel absolutely dirty for thinking all that, but once I start, I can’t stop the flood of these nasty questions.

Five years ago, Chance’s mother won a Pulitzer for portraying the inside of a sex-trafficking ring. Her story led to the arrest of twenty men and freed over forty women from sexual slavery. Back then, I practically memorized the article she wrote and it played a huge role in me deciding to start this foundation.

Was all that built on a lie?

A knock on the glass door of the office snaps me out of trying and dreading to find an answer to that question. It’s probably Chance come back to collect the phone. Good. Maybe it’s time he gave me some concrete answers.

But when I unlock and open the door, I find Trixie standing on the other side. She’s clutching a burnt orange, fake-leather bag to her stomach and wearing the same green track suit as the first day she came here. It looks like she hasn’t changed out of it since she was here last, though her hair is neatly combed back into a high ponytail and her makeup looks freshly done.

“Do you have my money?” she asks in place of a greeting.

No amount of makeup could ever hide the deep, dark circles under her eyes. I take a step back to let her enter. “No. I didn’t expect you to come back when you didn’t show up yesterday. Come in.”

She looks so sad as she hears it, but she steps inside anyway. The sky outside is a dusky pink making me realize it’s much later than I thought it was. At least six PM. There’s no way I can get her money today. Not that I’ve even decided to pay her yet. I have to discuss an expense like that with the other founders, namely my mom and dad.

She walks into my office without waiting for me, and I find her in there, sitting it the chair across from my desk, clutching a couple of loose-leaf pages covered in blue ink. She lays the papers on the desk.

“These are all the names and places I know of,” she says. “I’ve added what I know of each place and who is responsible for what and where. I even know some of the women’s names. You can take that to the cops. Or maybe better, the FBI.”

Her voice sounds hollow and her eyes betray no emotion as she adds, “You can pay me what you think this is worth. Or nothing.”

She’s not that same self-assured woman who walked in here yesterday morning. Neither is she exactly broken. But I’m pretty sure that her glassy stare means she’s high on something that’s dulling whatever soul pain she’s in. Because she does look like she’s in pain.

I walk over and pick up the pages.

There are nicknames and real name, addresses of several places, and a few detailed accounts of who did what when and why. There are even the names and last names of several women, some with notes on where and when they were taken.

If this is legit, then it is damn near priceless to me. If I can save all these women and make sure the men who took them are locked up then my life’s work will be complete.

The very last name on the list is Ariel’s. I run my fingers over it, feeling as though I’m stroking her cheek.

“That’s your sister, right?” Trixie asks. “Her name is Ariel?”

I nod, the lump in my throat making it unable to speak.

“Now, I can’t be sure it’s your Ariel,” she says. “She was there before my time with those assholes, but one of the women remembered her. Was she a pretty blonde cheerleader?”

I nod again. “Sounds like it could be my sister.”

“This Lacy woman remembers her,” she says, pointing at a name on the page.

“And do you know where I can find her?”

She gives me a look like she thinks I lost it. “Why do you want to find her?”

“To ask about my sister and the men who took her,” I say.