Читать книгу Deadly Exchange - Lisa Harris - Страница 11

Two

The street below blurred as Kayla stared out her apartment window. Car headlights streaked by, houseboats moored on the canal bobbed in the water and the endless rows of houses were lit up by hazy streetlamps and porch lights. Her mind tried to work through the logic of what she’d just seen on the video. How in the world had this happened? Someone had entered her apartment, snatched her father and was now threatening to kill him?

“Why take my father?” she asked, speaking her thoughts out loud to Levi. “He has nothing to do with my work.”

“They need leverage. They’re using him to get to you.”

So those were the consequences they’d meant. If she didn’t find Mercy, they’d kill her father.

How did a job helping people come to this?

She studied the pedestrians and bikes passing below. Were they out there, watching her apartment? It seemed impossible to tell in the darkness. No one looked out of place, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. A chill blew through her, raising goose bumps across her forearm.

If they were out there now...watching her...

Maybe she was just being paranoid. They’d given her twenty-four hours to find Mercy, which meant for the next twenty-four hours it was to their advantage to keep her father alive. Because right now, he was the only leverage they had.

And when she found Mercy? What was she supposed to do then?

Levi crossed the room, stopping beside her. “Tell me about Mercy. Who is she?”

“One of the girls we’ve been working with the past few months. About eighteen months ago, she was brought to Italy from Nigeria with promises of a job and money to send back to her parents. Once she got there, she found out that everything she’d been told was a bunch of lies.”

“And now her previous...owner...wants her back?”

Kayla nodded. It was an impossible trade. An impossible situation with no easy resolution. Trade Mercy for Max, or let her father die. How was she supposed to do either one?

There has to be another way, God.

“She’s only seventeen years old, Levi.”

“I don’t think this is something you can fix on your own, Kayla.” He stepped up next to her. “You need to go to the police. It’s the only way out of this.”

“They told me not to go to the police.” She was trying not to panic, but while she’d always known there were risks to her job, everything had suddenly spiraled out of control. And now her choices were causing consequences in other people’s lives. People she loved. “I can’t risk them hurting my father.”

“And do you think that not going to the police is going to help?” Levi asked. “At least we’d have more resources on our side.”

“We?” She took a step back, immediately regretting the sharp tone of her voice. “I’m sorry, but you don’t need to get involved in this. Two of my coworkers, Evi and Abel, are on their way back to Amsterdam right now. We will figure out something.”

“I thought they told you not to get your coworkers involved. Besides, the moment I got on that plane to Europe, I was involved. And whether your life’s at risk because of my brother or a bunch of human traffickers doesn’t really matter at this point. There’s no way I can just walk away.”

“What about Adam?” she said. “Do you know where he is?”

“I haven’t been able to get a hold of him.”

She glanced up at him, suddenly grateful to have a familiar face next to her right now. This was the Levi she remembered. The man she’d always known him to be. Fiercely loyal, he would never walk away from ensuring the good guys won. It was what had propelled him to join the military in order to serve his country, as well as what had motivated him to return home when his family needed him.

But still. How could she expect him to help fight her battle?

“I need to see if I can get a hold of Mercy. Then I need to come up with a plan to get my father back as well, because...because I don’t know what else to do.” She pressed her lips together. She was rambling. A habit she had when she was nervous. She grabbed her phone off the table then caught his gaze. “And, Levi...thank you.”

“You’re welcome. I’m just glad I’m here.”

Kayla dialed Mercy’s number, praying she picked up. The phone went straight to voice mail.

“Her phone’s off.”

“Tell me more about the connection to your job. I know you work with International Freedom Operation, but all I know is what’s on their website.”

“Many of the girls we help, like Mercy, lived in extreme poverty before making the journey here. When they learn of travel brokers offering visas and a plane ticket to Europe, they believe they’ve found a way to support their family.”

“And yet it’s all a lie,” Levi said.

Kayla nodded. “They’re now indebted to the people who smuggled them into the country and forced to work in the sex trade. We help those who have been able to escape with a place to live, job training, language classes and sometimes even citizenship.”

“So this is probably about someone who believes you’re getting in the way of what they’re doing?”

She nodded. “I know what they can do, Levi. They won’t hesitate to kill my father if I don’t do what they say. Or kill me if they don’t get what they want. Three months ago, one of our girls was found dead. The authorities concluded it was an overdose, but I never believed that. She’d been clean, happy and was doing well in our program. I talked to her the day before she went missing. She was excited about her future. I’ll never believe she simply went back willingly to the men who’d trafficked her.”

Levi caught her gaze and held it. “Like your sister, Lilly?”

Kayla took a sharp intake of breath at the mention of her sister.

“I’m sorry, I just know how personal this must be—”

“No,” she said. “It’s fine. I just... I miss Lilly so much. Next week is the seventh anniversary of the day we found her. Sometimes it still seems unreal. And Mercy...she reminds me so much of my sister. Funny, outgoing...”

Her mind shifted momentarily to the day the FBI came to their door to tell them they’d found Lilly’s body. The moment that had erased any hope they’d find her alive.

“I only know what my mother forwarded to me via the local news,” Levi said, “but it was enough for me to know how painful it had to have been for you. And in turn how personal all of this is. I sent you a letter after Lilly’s funeral. I don’t know if you ever got it, but I just wanted you to know I was thinking about you. Praying for your family. I know I can’t begin to imagine what you all were going through.”

She sat back down in the living room chair, her thoughts switching to the pile of envelopes that had slowly stacked up after her sister’s disappearance. There had been hundreds of cards from friends and family. “I do remember. Yours was one of the few handwritten letters. I hope you didn’t take it personally if we didn’t respond. There were so many cards and messages. First around the time of her disappearance, then a few months later at her funeral. I was just trying to keep my family together.”

“I didn’t mention the letter to make you feel guilty. I just wanted you to know that I had been thinking about you and your family.”

“I know.” She waved her hand in front of her, wishing it was just as easy to wave away the accumulated years of grief. “It wasn’t supposed to happen to Lilly. Not to a middle-class girl living in a small town where violent crime was rarer than a blizzard in July. It changed the fabric of my family. And of the entire town, really. It’s like the bubble we’d been living in burst, and people realized suddenly that what happened to Lilly could happen to anyone.”

Her eyes filled with tears. Even with all the time that had passed, she still hadn’t healed. Not completely. And she wasn’t sure she ever would.

* * *

Levi leaned forward to brush a strand of hair off her shoulder, then pulled back at the too-intimate gesture. He’d come to ensure she stayed safe. Nothing more.

“The scary thing is that it really can happen to anyone anywhere.” Her lashes were wet when she looked up at him. “These girls...they never expected to have to deal with what they have had to live through. And now...they have my father.”

As much as he didn’t want to pull her away from her grief, he needed to get her back on track. Her father’s life was at stake. And his might not be the only one.

“You mentioned an emergency plan. What exactly is Mercy supposed to do if she believes her life is in danger?”

“While we always hope we never have to use it, each girl has an emergency protocol in case their trafficker—or someone else—comes after them. We teach them what to do if they’re followed, how to get out of their apartment safely, who to call using code words if they are under duress and access to a safe house we have set up.”

“Tell me more about the safe house.”

“If any of the girls feel as if their lives are in danger, they are to call it in, then go directly to the safe house. The procedure was implemented because most of the girls—because of where they come from—are afraid of the authorities and don’t want to deal with them. It’s near public transportation so it’s easy to get to, and once there, they are given a cell phone to text me with the code that tells me where they are and that they are safe.”

“But Mercy hasn’t done any of these things.”

Kayla shook her head. “No. Which has me worried. I know Mercy. Maybe she doesn’t know they’re after her, but I found out right before you got here that she didn’t show up for work or her class tonight.”

“So you think she ran?”

“If they had her, they wouldn’t need me. So something had to have spooked her. Made her believe she was better off on her own than going to the safe house.”

“Have you ever used the system before?”

“The girl I told you about earlier, the one who was killed, she was being stalked by her former pimp. The last thing I got from her was her distress message.”

“Which might give Mercy motivation to do things on her own. Where do you think she would go?”

“I don’t know.” Kayla closed the living room curtains, turned on a lamp next to the couch, then sat down. “Most of the girls don’t have a lot of friends other than each other. They’re working hard for a better life and don’t have a lot of free time.”

Levi took the chair across from her. “Then help me understand what she’s thinking right now.”

Kayla let out a slow breath while her fingers played with the hem of her shirt. “By the time they get to us, they are suffering from PTSD. Most of them have been beaten over and over. Some of them have even been branded. They’ve been cut off from everyone. They are afraid to go to the authorities and too ashamed to go to friends or family. Coming to us—and working through our program—takes a tremendous amount of courage.”

He could hear the passion in her voice as she spoke about the girls she worked with. Her compassion for these women paired with her strong desire for justice had created a huge part of the motivation for her to do what she did. And on top of that—with the loss of her sister—the motivation behind what she did was personal.

“So how does someone like Mercy find you?” he asked.

“Getting out is often the hardest part. On one hand, they’re terrified of physical retribution if they leave. They’re also trapped mentally, so even if they could escape, many of them don’t because they are already isolated from friends and family. Girls like Mercy, who are from other countries, don’t have any identification papers and are terrified they’ll get arrested for being illegal.

“In Mercy’s situation, a Good Samaritan took her to the hospital after finding her beaten up in a hotel room. We work with other agencies, and often it’s the first responders who come to us with the girls, which is how she was eventually brought to us. Unfortunately too many of these girls don’t find a way out.”

Kayla’s phone buzzed again. She snatched it off the table.

“What is it this time?” Levi asked. If it was Mercy...

A second later she held up the phone so he could see it.

You didn’t listen to me. I told you not to get anyone involved. If you want to keep your father safe, you will do what I say.

She clicked on the attached photo. It was one of her and Levi standing at the window.

“Kayla—”

“They’re watching,” she said, quickly crossing the room to pull back the curtain and peer down again on the darkened street.

“You’re not going to find them,” he said, joining her at the window.

“I know.”

Levi felt his anger simmer as he followed her gaze to the cafés and shops, rows of bikes and pedestrians walking by. But someone was out there. Watching Kayla like they had been when she was on the street. Watching her again while she stood in the privacy of her home. His concern for Max and Mercy hadn’t changed, but now he was worried about her as well.

“If the message was meant to scare me, they’ve done exactly that,” she said. “I’m terrified. What am I supposed to do?”

He drew in a deep breath, mentally going through their options. “I think you should play their game.”

“Play their game? What do you mean?”

“I think you should respond.”

“How?”

He knew it was taking a risk, but anything they did at this point was risky. At least she wasn’t doing this on her own.

“Can I see your phone?”

She handed it to him, and he started typing.

You want me to find Mercy? Let me do it my way. I’ll find her faster if I have help.

He showed her the text.

“So we make him believe we’ll actually make the trade?”

“For the moment, yes. And I think they’ll believe you. Why wouldn’t they? They already believe you’ll choose your father over Mercy or they wouldn’t have taken him for leverage.”

He waited while she mulled over his suggestion.

“What if this makes them mad?” she asked.

“I’d say they’re already mad. Making them think you’re planning on following through with their plan is to your advantage.”

“Okay. Send it.”

He glanced back at the screen, praying his analysis of the situation was correct, and pressed Send. In the army he’d been trained to process strategic intelligence on the enemy. This was really no different. He needed to pull together all the information he could then come up with a battle plan.

He stared at the screen as if that was going to bring a quicker reply. “Do you have any idea who might be behind this?”

She shook her head as she headed toward her bedroom. “I’ve got copies of her file locked up in my safe. I don’t remember any names mentioned in her files, but I do know that she was bought and sold several times. First in Italy. Then here in Holland.”

“So we can’t just automatically narrow it down.”

She came back a minute later with a thin file folder. “I might be able to find something in here, but no one was arrested in connection to her situation. And any names we had were aliases.”

“Which is going to make our job harder.”

Another text came through. Kayla read the text then handed the phone to Levi.

Fine, but you better find her.

“What do you suggest we do?” She heard the impatience in her voice and pressed her lips together. She wasn’t trying to be difficult. She just wanted to find a way to fix the situation without making things worse. And she had no idea how.

“Let’s start with Mercy’s apartment.”

Kayla glanced out the window. “And if they try to follow us?”

“We have to make sure they don’t.”