But quickly scan the papers she gave me for clues, but only get as far as him apparently receiving seventeen stitches on his left arm and twelve on his right, before the chime sounds again.
I’m no longer expecting anyone, least of all the tall blonde that is standing in the open doorway, looking at me like she’s about to run away.
“How may I help you?” I try to ask it kindly, because she has the same frightened look in her brilliant, jade green eyes that I see in all the women I interview and most of all my little sister’s. The eyes of a victim. This woman’s are also bloodshot and rimmed with red like she’d been crying for hours.
Her long, dark blonde hair is pulled back into a tight ponytail and she’s wearing a pale green velour tracksuit, which really brings out the brilliance of her eyes. A faint purple bruise is covering one of her cheeks. She tried to cover it with makeup, but it didn’t do much.
“Are you the lady who does all those interviews?” she asks. “With hookers and such?”
“With sex trafficking victims, yes,” I say and it comes out too harsh. Sure, a lot of the women I speak to work the streets, but I do not like referring to them as hookers, or whores or even prostitutes. They’re not there by choice, not entirely.
“You also ask a lot of questions about the biker gangs around here,” she says, unfazed by my harshness. “About the ones that do the trafficking?”
I nod and open my mouth to say yes, but no sound comes out. So I just nod harder. I’ve been trying so hard to get this kind of information from the women I speak to, but I’ve never gotten much more than little snippets so far. Everyone I speak to is too scared to give me names, and after they get back on their feet, they just want to forget all about it. Just like my sister, even after they get their lives back, they continue to live in constant fear that the monsters will come back for them.
Could this woman be the source I need to find out what happened to my sister? I dare not hope it. But I am filled with hope regardless.
“I can tell you a lot. Names, places, stuff like that. Stuff you can take to the police,” she says.
“Good, that would be great,” I say. “Do you want a cup of coffee? Let’s talk in my office.”
“Do you pay?” she asks instead of following me there.
I turn back to her, angrier than I should be, mainly because of all that hope I allowed myself to feel.
“We don’t pay,” I say with more patience than I feel. “But I can set you up at a nice halfway house and help you get financial aid until you get back on your feet.”
She scoffs. “Names and places, I can get you those. Your sister was trafficked and the ones who took her were never caught, right?”
I gulp and nod, unable to speak. She’s clearly done her homework before coming here to see me.
“I might know who took her,” she says. “But I need to get out of town fast, so I need cash. Think about it. I’ll be back in two hours.”
She turns and starts walking towards the door.
“Wait,” I call after her. “Do you have any information on Devil’s Nightmare MC?”
She freezes and I swear I heard her sob, but her face is an unreadable mask as she looks at me over her shoulder. “Not them. They’re all right. I have information on another club, if you want it.”
“Why can’t you take this information to the police yourself?” I ask.
She shakes her head and cracks a grin, which makes her pretty face look mean. “They won’t listen to me and a lot of them are in on it. Plus, they don’t pay. I’ll be back in two hours.”
Then she strides out.
And I just stay rooted to the spot, looking at the closed door she disappeared through. I never pay for the information I receive. That would defeat the whole purpose of what I’m trying to do here, and lead to women coming to me with false stories just to get paid. The moment I pay one of them and word gets out that I’m doing it, all my, and the foundation’s credibility, goes out the window.
But can I make an exception just this once?
She says she can name names. She says she knows who took Ariel. She says she’s leaving town.
She says.
But can I really just let the chance that she’s telling the truth slip through my fingers?
* * *
The two-hour wait for the woman to return came with all the sensations of what I can only compare to laying on a bed of nails. A prickly feeling all over my body that wouldn’t let me sit still and wouldn’t go away even if I paced. I even tried to do some yoga on the cold, hard tile floor of my office, but that didn’t help much either.