Forgive Me(73)

Angie jumped when she felt a gentle tap on her shoulder. She whirled and saw a handsome face smiling at her. It took a moment for recall to kick in.

Bryce Taggart wore jeans, a tan blazer, and a white dress shirt underneath. He looked extremely relaxed for someone who had just gotten into a gun battle inside a crawlspace. Among law enforcement, word of his actions had spread like a California brush fire.

“Is she sleeping?” He leaned his body against the doorframe and craned his neck to take a peek inside Nadine’s hospital room.

“Yes,” Angie said, backing away from the door. “Soundly, thanks to whatever sedative they gave her.”

Bryce extended his hand and introduced himself. “We met at the FBI briefing before the mission, but weren’t formally introduced. You did great work, Angie. Top notch.”

“Thanks, though word is you did pretty good yourself. I heard all about your exploits down under with Buggy.”

“Yeah, well, he’s where he belongs. Scratch that. He’s at the Baltimore Medical Center, but soon he’ll be where he belongs.”

“What are you doing here?” Angie asked.

“I’ve got to write my report and I needed Nadine’s statement. I can get it later.”

“She’s been through a lot. Take it easy on her, okay? She’s not going to face charges for what she did?”

Bryce shook his head. “The Feds are pretty good about viewing juveniles who are trafficked as victims. She’ll be fine. You got my word.”

“Glad to hear.”

“Say, there’s a little gathering down at McSorley’s to celebrate a job well done. Care to join?”

Angie didn’t have to think long. She was whole-body exhausted and eager to check on her dad. She was also eager to return to her routine, stop farming out jobs, and maybe, just maybe, help Bao crack the code on the back the photograph. She had a lot on her mind. Drinks with a rowdy crowd at McSorley’s didn’t fit into the picture. “No thanks,” she said, second-guessing her decision after a flash of his gleaming smile.

“How about I buy you a cup of coffee in the cafeteria?” he suggested.

That was an offer Angie couldn’t refuse.





The cafeteria, except for the seating area, was closed, but the hospital offered free coffee as a courtesy. Bryce drank his black. Angie made a green tea. She expected Bryce to make some comment, but it was Mike who would have said something, a yoga joke perhaps.

She had plenty of questions for Bryce, and he didn’t seem in any hurry to get to McSorley’s.

“Where are the other girls?”

“We took them to different hospitals for observation. Most checked out okay, I heard. A couple were being kept overnight, but I don’t know why.”

“What’s going to happen to them?”

“You mean after?”

“Yes, after.”

Bryce leaned forward and Angie felt a little jump of excitement. He smelled a bit like mint. There was a reason minty toothpaste was so popular. Bryce had a lot of attractive features—his smile, for one; the short hair; a perfect amount of scruff; and a jaw line even Mike couldn’t help commenting on. But it was Bryce’s eyes Angie found most alluring. It wasn’t just the color, though his shade of blue was indeed striking. It was more how his eyes sparkled with a sense of adventure, but conveyed wisdom and compassion at the same time.

Something about Bryce Taggart wasn’t typical of the law enforcement types she had encountered over the years. She was curious about him.

“Well, the Americans will be treated differently from undocumented foreigners. That’s for starters.”

“How many Americans?”

“Five out of the fifteen, including Nadine.”

“Five,” Angie repeated.

“These guys could make tens of thousands of dollars per week per girl,” Bryce said. “It’s huge business. Thirty some odd billion dollars per year according to some estimates I’ve seen reports estimating two hundred thousdand CSE victims in the US alone.”

CSE—commercial sexual exploitation. Angie knew the acronym, but thought Bryce’s figure was low. She’d heard it was more like three hundred fifty thousand children, but it might include all of North America. It certainly doesn’t account for women and men over the age of 18. That number would be much higher.

“It’s just slavery wearing a new disguise,” she said, deciding not correct his number.

“They were still grooming Nadine for more. Some of the girls were sold to dozens of men a day. Not everything took place in the basement. Some girls worked different motels in the area.”

“Where did he find them? I know he got Nadine at the shops at Union Station. What about the others?”

“Not sure about the Americans. But the foreigners are from Eastern Europe mostly,” Bryce said. “Markovich must have access to a smuggling pipeline. We’ll figure out how got them here. That I’m sure of.”

“That’s great. But what’s going to happen to the girls now?”

Not all the runaways Angie tracked down ended up being trafficked for sex, but enough did to give her experience with the cruel irony of rescue. Without their traffickers, a lot of the girls had no place to live and no means to support themselves.