Forgive Me(97)

Donovan said, “These are the Baltimore boys I was telling you about, Bryce Taggart and Gary Graves. If you want to be mad at anybody for getting me out from under your nose, blame these two.”

“Last I checked, it’s a temporary assignment,” the man with Donovan said. “In fact, I came down here to tell your new boss just how temporary.”

Donovan said, “Yeah? Well, once the SOG sees I’m the guy who brought in Markovich, I’m betting the move is going be permanent. Taggart, Graves, this is my soon-to-be ex-boss on witness protection, Raynor Sinclair.”





CHAPTER 52




Buzzwords come and they go. That’s the job of those words, I guess. For instance, hash tag (ya know, #) is all in right now, but I bet it’s not going to mean anything to kids five years younger than me when they turn 17. Oh yeah. Happy birthday to me! I’m seventeen now. Yea me. I sure feel like I’ve crammed in a lot more years than that into this life-o-mine, but whatever, I’m 17 so happy birthday to me. But the buzzword thing, right? I think Human Trafficking is kind of a buzzword. I’ve been doing some research online and that’s my big conclusion. It’s sort a fad phrase. Hot topic right now, but check with me in five years and let me know if that’s still the case. My fear is some new issue is going to come along and replace it, and people won’t talk about the problem anymore, and some girl is going to be trafficked just like me and because it’s not a buzzword anymore she’ll just think she was just a prostitute or something. #thatwouldbeashame





Here’s the hard part for me. Just being honest here. I can’t decide if Ricardo is really to blame for what happened to me or if I am. Did he really manipulate me into doing all those horrible things or do I just think he did so I can have someone to blame? And whenever I think that, I think, damn he’s still controlling me, and that I can’t win, and that’s when I start to feel hopeless.

I know I’m worth more than I think I am. I know it, but it’s still hard to accept it. I guess that’s why they’re called emotional scars. It’s like having little x’s scratched all over my body to mark the spot, but instead of digging up buried treasure, you’d unearth my worst nightmares.





I decided to stop cutting. And no, my shrink didn’t get me to stop. I just know it’s an addiction, like Tasha’s little blue pills. Life isn’t all one long horror show. That’s what I’m starting to believe. There are good people out there, people like Sophia and Tasha, doing their best in a sometimes pretty crappy world. Where does this epiphany (thank you again SAT prep) come from, you ask? Well, Tasha came through for me yesterday. She came through BIG TIME. She called to tell me she got the information from Casper. I guess she told Casper the police were going to file charges or something unless he could prove Jade was alive. Ha! He totally bought it and Tasha is totally brilliant. So now I know where to find Jade. I guess the whole experience made me realize there is good in this world. Now I’ve got a chance to pay it forward. So I’m going to put down the knife for a while, stop cutting, and try and prove to myself that feeling better doesn’t mean I have to make myself feel worse.





CHAPTER 53



“Just tell me,” Angie said. “I’m a big girl, Dad. I can handle it.” “You’ve got to promise me that it’s over. You and the photograph, this investigation of yours, it’s done. No more digging.”

“You know this girl?” Angie said, holding up the picture of Isabella Conti. Blood gushed like a rapid through her veins as she recalled her father’s ominous warning. I can assure you, you’re not prepared for this. If he did know Isabella Conti, it would mean he had lied to her, time and time again.

“No,” Gabriel said. “I don’t know the girl in the photograph. I promise you that’s true. But I do know why your mother—well, why you couldn’t get her social security application.”

“Why?” Angie’s jaw set tight as she placed the photo face up on the table. Isabella’s sad expression gazed up at her.

“Your mother never had one filed,” Gabriel said, “at least not with that number.”

Angie put her hand to her mouth. Something about what her father said, or how he said it, triggered a thought. She came up with a reason, one inspired by her research into the Conti clan, and her theory caused her stomach to drop. “Was my mom—was she in witness protection?”

One look into her father’s eyes told Angie had struck the bull’s-eye.

“Not exactly,” her father said. “I was. Your mom came along because of me.”

Angie’s head began to spin. “Wait. Then . . . then that means—”

“Yes, sweetheart. It means you’re in witness protection, too. You grew up in the program, only you didn’t know it.”

Without warning, Angie’s stomach lurched as her head began to buzz. A dizzy feeling overcame her and set the room on a tilt. “Everything is a—It’s all a lie,” she said, stammering. “The orphanage, your scholarship to college, meeting Mom, the fight with her family over me, it was all . . . all a lie.”

Angie gasped for breath. She pushed away from the table and rushed to the bathroom, where she sent what little she’d had to eat into the toilet. Afterwards, over the porcelain sink with the water running, she gazed into the mirror, seeing a phantom of herself, a sickly pale reflection of a woman she didn’t know, of someone with a secret past.