The Second Girl(5)

She doesn’t answer. It’s like she forgot.

“Amanda, can you tell me your birthday?”

“October eleventh.”

“That was like a couple days ago, huh?”

“Yeah.”

Damn, what a way to spend your birthday.

“Did they kidnap you, Amanda?” I ask directly.

She disappears again, somewhere in her head or out the window.

“Did they kidnap you?”

“No,” she says, just as directly.

“Tell me what happened. I need you to focus now because I’ll need to explain it later.”

She is looking at me watching her through the rearview mirror.

It takes a moment, but she says, “There’s a boy,” then pauses, thinks. “He goes to my school, Edgar. He took me there once. He said they were his brothers and I should meet them because he wanted me to be his girl.”

“So you dated Edgar before that?”

“Yeah, I guess. He has a car, and we’d drive around sometimes, maybe go to the mall.”

“The first time you were there, is that when they kidnapped you?”

“No. They took me to a mall and bought me stuff.”

“Your parents ever say anything about that?”

“They never knew. Don’t tell my parents,” she adds desperately.

“I won’t tell them.”

I can guess the rest. Shit like this has been going on for a while. It even hit the news recently, how some of the gangs are moving to the suburbs to recruit impressionable high school kids, especially teenage girls. Cute young gangbangers wooing them, buying them shit, taking them places, and giving them the kind of attention they crave at that age. Next thing they know, they got them smoking weed and moving up the chain, to harder drugs. The bigger gangs around here are notorious for this shit. After that they either put them to work at a brothel or on the streets.

“What school you go to?”

“Lake Braddock.”

“This is important, Amanda, so I need you to listen carefully, okay?”

“Okay?”

“What I do is very sensitive, so I can’t just drive you up to a police district and drop you off.”

“So you’re going to take me straight home?”

“Someone else is going to take care of that.”

“What, why? Why can’t you just take me home now?”

“It’s not that simple. There’s a lady I know. She’s a lawyer—”

“I don’t want to go there. I just want you to take me home.”

“You are going home. This lady works with the police all the time, not just me. She’s a very nice lady, and I gotta take you to her office. She’ll take care of you and call your parents.”

I’m telling her all of this assuming Costello’s going to do it. For all I know she’s going to tell me to go to hell and take her to headquarters, which is not even a block from her office. I’m hoping if that happens I can convince her otherwise.

“It’s how things like this work, Amanda,” I lie.

“I can go home today?”

“Yes. You’ll see your parents very soon, and either they’ll take you home or the police will.”

“Okay.” She looks out the window again.

“The police will ask you a bunch of questions, like how long you’ve been held there against your will, what they did to you, how they made you do drugs. They’ll have some tough questions.”

“Okay.”

“They’ll even ask about me and how I got you outta there. You just tell them what you know, and if and when there comes a time they have to talk to me, I’ll fill in the rest, all right?”

“Okay.”

I can tell she’s in shock, so I leave it at that. I pull out my cell phone to call Leslie’s office. It kicks into her voicemail. I let her know I’m on my way and that it’s extremely important.

Traffic is heavy once I hit downtown DC. I look at my watch again. I still have time, but I gotta make my way through all of this. I hate this city, hate this damn traffic. I usually avoid having to come downtown as much as possible. The only time I’m down this way is when I have to meet up with Costello for a job she has for me, or sometimes for a sandwich at Jack’s Deli with my old partners Luna and McGuire.

I hang a left onto F Street. Traffic eases up a bit.

At 5th, I swing right and try to find parking, which is usually next to impossible, but it’s better than 6th. You got the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the mayor’s building, police headquarters, the Office of the Corporation Counsel, Superior Court, and District Court all located within a short walking distance of one another. And this city doesn’t have one public parking structure to ease the pain. There are a couple of private underground ones if you want to pay up the ass, but that’s it. I manage to hit a curb spot just as someone is pulling out. It’s only half a block from Costello’s building on Indiana Avenue, near 6th. A moment of grace.

After I take off my seat belt, I untuck my shirt so that it’ll conceal my holstered weapon. I pick up my backpack from the front seat and place it on the floor behind my seat. I exit the car and walk around to open the door for Amanda.

“Do you think you can walk now?” I ask, but then look at her bare feet. “Maybe I should carry you.”