KILLING SARAI(24)

A spark of intrigue passes over Victor’s features.

“What kind of places were you taken?”

I shrug softly and let my hands fall in-between my thighs, my fingers curling nervously around one another.

“Sometimes,” I begin, “he’d take me with him to other rich men’s houses, with sparkling blue pools shaped like horseshoes and other strange things. Javier said it was just to mingle but I knew we were there for drug deals. And girls. Sometimes we came back with a new one. He would dress up in a nice suit and shiny black shoes just like yours.” I glance down at Victor’s shoes briefly. “He didn’t look like the scumbag you saw the other day, living in filth. He is rich, despite what you saw.”

“I gathered that much.”

I go on:

“And of course he’d make me dress up, too.”

I lower my eyes shamefully, mostly because sometimes I enjoyed it, dressing up and being treated like a princess. That was how I always thought of it: a princess, as disturbing as the circumstances were.

“I felt like an arm trophy.”

“That is exactly what you were,” he says and I look back up at him again, quietly stung by his words. “Do you remember anything about the men whose homes you were taken to?”

“Yes,” I say with a nod. “But I think they were vacation homes, or something.”

“Why?”

“Because they mentioned things about how they were only in Mexico for a few weeks, or how they were heading back to California, or Nevada or Florida, places like that.”

“They were Americans?”

“Some of them were, I’m pretty sure they were,” I say. “They didn’t have accents, foreign anyway. They definitely weren’t Mexican, that’s for sure.”

They may have been American, but I knew they wouldn’t help me like I hoped Victor would. They were just as evil as Javier. Two of them even tried to buy me from him. No, none of them would ever have helped me escape so this is why I consider Victor the first American I’ve seen in nine years. Those men lost that privilege by association.

“Do you remember any of their names?”

Victor looks more eager now than I have ever seen him, yet he still manages to maintain an almost flawless unemotional fa?ade.

I think back, trying to recall and coming up short.

“No,” I say, frustrated with myself, “not right now, but I did hear their names on occasion when one would introduce one to another.” I pause and say with more emotion, “Victor, what is it?”

His dangerous bluish eyes lock on mine.

“At the compound, or anywhere Javier could keep tabs on you and control you, you weren’t a threat to him. But now that you’ve escaped, you’re a bigger threat than anyone because you know too much. It is apparent Izel was right to think him foolish with his feelings for you; he probably never anticipated you leaving. You being alive and free is a threat to his entire operation and anyone involved in it.”

I think on it a moment, letting the obvious truth of Victor’s words sink into my mind. I may not have ever known where I was kept in Mexico and even right now I wouldn’t be able to tell American authorities where Lydia and the other girls are being held against their will, but I do know names, still hidden in the back of my memory, but they’re there nonetheless. And I remember faces and conversations, although casual they still held many small bits of information that, I suppose, given to the right people could expose them as drug and sex traffickers.

“Larsaw, or maybe Larsen,” I say suddenly as the name appears on the tip of my tongue. “Gerald Larsen. I remember he was the first American I was ‘shown off’ to when Javier took me to my first house. He had white hair. He was chubby. But I was never directly introduced to anyone. I wasn’t allowed to speak. I learned their names by listening to their conversations.”

Victor looks deeply in thought and shakes his head suddenly.

“John Gerald Lansen is the CEO of Balfour Enterprises and founder of the most reputable charity for ending violence against women in the United States.” He looks right at me. “The information you hold, no matter how insignificant you think it all is, could bring down a lot of high profile people. I imagine if word gets out that you have escaped and the right person—a vengeful sister, perhaps,” he says, I know referring to Izel, “who decides to tell the right people, more than Guzmán will pay to have Javier killed and Javier knows this.”

It hits me like a shock of electricity and I jump from the bed and try to make a run for the door. Victor catches me mid-stride, grabbing me around the waist. I whirl around at him, punching at him blindly. I manage to hit him, but I’m not sure where as my fists move clumsily and in such a chaotic motion that my eyes can’t keep up within the scuffle.

My back hits the floor and I look up, my auburn hair whipped savagely around my face, to see Victor pinning me, straddling my waist.

“Let me go! Let me go, godammit!” I thrash around under his weight, unable to do much with my legs, my hands pinned against the floor above my head, trapped by his own.

“He’s going to kill me! Someone help!”

He manages to bind both of my wrists with one hand, the other he presses over my mouth to muffle my screams. Tears shoot from my eyes. I beg him over and over again, my voice almost completely shut out by the weight of his hand.