The Lonely Mile(69)
In an adjacent room, Carli was undergoing similar questioning from another agent. Incredibly, other than the gash to the side of her head, which had required fourteen stitches to close, she had suffered nothing more than a few minor cuts and bruises. Her mother and a lawyer were sitting in on the questioning with her, but the session was mostly a formality. Whatever Angela Canfield had told Agent Miller in the ambulance before dying en route to the hospital had apparently confirmed most, if not all, of their story.
Bill shook his head. “No, it was nothing like that. I didn’t suspect a thing. I certainly had no idea Angela…Agent Canfield…was part of the whole scheme. I was just desperate to do something. I couldn’t stand the thought of sitting around waiting to find out what might happen with a rescue attempt. And, I suppose, I also felt like the FBI had already screwed up big-time by allowing Carli to be kidnapped off the bus in the first place, so I guess I didn’t entirely trust you guys. I thought I would just charge in there and get her myself. I know how stupid it was to go into that house alone against a guy like Krall, but I just wasn’t thinking clearly.”
Bill voice trailed off and stopped, and then he abruptly changed the subject. He had been chewing on Canfield’s actions obsessively, like a dog worrying a bone. He shook his head in bewilderment. “How could she?”
He looked up at Miller, who had nothing to offer. The young agent looked equally perplexed. “I was her partner for over a year, and I had no clue, either. She was a very private person, especially where her past was concerned, and now we’re beginning to understand why. We’ve only been digging for a little over a day, but what we’ve uncovered isn’t pretty.”
Bill nodded. “She made reference to years of abuse while she was holding the gun on me in Krall’s basement. But what about her mother? Why didn’t she protect her child?”
“Her mother became aware of the abuse at some point, that much we know, but it’s not clear exactly when. We started interviewing her yesterday, but she’s, understandably, reluctant to talk about that part of her life, especially now. We do know, though, that even after she found out, she did nothing about it.”
“How is that possible? That was happening to her own daughter!”
“The guy was one scary dude—he’s doing life in Cedar Junction for murder, which is the only reason she’s even talking to us—and she probably figured that, if she tried to stop the assaults, he would simply kill her, and then where would Angela be?
“But I don’t get it,” Bill said. “She told me she was a straight-A student, both in high school and in college.”
“Lots of people who have suffered horrible abuse are very high achievers,” Miller said. “It’s a way for them to gain some form of control over their lives when they have very little control over what happens to them at home.”
“So what happens now?”
“I’m sorry,” Miller said, “But I really can’t discuss an ongoing investigation.”
Bill stared at him unblinkingly. “Are you kidding me? You mean you can’t discuss the investigation that was broken by Carli and me? That investigation?”
“You’re right,” Miller said after an uncomfortable moment. “I suppose we owe you that much after what you and Carli went through. As you know, I hitched a ride in the ambulance with the paramedics while they worked on Canfield on the way to the hospital. I was able to convince her to reveal the location where the exchanges of the girls take place.
“As Krall alluded to in his remarks to Carli, the agreement with his contact was that he be permitted to enjoy the girls, provided he did no permanent physical damage to them, for one week before turning them over to the broker for export out of the country.
“Initially, Angela—Agent Canfield—refused to provide any details that could be considered helpful, but, as we got closer to the hospital, her condition worsened dramatically. She had continued hemorrhaging during the trip after already losing so much inside the house. Finally, the lead paramedic, who worked like a hero trying to save her, came straight out and admitted to her that he didn’t think she would survive the ambulance ride.”
Bill listened, transfixed, to the final, awful moments of a woman he had thought he was getting to know, but who had conned him completely. As Miller spoke, it occurred to Bill that he wasn’t the only one she had fooled. Miller was hurting, too. He took a sip of water from a plastic cup at his bedside, and the agent continued.
“Once it sunk in to her that she really was going to die and had nothing to gain by keeping her mouth shut, Canfield spilled everything—in abbreviated form, of course. Since we still have a few days before Carli is supposed to be delivered, the plan is simple. We’re keeping Angela’s death under wraps, and we’ll use the information we learned to round up as many of these slimy dirt bags as possible.”
“Well, you have no teenager to deliver now, so how are you going to do that?”
“Special Agent Kim Adkins, stationed out of the Albany office, is going to become Carli Ferguson for a few hours. Agent Adkins is an experienced, twenty-five-year-old professional who looks like a seventeen-year-old high school girl. In most law enforcement scenarios, being that youthful-looking is a serious handicap, but for this situation, it’s perfect.”
“I don’t understand. How is this even possible? Human trafficking? Right here in the United States? In the twenty-first century?”