More Than Words, Volume 6 Page 2

  Karen’s heart sank. If Jackie Kirkland had gone with the girl from the mall, she was probably locked in a shabby motel room somewhere, stripped of her phone and perhaps her clothes. She might already have been beaten. She might already have been raped. In cases like this, time was of the essence.

  “I’m going to call your father and ask him to come down here to the station,” Karen said.

  “No! He’ll be mad if he finds out I left the house without telling him where I was going.”

  “I’d like you to look at some photos, Miranda, to see if you can identify the girl who called herself Susan. That way, we might have a better idea where to start hunting for your friend. I need your father’s permission to have you do that.”

  “Oh. All right. His cell phone is 555-1733.”

  Karen knew several motels where Jackie might have been taken temporarily, but the men who stole young women to turn them into street prostitutes made a point of moving them far away from their homes as quickly as possible. If Jackie was still in Dallas, she wouldn’t be for long.

  “Jackie is lucky to have a friend like you,” Karen said as she dialed the number Miranda had given her.

  The girl’s eyes glistened with tears. “Please promise me you’ll find her.”

  Karen couldn’t make that promise. Too often, children went missing and were never found. She gave the only promise she could. “I’ll do the very best I can to find your friend.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  “Please don’t be mad, Daddy.”

  “I’m not mad. I’m just glad you’re okay.”

  Karen watched as Seth Burnett hugged his daughter tight. He’d shown up at Karen’s office a quick thirty minutes after she’d called.

  “Thanks for coming, Mr. Burnett,” Karen said as she stood up behind her desk.

  “Call me Seth, please.”

  Karen didn’t offer to put them both on a first-name basis by sharing hers. She sympathized too much with his situation, and she was more physically attracted to him than she wanted—or had expected—to be.

  Miranda’s father was maybe six foot two and 190 lean and muscular pounds. He wore faded jeans and a black T-shirt under a black leather jacket. Burnett had sandy blond hair, striking blue eyes and a small scar on the right edge of his mouth. Karen guessed his age in the mid-thirties.

  He was young to be a widower.

  It was something they had in common. She was an even younger widow. She’d married another cop, who’d gotten shot in a traffic stop six months after their wedding. It had been barely two years since John’s death, so she had some inkling how much Burnett must still miss his wife.

  While they’d waited for her father to arrive, Miranda had revealed that her mother had died in a one-car accident a little over a year ago. Her parents had been arguing about whether Miranda should take a class trip to Washington, D.C., when her mom had discovered that her dad hadn’t picked up the milk she’d asked him to bring home the night before.

  Her mom had slammed the refrigerator door, grabbed an umbrella and disappeared through the door to the garage. She’d never returned.

  The girl had wistfully explained that her father used to smile a lot and tease her and her mother. Now he was “kind of sad” and “worked all the time.”

  Seth’s daughter had been wrong about one thing she’d said in her earlier interview. Her father very obviously cared deeply about his daughter. Love and concern were evident on his face as he searched his daughter’s features for any signs of harm.

  “You’re sure you’re all right, Miranda?” he asked, putting his hands on his daughter’s shoulders to hold her at arm’s length, so he could take a good look at her.

  “I’m fine, Daddy. Really.” She eyed Karen and shrugged to free herself from his apparently embarrassing hold.

  He let his hands drop, took a step back and said, “You scared the life out of me. I decided we should go take a look for Jackie at the mall, but when I came to find you, you were gone.”

  The girl lowered her eyes contritely. “I’m sorry, Daddy.”

  “You should have told me you were leaving the house. You know better.”

  Karen heard the brittle edge in his voice, a remnant of the fear he must have felt when he couldn’t find his daughter.

  “I had to help Jackie,” Miranda said, tilting her chin up defiantly and meeting her father’s gaze.

  Burnett grimaced, conceding his daughter’s point. “Fine. But you can’t just take off like that without telling me where you’re going. It isn’t safe.”

  Seth was right to worry about his daughter, Karen thought. The world wasn’t a safe place. There were monsters out there preying on innocent girls like Jackie and Miranda.

  A moment later Karen found herself the focus of Seth Burnett’s intense gaze. He held out his hand and said, “I appreciate your help with this, Lieutenant Toller. I was about to organize a search for Jackie myself.” He smiled ruefully and added, “You can imagine my feelings when I suddenly realized my own daughter was nowhere to be found.”

  His hand was large and warm and strong, and Karen felt a distinct—and distracting—tingle before he let go. She cleared her throat and said, “Your daughter’s very concerned about her friend. Has Miranda told you about the girl she and Jackie met at the mall?”

  Burnett nodded. “Susan. No-Last-Name.”

  “It’s possible this woman, this Susan, was in the mall specifically looking for girls like Jackie to recruit for—” Karen glanced at Miranda and realized she couldn’t—probably shouldn’t—speak frankly in front of the girl. It was up to Miranda’s father how much to tell his daughter about what Karen intended to tell him.

  “For what?” Burnett prompted.

  Karen called out, “Sergeant Peters?”

  The sergeant who’d first brought Miranda into her office showed up in her doorway. “Would you please take Miranda to the cafeteria and get her something to drink. Then bring her back here.”

  “Will do,” the sergeant said.

  “I’m not thirsty,” Miranda said.

  Karen shot a look at Seth, who said to his daughter, “Go with the sergeant, Miranda. Bring me back a soda, will you?”

  “All right, Daddy.” She turned and followed the sergeant down the hall.

  When she was gone, Karen said, “Men in the sex slave trade—sex traffickers—use women like Susan to recruit young, vulnerable women like Jackie to become street prostitutes. Susan herself is likely being forced to recruit girls by a pimp behind the scenes. The recruits are enticed away from friends and family, then locked up in a motel room somewhere and beaten and raped into submission.”

  Karen saw the shock in Seth’s eyes. And the realization that his own daughter might very well have been a hairbreadth away from the same fate.

  “Are you saying that’s what’s happening to Jackie right now?” he asked, horrified.

  Karen shook her head. “We don’t know for sure that Jackie contacted Susan. She might be hanging out at the mall. She might be with another friend, although the fact she hasn’t contacted Miranda is a bad sign. I called Jackie’s mother, but she hasn’t seen her daughter since this morning.”

  “If this Susan character did take Jackie, what’s going to happen to her?” Seth asked.

  Karen debated whether to tell him the brutal truth.

  “Go ahead and tell me,” he said. “My imagination is probably worse than the truth.”

  “Young girls like Jackie—twelve and thirteen and fourteen—are physically and emotionally battered, often gang-raped, before they’re put out on the street. They’re given a quota of men they have to service and an amount of money they have to earn. Jackie might end up working on the streets, for an online escort service based out of a hotel. And unfortunately, there are johns out there, perverts who’ll buy sex from kids, who create a market.”

  The blood had leached from Seth’s face. “May I sit down?”

  Karen gestured to the chair in front of her desk and as he
sank into it, she sat back down herself. She’d given the same information to parents like Seth countless times, but she always felt a little shaken herself after she revealed the fate that awaited victims of sex traffickers. “I know it’s awful. Most people don’t want to think about it.”

  “I find it hard to fathom,” Seth admitted.

  “It’s happening all over the country as we speak.”

  Seth crossed an ankle over the opposite knee and leaned toward her. “I can’t imagine someone as strong-willed as Jackie becoming that sort of victim. Why wouldn’t she just run away?”

  “Susan and her partners will transport Jackie out of Dallas as soon as possible, to some unfamiliar locale,” Karen said. “And they’ll lock her up at night, so she can’t escape.”

  “But they’d have to let her out sometime, if only to—” He cut himself off, then continued, “To do what they want her to do.”

  “Girls forced into prostitution are only allowed to keep a pittance of the money they earn—barely enough for food. Jackie will never be able to save enough cash to pay for a bus back home. She’ll be stripped of any identification she has and given a new name to distance her from her past. After a while she won’t want to get away.”

  Seth’s brow furrowed in disbelief. “Why not?”

  “Are you sure you want to hear this?” she asked.

  Seth dropped his foot onto the floor and shifted in his chair. “It’s frightening to think Miranda and Jackie were interacting with someone like Susan and I didn’t know about it. I want to protect my daughter from anything like this happening in the future. At some point, I may share some of this with Miranda, so yes, I want to know.”

  “Nude photos will probably be taken of Jackie. She’ll be warned that if she tries to leave, the pictures will be sent to her mom. She’ll also be told—after she’s been abused—that she’s dirty and disgusting, and that her mother won’t want her back, now that she’s used goods.”

  Seth shoved a brusque hand through hair that badly needed a trim. “My God.”

  “Miranda told me a little bit about Jackie’s relationship with her mother,” Karen said. “Someone with Jackie’s background is even more likely to believe her mother wouldn’t want her back.”

  “I can’t stand the thought of what you’ve described happening to Jackie. I know that girl. She’s bright and funny. She’s survived and blossomed despite a mother who—despite her mother. I don’t know what Miranda would have done without her the past year or so. I’ve been…I haven’t been myself,” he concluded.

  “Your daughter believes Susan was only after her friend. But Susan would have taken Miranda, too, if she’d gone along for the ride.”

  She watched emotions—disbelief and distress—flicker across Burnett’s face as he began to comprehend how narrowly his daughter had escaped a horrible fate.

  “Miranda’s just a kid,” he protested. “She wears braces, for heaven’s sake!”

  “She’s old enough for the sex slave trade, Mr. Burnett.”

  He looked shaken. “Seth, please,” he said. He took a deep breath and asked, “How many girls do they take this way?”

  “All the girls they can get. Best guess? One hundred thousand American children are involved in sex trafficking in the United States.”

  Burnett shook his head. “That number’s so large I find it impossible to believe.”

  “Believe it. We’re fighting a losing battle with the sex traffickers, Mr…. Seth. We can’t begin to save all the children in trouble, but every victory—every life where we can make a difference, like Jackie’s—counts.”

  “How am I ever going to tell Miranda any of this?” he said, glancing toward the doorway. “I don’t want to frighten her.”

  “She already suspects some of it,” Karen replied.

  “Miranda’s too young to understand the sort of depravity you’re describing.”

  In Karen’s experience, parents underestimated how knowledgeable their children were about a lot of things, including—maybe especially—sex. “Miranda knows more than you think. She’s the one who told me she thought Jackie might have to ‘trade something’ to the older boy Susan said was going to buy her nice things.”

  “I had no idea,” Burnett said.

  “It’s understandable that you might not feel comfortable discussing sex trafficking with your daughter. But if she doesn’t get at least some of this information from you, she’s going to remain vulnerable to people like Susan in the future.”

  “Miranda knows she can talk to me about anything.”

  “Did she tell you that she and Jackie met with Susan—who is likely working for a sex trafficker—several times at the mall?”

  “Are you accusing me of neglecting my daughter?” Burnett demanded.

  “I’m telling you how close you came to losing her—perhaps forever.”

  Seth stared at her with bleak eyes. “I admit I’ve been distracted. But I can’t be with Miranda all the time. She’d hate it if I hovered over her and her friends at the mall. What am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to protect her against people—animals—like this Susan character and the people she works for?”

  “It’s not necessary to tell your daughter the whole truth about victims of sex trafficking. But you can certainly warn her to watch out for Greeks bearing gifts, if you know what I mean. Miranda has good instincts. She told me she never liked Susan. But it would have been better if she’d shared that information with you sooner.”

  “Which she would have done if I hadn’t been so busy with work,” he said grimly.

  And grieving, Karen added mentally. She had her own experience with heartache that refused to let go. She, of all people, knew it wasn’t easy to move on. She’d tried dating, but it hadn’t worked. Seth Burnett was the first man in a long time who’d made her feel like…a woman.

  Which was entirely inappropriate, under the circumstances. Right now she needed to be a cop. However, what she asked next was more personal than professional.

  “Have you and your daughter been to counseling?”

  “Miranda saw someone after Amy died.”

  “But you didn’t?”

  “What difference does that make?”

  “May I make a personal observation?” Karen asked.

  “You mean another personal observation?”

  Karen flushed. She couldn’t understand why she was interfering in this man’s personal life. Usually she kept her distance from the families who came to see her, because otherwise their pain became too much to bear. Somehow this girl and this man had gotten past her guard. She wondered how much the advice she planned to offer had to do with the unexpected physical attraction she felt toward Seth Burnett.

  “I’m listening,” Seth prompted.

  “You need to try to move forward, let go a bit more of the past and pay attention to your daughter in the here and now,” Karen said.

  “It’s not so easy to ‘move forward,’ as you put it.”

  Karen flushed. “I was speaking about the fact that while you’re busy grieving your wife, your daughter is growing up. She’ll be gone before you know it.”

  “What makes you such an expert?”

  She met his gaze and said, “My husband was killed about two years ago on the job. I know how hard it can be to move on with your life.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “How well do you know Mrs. Kirkland?” Karen asked.

  “Not well. The girls used to do sleepovers at both houses, but I haven’t let Jackie stay over since my wife died, because there’s no adult female in the house. And I haven’t let Miranda stay at Jackie’s house because…”

  “Because Mrs. Kirkland is an alcoholic?” Karen finished for him.

  “That’s about the size of it. Lorraine quits for a while, but she keeps relapsing. I didn’t think it was safe. Why isn’t she here, by the way?”

  “I called her,” Karen said. “She was…indisposed. She told me Jackie would either come home or she
wouldn’t.” She’d also said her daughter was an ungrateful bitch for causing so much trouble, but Karen didn’t think she should repeat that.

  “I feel sorry for Jackie with a mother like that,” Seth muttered.

  “So do I, Mr. Burnett.”

  “It’s Seth,” he reminded her. “It feels strange calling you Lieutenant Toller when you’re giving me parenting advice. What’s your first name, anyway?”

  Karen took a deep breath and let it out. It was a mistake to get to know him any better. She understood his pain too well. She liked his daughter too much. And she was far too lonely.

  She hesitated, then said, “My name is Karen.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Seth wondered how someone as small and delicate looking as Karen Toller—she couldn’t weigh much more than a hundred pounds and he didn’t think her head reached his shoulder—had ended up in a job where she was constantly forced to acknowledge the dark side of human nature. She reminded him a little of his late wife, the way she’d handled a difficult subject in a no-nonsense manner.

  But that was where the similarity ended.

  Karen had long, shiny black hair that she wore in a French braid, a fringe of bangs that just brushed her dark brows and very dark, very serious brown eyes. He found himself wondering how it would feel to brush his knuckles across her cheekbone.

  The thought was disconcerting, considering where he was and who she was. And the fact that he hadn’t even looked at another woman during the past year.

  He’d spent every spare moment since Amy’s death working. That was easier than thinking about how different things might have been if he’d just remembered to bring home a half gallon of milk. Recently, friends had begun trying to set him up with nice women they knew, but he hadn’t been interested.

  He found this woman more than interesting. He wanted to know what made her tick. Ironic to think that their paths would never have crossed except for the tragedy that might be unfolding for his daughter’s best friend.