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“De nada,” Taylor said. Bunch looked at her in surprise; she just shrugged and looked away. Twenty minutes ago, Taylor thought she had another victim of the Snow White Killer. The call was nonspecific, a young woman with black hair had been found in the park. She’d rushed to Edwin Warner, lights and sirens blaring, electric nerves tingling in her spine. She just knew they’d found Jane Macias. All things being equal, it was a logical assumption. No one had bothered to inform her that this body was talking. With a Spanish accent. Taylor stood with her arms crossed, waiting for Bunch to clear out. He aimed a few more questions at the girl in piss-poor Spanish—“Are you hurt anywhere else? Can I bring you some water?”—then he shoved off the ground with a nod at Taylor, his blue eyes clouded with concern for his patient. The girl was all hers, for the time being. Taylor held up a hand—give me five minutes—and he 156
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walked away to join a group of officers smoking cigar
ettes. The odor was especially pungent against the cool air; Taylor didn’t know if the smell made her crave a smoke or feel nauseous.
She turned to her victim. Victim of what, she didn’t know. The girl’s raven hair was dirty, her ribs poked through the skin like a malnourished greyhound’s. Her black eyes were clouded, dirty with pain, sorrow and knowledge. She jumped at every sound—the ice creaking against the tree branches, the chattering of a squirrel, the low rumble of men’s voices in the background, cars passing slowly on the street forty yards away, their drivers desperate for a chance sighting to explain the commotion. Taylor approached her as she’d done when she was a child and her parents had bought her a skittish colt, hand out in supplication. The girl finally looked up and met Taylor’s eyes for the briefest moment, then looked away as if she’d been struck. Damaged, this one. Deeply.
The story the girl told, bundled in the blankets of strangers, broke Taylor’s heart to the core. This girl was a victim—not of the Snow White Killer, but of base, des
picable men. She was a victim of lust, and greed, and the bad things that make good men go astray. A slave. Perched warily on a stretcher in the back of the ambu
lance, her face lowered, her voice soft, the poor thing told a horror story so quietly Taylor strained to hear her speak. Her English was broken but passable. The words left her mouth like vapor heat rising in the cold—soft and timorous.
“I come from Guatemala. My name is Saraya Gonzalez. I work in kitchen at hotel with my sister. One day, man comes to kitchen, says you look very good, take 14
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my sister away. I run after her, but he knock me to the ground. I cry for very long time.
“A year pass. I no hear from my sister. No one hear from her. Then the man came back. He see me in kitchen, says you grow up, you perfect now. I was twelve. He take me from kitchen. At first, he kind, nice to me. He feed me, give me drink and nice soft bed to sleep. I don’t need to do work, no more working in kitchen.
“I guess is only natural he want me. Many men want me, but my sister keep them away from me. Once she gone, I have men like bees, swarming me for my honey. I have no choice. When man decide to have sex with me, he takes me to the back bedroom. There is a camera. He does what he likes, doesn’t care if it hurts. After, he give money.
“I feel great shame. But what am I to do? I ca
“He starts by bringing other men, older men who like little girl. They ask for ‘massage.’ They do all the things that he do to me, force me to spread my legs, my ass, my mouth for their pleasure. I do it, not because I want to, but because I know the sooner they finish, the sooner they go.
“There are cameras in the room. I find the video camera in the closet. They make video, too, sell video of me having sex with strange men.”
Taylor had snapped to attention at that.
“Are you sure? There are videotapes and still pictures?”
The girl nodded. “Yes, I sure. I see them making video, then mailing envelopes. There is computer in spare bedroom, that is the man’s office.”
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“What is his name?”
“Oh, no. I no tell. I no want to get dead.”
“Saraya, how’d you end up in the park?”
At that, panic had replaced fear in the girl’s eyes. “I run away. I figure it better to be dead.”
Fu
grammed to believe a victim? She knew that wasn’t the case, she had a bullshit detector a mile wide. People claim to be victims for myriad reasons. Taylor was pretty good at determining who was lying and who was telling the truth. She’d been duped before, but not often. Saraya Gonzalez was not a Snow White victim. The reality gave her pause. She’d been so caught up in the Snow White case that many of her other cases had been temporarily shelved. They needed to solve these fucking murders so she could go back to her job. There were people in the city who needed her help. Give me your poor, your weak, your downtrodden. I’ll fight for them. That’s what she was, what she longed to be. That was the very thing her father would never understand.
There it was, that damn scent in her nose. Why couldn’t Win Jackson just leave her alone? She tried to shake off the memories, but her primordial olfactory senses defied her and made her doubts rise to the surface as if she was a little girl, vulnerable and weak, unable to win her father’s love. She hadn’t talked to him for three years, since right before she made lieutenant. They always fought—Taylor had little respect for Win’s desire to take shortcuts to the top, and the knowledge that his daughter was a cop rankled 14
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him to no end. But the last conversation had been particu
larly virulent, and Taylor was through. She’d told him to take her trust fund and screw himself.
She knew he wasn’t dead. That much she could feel. As divorced as she’d become from her family, from her father, she still had the presence of mind to know that he was out there. She’d be able to feel if he weren’t. Wouldn’t she?
At least she didn’t have to worry about asking him to walk her down the aisle.
She dragged her thoughts away from her past and anchored them firmly in the present. She had another mystery on her hands. At least this one was definitely alive.
Taylor shuddered. Hearing Saraya’s story, her tiny, ac
cented voice uttering atrocities so frail, so tortured, Taylor didn’t doubt her veracity for an instant. She wondered whether it would have been better to die than be so horribly abused, understood the girl’s desperate attempt at flight. She was too weak to make it very far, the massage parlor must be within a day’s walk. But Saraya had clammed up, refusing to answer any more questions. Taylor had signaled to Bunch to transport her to the hospital. A warm, safe bed and some nourishment might loosen her tongue. She hoped.
As she neared the CJC, the traffic got heavier. Taylor felt it, palpable in the air. Something was happening. She crawled along, finally turning the corner onto third. News vans lined the street. Satellites were set up, there were people milling about, walking through the street blocking the entrance to the CJC parking lot.