30

Malaya sat on a hard metal chair in the small room. Gray walls threatened to close in on her. The clock on the wall told her it had been only fifteen minutes since they had brought her here, but it already seemed like hours.

The woman with the red hair and pretty smile placed a sandwich and drink in front of her, but Malaya’s stomach turned at the thought of eating. All she could think about was that Tala was dead and a man had grabbed her, threatening to kill her the same way. Somehow she was still alive, but the woman had been wrong. She’d never wake up from this nightmare.

A second woman sat down across from her, the one who spoke her language.

Her voice was soft, but even the familiarity of the words did little to calm her racing pulse. “You’ve been through a lot today. How are you doing, Malaya?”

She shook her head, unable to answer. Fear had crept in and taken over. Every dream she’d ever had shattered. Trust wasn’t easily earned. Even when she had no choice.

“Do you remember Detective North?”

Malaya nodded at the woman’s words and watched her smile, but her own words still wouldn’t come.

“I’m Detective Lambert. My mother grew up in Hanoi.”

The name brought back a rush of familiar images, scents, and longings of a place she believed she’d never see again. But if she closed her eyes, those vivid images from her childhood surrounded her, almost as if she were still there. Merchants standing outside their silk shops beneath the shadow of ornamented temples. The scent of rice noodle soup being sold at the street-side cafes. The rumble of motor scooters passing by . . .

“I want you to know that you don’t have to be afraid anymore. You’re safe.”

Malaya’s eyes blinked open. She wasn’t sure she’d ever feel safe again. Hadn’t she believed her father’s words? Promises that life would be better for her in America. She’d believed the man who had taken their money at the employment agency. Believed that once she arrived in this country, everything would be different.

Why should she believe them now?

Detective Lambert leaned forward. “I know this isn’t easy, but we need you to tell us what happened today.”

The reminder of the past few hours ripped through the memories from Malaya’s past and changed them into a nightmarish hue. For a moment, she couldn’t breathe. It was as if she were slowly drowning and all the air within her was being sucked away.

“Malaya?”

She reached for the drink in front of her, tried to steady her hands, then took a long sip.

“I know this is hard for you, but we need your help. We don’t want what happened to you to happen to another girl. Anything you can tell me will help us catch the man who took you. Did he tell you where he was taking you?”

Somewhere a seed of strength emerged. Tala had visited Malaya’s dreams—her face white and bloated. The same thing would have happened to her if these people hadn’t found her. She’d known it the moment he’d grabbed her from the Chus’ driveway. She would have been his next victim.

She shook her head.

“That’s okay.” Detective Lambert pushed a button on a tiny machine and set it on the table between them. “You’re not in trouble, but we need to gather evidence against him to ensure he never does something like this again. I’m going to record what you say. Do you understand?”

Slowly, Malaya nodded her head. If she was ever going to see her family again, she was going to have to trust someone. Maybe stopping the man who had taken her was the first step.

“I had gone outside to bring in the trash can when he grabbed me. He shoved me in the backseat of the car.” She closed her eyes again for a moment. It was the voice she wanted to forget. “He spoke to me in Vietnamese.”

Rough. Authoritative, like he was used to telling people what to do.

“Had you ever seen him before today?”

Malaya searched her memory, but she already knew the answer. She shook her head. He might not have the same face as the others, but he was just like them. Out to hurt her. Out to control her and get whatever he wanted without ever considering the cost to her . . . and to other girls like Tala.

“Did he make any stops before the gas station?”

Malaya shook her head. “No, we were driving in circles. Like . . . like he didn’t know where he was going.”

“Let’s talk for a minute about when you first came to this country. How long ago was it?”

Time had begun to run together like her mother’s spicy dipping sauces on their white dinner plates, some days moving slower than others. But Mrs. Chu had a calendar that hung on the kitchen wall. It was filled with notes about parties, appointments, and Teo’s swim classes, and with it, Malaya had silently marked off the days.

Malaya took another sip of her drink. “It was . . . about three months ago.”

“How did you get here?”

“On a boat.”

“Do you remember the name of the boat?”

Malaya shook her head, then watched Detective Lambert’s pen scribble across the yellow page, taking notes even though the tiny machine was recording her words.

“Did your parents pay to send you here?”

This time Malaya nodded, wishing she could erase the guilt that resurfaced with the memories. “My family . . . they are not as poor as many, but my parents worked hard to provide, and there weren’t many jobs. We met a man. His name was Nien. He was a nice man who promised me a new start in the United States and a job where I could earn enough money to send to my family. My parents had saved for many years for such an opportunity and gave him everything they had.”

The detective looked up from her paper. “Were there other girls on the boat with you?”

“Yes.” She could still see the tangled web of girls sleeping inside the vessel and smell the soured stench of their unwashed bodies. She’d spent the last three months trying not to think about where they were. Or what horrible things had happened to them since she’d last seen them.

“How many?”

“Twenty . . . maybe twenty-five.”

“How long were you on the boat?”

“I don’t know.” Malaya tried to focus on the question, but the days on the boat had stretched into weeks, leaving her with nothing more than vague impressions of the passing days. “We stopped a few times, in isolated spots, with warnings from the captain that it wasn’t safe to leave the boat. One of the men would buy fuel and supplies while the other ensured we followed the instructions. At the time, we believed it was simply for our safety that we were told to stay on board.”

In the end, she’d realized that even then they had been prisoners.

“What happened once you arrived here?”

“I was told I was a fool to believe that a new life awaited me in the United States. That I no longer had any rights, and I would have to do what I was told.”

“What about Tala?”

“After we left the boat, I never saw her again.”

Until the photo. How could Tala have been living so close without Malaya knowing it?

“Why didn’t you call the police, Malaya?”

She looked to the other detective, who sat quietly at the end of the table, then back to Detective Lambert. “I don’t speak English, except for the words that Teo taught me. They told us if the authorities found out we were in the country illegally, we would be arrested. I know what prison is like in my country. And they watched me. Mr. Chu beat me if I did anything wrong. Even if I decided to run away, where would I go? I don’t know anyone in your country except for the Chus.”

“You’re very brave to have escaped the man who took you.”

“I am not brave.” Malaya ducked her head and wiped the condensation that had collected on the table from her drink. “I only did not want to end up like Tala.”

Detective Lambert set her pen down on the pad of paper. “What about the magnolia flower tattoo? Did they give that to you as well?”

Tears filled Malaya’s eyes as she pulled the sleeve of her shirt from her shoulder to reveal the small flower. “When we were on the boat, they . . . they told us that we belonged to them now, and there was nothing we could do. If we run, they will find us. And when they find us, they will kill us.”