Ryan Lock perched on the edge of the couch and took the framed photograph from Joyce Miller. He studied the face of the girl in the picture for a moment. She had brown hair, cut into bangs that almost reached her eyes, and soft brown eyes.
She stared out from the frame at Lock, her expression suggesting that having her picture taken was something to be endured rather than enjoyed.
Lock didn’t take too long over the photograph. He studied it more as a courtesy than anything else. He doubted it was the image he’d need to track down Kristin.
Rather than risk offense by immediately giving it back, he handed it off to the woman sitting next to him, Angie Garcia.
“Mrs. Miller,” he said. “Would you have something taken more recently?
Kristin’s mother looked confused. She glanced over to Kristin’s grandfather, who was sitting, watchman-like, by a chair near the window. His head turned towards them, his face angled side on to the street.
“That was taken last month,” said the grandfather.
“I might have something more recent,” said Joyce Miller, getting up and bustling over to a credenza.
“No, that’s fine,” said Lock, trying to keep the shock out of his voice. “How old did you say your daughter is?”
“She’s fourteen,” she said. “Just turned. Her birthday was last month.”
Lock’s expression didn’t change. Inside, all he could think was fourteen.
How the hell did a quiet, studious fourteen-year-old girl from a lower middle-class family in the San Fernando Valley, a girl who had seemingly never dated and studied hard, a girl with dreams of becoming a nurse, end up in the hands of sex traffickers? And why had it fallen to the likes of Angie Garcia to find her?
He kept those questions to himself, at least for the time being, and tried to focus on the task at hand. First and foremost, taking the emotion out of it, this was a missing person's case.
The first task was to locate the missing girl. To do that, he needed as much information about her as possible.
Joyce Miller seemed to anticipate his need. She opened the top drawer of the bureau and pulled out a slightly worn looking tablet computer.
“She took her phone with her, but she left this,” she said, handing the tablet off to Lock. “I don’t know any of her passwords, but I thought you might be able to hack into it or something.”
“That’s great,” said Lock, taking the tablet. He doubted he’d be able to crack the password himself, but he knew plenty of cyber security people who would do it for a fee with no questions being asked.
If they were going to find Kristin, her computer was almost certainly their best shot. If it had her social media accounts, then it was likely a treasure trove of information. Teenagers lived their lives online. That had its downsides, but it also made tasks like this substantially easier.
There was a chance that if the social media accounts on the computer were linked to the apps on her phone, which they almost certainly were, that they’d be able to get a precise location that would take them straight to her.
He decided not to mention that as a possibility. Not until he knew more. The last thing he wanted to do was raise the family’s hopes. But, if everything went smoothly, he might have Kristin back with her family in less than twenty-four hours.
“When we spoke on the phone, you mentioned something about Kristin perhaps having met a boy just before she took off,” prompted Angie.
“She was in love,” said the grandfather, making no attempt to conceal the mix of scorn and sarcasm in his voice. “Like anyone was going to fall for Kristin.”
Lock traded a look with Angie, both of them momentarily taken aback.
“A boy’s never even so much as asked her out,” her mom added, trying to smooth things over and move on. “She doesn’t get invited to parties or out on dates. She goes to school, she comes home, that’s about it.”
“Did she mention this boy’s name or give you any details, like how old he was or where he was from?” said Lock.
“Andrew. Andre. Something like that,” said the grandfather.
“You get a last name?”
He shook his head.
“She didn’t really talk about him that much,” said Joyce. “But I got the impression that he was older. Maybe like eighteen, nineteen, somewhere in there. Way too old to be taking an interest in a girl her age.”
“That’s usually how it gets worked,” said Angie.
An hour later, Lock and Angie said their goodbyes to Kristin’s mother and grandfather and walked back to Lock’s car. As they were about to get in, Angie stopped, her hand holding the open passenger door.
“You still sure you want to do this?” she said, staring at him.
Lock paused. Even from the brief sit down with Kristin’s anxious family, he knew he was about to enter an evil world. He was hardly naïve. Years of military service, followed by over a decade in high-end private security, had seen to that.
Like most people, when he heard the phrase sex trafficking, it had conjured images of women spirited into America to be exploited. Or perhaps young women in far-flung places kidnapped from the streets, spirited away and set to work.
What he hadn’t been prepared for was a world that was, according to Angie, herself a former victim of trafficking, hidden in plain sight. A world where young girls and women, almost all of them American, were carefully selected and groomed, online and in real life, before being coaxed, coerced or outright forced into selling their bodies.
Just like the first time he’d stepped into a real live war zone, Lock sensed he was stepping through a door into a place that would change him. He was old enough now to know that the change something like this brought wasn’t always a good one.
Yet if people like him didn’t help Angie Garcia to help the Kristin Millers of this world, then who would?
Law enforcement did what it could. But the line between a runaway and a trafficked victim was often a blurry one in the eyes of the law. And often the victims did not see themselves as victims, which made prying them from the pimps, if not impossible, then frequently thankless.
Even when traffickers were caught, Angie had informed him when they’d first met, conviction rates were depressingly low. Victims disappeared or got cold feet or didn’t want to sit in a courtroom and relive the months or years of trauma they were trying to leave behind. Defense attorneys had a bewildering array of delaying tactics.
And, more than anything, the trafficking business was driven by a sick, but almost insatiable demand for product. One pimp was convicted and sent to prison only for two more to step up to take their place. It was a billion-dollar business in a world where money often counted for more than people, especially people deemed by polite society to be disposable.
Lock turned the question over for a second more. If he was in, he was all in. That was how he operated. The only difference with this situation was that he wasn’t taking payment.
“Yes,” he said, finally. “I want to do this.”