The authorities in Vegas had insisted that they would oversee Kristin Miller’s return to her family in Los Angeles. Lock didn’t object. He and Ty had done their job. There were people much better equipped than them to deal with the aftermath.
After being taken from the house, while he and Ty were being questioned, a process that went on for a couple of days, Kristin was taken to hospital to be examined. Her physical injuries were relatively superficial. They would heal.
The real damage she had sustained was psychological. Those injuries would take a lot more time to heal, if they ever truly did.
Lock still found it hard to comprehend how, in a matter of days, a teenage girl could be plunged into such a nightmare world. He’d asked Adorno about it as she was escorting him out of the main LVMPD building on South Martin Luther King Boulevard.
“Sometimes it takes weeks, sometimes months, but, yeah, a lot of times it’s days,” she said. “Once a trafficker has found a victim, they want them making money.”
She paused for a moment. “Part of it, like what happened with Kristin, is shock and awe. Traumatize them so much, and so fast, that they don’t have any time to react. People think ‘well, why don’t they just go to the police?’, but it’s not that simple. There’s the shame and embarrassment and the thinking that they might not be believed. Before they know it they’re in way over their head.”
“What’s going to happen to Soothe?” asked Lock.
“That’s not up to me,” said Adorno. “That’s a call for the District Attorney to make. She was a part of it, but she was a victim once upon a time too. That’s what makes this stuff difficult.”
Lock’s car pulled up. Ty sounded the horn. He’d been released an hour before.
“That’s my ride.”
“You’ll understand if I don’t thank you,” said Adorno. “You’re lucky to be going home.”
He didn’t know if she meant he was lucky to be alive, or lucky to still be a free man. Not that it mattered. She would have been correct on both counts.
Lock gave a curt nod. He started to walk over to the car. When he stopped and looked back, Adorno had already gone back inside.
He got in the passenger seat.
“Let me guess,” said Ty. “She doesn’t ever want to see us in Vegas again?”
“I think that was kind of implied,” said Lock.
Ty sat there. Lock knew him well enough to know that he had something on his mind.
“What?” said Lock.
“Please tell me you got this whole pro bono thing out of your system, Ryan.”
“I don’t think Carmen’s going to have it any other way.”
“Good,” said Ty. “Because I just took a call from one of my Chinese clients out in Arcadia. His son’s gone missing, assumed kidnapped. Triad involvement.”
Lock stared at him. “What did I just say about Carmen?”
Ty smiled and broke out laughing. “I’m just fooling with you. He just bought a place up in Montecito and wants someone to overhaul security at the new house.”
“You’re a real asshole sometimes.”
“Only sometimes?” said Ty. “I must be slipping.”
He gunned the engine and pulled out onto the Boulevard.
“Let’s go home, brother,” said Ty as they merged into the late afternoon traffic.