“Come with me, Ms. Walsh.”
“Can’t I just leave?”
“There are two federal agents who want to speak with you.”
That was the last thing she expected. Sure, Rick could make calls and get things done, but send two agents for her? Her heart skipped a beat. What if he’d called Andie and these agents were assigned to take her back to Virginia? Andie had told her the last time she was arrested-again, not her fault-that if it happened again, she was grounded.
As if Andie could ground a thirty-four-year-old woman.
Siobhan never wanted her sister to worry. Andie already had a difficult job, and she had been heartbroken when their brother was killed in action ten years ago. Then losing their dad… Andie’s mother had died when Andie was five, and she’d been twelve when Siobhan was born. Now they were all they had left by way of family. Siobhan had her elderly grandmother in Galway whom she visited at least once a year, but she was all Andie had.
But… Siobhan wasn’t going back to Virginia. She had to find Ana and Mari; she was so close! Closer than she’d been since they disappeared. Andie had to understand. She would. Andie might complain and worry, but she would understand better than anyone.
Resolved to talk her way out of this-after all, unless they arrested her, she didn’t have to go with the feds-she went with the guard to the lobby.
The feds were quite obviously FBI agents-the male was probably close to forty with conservative-cut sandy-blond hair. He wore a light-gray suit and stood like he’d served in the military. Maybe it was just that he had that military look that Siobhan knew all too well. The woman was younger, maybe thirty or so, with her black hair pulled back. Siobhan assessed her features. She’d traveled extensively in the Western Hemisphere, she could generally discern where someone was from. She was Cuban, maybe-at least a quarter, but probably half Cuban.
“Agent Armstrong,” the guard said.
The man approached and thanked the guard. He extended his hand to Siobhan. “I’m Supervisory Special Agent Noah Armstrong. This is Special Agent Lucy Kincaid. You’re free to go, Ms. Walsh, but we’d like to talk to you first.”
“Sean’s Lucy?” Siobhan asked. She smiled broadly and hugged the woman. Lucy didn’t hug her back-a little aloof-and she seemed surprised. Siobhan couldn’t help herself-she’d always been a touchy person. “Wow! I’m so glad to finally meet you. Sean told me he was getting married, but that was after that whole thing with Kane down in Santiago-I didn’t have an opportunity to come up for a visit.”
“Nice to meet you,” Lucy said, a bit on the formal side. She was pretty, a bit standoffish. Reserved, Andie would say. In fact, she was a lot like Andie. No wonder Kane had so much respect for her. “I’ve seen your work-it’s amazing.”
“Thank you, I appreciate that.” They walked out of the police station and to a sedan. Noah opened the rear passenger door for Siobhan. She said, “I’m so sorry about all this. I really didn’t think I would run into a problem. I didn’t mean for Rick to send two agents to get me out.”
“That’s not the only reason,” Noah said and closed the door.
What did that mean?
As they drove away, Siobhan said, “I’m not going to Virginia.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“We need to talk about what you discovered, and how it connects to the abandoned infant.”
“Oh. Well. I don’t know yet, I’m still working that out, but when we get my camera-do you think I could trouble you to take me to my rental car? I parked a few blocks from where I was arrested. I hope they didn’t tow it. I mean, I didn’t rent the best car on the lot, I wanted something to blend in, but I still have to pay for damages.”
“Tell me where,” Noah said.
Siobhan rattled off the intersection, and the fed typed it into his GPS.
“We spoke with Father Sebastian. He told us your theory.”
“Well, such as it is. I’m close. I know it. The locket.” She reached up and touched the locket that had been Tilda’s. “Neither of the girls would have just gotten rid of it. If Elizabeth isn’t the daughter of one of them, her mother knew the sisters.” She looked at her watch, then just spilled everything she knew. This was Sean’s Lucy Kincaid, and Siobhan trusted the Rogans. Siobhan needed help-help, not replacement-and hopefully Lucy would let her stay involved.
“Mari and Ana have been missing for two years,” Siobhan said. “They each had an identical locket-one of which Father Sebastian found on Baby Elizabeth-that I had given them.” She pulled her locket from under her shirt. “This one belonged to their mother, Tilda, who was my friend. She died…” She shook her head to clear it. She still regretted so much… she should have been there, helping before the mudslide. She should have said good-bye to Tilda. And then she was gone.
“Eight months ago,” Siobhan continued, “it was early February, I think, though I can check my notes, one of my reporter friends did an undercover exposé on a brothel in Del Rio. Most of the girls he spoke with were underage, most illegal immigrants, most hadn’t been trafficked but didn’t see any other way to earn a living. However, one of them gave my friend a story about six girls who’d stayed at the brothel for three days. This was a year ago last June. They closed the place-why would they do that? And the regular girls were paid to stay away. What brothels that use underage girls pay them for a vacation? The girl recognized the photo of Marisol, but more than that-she said that Mari spoke French. Mari has a knack for languages-Spanish is her native language, but she speaks and understands multiple dialects, speaks near-perfect English, French, and was learning to read French before the mudslide.” Siobhan shook her head. I know it was her. But after those three days, the six girls disappeared and no one seems to know what happened to them.
“Anyway, I’ve been looking for them for two years, but couldn’t do much until I got that lead. The number on the locket is my cell phone-I don’t give it out to many people, and the village didn’t even have electricity, but I wanted to make sure if there was an emergency that they could reach me.” It felt like a lifetime ago. “I’d sent out flyers, I’d called, I made sure I was always accessible. I know Mari and Ana as if they were my own sisters… they would escape if they could. They’d find a church. They don’t trust the authorities-their village is in the middle of nowhere, but the few run-ins they had weren’t pleasant.”
“What happened to them? Were they kidnapped?” Lucy asked.
“I don’t know. Six years ago, there was a mudslide. Nearly half the people in their village were killed, including their parents. Tilda was one of my friends, and I didn’t even know about the disaster for weeks because I was on assignment in Chile. By the time I got there…” It had been awful.
They were still recovering bodies. The Sisters of Mercy had come to help with the cleanup and burial, but there was so much work to do, and so much sorrow. And there were no young sisters, not anymore. Siobhan shook her head, clearing her thoughts. “We started rebuilding, but donations are difficult these days. One of the sisters heard about a business hiring bilingual employees, and she helped Mari get the job in Monterrey. Ana went with her, safety in numbers, and she worked for the same company. They were vetted, I talked to the owner-he was upset when they went missing. Distraught-I don’t think he was faking.” She knew he wasn’t faking, because she’d called in Kane-Kane had talked to him. Kane said their employer had nothing to do with their disappearance. How he was so certain, she didn’t know… but she trusted him.