Maybe this wouldn’t work. Jack leaned forward on the table and looked straight into her eyes. “We don’t want you here at this hotel. Or at some homeless shelter.” He exhaled. “You deserve better than that, Eliza.”
For a long time she only looked at him. Then she opened the bag and took out three tacos. “Vouchers.” She didn’t make eye contact. Slowly, meticulously she ate one of the tacos. Then another.
Jack looked out at the pool. Agents around the world risked their lives to break up trafficking rings. But only to treat the victims like this? Three tacos? Was that her dinner? Had she eaten anything else today?
“At least at the Palace they fed us.” She was still chewing. “We had a bed every night of the year.” She finally turned her eyes to him. “But I’m rescued now, right, Jack? Except… where do I go when I run out of vouchers?”
She was right. Jack laced his fingers together behind his head and stared at her. “The FBI wants to help you. We’ll get you your citizenship and identification, some cash. Something to start a new life.”
“What if I don’t want to be a U.S. citizen?” She sounded less harsh. More matter of fact. “My home is in Belize. Doesn’t that mean anything to you people?”
“Eliza, your father has men all over Belize. Your life would be in danger every minute, every day.”
“I’m used to that.” Her words were quick and sharp. “I don’t care if I die. Death would be a reward.”
He felt the same way, but he couldn’t tell her that. She was just twenty. Intelligent, beautiful, and despite her horrific past she had her whole life ahead of her. “You don’t want to die. Your life is just beginning.”
“You’re wrong.” For the first time since he’d known her, she didn’t sound furious or jaded. She tilted her head to the sky again. “I thought I would arrive here and become a police officer. Work to save girls like the ones at the Palace.” She paused. “But who was I kidding? I have no family. Nowhere to go, no way to make a living. No friends.” She hesitated. “Yes. Death would be a gift.”
The poor girl. He looked down at a spot on the table. “What happened to your mother?”
“I don’t feel like talking about it.” She sighed. “Do you understand, Jack? Why I’d rather die?”
“Yes.” He clenched his jaw. “I feel the same way sometimes.”
“You?” Her comeback was quick. “Hotshot secret agent. Gorgeous face and body.” She laughed, but it didn’t touch her eyes. “You have life by the tail, Jack. Why in the world would you feel that way?”
No chance he was telling her his life story now. He remained quiet.
Eventually she looked off. “I almost died. Did you know that?” She didn’t wait for him to speak. “I was nine years old and there was a hurricane in the Caribbean. The undertow was the worst I could remember.”
Jack winced. So young. “You went to the beach every day even then, when you were little?”
“Yes.” Her expression grew stone-cold. “My father insisted. I’d been at the Palace for a year by then. I was only nine years old.” She opened her last taco and set it on her napkin. After a few seconds she wrapped it up and tossed it in the paper bag. Her eyes found his again. “That day something grabbed me… like a monster. I actually looked down expecting to see an octopus or a sea creature. But it was the current.” Her eyes never softened. “My aunt was on the shore, like always back then.”
Jack tried to picture the scene.
“I could barely keep my head above water, but for some reason I screamed. And my scream got the atten tion of my aunt. And a couple of teenage boys on the beach.”
A couple of… Jack felt the color drain from his face. “That was… eleven years ago?”
“Yes.” She looked off again. “Two white boys—tourists probably. I had never seen them before, not on my father’s beach. I never saw them again. How could they know I didn’t want to live, didn’t want them to save me? I told myself to let go, fall beneath the surface and sink. But my legs kept kicking, kept fighting.”
What? Jack reminded himself to breathe. It wasn’t possible. She was rescued as a nine-year-old? On the beach in front of the Palace? Was she the same…？ Jack’s heart pounded so loud he was sure she could hear it. Was she… was Eliza the child he had rescued from the beach that day? He could see her still, the little girl, panicked, mouth open.