Let me live, God, she had prayed silently. They were words she never thought she’d say. And suddenly, like something from a movie, agents converged on them, guns drawn.
“I knew you was undercover,” the bad guy said as agents whisked her to a waiting bureau car. A sports sex-trafficking ring that had been in business for two years was now broken up and its leaders jailed because of her work.
Next Eliza was moved to Dallas. There she worked a high school for just three weeks before leading agents to a national drug and trafficking ring operating out of a seedy restaurant.
These past two months, she’d been in Fort Worth, not far from Dallas, but far enough. Spring break was next week, so this was her chance to bring down a slavery ring. The trafficking was centered at a gas station–convenience store.
It had taken Eliza one day to know that the cigarettes and lottery cards were only a cover. In the warehouse behind the gas station, five men and a woman ran an escort service. Only in this setup, the escorting happened in a series of makeshift bedrooms at the back of the windowless building.
The traffickers wanted Eliza. If anyone knew the signs, she did. But they had taken their time. She’d walk across the street with a group of girls and she’d linger near the back door of the convenience store. The one that led to the warehouse.
Every time, the guys would see her and flirt with her. But their crude remarks never led to a proposition. Until this afternoon.
Eliza had ditched last period and walked to the gas station with Veronica, a girl who was definitely working for the ring. The girl had even come home with her last weekend. “You never talk about your parents,” Veronica had challenged her. “They must be awful.”
“Just my mom. And she is… she’s drunk all the time.” Eliza had shrugged. “Come on over. My mom keeps vodka under the sink.”
And so Veronica had come. The whole time Eliza had figured the girl was only checking out her story. Eliza was living in a squalid apartment with a retired agent, a woman pretending to be Eliza’s drunk mother. When they had walked through the door that day, the older woman was sprawled out on the sofa, looking drunk—just like Eliza had said. But when they checked under the sink all that was there was an empty liquor bottle. Also part of the plan. Informants didn’t drink. And Eliza had never touched the stuff.
Now Veronica seemed distant as they entered the gas station. She nodded to the refrigerator case. “I’m getting a beer.”
“Get me one,” Eliza said. She had the strangest feeling, like the girl was no longer her friend. “Make it two.”
Something was wrong. Eliza moved down the dusty snack aisle toward the back of the room, closer to the door the traffickers used. Why hadn’t anyone propositioned her? Maybe they had enough girls, or maybe they were onto her. Veronica made her nervous. Especially today.
She pulled out her cell phone and hit the emergency code. Three digits that would alert nearby agents to the possibility she was in trouble. She had barely sent the signal when a door opened and a thin guy with a beard stepped out. “What’s it like?”
Eliza looked over her shoulder, then she sneered at him. “You can’t be talking to me.”
“Actually, I am.” He grabbed her arm and pulled her inside, behind the closed door. She hadn’t even had time to scream.
On the other side was a dark storeroom. She and the guy seemed to be the only two people there. “I said”—he jerked her arm—“What’s it like?”
Don’t let him see you’re afraid, she told herself. “I don’t even know you.”
“No.” He sneered at her. “But you will.” He shook her again. “What’s it like… working undercover?”
“Look. I don’t work under covers,” she hissed at him. Then she raised one suggestive eyebrow. “Not without getting paid.”
“We’ll see about that.” He jerked her toward the back of the space and out a thin doorway. There was maybe ten feet of asphalt between that building and the warehouse where the trafficking happened. If he got her that far, she had no idea what would happen.
Or whether she’d see the light of day again.
They were two steps from the larger building when three unmarked cars and two police vehicles squealed around the corner. Six guns were aimed at the man before he could reach for his own.
Camille was one of the agents, and she helped Eliza to a waiting car. Eliza had seen the girls at the Palace get roughed up by men—sometimes in the hallways of the mansion when they didn’t know she was looking. But no one had ever touched her before this. She ran her hand over her arm. Already bruises were forming.