Page 579 of Dark Love

“Fine. I won’t ask any questions.” She leans back against the bench, staring out at the water. During the spring and summer, there are ducks swimming around. But it’s too cold for them now. They’ve flown south for the winter. “It’s on the up and up. A friend of mine from group therapy lives there now. She isn’t getting any weird vibes from any of the staff.”

“What about any missing women?”

“None of them disappeared randomly. Not all women stay at the shelters. Some choose to return to what they know.”

It boggles my mind that they choose to return to their nightmare lives rather than staying someplace safe. But mental trauma runs deep, and it makes us do weird things. “Do you know the names of any of the women that left?”

“I could only get two. If I pushed anymore, she might have gotten curious.” Charleese pulls a slip of paper out of her bag. “These are the names. I’m not sure they’re spelled right, but my friend said they left a couple of weeks after arriving.”

“Thank you.” I hold out an envelope to her.

“You don’t need to give me that. You’ve already given me enough to go to school and live on for the rest of my life.”

Every woman the Payne and I rescue gets the same regardless of whether the place we rescue them from is flush with cash or like in Charleese’s case an idiot, penniless pimp. After what they’ve been through, these women deserve a life without worrying about where their next meal will be or how they will put a roof over their heads. “But I want you to take it anyway.”

“No.” She stands up. “I might not know what this is about, but I bet it’s to help save another woman. So, no, I won’t take your money for helping. But I will say thank you for letting me do this small bit.”

Hopefully, it isn’t yet another dead end like the ones both Torment and I have been running into.

***

“You got me names.” Shock holds out a hand for the paper. “This has to be the worst documented women’s shelter that I’ve ever hacked into.”

Don’t ask. Don’t ask. “How many have you hacked into?”

“Dozens. Most keep terrible records and barely stay afloat. It’s sad that the people trying to do good in the world have such a hard time finding funding.”

After this, I’ll have Shock make me a list of the ones he’s found, and then I’ll fix that issue for the ones actually doing good in the world. “And did you find anything helpful?”

“Threads to tug on, but nothing conclusive. Plant only ‘volunteers’ at the one shelter. Since he’s been there, records show more than two dozen women are unaccounted for. Oh, this is interesting. Just a little after Plant arrived, a medical clinic volunteered to care for the women for free.”

Don’t most shelters have a clinic, hospital, or some medical professionals to do just that? “And why is that interesting?”

“Because all of the women’s medical records are on file with the shelter.” Shock taps on keys, making different images fly across the screens.

“So?”

“They aren’t supposed to be stored there.”

Huh? I lean forward to read the screens.

“The women’s medical information is private. With the exception of drug or alcohol use. These files contain everything from prior histories of pregnancy to hypertension. They even have extensive blood work results. And I’m talking about extensive.” He clicks through pages and pages of results, all with the same woman’s name on the top.

Why? We’re talking about human traffickers.

None of this makes sense. But it’s a thread. A weird one, but enough to waste the time. “Follow that. I want all the information you can get on these two women. And I want you to check other shelters to see if you can find any that are doing the same thing.”

“On it.” Shock nods.

“Any progress with Barb’s messes?”

Shock shakes his head. “Not yet. I’m running thorough checks on each of the people in her groups. It’ll take a while since there were more people accessing those posts than Barb thought.”

“Keep at it. Contact me if you need anything.” I need to go ask for a favor and talk to a Snitch.

***

Payne smiles as the elevator door opens to his place. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?”

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