The Wrong Sister

I stared at the beautiful detective before me. She was just as attractive as Lisa, only in a very different way. With Lisa, it was a rugged, natural kind of beauty. With this detective, it was sophisticated and classy, even though she appeared to be older—maybe in her fifties. I’d be willing to bet that the general population would find this detective more attractive than Lisa, and that Lisa would be considered a bit plain in comparison. So was I about to be kidnapped? “Are you home alone?” I nodded. “Fortunately.” “May I come in for a moment?” “Please do,” I said, stepping aside. She towered over me as she passed, and I guessed she was at least five feet eight. “Are you a friend of Lisa’s?” “No, ma’am.” “Is this about a case of hers, or were you sent by the doctor?” “I’ve been in touch with the doctor.” I exhaled an audible sigh of relief. “Thank God you’re here before she goes crazy on me again. Seriously, I can’t take this any longer. If you can’t help me today, then I’ve got to take off—even if I’m running blindly into God knows what with no place to go and no means of support.” “Don’t worry about that. I don’t have time to explain right now. Everything will be explained on the way. Right now, I just need you to grab only your purse and come with me.” “Is this it?” “This is it. We’ve got to move fast. No saying when she’ll be back.” I ran to grab my purse, then looked toward the end of the room. Burke! “There’s no way I’m leaving without my rat.” Without waiting for a response, I quickly ran and snatched him from his cage. “Forget about his food. We’ll get that later. Right now, you need to leave a note.” “A note?” I asked, eyebrows rising. “You mean like a suicide note?” “No. I mean, one saying you decided to take a walk in the fresh air with your pet. That is, unless she’d find it unusual for you to take a rat with you on a stroll.” “She wouldn’t. He goes out all the time. Loves to dig in the sand.” I quickly grabbed a pad and pen from the coffee table, Burke perched on my shoulder, and scribbled down the note. The detective quickly inspected it and told me to leave it where Lisa would notice it. I placed it on the kitchen table, then followed the detective outside. I grew curious when I didn’t see a vehicle in the driveway. There wasn’t even anything parked on the street in front of the condo. “Where’s your car?” “I’m parked down the block. You never know if she has cameras set up.” Smart thinking, I thought. A few minutes later, we were climbing into a navy blue van. “Where are we going, Detective Benson?” “Call me Mariska,” she said with a smile. “Ok, Mariska. Where are we going?” “To a hotel for starters. Is your friend going to be ok?” “Yes. Rats are like dogs. He likes going for rides, and he won’t poop all over or anything like that.” “After I drop you off, I’ll have someone get a small cage and some food for him.” “Thank you. And thank you for getting me out of there when you did. I was trying to escape her the day of my release from the psych ward when she chased me into a car. According to the type of brain injury I had, the doctors were sure I’d lost my short-term memory from what I overheard them telling Lisa. But the truth is, I haven’t lost anything at all, and I’ve been trying to hide this from her. I don’t think she bought it, though.” “Dr. Lacayo told me what happened.” “She was catching on. Either I wasn’t a good enough actress, or she was just that perceptive, because she was dropping hints that suggested she knew I hadn’t forgotten a thing. Things got scary this morning, but then she had to run out on a case.” “Well, hopefully it’s over for good—as long as you do everything you’re told to do. For starters, no one can ever know where you are. Life as you knew it ends today. You can never again log in to any account you ever used online, and you can never again call anybody you knew in the old life that just ended. You got it?” “Totally.” “I’m not here just because of what she’s done to you in the past, but because of what she has planned for you in the future.” “What do you mean?” “Detective Winters is a suspect in a human trafficking ring that we’ve been investigating for over a year now.” “Oh my God. So that was true—and what she said wasn’t a joke.” “What did she say?” “Before the psych ward, when she beat the crap out of me and cut my wrist at an angle to make it look like I’d done it, she joked about selling me for a new truck. At the time, I thought she just had a totally twisted, sick sense of humor. I had no idea she was serious. Then in the hospital, Dr. Lacayo said her files were missing, and she mentioned something about an investigation, too.” “It’s very unfortunate when one of us goes bad.” “It sucks in more ways than one. She came into my life at a time when I really needed someone, and she seemed so wonderful and caring at first. I really thought she loved me. I’m so, so sorry I married her. If I’d had even an inkling of what she was really like, I never would have done it.” “Sometimes people fool us.” “How was she involved in the trafficking? Has she actually sold and profited from some poor, innocent, unsuspecting soul?” “Our investigation isn’t complete, but it’s looking more and more like that’s a big possibility.” “Sick. Just sick. I can’t believe her sister didn’t have a clue what was going on. She was the psychologist I lived with who died—completely different from her psycho sister.” “It wasn’t just her, I’m afraid. There’s a group involved. This isn’t usually a one-person job. It takes a handful of people to pull it off.” “How did she get caught up in something like that?” “Some people get desperate or greedy, and they just lack compassion for the human race.” “How did they operate?” “By gathering whatever vulnerable people they thought wouldn’t be missed, then sharing the profits.” The thought made me want to throw up as we turned into a hotel parking lot. “What’s going to happen now?” “Now we hide you away, give you a new life, and a new identity.” “Are we talking a whole new name and Social Security number as you see on TV?” Mariska nodded. “If you don’t want to be found, sold, or killed—yes. There’s only one thing you’ll need to do besides the obvious.” “Anything. Just name it.” “You’ll need to testify against her in court—to the abuse and the fact that she threatened to sell you.”