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I’m shaking my head, taking that single step I’d advanced only moments ago, back. I don’t understand.
Detective Morris’s mouth flattens, and he glances down when he says, “As I was telling Ray and Eva before you arrived, we have reason to believe that?—”
“What do you mean you’re done looking for her?” I cut in sharply.
He calmly meets my gaze. “We have reason to believe she’s dead.”
There’s a muttered curse from someone in the room. Eva wails into the table.
“No.”
“Mason…”
Jaw ticking, I glance between a ragged, bleary-eyed Ray and the detective. “No. She can’t be dead. Where’s the proof? Where’s the body? You can’t say she’s dead if there’s no body.”
“Someone confirmed that they’d seen her.”
My gaze swings to Detective Morris, and behind me, I feel Waylon push off the wall. “Someone saw her?” he says in a strangled voice.
Morris nods. “There was a…sting, recently. A pretty big one.”
“What kind of sting?” I whisper, my voice faint even to my own ears. I can practically feel Waylon holding his breath.
Detective Morris’s gaze flits to Ray and Eva, but I know it’s not because he didn’t already tell them. I can see the horror and devastation lining Ray’s face—the same harsh, weathered lines I saw the first time it came up almost two years ago…
What likely happened to Izzy.
Human trafficking.
You hear about it all the fucking time. Hear about the dangers of straying off alone. See the posts all over Facebook. See it reenacted in cheesy Lifetime movies. Learn all about the disgusting underbelly of society in True Crime documentaries.
But it’s one thing to know it happens.
Another thing entirely when your girlfriend might be a victim of such unimaginable horror.
“We closed in on a trafficking ring just across the Mexican border last month,” the detective says. “I can’t go into much detail beyond that, but when things like this happen and there are survivors…victims… When we bring them in, we cross-check to see if any are in our missing persons database. And once that’s ruled out, we show those in our custody pictures, and see if they can identify any.”
“And someone recognized Izzy?” Waylon says, his voice breaking on her name.
Detective Morris looks from him to me, and says, “Yes.”
My eyes fall shut.
Eva’s sobs fill the room, the only thing I can hear above the blood roaring in my ears.
That is, until Detective Morris continues speaking.
“Ten missing girls were identified by those we rescued. All confirmed to be…deceased by those who recognized them. Izzy was one of them.”
Next to me, Waylon makes a sound, almost like a whimper. One he instantly chokes back.
When I open my eyes, I’m staring straight into Detective Morris’s eyes as I say, “Where the fuck’s her body then?”
He doesn’t tear his gaze from mine, when he says, “There is a very slim chance anything remains to be found.”
I hear him say this. Read the words off his lips as clearly as they filter through my ears.
But it doesn’t register.
