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I look at the other names. There are thirty-two sub-folders. Thirty-two victims. Thirty-two women who are probably dead by now, and I’m the only one who can bear witness to the fact they ever lived, ever suffered in New Castle County, Delaware.
Adriana.
Daria.
Gabriela.
Key.
My fingers freeze on the trackpad.
Herzog didn’t buy me. He didn’t sell me. And why aren’t my records filed under A, for Alix?
I tap the folder.
There’s a photo. It isn’t me, but it’s a face I know nearly as well as my own. It’s Leo.
The picture was taken in the study. Leo is standing in front of the mantel. The metal torture frame is to his right, almost out of the shot.
My brother looks curious. He’s grinning, the way he always did when he met new people. I think he looks a little scared.
I scroll down. I don’t know what I expect to find. Leo wasn’t a girl, aMädchen. He was a man. A man who chose to work for an animal. Leo made the decision of his own free will, and that’s what killed him.
So, there’s no bill of sale.
But there are hundreds of other documents, nearly identical. Each one is called Key, followed by a six-digit code. A date. The first one is from a month after I arrived at Herzog’s. The last one is from June 15. The Sunday before Herzog died.
I open a file. It resembles a paystub. There’s Leo’s name. An address in Philadelphia. Lines for each day of the week. Columns for hours worked, for pounds processed (Crash), for pounds processed (Cocaine), for pounds processed (Heroin), for market value (gross) for market value (street).
This can’t be possible. Lilyana told me years ago: Leo’s dead.
But Leo was processing drugs for Herzog in downtown Philadelphia, as recently as ten weeks ago.
My heart pounding, I find the computer’s search icon. I type in Key and this past Sunday’s date, six digits, day, month, year.
A single file shows up. I click, and I’m staring at an email from Philadelphia Distribution Center to Klaus Herzog. It arrived yesterday morning, Monday. Apparently drug kingpins don’t observe federal holidays.
I click on the attachment.
My brother, my twin—the man who sold me to Klaus Herzog to pay off a drug debt—is alive and well. And he’s living in Philadelphia, less than a hundred miles away.
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