Forgive Me (33 page)

For a moment Angie couldn’t breath. I.C. now had a name.
Isabella Conti
.

“Why would Isabella get you any publicity?”

“Not the girl,” Dot said. “It was her father. Antonio Conti.”

The name meant nothing to Angie, and she said as much.

“Back in the early eighties, Antonio Conti was a member of the Giordano crime family in New York. It was big news, a national story when Antonio Conti turned state’s evidence against the Giordanos. Antonio had a wife, but I don’t recall her name, and of course he had his daughter, Isabella.”

“What happened to them?” Angie asked. Not a drop of moisture was present in her throat.

“Like I said, there were lots of news stories about the trial, and Isabella’s picture was in the paper and on TV regularly. The reporters made several mentions about her ear. I remember this, of course, because my son, Ronnie—oh, he’s Ronald now, I think I told you—had the same condition. He’s forty-eight now, with three children of his own, but none of them have what he had.”

“The girl,” Angie said, gripping the edge of her desk, her fingers whitening from the pressure. “What happened to her?”

“I have no idea,” Dot said. “After the trial, the whole family just disappeared.”

CHAPTER 42

Y
ou don’t come back the same from what I did. It’s impossible, I think. There is no way things can return to how they were before. I see a shrink and a social worker now, and talk to these people from the FBI and NCMEC and whatever. They’re just people trying to help me, but I honestly don’t know if I can be helped. Everything about me is tainted with something I can’t scrub off my skin no matter how many showers I take—and believe me, I’ve taken a lot.

I’ve read stuff online about people like me. People who were trafficked. That’s the word for what I was—trafficked. The numbers are really mind-blowing. 21 million, I read somewhere. Something like 4.5 million people who are trafficked are also sexually exploited. Exploited or not, I consider everyone who gets trafficked for whatever reason, forced labor or forced sex, to be part of the 21 million club. But that’s just a number, right? It doesn’t really mean anything. I mean, let’s be honest, 21 million! I’ve tried to imagine it, tried to wrap my brain around it. I’ve been to FedEx field for a Taylor Swift concert and once for some dumb football game. I think it held like, I dunno, 80,000 people. I need my calculator to do the math. 21,000,000/80,000 = 262.5 FedEx stadiums full of victims. 262.5 stadiums! Damn, it’s still too big to get my mind around, so instead I focus on one number that means something to me, a number that means the most to me, in fact. I focus on the number 1. Why? Because there’s 1 person named Nadine Jessup who lives in Potomac, Maryland who got trafficked for sex. That’s the number that resonates for me. 1, the number that crawls into my brain every night as I try to fall asleep, thinking about the apartment I once shared with Ricardo and then the one I shared with Tasha. 1 got me caught up in that life for whatever reason. Everything that happened to me happened to only 1 person. They can eradicate (still got my vocab!) sex trafficking, I mean free all 21 million human trafficking victims worldwide and that number 1 will still be with me, following me like a shadow, sticking to me like a tattoo. Of all the victims around the globe, I might not have suffered the most, but hey this isn’t a competition. The point I’m trying to make here is that I’m more than a statistic. I’m more than a success story on Angie’s wall (love her BTW).

I’m a 1.

Now multiply me by 21 million.

Oh, I should note my journal is gone so I’m starting anew. The old one is with the police, I guess. WTF, right?! Wrong! I’m glad they have it if it will help put those a-holes away. Go on! Read all my private thoughts. Read all my sinful deeds. Go page by page and find out for yourself everything I’ve done and who I’ve done it to. Hell, it’s not the first time I’ve been naked and exposed in front of strangers.

The looks I get around town are a CRAPLOAD worse than what I got when I was with Buggy and Casper. The strangers I ran into in Baltimore (now I know for sure that’s where I was) always looked at me like a curiosity. What’s she doing with them? That kind of curiosity. But around here the looks I get are a whole lot different. Sure some people eye me with sympathy—“poor little girl” kind of thing—but mostly what I feel is judged and dirty. They look at me and I can just tell their minds are working overtime trying to figure me out. But they’re not thinking about the hole, or the cigarette burns, or the knives, or all the threats. They’re thinking what I probably would be thinking about one of my friends if she was there instead of me. I’d be thinking, why didn’t you run? Why didn’t you call for help sooner? There’s only one answer they can come up with. I didn’t want to leave.

So Screw THEM!!!

I wish I didn’t care what anybody else thinks. But when you’re 1 out of 21 million, life can feel pretty damn lonely.

Okay, let’s talk about my mom and dad. Nothing has changed. Mom still drinks and my dad is still not interested in me. I spent a night at his place and he took me out for dinner. But he didn’t know what to say to me. I swear it was like the weirdest conversation ever! How’s the fish? Do you want another Coke? Um, yeah, okay Dad. . . . Is that really all he has to say to me?

Before all this I was just his great mistake, right? Well, my mom was his great mistake and I was the aftermath. I just don’t get it. I’m his daughter! Does he feel guilty because he couldn’t keep me safe or is he ashamed of me because I slept with so many men? One thing I know for certain, I’m not his innocent little girl anymore. Daddies always see their daughters in a certain light. Well, I want the lights to go out. I don’t want my dad to see me at all anymore.

How do I get drugs? Seriously? I don’t know how. Do I go to some street corner here in Potomac and wait? Do I steal my mom’s car and drive back to Baltimore? Where do I get them? Where? Believe it or not, I actually miss something about my old life. Back there, when the business of living hurt too much, I could always take a pill.

I spend most of my time in my bedroom. I feel sort of better surrounded by my things. I say sorta because it all looks so childish to me now. Like I’ve outgrown everything I own. My clothes, my books, my posters, my music, everything. It belongs to a girl who didn’t know anything about the big bad world. Now that I know—taken a bite of the forbidden apple kind of know—I want to get rid of it all. The old Nadine is gone and this new person doesn’t give a rat’s ass about Anna Kendrick. This new Nadine no longer believes we could be BFFs.

So that was awful. JUST AWFUL! I went over to Sophia’s house for the first time today. Her parents were home and the way Sophia’s dad looked at me made me kind of sick. Maybe it was all in my head. Maybe he wasn’t looking at me in that way. Maybe her dad just reminded me of the other dads who for whatever reason forgot they had daughters of their own.

Anyway, it was so awkward there I wanted to scream. Brianna, Sophia, Hannah, Madison, we were in Sophia’s basement, all together for the first time. Yes, I ran away, but I didn’t run away from them. I ran away from my mom mostly because there’s only so much a girl can take. But I never wanted to leave my friends. So now we were together again at last. But it wasn’t like before. I forgave and forgot everything Ricardo pointed out to me. Jump off a bridge 4 real. Calling me fat, those things. That’s just girl-trash-talk. I mean I’ve said mean things to them, but it was always jokingly, and even if they were serious I needed my friends more than anything, so forgive and forget I say.

For the longest time nobody said a word. We just sat on the couch drinking soda and watching some crap on MTV. I mean it’s so unlike us. Before, when we were all together, you couldn’t get us to stop talking. But this was awkward to the max. Sure, I got some hugs. Some, how are you doing? That kind of thing. But then it was the silent treatment. So I just blurted out—No I didn’t get pregnant! No I don’t have an STD or AIDS. YES I’ve been contacted by a bunch of people who want me to sell my story. NO I’m not selling it. YES I screwed a lot of guys! A LOT! What else do you want to know? How do we get over this? I’ll tell you anything you want to know.

But here’s the thing, and I think I just figured it out while I was writing this all down. They didn’t want to know. Not really. They wanted it to be something they might have heard about, or saw on
Law and Order: SVU
, or caught a snippet of on Dateline or whatever. They didn’t want it be something they could reach over and touch.

I was just too damn real for them.

Thank God Sophia came around! Thank you thank you thank you. xoxo She came over and we got honest with each other. No BS. I told her how everyone made me feel so cheap and unworthy. She apologized and we ate ice cream and well, I felt a whole lot better. Ice cream can fix anything, I swear. We must have talked for five hours straight. I told her what happened, I told everything as I could remember it, and she listened. She REALLY listened. I LOVE HER SO MUCH!! I needed somebody and she came through. I told her about Angie and what I thought about her friend Sarah Winter. Sophia thinks I can do something to help. Make a difference in someone’s life, ya know? I think Angie’s wall of photographs got to me, seeing all those faces, all those lost souls reunited with the people who loved them. But what about Sarah Winter? Her picture’s going to stay on Angie’s wall until she’s found. Ask me, I think it’ll be hanging up there as long as Angie has that office. Sarah’s never coming back. Without Angie’s help I might have ended up just like her—someone who was never found. I need to pay it forward. That’s what I think. It gives me purpose. Focus on something other than how broken I am inside. I have so many dark thoughts and dark days. I need a bit of light. If I can make a real difference in somebody’s life, isn’t it worth doing no matter what the cost? Sophia thinks so and I think I agree, even if it means I have to see Ricardo again.

CHAPTER 43

R
aynor Sinclair parked his Acura SUV across the street from Ivan Markovich’s apartment building. His muscles creaked getting out of his car. Too many hours confined, sitting and driving, had turned Raynor into a tin man. He promised himself a long vacation outdoors with his bow and arrow once this job was over.

He crossed the street, mindful to look both ways. He was mindful about everything, which was how he knew nobody was watching him or Markovich. He also knew Markovich was at home. The GPS anklet kept a reliable 24/7 vigil on his prospect.

For this meeting, Raynor went with a black suit, a black shirt underneath, and dark sunglasses. He knew he looked like a badass, but it was a fitting choice for the business he had come to discuss.

He stepped into a cool marble foyer with a fancy inlaid design fronting a mahogany reception area topped by green marble. The man seated behind the desk wore a rumpled suit and a sleepy expression. Raynor asked to be connected to Ivan Markovich in 3B. The receptionist dialed a number and handed Raynor a white landline phone.

“Who is it?” The voice on the other end sounded gruff, annoyed.

“You don’t know me. But we need to talk.”

A pause first, and then, “Are you police? You can talk to my attorney.”

“The police don’t want to help you. I do.”

“Why?”

“If you have to ask, then I guess I should go.”

“No. Wait. Come up.”

Raynor handed the white phone back to the attendant and was soon on his way up to the third floor. Markovich was waiting at the door to let him in. He was dressed in jeans and an oxford shirt, with loafers on his feet and no socks because they didn’t fit over the ankle monitor gracefully. The chains draped around his neck, same as his Rolex watch, were made of gold.

From the doorway, Raynor took a look around. He expected a bit more opulent décor—perhaps a large jade rhino or a crystal chandelier, something worthy of someone who had conceivably made millions peddling people. The place was nice enough, though. The apartment had wood throughout, and the living room visible from the doorway featured modern looking furniture favoring black leather, but the view wasn’t much to behold.

Raynor believed Markovich could afford much more.
Good
. A man who was careful with his money had money to spend.

Markovich might have been somewhat frugal, but he wasn’t a trusting man. He had opened the door with a Glock pistol in his hand. The G37 Gen4 was big bore technology, a gun suitable for law enforcement, not something a first-time enthusiast would own. The choice of weaponry told Raynor plenty. Markovich was comfortable around guns and his warning look sent a message that he had pulled the trigger on a person before.

Raynor kept his sunglasses on because he wasn’t about to move his hands. He also wasn’t armed and wasn’t worried. “You can search me for a weapon, check me for a wire, if that’s your wish. I assure you I don’t have any such items on me.”

“Yeah? How do I know? Wires these days can be small, easy to hide.” Markovich’s accent was somewhat pronounced, but Raynor knew he could dial it up and down at will. Eventually it would play in Markovich’s favor.

“May I take something out of my pocket?” Raynor asked.

Using his gun as a pointer, Markovich motioned him inside the apartment. He closed the door with his foot and aimed the Glock at Raynor’s chest. “No tricks.”