Chapter 15
The embassy had nothing.
The records showed that after leaving campus, Olivia had not taken any transport to another city, and had not checked into any hotel.
She had simply stopped existing.
Lily went back through their messages and found close to a week between the start of the break and the first of June with no contact at all.
Which meant Olivia had likely been gone since the holiday began.
Which meant it had already been ten days.
The university had filed a formal report. The embassy was assisting.
Ten days is enough time for a great many things to happen.
And there was nothing Lily could do but wait.
Six months later, a letter arrived from an address she didn’t recognize.
Olivia had written it. What was in it took everything from her.
My dearest Lily,
By the time you read this, I expect I’m dead.
You’ll know I’ve gone missing by now. I’m sure you’ve tried everything to find me, and I’m sure you’ve found nothing.
I want you to stop looking.
These people are worse than you are capable of imagining. Not worse than you think — worse than you are able to think. I don’t want what happened to me to happen to you.
But I know you.
If I don’t write this, you’ll dig until there’s nothing left of you, and you’ll blame yourself. You’ll ask why you didn’t message more often, why you didn’t notice sooner.
I went back and forth about this for a long time, and I’ve decided to tell you all of it.
I don’t want you to act on it. I only want you to understand that my death is not your fault, so please don’t carry it.
Do you remember Mrs. Vance? The woman I told you about, the one I met at the restaurant where I was working.
Lily did remember the restaurant, and the woman.
They hadn’t spoken constantly — days went by when they were busy — but whenever they did, Olivia would pour out the details of her life in America.
The place called Bridgeside had come up more than once.
Olivia had said it did American food and some fusion plates, that it was genuinely good and genuinely cheap, and that when Lily finally came she was taking her there.
Mrs. Vance was someone Olivia had met at Bridgeside in April.
Lily remembered being told she was Mexican too, that she’d been in the country twenty years, and that she’d married a local businessman.
But Olivia had only mentioned her occasionally, so Lily knew almost nothing.
There was nothing in any of it she could use. She read on.
Her full name is Eleanor Vance and she’s a regular at Bridgeside.
She told me that even though the restaurant is mostly American, some of the fusion dishes taste like home to her.
I didn’t think anything of it at the time.
Looking back, I realized I never saw her in that restaurant again after we met.
I think that restaurant is one of the places she goes to look for people. I think it always was.
We got on very well that day.
Eleanor told me about the country, about how things work here, about how to live here. All of it was what I needed.
I thought she was kind, and generous, and interested in me, and I opened up to her completely. I even told her which university I was at.
After she knew that, she was warmer with me than ever.
We exchanged numbers before she left.
After that she got in touch every few days, and when she was near campus she’d bring me things she’d baked herself.
And then, right before the break, she asked if I wanted some part-time work.
She said a friend of hers — Mexican as well, in the country for years — had children whose Spanish had gotten weak, and wanted a Spanish tutor. Preferably a Mexican one.
She asked if I was interested. The money she named was very good.
I had no reason to doubt her, so I said yes without thinking about it.
On the day the break started she drove to the university to collect me.
She kept me talking the whole way, so I never paid attention to where we were going. I only know it took about two hours.
On the drive she mentioned that the couple’s son had severe allergies — to a great many things, even to human skin cells.
So anyone tutoring him would need a full medical screening first, to confirm they weren’t carrying anything he’d react to.
It sounded entirely reasonable to me at the time, and I agreed to it without a second thought.
Eleanor said she knew someone at a clinic nearby who could arrange it quietly, at no cost.
I believed her.
The car stopped in front of a building that didn’t look like a hospital or a clinic.
It bothered me, but Eleanor explained that it was a private medical facility that only saw clients by appointment, so of course it didn’t look like an ordinary hospital.
I believed her again, and I went in with her.
They did screen me. Extensively. There were more tests than I could count, and it took the whole day, and it wasn’t finished until well after dark.
After the last test, Eleanor handed me a bottle of water.
I lost consciousness not long after I drank it.
When I woke up I was in a room like a hospital room. Eleanor was gone. Everything I had was gone, including my clothes. I was in a gown.
I was locked in that room for three days.
Someone pushed water and food under the door. However much noise I made, nobody came.
On the third day a middle-aged man arrived.
Everyone calls him Mr. Finney.
He said he ran the place, and then he told me Eleanor had sold me.
Eleanor is not a woman who finds jobs for her countrywomen. Eleanor is a trafficker.
She sold me to this organization, and I became a product that can satisfy a number of different requirements.
They call us “toolboxes.” Meaning they can take whatever they want out of us.
Yes — us.
I am not the only one here. There are a great many young people in this place, brought in from all over the world, and most of them were told a version of what I was told.
I couldn’t accept it. I tried everything I could think of — fighting them, hurting myself, refusing to eat. None of it worked. All of it brought worse things than what I was refusing.
I have watched people who wouldn’t comply be killed. Not threatened with it. Killed, in front of the rest of us, so that we would know it was available.
