“What is that thing?”
“That, you uneducated rube, is a microfiche reader, which was the bee’s knees in research tools before the invention of the internet. These microphotographs contain entire issues of newspapers.” He smirked. “Newspapers are periodicals containing current events and—”
“I know what a newspaper is, thanks. Tell me what the ‘oh yeah’ was for.”
“Because it so happens that we have two decades of theWashington Tribon microfiche, and this old dinosaur found the article from which your picture of Annette was torn.” He poked a thumb into his chest.
Cullen gaped. “You’re joking.”
“Nope. I figured it was worth looking. Pulled up all the June issues for the last ten years. Got a match on the second one. Easy as pie.” Archie grinned. “’Cuz the only thing better than a marine is a librarian marine.”
“You’re right about that.”
He grinned. “Take a look here.”
Cullen peered over his shoulder at the grainy paper shown on the dim screen.
Archie held up the ripped article Kit had gotten from Kyle’s wallet for comparison. “That there’s the very same article as the piece the motorcycle guy was carrying. See? Photo matches perfectly and the caption.”
Stunned, Cullen scanned the tiny words in the first paragraph, wishing he had his reading glasses, a fact he wouldn’t disclose under pain of death and dismemberment. He looked for the zoom option, but as he bent, Tot complained. Archie took her while he moved in closer.
He read until he got the gist. His stomach dropped to his shoes.
Archie’s grave expression told him he’d read it too.
Kit appeared in the doorway. “What did you find out?”
He exchanged a look with Archie.
What was the best way to tell her that the trouble was even worse than they thought?
SEVEN
Kit pressed in next to him and started to scan the article.
“Read it aloud, would you?” Cullen eased back. “Too crowded if we’re all trying to see the screen.”
Uh-huh. Likely he was struggling to see the print and didn’t want to underscore it by enlarging it any more, but she wouldn’t bother teasing him about that now. Instead, she made the image bigger, sat on the crate and read, picking out the important facts and making note of them in her mind.
Seventeen-year-old Annette Bowman had run away from her single mother’s Washington home after a dispute five years prior. She’d hopped a bus and headed for Seattle, and her mother never saw her again except in a photo she’d found of her daughter on...
Kit went cold.
...an online escort service, which had since gone out of business. It was tied to a person by the name of Nico Phillips, who had been questioned by the police and released. A photo of the man was included, dark hair, handsome features, easygoing smile.
She could hardly get out the words as she continued reading. “‘Police believe Annette Bowman may be the victim of sex trafficking.’”
Kit sat back, trying to assimilate the information. Annette had to be Tot’s mother. Didn’t seem likely she’d risk her life for anyone other than her own child. Had she been coerced into the sex trafficking business by Nico Phillips? At the tender age ofseventeen?
The cookie she’d eaten turned into a chunk of lead in her stomach. She closed her eyes, trying to remember the woman, Annette, and what she’d asked of Kit, what Kit had agreed to. A ride out of town? She got one fleeting memory of desperate blue eyes framed by blond hair, the shade too brassy to be natural, pushed back by dark sunglasses atop her head. Annette?
“She could have been trying to escape this Nico guy.” Kit hadn’t realized she’d spoken aloud.
Cullen laid a palm on her shoulder. “You still don’t remember?”
Kit shook her head miserably. “An impression is all. I have this sense of a young blond woman, really panicked, waving at me.” The urgency billowed in her gut. The photo in the article was taken five years prior, so Annette was now twenty-two. Kit, at twenty-two, had been desperately trying to ignore the failings of her husband and dealing with an unexpected pregnancy she hadn’t realized she wanted until that had failed too. It had taken her years to claw her way to a standing position again. There’d been a litany of loans, hungry nights, and weeks of barely making rent before she finally had to grovel and ask for help from her mother.
She knew what it felt like to be lost, scared, and alone.
