"I'm sorry." I step back, sliding my phone into my pants. "I take it you believe me?"

Priscilla arches her left eyebrow in a way that reminds me of a Disney villain. "I want to see one of the e-mails."

I shake my head. "I'm not handing you my phone again. But I'll give you some details. In one of them, you and Jim Gunn mentioned something about your diamond-studded c.u.n.t." I smirk at her, and Priscilla actually colors a little. It's quickly followed by an unabashed grin, which I feel sure is just for show. "I'm pierced, darling."

I'm not going to dignify that with a response. "Obviously there's lots of d.a.m.ning stuff in there too. Jim Gunn isn't very smart. He actually mentions Ceintos by name in two of the e-mails."

I slide my phone into my jacket and fold my arms as Priscilla pales.

"That may be, but I never did."

"You're disgusting, Priscilla. Not any better than Jim Gunn-"

"This is his business, not mine!"

I shake my head. "That doesn't change what you did."

Priscilla's red mouth twists into an ugly pout. "She was a little b.i.t.c.h. She f.u.c.ked your father behind your mother's back. You should be glad she's gone."

"No one deserves to be gone that way." I want to add, except maybe you, but bite my tongue. I need her help. "All you have to do is tell me where you think she might be."

"Why do you care?"

I don't see why I should lie to her, so I don't. "I feel like s.h.i.t for just leaving her there. I found out this happened a year ago, and-"

"If the police find out, you'll be in trouble too."

"I don't care." It's true-I really don't.

Priscilla rubs her forehead with her manicured hand, and her eyes meet mine. "Believe it or not...I do feel guilt at times. It was a mistake, getting involved with Jim. He brought me down. Made me worse than I really am."

I nod solemnly, event thought I'm not buying any of it.

She stands and steps close to me. Close enough that I can barely breathe for the scent of her toxic perfume. She runs her finger down my jacket, almost like she's seducing me. I step back.

"I'm sorry about you, too, Cross. We were covering our a.s.ses, and we made a terrible decision that night."

"Well this is your chance to undo that. Start making better ones. Tell me what happened to Missy King."

"That Mexican you saw in the barter house that day, the one whose gun you stole-that's Guapo. He works for Jesus Cientos." She pauses, scrutinizing my face, like that name might mean something to me. It doesn't. She smiles. "He's big-time. The leader of the Cientos Cartel. Usually he just sells the girls, but he kept Missy. He liked the little- he liked her. During the...time I spent in Mexico-" she must mean when Guapo and his guys ran off with her- "I found out she ran from Jesus. He treated her very well, I heard, but she wasn't grateful. Some months ago-almost a year maybe; I'm not sure-she ran to...some church." Priscilla wrinkles her nose, like the word tastes bad. h.e.l.l, it probably burns her tongue. "A Catholic church. It's supposed to be neutral ground for the cartels."

Priscilla sits back down and drops her head into her hands. "Sometimes when I think about this, I feel ill. It was a bad decision. Very bad."

"How can I find this church?"

When Priscilla looks up, I'm surprised to see tears in her eyes. "I know someone who might be able to help you, but...it might be dangerous."

"I don't care. Tell me."

"His name is Carlos. He's a hustler in Mexicali. Most nights he's at a seedy little strip club called La Casa del Amor, off Boulevard Islas Agrarias."

I pull out my cell phone, jotting down what she said, then cut my eyes up at her. "Seedy by American standards or Mexican standards?"

"Mexican." She fans her face.

I slip my phone back into my pocket. "And if I want to talk to Carlos, I should...mention you?"

She nods. "Mention Priscilla sent you."

"He'll know where the church is?"

She nods. "It's hardly a secret."

I think this over. Figure it's the best I'm going to get. "Thank you, Priscilla."

I start walking to her door, and she grabs my arm. "You're not going to tell, are you? You're not going to share the e-mails? I'm repentant. I'm helping you."

I nod. She is helping me. But I'm leaving the decision to Missy King.

CHAPTER NINE.

I want to drive toward Mexico as soon as I leave Priscilla's house, but that would put me crossing the border at night. And I know that's not a good idea. I exit her neighborhood the back way and spend some time driving around the city, trying to be sure she didn't put a tail on me. For all I know, my father warned her I might pay her a visit.

When I feel rea.s.sured that no one's on me, I stop at a Target in the burbs and stock up on supplies. Some are for Meredith, some for me. Maybe I go a little overboard with the girl stuff, but if I find her, and I can get her to leave with me, I want to have everything she needs. Everything she hasn't had this last year-or however long it's been.

It seems possible to me that we might have to hide out for a little while, at the shop or maybe somewhere else when we get back to the States. I think I've got the essentials covered (I am NOT buying tampons or any of that other stuff), but I'm reminded again that I really don't have a plan, and what little I'm going on comes from the mouth of deviant p.o.r.n star.

I wonder, as I cross the parking lot to the Mach, if a year or a year and a half-I don't know exactly when they sold her-is long enough to ruin someone for good. I hope not.

I check into the Hampton Inn and soak my shoulder in a hot shower. It's stiff and sore from the way I'm riding the bike, but I don't feel a pain attack coming on, so I'm fine.

The next morning I'm up before the sun is. Just can't sleep. I pull on the jeans I wore yesterday, my scuffed up boots, and a long-sleeved ringer that's got a grease stain near the collar. I think of Suri as I clomp down the stairs. She still hasn't called me but I called her last night and left a message.

I use an old rag I grab out of a janitor's cart on the first floor to scuff the Mach up some-more inconspicuous that way-and check my map again. Almost six hours to Mexicali, and La Casa del Amor.

Thoughts of the strip club bring up thoughts of Marchant Radcliffe and his wh.o.r.e house, the ridiculously named 'Love Inc.' I've gotten to know the guy, and he's decent, but I can't get over 'Love Inc'. I think he should call it b.l.o.w. .j.o.bs for Big Money.

I only got to know of the place because Lizzy sold her virginity there. To pay my medical bills. She even opened a savings account for me, which I haven't been able to get her to close yet. I'm not touching the money, and I think she knows that. It's not like I was penniless when I had my accident.

Sometimes, when I think about it too long, I hate her for it.

And the two million dollars-yeah, two million-just sits there. I thought about investing it and giving it back to her with gains, but realized the first time I tried to read the Wall Street Journal-even the front page-that I'm no investor.

Her groom to be, on the other hand, could probably double it before the wedding.

Hunter West.

His name still leaves a sour taste in my mouth, and I know I have no right. I was a wh.o.r.e just like good Mr. West, so who am I to judge his past?

Speaking of pasts: Missy King. Meredith Kinsey. I torture myself, imagining her fate. Wondering, for the thousandth time, if Meredith really is Missy King, or if this is some elaborate plot my father cooked up to throw me off the trail.

And if she is, what happened to her? How did she go from crusading college reporter to s.e.x slave?

People like you happened to her.

As I weave between a Mack truck and a van, I think about how true it is. The guy arrested on drug charges back in Georgia was probably her boyfriend. Maybe she fled to Vegas, where she didn't have any money, and she met my father, who probably promised to take care of her.

I used to think of myself as one of the good guys. Sure, I slept around, but every woman I was with wanted to be there, too. They wanted the s.e.x as much as I did, and when it was over, we usually parted as friends. I try to stay away from anyone who might want something else.

See? One of the good guys.

But for almost a year, I knew what happened to Missy King and I pretended I didn't. I believed she deserved what she got. Innocent women don't f.u.c.k married men, right?

The thought makes me feel nauseated.

I let fate stay its hand while I sat on her secret. While I protected my father. I let him get away with something abhorrent, and then, that night outside Hunter West's house, I paid for it. Jim Gunn, evil f.u.c.ker that he is, was doling out justice in my case. I still want to kill him-preferably after feeding him his b.a.l.l.s-but I know by the time this is over, I'll see just how much I deserve what I got.

I take a sharp curve around a clump of cacti and my body tenses at the feeling of off-balencedness I get from steering. I've got a f.u.c.ked up left hand, and I can't even ride a bike without losing my d.a.m.n nerve. No way I'll be saving anybody.

And for the first time yet, I wonder if I'm really going to Mexico to die.

Almost six hours later, I cross the border at Mexicali, the capital of the state of Baja California, Mexico, with my pa.s.sport and a story about motorcycling through the country. In the bottom of my bag is a second pa.s.sport, for 'Meredith Carlson'.

It's my hand, I tell myself. Because I'm disabled now, I need to feel like I can actually do something. But doing something is telling the cops. Not riding into a drug cartel's turf.

As I get into the bustle of Lazaro Cardenas Boulevard, with its half-dozen lanes of thick traffic baking under the hot sun, I take a very stupid risk, balancing with my left shoulder and hand and sticking my right into my pocket, where I grasp Meredith's picture and throw it out into the wind.

The second after, I'm wrenched with regret. Just another sign that I'm pathetic. A lump of emotion rises in my throat, but I swallow hard and navigate the traffic. I focus on finding my way to Islas Agrarias Boulevard, which will take me to a little side street-Av de Los Serdan-where I should find La Casa del Amor.

I'm in shoulder-knotting traffic for almost an hour, feeling the sweat drip through my hair and down my neck, wondering what will happen when I get to the strip club, when I finally spot the turnoff onto Islas Agrarias. My phone isn't working like my provider told me it would, so I'm relying on visual memory of the map as I look for Calz Tierra something, the smaller street that will take me to the even smaller Av de Los Serdan.

The roads here are paved but it's been a while. Small, square business signs, nothing but colorful paper plastered over plywood squares, line Islas Agrarias, advertising party spots, a lawyer's office, free colas. There's no gra.s.s anywhere-just piles of sand that sprinkles across the road as a dry wind slaps me in the face.

I squint through the sweat in my eyes, pa.s.s an old brown Jeep, and get into the right lane, where I think I see Calz Tierra. Yeah, that's it. Calz Tierra...something. I can't read the words. My eyes are too blurry. I make a slow turn onto it with my heart hammering in my chest, taking in the few food shops and businesses that, to me, look like little more than roadside stands. I pa.s.s a fruit vendor and someone selling something that looks like lottery tickets, and then I'm here: Av de Los Serdan. La Casa de Amor.

If there's one thing I've learned from spending time at St. Catherine's Clinc, it's that I lived a mostly selfish life before. It didn't start off easy, but that doesn't mean I wasn't a selfish girl with dreams and desires all centered around myself.

My mother died in childbirth-her labor came on too fast, and I was born in the car-and after a month nursing bottles from my father, I wasn't gaining weight, so my Aunt Britta and Uncle Walter took me in. They had a one-year-old, my cousin Landon, but still, they made time and s.p.a.ce for me. I saw my father on the weekends until I was four, when he was involved in a one-motorcycle wreck on a lonely Georgia highway outside Albany. Just before I started kindergarten, my aunt and uncle adopted me and made me Meredith Kinsey.

Aunt Britta always made sure I looked nice and knew the things a girl should know. Cross your legs when you're wearing a skirt and don't talk to strange men. Don't go close to big vans with dark windows. That kind of thing. I did okay, I guess, until I hit p.u.b.erty, and by then I'd started feeling...left out. Maybe it's because Aunt Britta was dark-haired, with brown eyes, and I'm so fair, or maybe it was because she used to introduce herself at teacher conferences as my aunt. I wanted a mother and a father. My childhood was consumed by wanting to be normal. A normal child with a mom and a dad. Not an orphan.

When one of Landon's friends kissed me on a freshman/soph.o.m.ore cla.s.s trip to the aquarium, I felt so good...and it wasn't too long before kissing boys became my thing.

It made me feel brand new; alive and wanted. Usually I'd go to bed and hug my pillow and I'd dream of marrying whoever I was kissing at the time. I would marry my crush and we would have a baby, and when I got six or seven months pregnant I would just go to the hospital and stay until I had the baby. No dying in the car. After that, we'd be a family. I wouldn't be the left-out little girl. I would be the mother. I would have a daughter with strawberry-colored hair just like mine, and when I took her to the grocery store, our outfits would color coordinate.

I started writing stories in high school and it was around that time I met Sam, the band director. I learned how much I didn't know about what men and women did, and for a while, I relished the pleasant things he taught me. The world was worth being in, because someone wanted me.

I was upset after Sam left town. Devastated. I had this crazy idea that I would get a job in Alpharetta, where he had transferred, and I would marry him, but Aunt Britta (who had no idea why I wanted to move to Alpharetta), insisted I go to college. I got a scholarship to UGA and went for something I thought would be easy: journalism.

I was pretty much just like I was in high school, in college. I dated a few guys and we did more than kiss. I didn't sleep with all of them. My roomie, Carla, used to call me a kissy wh.o.r.e, and I guess I was. I was looking for the hugs and cuddling, and the kissing and other things-the hand-jobs and the blow-jobs and doggy style-were just a way to get there. To a place where I felt loved and cherished.

And then I found another rush, another pa.s.sion, and strangely enough, it was the student newspaper. For about a year and a half, part of junior year and all of senior year, I stopped dating completely and just worked. I loved it.

I would go to the bar every once in a while, or smoke pot at a friend's house. But the rest of the time I was working, chasing my buzz. It wasn't a bad life, and I never even thought about my lack of parents.

So, when I met Sean the weekend before graduation-when I finally met the infamous Sean Tacoma, the weed dealer I'd never met (because I was always left in the car while Alec ran in)-I couldn't help but be smitten.

Sean was cute, with bright green eyes and reddish blond hair, and all I could think about was what pretty babies we would have. They would be cuter than all the other kids in preschool. Better-dressed. And they would have the perfect family with a mother and a father.

Stupid, I know. Stupid, selfish Meredith.

I squeeze my eyes shut thinking about how stupid I was. I didn't know where my choices would take me, and if I had... I could have joined the Peace Corps. Been a missionary. Nowadays I think that I would like that. Volunteer work. Work that helps people. Now that I don't have any choices that don't suck.

Sometimes, since coming to the clinic, I think about the pretty kids that Sean and I would have had-if we hadn't gotten into trouble in Atlanta. If I hadn't fled to Vegas. Sometimes I think about the children I've met here who were born without arms and legs, children with cleft lips, children who can't afford clothes, and I feel sick with my old self. I wish I could send a note back to my past.

"Senorita Merri, you look sleepy!"

I'm holding four-year-old Maria in my lap, and we're working on her hand coordination. She has a rare condition where she's missing a part of her brain-the corpus collosum-so she has trouble with fine motor skills.

I lean in and kiss her on the nose, then snap my teeth near her cheek. "Grrrr! I am a dragon! Dragons never sleep!"

Maria giggles and snaps her teeth at me, and in seconds we are rolling on the floor. She flops onto her back, still giggling, and points to my hair. "You have a barrette. It looks like a diamond. I like diamonds."

It's not a real diamond. I found it on the ground one day and only kept it because I really needed something to keep my hair out of my face. Pretty soon, I won't need it anymore.

"Can you get it out of my hair? If you can, you can have it."

I feel her little fingers grip my neck as her other hand delves into my hair, and I can't resist tickling her underneath her arm.

"No fair!" she cries, but she's laughing.

I lean my head down and wait for her to free the barrette.

If only I had known how nice life is when you're focused on something besides yourself.

When Maria gets the barrette, I clap and kiss her cheek. I hold her close for just a second, telling her a silent goodbye. Tomorrow, I'm leaving. I hope she wears the barrette for a long time. I hope that she's the prettiest girl at preschool.