Truth or Lies? by A. Gomez (books to get back into reading TXT) 📕

“I hate to leave, thinking you’ll still be in this mess. Although, so far, the FBI has done a pretty decent job of taking care of you, so I’m not that worried.” I wrapped my arm around his neck to kiss him on the cheek. He actually let me. Again. I decided not to tease him about it. I didn’t want to ruin the moment.

“So what project were you accepted for?” I asked, trying to change the mood.

“I can’t say a lot about it. Basically, we’re trying to develop a new supercomputer with a microchip that may be able to help with locations in space or locating specific areas in space.”

“Wow! That’s sounds impressive… and complicated.” I looked at my brother, only then realizing how brilliant he really was.

The evening rolled into night and then morning. My body didn’t feel heavy anymore but the pain and ache in my arm was still there. Monday was uneventful, thankfully—just a lot of paperwork and a few therapy sessions. Ben and I went to work together, ate together; he stood outside the therapy room while I was in session with patients and even accompanied me to the ladies room. No one ever asked any questions or even bothered to notice it was a different agent. The other therapists in our department were constantly in and out all day, every day. I was determined not to let the thought of Josh cloud my mind and get work done. Things were going smoothly. David was even busier than usual in the ER, making it difficult for him to see me, let alone spend time with me. The rest of the week and a half was like that, so I was glad about that. It was Thursday again and I was sitting on the couch preparing for group therapy. Ben watched football highlights. Feeling depressed and missing Josh, I got up and left. I must have looked somber in Belín’s eyes since she grabbed my hand as I was walking away and mouthed, “Are you okay?” to me. I forced a smile and nodded yes, however, I don’t think she believed me since she followed me to my room.

I plopped down on my bed and opened the laptop. She started chatting about her assignment she’d been on for the past month, talking about how awful sex trafficking is and how the public is truly not aware of just how close to home this is. I nodded, listening to everything she was saying, thinking how ironic all this was and how right she was about it being so close to home. I’d been shot at and almost killed by an overdose due to some mafia-like Chinese Triads, who were possibly the source of the sex trafficking in this area. And all this because they either didn’t want me to testify or to hold the group therapy session. She sat at the foot of my bed and placed her camera down by my legs. Her camera looked high tech and very expensive.

“Your camera looks new from the last time we saw you.” I observed.

“Yes, it is. It has a lot of features. I can even email pictures from my camera to work or myself. Very useful when you’re in the middle of gunfire and you are not sure if you will get out alive.” Her voice grew quiet as if she were reliving some of the events in her mind.

“Do you mind if I look at your pictures?” I asked.

“Of course not! In fact, do you mind if I connect my camera to your laptop so I can upload a few of the pictures and send them to my email? My work has cut off the wireless service on this camera because my assignment is technically over. Also, my laptop is dead and I cannot find the plug for it.”

“Not at all!” I answered enthusiastically, excited to see her pictures from her last assignment. “Help yourself. I can’t wait to see what you’ve been up to since we last spoke.” I handed her my laptop. She got comfortable on the bed next to me and plugged her camera in. The images began to pop up incredibly fast. Too fast to see what any of them were.

“Don’t worry,” she said, “I only have one hundred this time and they won’t all go on your computer. I have to select the ones I want to email,” she added. “Those will stay on your laptop until you delete them. You can always go back and view them should you choose to do so. The others were just uploaded for viewing purposes only.” She began to sort through them and then handed me the laptop.

“Here, start here.” She pointed to the month. “This is September, when I first arrived in Austria. All the pictures that you see here are of young girls that were able to escape from the sex trafficking world,” she stated. “I was able to talk to all the girls I took pictures of and interview almost all of them. I have a hundred pictures but that doesn’t mean I have pictures of one hundred girls.” She paused, her face suddenly serious. “There were so many girls. The youngest I met was twelve years old.”

“I thought you said you were in Kosovo?” I asked.

“Yes, that is where I ended up and had to leave quickly. I had to meet my contact in Austria and from there we traveled to Serbia and then Kosovo. I’m sorry, but I can’t say who he or she is or why they were even in Austria. You can understand that.” She gave me a smile.

“Of course,” I answered, smiling back. “Belín, you said travel. I’m assuming you mean travel by car or train or bus?”

“Yes, it was several of us and we were in a small van. We needed to stop at certain towns on our way to