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

said with a chuckle. “As soon as I’m done with everything here I’ll head your way,” he added. He turned his attention to the woman with Alex. “Mrs. Copen, here’s my card. Call me for any reason… please,” he emphasized any reason.

The ladies both nodded and said thank you. I practically pushed Jake and his partner out the door and closed it behind them. I found a chair and pulled it close to Alex so I could hear and see her better. She looked like a child in an adult body. The woman with her looked a lot like her so I concluded it was her mother. I introduced Ben and myself and explained who we were.

“I’m Alexandra’s mother, Beth Copen. We weren’t sure if we were going to get to meet you today or not,” she paused, trying not to cry. I handed her the box of tissues. “The man who helped Alex get away said to make sure to ask for you. That you could help her…that you could help us…” she was getting emotional.

“I’m sorry, did you say a man helped her get away?” I was confused.

“Yes,” replied Alex. “He was a short, stocky man and had a thick Chinese accent.”

“So, it was an Asian man that helped you?” Ben interjected.

“Yes, and he also helped a couple of other girls that were with me. He said he couldn’t help everybody there but he was going back to try.”

Ben and I stared at one another astonished.

“Is this man’s name Chex by any chance?” Ben asked.

“No, I think he said Hong something,” Alex answered. “I think he might have said his last name but I couldn’t understand everything he was saying because of his accent.”

“You said, ‘he was going back,’ can you tell me where he’s going back to? Where were you? How did he find you? And where are the other girls he helped?” Ben was sounding too much like an intimidating agent. I saw the expression on the girl’s face and her mother’s. They looked distressed, not knowing what to answer first or how to answer.

“Ben, you’re firing all these questions at them and I think it’s getting to be too overwhelming for both of them.” I looked at Alex and her mother to see if they agreed. Beth took her daughter’s hand, nodding. “Okay,” I began, smiling at them, “Let’s just do one question at a time and if we can do more we will continue, but if we can’t we can stop and just pick up where we left off at a later time.”

Everyone seemed to agree. I looked at Ben nodding so he could begin.

“Can I call you Alex or do you prefer Alexandra?” he asked.

“Alex is fine,” she said impassively.

“Alex, do you know where you were?”

Alex stared at both of us for a few seconds, thinking of how to answer. “I know I was at a house. It was a nice house, a two-story house. Big. There was a woman that took care of us. All the windows and blinds were nailed shut except for the ones in the kitchen and part of the living room. But the woman and the bodyguard watched us so closely we couldn’t look out those windows or even get close to them. When we had to go to our appointments the bodyguard would take us out the back, straight to the garage, so I just know what the back of the house looks like… besides the inside that is. I just know the house was in a nice area.”

An idea struck me, “Ben, can you please text Belín and ask her to come here for a minute?” I thanked him as he was texting. “Alex, can you tell me that woman’s name?”

“She said to call her Debbie.”

I wrote “Debbie” in Alex’s chart. “I’m going to show you a picture of a woman and a man and you tell me if these are the same people you’re talking about.”

She nodded, looking at her mother. Beth put her arm around Alex and held her close. There was a knock on the door. Ben answered letting Belín in.

“This is Belín,” I said. “She’s a journalist from Spain and ironically is working on a very similar case if not the same one.” I looked to Belín and asked for her cell phone. She handed it to me already unlocked and ready for me to open the pictures. I opened the selfie she just took and handed it to Alex.

“Are these the people you’re telling us about?”

She caught her breath. “Yes, that’s them.” She shoved the phone back into my hand and was visibly shaking in her mother’s arms. Her mother pulled her closer to her side.

“Don’t worry, sweet girl, no one is going to hurt you or take you. Agent Davis and Officer Jake will make sure of it.”

“They can’t promise that,” she said acidly. “The woman said her boss will kill us if we tried to get away. Well, I got away,” she said flatly. Her mother had tears in her eyes.

“Not on my watch they won’t,” Ben said in a menacing voice. And somehow, I believed him.

“Mrs. Copen…”

“Beth…please,” she insisted.

“Thank you, Beth. Agent Davis has a great deal more questions for you and Alex but my priority is Alex right now and getting her on the road to recovery.” I paused. “Alex, if you could answer two more questions for me and then we’ll talk about what our next step is.”

She agreed. I asked Belín to unlock her phone again. “Take a look at the two other girls in this picture. Do you know who they are?”

“Yes, they just got here from Dallas, I don’t remember their names. They’re staying at that house I told you about. They sound foreign, they both have the same accent.”

“Thank you,