Those desperate people with their desperate stares and eager scooters were human. Very, very human.
I turned toward Fin. She was talking to Sister Marguerite, nodding her head up and down as if she could be seen by her. Occasionally she would interject with a yes or no. I watched her beautiful face. Her eyes widened.
“Sister, I’ll have to call you back. I think Father’s trying to reach me.” She lowered the phone, pressed a button, then brought it back to her ear. “Hello? Oh my God, Father, are you all right?” She paused, looked at me, and said, “Thanh Nhàn Ward Police. Thanh Nhàn, Hai Bà Trưng. Hanoi.” I nodded, trying to remember everything she said. “Father, are you—” she began, but her expression fell. “They cut off the phone,” she explained, tears glistening in her eyes.
“It’s okay. Thanh Nhàn Ward Police. Just remember that.” I looked around me and tapped the shoulder of a guy about our age. “Excuse me? Do you speak English.”
He smiled at us. “Very little,” he offered.
“Do you know where Thanh Nhàn Ward Police Station is?”
“Uh, yes, not far.” We pulled a map of Hanoi up on Father’s phone and showed it to him. He found it easily when he typed the station’s name into the search box.
“Thank you so much,” Fin told him, and he waved goodbye as he went on his way. “I would have had no idea how to spell that,” she admitted. “I feel powerless.”
“You’re not. Not even close,” I told her honestly.
We both determined the easiest route before putting the phone away and getting on our scooters. We meandered the maze of cars and other scooters, almost ramming into each other once or twice, when someone would try to edge beside us, screaming in Vietnamese. The police station was nestled in a shady-looking street, full of dingy shops, meandering people, and yelling motorists. There was one thing I could say for Hanoi: it was chaotic. The citizens here seemed at peace with it, obviously comfortable, but coming from a laid-back area like Bitterroot where a honked horn was almost unheard of, this was overpowering.
The chaos, the murder, Father’s arrest. Falling hard for Finley. All of it was proof that my trip to Vietnam would never, ever be dull. I glanced over at Fin and followed the lines of her face, gleaming in the sunlight, the creased worry lines at her eyes, the constant biting of her lower lip, and my heart sank.
Stopped at a rare red light, she spun her head toward mine. Her hand shot toward me, resting on my forearm, her expression relaxed. “I’m glad you came!” she yelled over the din of passing traffic, surprising me. “I know I didn’t seem like it, you know, before, but I’m-I’m so glad you’re here!” She squeezed my forearm, and that soothing warmth crept into my heart and into my soul like a shot of whiskey, heavy and beautiful.
When the light turned green, we cut across a blur of traffic and edged down the street that housed the station. We stopped a few blocks away and turned off the bikes.
“I need to call Sister back,” she told me, pulling the phone out of her pocket and dialing.
We waited for her to answer.
Fin’s brows rose. “Sister, yes.” She paused. “Thanh Nhàn. Not sure if I pronounced that right. Do you know it? Oh, okay. Yeah. Fine, fine. Okay. Bye.” She paused yet again, a slight smile appeared. “Yes, ma’am.” She hung up. “She’s sending a contact here. She doesn’t want anyone to know our faces.”
“I see,” I said solemnly. We were quiet for five minutes at least before I couldn’t take the silence anymore. “This is serious shit.” She nodded in answer, her bottom lip stiff. “We could die.”
“We could,” she answered, looking at me in earnest. “Does that make you want to run? You know I wouldn’t judge you if you left, Ethan. I’m glad you’re here, but I wouldn’t make you stay.”
“I meant what I said. I’m not afraid of death, Fin.” I let our earlier conversation settle in the pit of my stomach. “I’m not afraid of anything.” Except for you, I let hang in the air this time.
Her mouth opened but closed at an approaching man on a scooter who sidled up beside us.
“Finley,” he offered in a thick Vietnamese accent.
“Yes,” she said kindly, but her body language implied she was on alert.
“Sister called me to retrieve Father. She says you go home now.”
“Uh, okay. She doesn’t want us to ride home with Father?”
“You could be followed,” he answered, holding his hand out for Father’s keys. She handed them to him then got off the bike. “Go,” he said before zooming off without further conversation.
“Hop on,” I told her, and she obeyed. “I remember how to get to the highway. I’ll have to backtrack a bit, but I think I can get us out of here.”
She nodded against my shoulder, sending a thrill into the pit of my stomach, and we took off.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Ethan
The woman who died giving us information was named Kim Banh. She was the unmarried sister of one of the kidnappers she died trying to expose. I only wish I was joking. The asshole had his own sister killed. The danger we were in was very real, very heartbreaking. Life meant nothing to these people. Nothing.
Attaching a name to her added the solemnity to her death I’d been seeking and that night, after Father got home and said Mass in her name, I went to bed examining a conscience I’d tried very hard to keep a tight lid on since my mother had died. Scrutiny was unheard of in my head. I wouldn’t have allowed it because that would have meant answering for my sins, answering for all the horrific things I had done, or rather not done. A failure to act in right is a failure to do right. It’s an uncomfortable settling in the gut, that knowledge. Every time I ignored someone who could have benefited from my help was the equivalent to slapping my mom in the face, and I felt ill to my stomach.
Then it dawned on me...
Maybe coming here won’t just be for Finley. Maybe I was destined to come here for myself as well. Maybe this is a time for Finley to heal the gaps stamped through by her thieves and maybe this is a time for retribution on my part. Maybe I’m here to shed my false complacency.
I was convinced.
And renewed.
The next morning, I was awakened by the sudden need to see Finley. I jumped into the shower, dressed, and ran across the shaky dock from the boathouse, over the stretch of beach, and through the grove of trees up to Slánaigh. I peered up onto the high wraparound porch and my heart stopped by Finley standing barefoot in a long, stretchy, formfitting lavender skirt and white tank top, her hair flowing in the sea breeze. She was watching the water in the bay but her eyes cut to me. Her hand lifted to shield herself from the sun. She smiled and waved and the gesture shuttered and jolted my heart into a steady beat once again.
Remembering myself, I smiled and waved back. She turned, presumably to come meet me at Slánaigh’s front door. I found myself sprinting to see her, which admittedly was uncool as shit, but it was hard for me to care in the moment. When I bounded up the winding staircase, I was breathless, but not from the effort, no, from the beauty that was Finley Dyer. She wore her heart on her sleeve, and it had never looked lovelier to me.
“Finley,” I panted.
“Hello, Ethan,” she said, but the jaw-dropping smile that followed after stirred my insides into mush.
“Come, we have lots to do,” she said, leading the way into the main room from the front door.
Girls were scattered everywhere, working on what seemed to be school lessons. Sister’s skirts swished back and forth across the wood floor as she quietly made the rounds around the girls, checking work and offering help where it was needed. She looked up at me and smiled before continuing on.
“Through here,” Finley said, guiding me toward the kitchen. “There are a couple of new girls who came in last night, stolen away, it seems, from who knows where because they’ve barely said a single word since they’ve arrived. The only name they keep mentioning is Khanh’s, but there’s no news there since we’re already awa
re of how broad his filthy scope reaches. Anyway, we’re staying close to home today because we suspect there might be a little cell where the new girls came from close by that may be housing at least ten more girls between the ages of eight and sixteen.”
My stomach sank.
Fucking eight years old. My hands trembled at my sides. It was noticeable enough that Finley grabbed the one closest to her and squeezed.
“Ethan, it’s why we’re here. We’re here to help.”
I nodded, not wanting to voice my real thoughts for fear she would drop my hand and demand I leave the house out of revulsion. Because what I really wanted to say in answer was that I didn’t want to “help.” I wanted to annihilate the asshole men who put little girls up for sale into such a bloody pulp not even their dental records would identify them. I wanted them gone, never to harm another girl ever again.
“Ethan, lad,” I heard at my immediate right.
“Hello, Father,” I answered.
“So ya’ve heard, have ye? We’re leavin’ this moment ta see if we’n find this cell out. I mean ta have ya by me, boyo. Ya did well yesterday, and I think ya do well today. Just keep yer head ’bout ya.”
“Yes, sir,” I told him.
“Keep yer wits ’bout ya’, boyo, t’ain’t to be easy,” he drove home.
My stomach plummeted at my feet, but I nodded my head in reply.
We set out as we’d done the day before, but this time we only went a few miles away into the city proper, eventually parking our scooters at the back of An’s tea shop. I had to duck my head to get in through the door and memories of a cantankerous old man assailed me.
“I see you’ve survived,” An teased me as she hugged Finley.
“Barely,” I said, glancing at Finley, unsuccessfully biting a smile back.
Finley rolled her eyes at me.
“Here, come, sit.”
She ordered all three of us to a table near the front. An’s father came forward through the curtain separating the back and his eyes widened when he saw me. He started to shout in Vietnamese. He rushed me and I stood, falling back against the concrete wall behind me.
“Father!” An shouted, but her tone negated her actions because she kindly grabbed his arm and guided him back from where he came.
An emerged once more. “I’m so sorry. He doesn’t like you,” she laid it out.
“I can see that,” I said, confused. “But why?”
“He says you are not as you seem.”
“What?” I asked, my blood running cold.
“He says you are not all that you appear to be.”
“Not true,” Finley said, coming to my defense.
“I didn’t say I agreed with him,” An laughed.
She left the table once more to retrieve a pot of tea.
“He just doesn’t know you, Ethan,” she explained away.
Or maybe he does. No, no, no. I am exactly who I appear to be.
I looked over at Father, distracted by his own thoughts, and writing feverishly in a notebook he’d brought with him, his plans and ideas.
“Father,” I called, but he didn’t hear me. “Father,” I repeated. This time he looked at me. “What is it we need to do?”
“Well, yer bait, son.”
“Bait,” I copied.
“You’ll disgoise ya’self slightly. A hat, maybe, an’ we’ll fish ’em out, we will.”
“Of course,” I said, not hesitating. Anything to save those girls, I thought.
“Ye’ll be all by yer lonesome, though, at the start an’ we’ll have a meetin’ place, see, an’ you’ll come to us wit’ their location. If ya feel o’erwhelmed, boyo, ya walk.”
“I can do this,” I told him.
“No, if things be too dangerous, son, ya walk. I won’t have yer immortal soul on my conscience. Ya walk t’at the first sign o’ danger.”
“Of course. I’ll be very careful, Father.”
“Aye. Wait til they ’proach ya, find out where they are, politely decloine, then come ta us. We’ll do the rest.”
Just then three Vietnamese men came to the table and shook Father’s hand. Father introduced them to us as a few local men who like to help on their days off. Apparently there were at least twenty locals who volunteered to help Father and his organization, not to mention the hundreds of peeled eyes and ears who kept him informed of anything they came across that could be of use to him.
I looked on these men. Two were over the age of forty and one was closer to my and Fin’s age. I’d find out later that the two older men were brothers who fished the bay for a living, and the younger guy worked in a local shop. The younger guy’s name was Phong and his sister had been missing for two years. He suspected she’d been taken from Hạ Long to China to be sold further from there, but he wasn’t going to give up looking for her locally or stop helping other girls who shared her fate.
“When was she taken?” I asked him as Father readied the older men with our plan.
Phong spoke perfect English, a shop necessity in Hạ Long for the tourists. “Twenty months, five days,” he answered.
“I’m so sorry,” I told him.
“Me too,” he said, staring off into space.
I tried to imagine what it was like to lose a sibling, the despair Phong must have felt on a daily basis. I could see how cathartic it could be to dedicate your time to Father’s organization. I bet it was the only way he could feel productive toward retrieving his sister.
We stood when Father, Finley, and the two fishermen stood.
“Here,” Father said, holding out a nón lá to me.
I laughed a little. “You can’t be serious.”
He smiled back. “Have ta hoide that pretty hair of yers some way,” he joshed.
I burst out laughing. “Touché, old priest. Touché.”
I wrapped my hair back and placed the conical leaf hat on my head. All the men started chuckling.
“What? You’ve never seen a six-foot-three-inch Native American in a nón lá before?”
“No, I certainly haven’t,” An chimed in, grinning. “They’ll definitely see you coming.”
“But will they remember who I am?” I asked her.
Her eyes narrowed at me. “No, I don’t think they will. You’re hidden well.”
“Which ’tis the point,” Father added with a slap on the back. “Now we’ll be but a block from ya always. Are ye ready, lad?”
“I’m ready,” told him. I kissed Fin’s cheek, letting the tingle from her skin calm my heart, and strode toward the door.
I could feel I was being followed but shook off the feeling since I knew my followers. I meandered up and down the streets of Hạ Long, constantly being called to random shops, their owners eager for a sale, but it wasn’t until two hours in that I caught the eye of a man shuffling around a corner sidewalk, shifting his eyes from tourist to tourist. Every now and again, he would approach someone and speak to them. I knew exactly what he was doing.
I crossed to his side of the street practically begging him to approach me. As I neared him, I feared he wouldn’t but just as suddenly I heard him say, “You like young girls?”
Bingo.
“Huh?” I played dumb.
“You like girls?” he asked again.
“Maybe,” I said, avoiding eye contact.
“I got girls for you. Only twenty dolla. Young girls for you.”
I didn’t answer, afraid I’d lose myself and just choke the guy out right there. He mistook my hesitation as a yes.
“This way,” he said, guiding me by an arm. I yanked it out of his grasp, pissed beyond belief that the guy touched me. He shook off my aggression, desperate for the sale. He pointed toward an alley at a door hidden at the end butted against a perpendicular building.
I followed him to it. He knocked twice and a man pulled it open. He screamed something in Vietnamese and two little girls around twelve and thirteen, in T-shirts, shorts, and messy hair jumped to his command, standing before me. N
either would make eye contact with me, and my gut ached to snatch them from him and run.
“How much again?” I asked.
“Twenty dolla.”
“I don’t have that much,” I told him, now that I knew where to point the team.
“Fifteen dolla,” he haggled as I walked away. “Ten dolla!” he yelled.
I practically sprinted away, not really knowing where it was I was going but knowing I had to get away from that man as soon as possible. I ran down the street, took a left at what felt like a major intersection, somewhere I knew it would be easy for Fin, Father, and the volunteers to hide easily and start searching the crowds. My chest pumped in anxiety, in fear for the girls who laid beyond that door, and the creeping, violent urge that settled so comfortably in my heart. I needed Finley. Anxiety melted into sheer panic as I searched through the people, shoving where I needed to, desperate to find her.
“Ethan,” I heard someone breathe beside me.
I yanked the leaf hat from my head and stared at her. There was a brief moment of pause between us before both our hands found one another’s faces. Finally, I breathed. I hugged her to me tightly, still not feeling like it was close enough. After looking at those girls, I didn’t think it would ever be near enough.
“I know where they are,” I told her ear.
“Then let’s go,” she said, snatching my hand and leading me toward our group.
We twisted our way around the crowded street.
“Did ya find it, lad?” Father asked.
“Yes.”
“Lead the way then.”
I took them all a block from the alley, not so close they could find us out but close enough they could differentiate which alley I was referring to. The original man who’d seeked me out wasn’t there on the corner, making me nervous.
“The guy’s not there,” I told them. “He was just there a minute ago.”