Page 2 of Last Call

“Not since high school,” Fallon reminded him as she rounded the bar.

“It’ll come back to you,” Dean said. “Unless you’d rather have an open-air bar for your grand opening.”

“It would speed things up,” Jerry agreed.

Fallon sighed, her shoulders slumping. “Fine. I’ll help.”

Dean clapped her on the back. “Look on the bright side, Sis.”

“There’s another bright side?” Fallon asked warily.

I’ll bet Liv would love to see you in a toolbelt,” Dean said.

Fallon flushed. “I don’tneeda toolbelt.”

Dean ducked as she hurled a roll of paper towels at him. “I’m sure you don’t,” he said.

Fallon laughed. At least she wouldn’t be tackling this disaster alone.

February 2019

ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA

Sometimes, preparedness was impossible. Fallon looked across the table at Angela Miller and reminded herself to breathe. “Thanks for meeting me,” Fallon said.

“I wasn’t sure I would hear from you,” Angela confessed.

“I wasn’t sure I’d call.”

Angela took a sip from her coffee cup. “Have you spoken to Dean?”

“A little. He’d hoped to visit this month. I don’t know what he’s doing in Europe. I don’t even know if he’s still in Europe,” Fallon replied. “Dean is—well, I’m not sure if he’s protective of me, Liv, or if he’s covering his ass.”

“I’m sure it’s probably a little of everything,” Angela said.

“Probably. I know he didn’t tell me everything hecould. But he did say he hadn’t talked to Liv in a few weeks. I also know he’d stopped helping her financially. I suspect he was helping her with more than money. If he was, I’m sure that also ended. To be honest, I don’t know what to think about anything.”

“I know you have questions.”

Fallon had endless questions. She wasn’t sure where to begin, and she doubted any of the answers would satisfy her.

“Look, I’ll tell you whatever you want to know,” Angela offered.

“The problem is, I’m not sure what Iwantto know,” Fallon replied.

“It’s hard to understand. I know it is,” Angela confessed. “I won’t lie to you. I hoped you’d already spoken with Dean.”

“I know Liv was helping people—women. I got that from some of the things you gave me. Dean shared the basics about Davis’s activities when he called me. I still don’t get it,” Fallon said. “I don’t understand why Liv didn’t take this to someone above her. Why didn’t she go to the authorities? Christ, Angela, she worked for the government. And Dean? How does my brother fit into this? I don’t understand.”

“She tried to get help,” Angela replied. “To get people above her to listen. Theylisten, Fallon. They don’t act. It takes years to catch these people—decades sometimes—if you’re lucky. What Liv stumbled on isn’t the work of street pimps. These people are connected. They have the money and influence to cover their tracks. And what is justice? What does that look like? By the time anyone is arrested, the damage has been done. An arrest doesn’t stop anything. It might slow a network down. Another one always pops up. Liv said it was like a high-stakes game of Whack-A-Mole.”

Fallon offered the hint of a smile. She easily imagined Liv speaking those words.

“It’s bigger than one person,” Angela said. “Or one group. Liv would have loved to shut down every trafficker she discovered. Most are part of a bigger network. It’s like cleaving off a hand. There’s still another one to pick up the work.”

Listening to Angela made Fallon feel like she was playing a part in a movie. Things like this didn’t happen in real life. Except they did. She knew that. She never expected anything like this to touchherlife.

“Our father,” Angela began, “He didn’t procure girls for common Johns,” she explained. “He looked for the right girls—the most vulnerable. It makes me sick to call him a groomer. That’s what he was. He built the trust of naïve women—if you could call most of them women. Then he set them up with high-ranking military officers, politicians, and civiliancontractors. It’s not easy to bring those kinds of people down. They’re connected—far more connected than Liv could claim. In other words, they’re protected. What my father did paled in comparison to what Liv discovered. She wanted to get as many girls as possibleout. She became more determined after she found out that my mother was one of Davis’s girls. I think she felt guilty, Fallon. None of it was her doing or herfault. I told her that. That didn’t seem to matter to her.”

---