Talk Nerdy to Me

Chapter 19: Detective Ross Jones

Summary:

In which Ra gets some much-needed answers, and way too much coffee before the Louvre.

Chapter Text

Ra's phone rang, pulling her out of sleep with a groggy glare at the time. It wasn't early by any stretch, just eleven o'clock in the morning. After the night she'd had, she just once wanted to sleep. She answered her phone without looking, mindlessly cursing in her head at whoever it was. She greeted in Korean, habit now.

"Am I speaking to Sarai Gaines?" asked the voice, in what sounded like Northeastern American English.

Ra narrowed her eyes. "Who's asking?"

"My name is Detective Ross Jones, I understand your attorney gave you my name so you'd expect me?"

Ra sat up straight in the bed. "Yes, yes, sir, he did. I'm not Sarai Gaines, though, not anymore. I changed my name legally."

"That would somewhat explain how difficult it has been to track you down over the last few years," the detective chuckled. "What is your first name only?"

"Ra," she said. "R, A. Ra."

"Well, Ra, call me Ross."

"Okay, Ross," Ra said, feeling odd about it but complying nonetheless. "My attorney was pretty vague about what he was contacting you about."

"Of a purpose, that would be," Ross said. "Ra, when did your father join the Pentecostal Alliance?"

"Around 2006," she answered. "I was nine."

"Did you notice anything weird about things back then?"

Ra sighed. "Sir, I probably didn't realize anything was off until the first time a church-member cornered me after church."

The line was silent long enough that Ra thought the call had dropped. "How many times would you say that happened?"

"I ran after the third," she said. "CPS got involved. I got shipped back. Nobody took me seriously."

"Ra, I'm going to send you a screenshot of a website. I want you to sit down before you look at it."

Ra glanced around the room. She was still sitting on her bed. "Okay?"

The notification went off, and she pulled up the text. Her blood ran cold. It was a picture of herself with her hair shorter after the excommunication, but before Gigi had cut it even shorter and dyed it blue. Below it, she read aloud:

Sarai Gaines, missing trade subject. Considered high security risk. Return to James Gaines Sr or James Gaines Jr ASAP for cleansing.

"Trade subject?" she questioned. "Cleansing? What does either of those things mean?"

"Trade subject is a term used in some kinds of trafficking organizations for girls in the trade," Ross said, his tone as gentle as a man's voice could be. "In criminal cults that have religious basis, some have drugs that are meant for ceremonial purposes."

Ra clutched her throat, suddenly feeling very, very ill. "I-I don't... me? I didn't think I was being trafficked? I don't understand?"

Ross sighed. "When they found out that you were the reason all those other trade subjects had vanished, and filed for protection orders, divorces, what exactly happened nine weeks ago, Ra?"

Ra took a breath. "My dad pulled me out of bed that morning. Not unusual for him. He dressed me in a white dress, wouldn't even let me stop to get my shoes on or anything. Took me out to the woods behind the village, my brother was there, and they started trying to tie me up, saying I was being excommunicated. I slipped them and ran."