Read Online Saint Death - John Milton #3 by Mark Dawson - Free Book Online

Coke that Caterina had bought for her. “They have those busses, the old American ones, the yellow and black ones they use to take their children to school. They were hot and smelly and they broke down all the time, but it was better than walking and safer, too, once the girls started to disappear. I had a place in Lomas de Poleo––you know it?”
    “I do.” It was shanty of dwellings spread in high desert, a few miles west of Juárez. Caterina had been there plenty with the Voces sin Echo.
    “It was just a bed, sharing with six other girls who worked in the same maquiladora as I did. The bus picked us up at six in the morning and took us up to the river, then, when we were finished at eight or nine, then they would take us back again.”
    Caterina’s pen flashed across her pad. She looked at the recorder, checking that it was working properly. “What happened to you?”
    “This was a Friday. The other girls were going out but I was tired and I had no money and so I told them I would go home. The bus usually dropped us off in Anapra. The place I was staying was a mile from there, down an unlit dirt track, and it was dark that night, lots of clouds and no moon, darker than it usually was. I was always nervous, and there were usually six of us, but I was on my own and it was worse. I got off the bus and watched it drive up the hill and then walked quickly. There was a car on the same side of the street as me. I remember the lights were on and the engine was still running. I crossed to the other side of the street to avoid it, but before I could get there a man came up from behind me, put his hand over my mouth and dragged me into the car. He was much stronger than I am. There was nothing I could do.”
    “Where did they take you?”
    “There is a bar in Altavista with a very cheap hotel behind it where the men take the women that they have paid for. They took me there. They put me in a room, tied my hands and my feet and left me on the bed. There was another girl there, too, on the other bed. She had been taken the night before, I think. She was tied down, like me. There was blood. Her eyes were open but they did not focus on anything. She just stared at the ceiling. I tried to speak to her but she did not respond. I tried again but it was no use––she would not speak, let alone tell me her name or where she was from or what had happened to her. So I screamed and screamed until my throat was dry but no-one came. I could hear the music from the bar, and then, when that was quiet, I could hear noises from the other rooms that made me want to be quiet. There were other girls, I think. I never saw any of them, but I heard them. I must have been there for two or three hours before he came in.”
    “Just one?”
    “Yes. I don’t know if it was the same one who took me. I can remember him and yet not remember him, if you know what I mean. He was nothing special, by which I mean there was nothing about him that you would find particularly memorable. Neither tall nor short, neither fat nor thin. Normal looking. Normal clothes. He reminded me of the father of a girl I went to school with when I was younger. He was a nice man, the father of my friend. I hoped that maybe this man would be nice, too, or at least not as bad as I had expected. But he was not like him at all. He was not nice.”
    “You don’t have to tell me what happened.”
    But she did. She drew a breath and explained, looking down at the table all the time. She was a little vague, relying on euphemism, but Caterina was able to complete the details that she left out. Delores’ bravery filled her with fury. She gripped her pen tighter and tighter until her knuckles were pale against the tanned skin on the back of her right hand. A fourteen year old girl. Fourteen. She vowed, for the hundredth time, the thousandth, that she would expose the men who were responsible for this. She did not care about her own safety. The only thing that mattered was that they