“I can’t say,” she said. “But, given the circumstances, we would put a rush on it.” And then she deliberately stepped past them all and went into the little girl’s room, closing the door in their faces. She walked over, not surprised to see a doctor standing there, over his patient. “How is she doing?”
He turned to look at her, just as she flashed her badge at him. He asked, “Are you the one who found her last night?”
She nodded. “I am.”
“She’s coming off the drugs in her system,” he said. “She was given a heavy sedative, and, from the amount in her system, I think it’s been a regular occurrence.”
“Of course, by keeping her sedated, he could do whatever he wanted.” She studied the sleeping cherub. “How’s her general health?”
“Relatively okay. Some of her deficiencies are nutritional, as if she’s lived on mostly carbs, without vitamins, healthy foods, or vegetables.”
Kate said, “That’s consistent with what we’ve seen on a lot of these types of cases. Have any family members showed up yet?”
He nodded at the hallway.
“I mean, besides those who justsaythey are,” she said. “I’ve pulled DNA from the so-called aunt, but I’m not so sure that any of them are family.”
He looked at her, dumbfounded, so she continued. “One of them mentioned an inheritance for a child missing in their family, so they are all jumping on the bandwagon.”
He made a sound of disgust. “Of course they are,” he said. “People are just—” And then he stopped, as if words completely failed him.
She looked down at the little girl and reached over to turn her left wrist upward, so she saw the mark for herself.
“I saw that mark,” he said. “Are you the one who called to have the nurse look at it?”
“Yes,” she said. “We’ve got children in the morgue, both sporting the same mark, plus others from older cases,” she said. “We also have a murdered pedophile with the same mark.”
“Jesus,” he said. “I can’t believe this little girl is even alive then.”
“I don’t think she was supposed to be for too much longer, or, if she was, she’s very lucky to be here right now,” she said sadly. “We need to find some real family for her.”
“We don’t even have a name,” he said suddenly.
“No, we don’t.” Then she quickly explained what they knew about her being offered for sale.
“Such sickos in this world,” he said. He turned and studied the doorway, leading out to the group. “Do you think they are a danger to her?”
“I don’t know,” she said, “but I want to make sure they don’t get in here. Nobody but verified family is allowed in here, and, until they are proven by blood to be family, even then, I need to make sure they didn’t have anything to do with her ending up where she did.”
“That is just sad,” he said.
“If they did this,” she said, shooting him a hard gaze, “I’ll nail their asses to the back wall of a jail cell.”
“Do that.” He turned and looked back at the little girl. “No matter where she ends up, she’ll need a lot of therapy.”
“How much damage physically?”
“Long-term sexual abuse,” he said, his voice low. “Most of that would eventually heal,” he said, “but the rest?” He shook his head. “I’m not so sure. Sometimes they just don’t recover.”
She couldn’t help but think about Simon. “That doesn’t sound too good,” she said. “You’d like to think that, if we save them, they can have a decent life again.”
“It’s possible,” he said, “even though I wouldn’t think it’s very realistic. But we must keep trying. She’s young and, with any luck, she’ll forget a lot of this and move on to something that’s much better.”
“I hope so,” she said. “It’s pretty traumatizing for everybody involved.” With a final look at the little girl, Kate turned and walked out.
*
Tuesday Evening