Page 12 of Four Cards Exposed

Eventually, Susan had enough clothes to fill Milena’s backpack. She tried not to think of the fact that those were the only clothes she’d be wearing for the foreseeable future.

Next to arrive had been a middle-aged lady with thick glasses who’d introduced herself as Doctor Mallory.

Lorraine had left them alone while the doctor asked Susan questions about her health—questions that had quickly gotten more and more intimate.

When Susan mentioned she had an IUD, Mallory had nodded and written something down on her iPad. Susan’s mouth had been dry as sandpaper. Ever since she’d been kidnapped, she hadn’t wanted to be touched—which meant she hadn’t been getting any sex, since touching was sort of a pre-requisite.

The doctor must have noticed the change in her breathing pattern, and asked if she was okay.

“I need to speak to Lorraine. Please call her in.”

“I’m not going to have sex with anyone,” she blurted out as soon as Lorraine walked into the room. “No matter what. I won’t do that.”

“Nobody expects you to, Susan. You’ve read the letters between Guerrero and Milena. Our intelligence shows Guerrero’s feelings for Milena are more brotherly in nature. But if it turns out that’s not the case, there are a few systems in place. We can get you out of there very fast.”

“What kind of systems?”

“There’s a park three blocks away from Sean Moore’s bar. We will meet there every Wednesday morning, between 8 and 11.”

“Where in the park?”

“Just head inside and buy yourself a coffee from the stand inside. We’ll find you.”

“And if I need to contact you at a different time?”

“Go to the post office and mail a letter. It doesn’t matter what it is,” she added patiently. “There will be an agent watching the post office, and that will let us know you need to speak. After the post office, head to the park and walk around. I’ll look for you.”

Dr. Mallory looked up from her thick glasses and showed her something that looked suspiciously like the piercing guns used at Claire’s. “You’ll also have a tracker.”

“Is this necessary?” Susan asked. She hated shots.

“It’s standard procedure. This way, we’ll always be able to find you,” Lorraine said. Doctor Mallory didn’t give Susan the chance to say anything else before injecting her with the tracker on her upper arm.

“Does James—does Ramsay have one also?”

The doctor had looked at her over her glasses, as if surprised she knew the other agent’s name. “He does. Again, it’s standard procedure.”

It’d been late at night by the time Lorraine and another agent had dropped her off at the motel. Just before leaving her, Lorraine had taken Susan’s wallet and phone, giving her Milena’s driver’s license, sixty dollars, and a cheap phone instead.

“There’s twenty numbers or so saved in there. They’re all fake, except for Tía Lola. Call that number in an emergency. It will alert agents close by that you need help.”

Susan was too nervous to even laugh at the name Lorraine had chosen.

“Thank you, Lorraine. I’ll try not to mess this up.”

“No heroics, Susan. That’s the only thing I ask. If you even feel you might be in danger, follow procedure and we’ll get you out immediately.”

Lorraine left soon afterwards, but Susan had found herself unable to sleep. The more she tried not to think of poor Milena, who’d lost her life in a room much like this one just days earlier, the more difficult it was to think of anything else.

In the morning, she woke up early, tired but unable to sleep any longer.

“Milena. Milena. Milena. Your name is Milena,” she told her reflection in the mirror. “Te llamas Milena.” She’d discovered from the woman’s letters that, much like her, Milena was half Mexican, though in Milena’s case from her father’s side, rather than her mother.

Susan spared a thought for her own parents. Susan’s father had grown up in Sharp’s Cove. He’d met her mother during a spring break in Mexico, and had convinced her to come back with him. That’d been forty years earlier, and they’d been happily living in Sharp’s Cove ever since.

Her dad loved her mom more than anything—enough that he’d even wanted to give their kids her last name, to help preserve her culture. When she was little, Susan had thought everybody found that kind of love. Now she knew that wasn’t the case.

Susan was close to her parents. She was glad they were currently in Mexico visiting her mom’s family, or else she would have found it hard to keep them in the dark.