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than guns or drugs.”
    Rachel felt compelled to say something, but nothing coherent came to mind. “Oh” was the best she could do.
    “They mine a lot of girls from Chatspace. From looking at the chats, I think that’s what happened to your little sister. If that’s the case, they’ll spend the first couple of days…” Rick cut himself off, looking to Veronica for guidance. She nodded and he continued. “They’ll get her addicted to morphine – black tar heroin, actually – before they take her too far. They’ll want her compliant before transport.”
    “Dear God.” Rosemary spoke for the first time. “We should call the police with this information.”
    “They know.” Conrad’s expression was dark. “Trust me, they won’t help you. Your best chance to get her back is sitting in this living room.”
    Rick cocked his head to the side as if he wanted to ask something, but he said nothing when Veronica placed a hand on his leg.
    Rosemary shook her head. “I don’t understand. Why won’t the police help? What does it matter if Julia left on her own if she’s been taken by these animals?”
    “I’m with Mom.” Rachel gently squeezed her mother’s waist. “No, Julia shouldn’t have gone to meet this guy, but what teenager hasn’t done something at least a little foolish? This shouldn’t be a death sentence.”
    “On its most basic level, I agree with you,” Rick answered. “But the issue is complex. Most police departments aren’t equipped to handle trafficking cases; they haven’t been trained to fully understand the issue. Those that have are understaffed and strapped for resources. Some departments recover girls, but there are no resources in place to keep them safe or transition them back to life, so they wind up right back with the traffickers. Julia has unwittingly landed herself in the middle of a giant, sticky web that law enforcement has yet to figure out how to untangle. If a department doesn’t have the resources to get involved, they won’t even touch it.”
    Rosemary put her head on Rachel’s shoulder, silently processing what she’d been told.
    Rachel refused to accept that her sister was forever lost in a black hole of evil. “There has to be something we can do.”
    “Mrs. Phelps.” Veronica leveled her gaze on Rosemary. “I want to assure you that we will do everything in our power to get your daughter back. Jeff has gone in to the office. He’ll be our FBI contact for this. If you have somewhere Rick can set up, he’ll start tracking down any chatter about the abduction. That’ll let us know if we’re looking at an order fulfillment or if she’s being worked into the pipeline. Once we know that, we’ll know how best to proceed.”
    “Order fulfillment?” Rachel was afraid to know what that meant.
    “Chatspace acts as a special order catalogue. If a buyer sees someone they like and can afford the price, these guys can grab anyone from anywhere and deliver them to anywhere with all the paperwork they need to disappear.”
    “But privacy settings…”
    “Are a joke to them. A girl on Chatspace is a girl catalogued for sex trafficking.”
    “Dear God,” Rosemary murmured again, closing her eyes. “I had no idea.”
    Tears sprang to Rachel’s eyes. “I’d heard things, but nothing like this. I’d never have let her on there if I’d known.”
    “Good luck keeping a teenage girl off Chatspace.” Veronica patted her arm. “Besides – if everyone left Chatspace and went to another social media outlet, so would the traffickers. It’s unrealistic to say that none of us will ever go online again. None of us have figured out how to solve that riddle yet. My point is, this isn’t your fault. Like I said, let’s get Rick set up. He’s not quite the hacker Vance is, but he’ll do in a pinch.”
    Rick’s grin was a wry one. “Thanks, love.”
    “There’s a small office.” Rosemary’s speech was disjointed; the effort it took to turn thought into