his voice.
“I know. It sounded odd to me the first time I heard about it, but my mentor explained that any contact with their abusers would put everyone in the house at risk. So, if one of them faltered in their efforts to start a new life away from the person abusing them, then everyone would know and precautions would be doubled.”
“Genius.” He gave her an approving nod and was rewarded with a wisp of a smile. Then he thought about what she’d said. “So, Paula was a former resident at the shelter?”
“Yes.” Brianna paused again.
Aaron knew he’d crossed the line by asking for details about Paula. Brianna took the safety of the shelter’s clients and staff very seriously. The last thing he wanted to do was compromise her ethics. Then he realized the waitress was headed back their way and that’s why she’d stopped talking.
They placed their usual orders—his, a burger cooked well; hers a Cobb salad sans avocado. He’d asked her once why she always had them take off the avocado, and she’d explained she was allergic to them. She waited until the waitress had left before continuing.
“Paula was one of the first clients I met when I started at the shelter. I would sit in on group chats sessions, more of a survivor since I was still trying to deal with the aftermath of the sex-trafficking scandal. Paula sat in, too, but rarely commented, just sort of listened to everyone else’s stories. Whenever I was working in the office on the financial statements for the shelter, she’d wander in and ask what I was doing. Her pimp had only allowed her a non-smart phone to contact him, so unlike most girls her age she had little social media experience. She’d also had almost no computer exposure.”
“I thought kids learned about computers in all the schools these days,” he said, not quite hiding his surprise.
Brianna shook her head. “They do, if they attend. Paula didn’t get past fourth grade. Her father was in prison. Her mother worked as a housekeeper in a hotel until she lost her job and then the family ended up homeless․ By the time she was fifteen she’d been working the streets for a few years.”
“Damn,” Aaron muttered. He knew young kids were victims of the sex trafficking trade. As a beat cop he’d talked to some of them, tried to get them out of the life. And unfortunately, he’d run across them in his role as a homicide cop.
“Anyways,” Brianna continued, “we bonded over the computer. I taught her what I knew, how to use an accounting program, write with the writing program, and when the city finally updated their intake file system, Paula, who was in online classes to finish her GED, was our first choice to attend the training seminars with the paid staff.”
“So, she’s one of the shelter’s success stories?”
Brianna gave another one of those barely-there smiles. “Yes. Every client’s situation is different. Sometimes the only solution is to move the woman and any children she may have out of state and help them start a new life. Sometimes they heal physically but aren’t ready to move on and go back to their previous lives. Paula found her own strength. She went to court and got the SOB put in jail for the next forty years.”
A worried tension settled on Brianna’s lips and in her eyes. Before he could ask more, their meals arrived. They tucked into their food as they always did, since both had only an hour to eat before having to head back to work. As he ate, Aaron considered Brianna’s bearing. He knew she was worried about Paula. Even though she hadn’t said as much, her body language spoke volumes. She’d eat a bite, push some food around and around on her plate before spearing another forkful.
“Do you ever wonder what it’s like to live in Florida or Texas or California?” she asked, staring out the window into the grey Northern Ohio autumn afternoon.
“Not really,” he said after swallowing the last bite of his burger. “Why?”
“I wonder what it would be like to have mostly sunny days. The US has an average of two-hundred and five sunny days in a year. Cleveland has one hundred and sixty-six.”
He didn’t have to ask how she knew. According to her best friend Abigail Edgars, Brianna was a math savant, a fact she hid from most people—especially men and bosses. She not only could do math in her head that