When Garrett heard the beeping of the door lock to his neighbor’s apartment, he ran to look through his peep hole. 

     “Damn, she’s fast!” he exclaimed when he saw nothing and heard her door close. 

     He stood at his door a moment looking across at the elevator. He realized he’d heard no dinging sound for its arrival and surmised she had used the stairs. He sighed. He wouldn’t be able to see her that way because the stairs were just out of his line of sight. 

     “Who works such long hours?” he wondered to himself as he returned to his black recliner. 

     He thought about the note he had left earlier that morning. He couldn’t sleep and was awake thinking of his recent case as well as the crying woman next door. He’d left the note at 3AM. It was gone when he went out for a paper and coffee at 6:30AM.

     He pulled up the last text he had sent after he returned home from work. It was sent at 6:43PM and read almost right away, though not responded to. He looked at the digital time on the top right corner of his phone screen. 

     “7:42,” he mumbled to himself. “Either she works thirteen hours or she went to the market on the way home.” 

     He quickly looked down the screen as a new message appeared at the bottom of his last text inquiring about dinner. 

     Fawn pulled off her bag and cloak before slipping off her boots and exchanging them for slippers she wore around the house. She allowed the robe of her outfit to slide down her arms, then tossed it across the arm of her sofa. After removing the belt, she relaxed into the thick floral cushions and pulled her phone from her pocket. 

     She reread aloud the last message from her mysterious neighbor, “Hi, it’s Zhù. I just arrived home. Have you eaten yet? I can order something if you’d like to share a meal, or not. It’s entirely up to you.” 

     She noticed the time it was sent. 6:43. She’d read it but she was still at work. Since there were still people in the office who might need files, she couldn’t leave until after 7:00. The recent apprehension of a suspect caused several detectives and interns to work late, and she was exhausted. 

     With a deep relaxing sigh, she finally replied.

     🥀“Hi, this is Yuè. I just arrived home. I’m not really hungry, just tired,

          but thank you for asking.”

     Garrett quickly responded. 

     🗡️“You work longer hours than me. Does your job often keep  

          you so late?”

     🥀“Not usually. Something happened at work and a lot of people

          had to stay for a while. I can’t leave until everyone else leaves

          because I have a key to an office they need.”

     🗡️“That sucks. You must get there before everyone, too.”

     🥀“I do. Same reason.”

     🗡️“Would you like to continue texting or maybe we can call

          each other?”

     Fawn thought for a minute. Hearing a friendly voice would mean a lot to her, but she could already feel her throat closing. Her nightly routine was to cry in the shower as soon as she returned home, but she’d decided to text him, instead. 

     She brushed away a tear that formed out of habit and continued their conversation.

     🥀“Honestly, I would prefer texting for now. Is that okay?”

     Garrett sighed. He’d hoped to hear her voice more clearly than the mournful mumbles through the shower wall.

     🗡️“Sure. We can do this however you want. I’m just trying         

          to be a friend, nothing more. You set the boundaries, okay?”

     He heard a faint sob through the wall and turned toward it. He could tell their living room furniture must be against the same wall, and he felt compelled to move to the sofa to be closer to her. 

     Her grip on the phone tightened as she laid her head against one of the big decorative pillows against the arm of the couch. She couldn’t stop herself from crying at his kind and compassionate words. 

     🗡️“Yuè, are you okay?”

     Fawn cleared her throat and wiped her eyes so she could see to text.

     🥀“I’m sorry. Not many people are so kind to me. Thank you.”

     🗡️“You don’t need to apologize for whatever it is you’re going

          through, and you don’t have to thank me for doing the bare

          minimum. Being a friend to someone who’s hurting should be

          commonplace.”

     He heard a soft laugh through the wall, but it sounded devoid of humor.

     🥀“You sound sheltered.”

     🗡️“Sheltered?”

     🥀“You haven’t met many people in this world if you think

          compassion is commonplace. People don’t care about anyone

         but themselves.”

     Garrett laid the back of his fingers against the wall and silently tapped on it as he thought of her words. What had she lived through to believe something so profoundly dark about mankind? Even he with his deadly missions had known kindness and love. Not from those he killed for the sake of justice but from those who would risk prison and hellfire to erase the evil ones before they hurt anyone else. 

     People like him and the other members of the Order were ready to sacrifice everything out of compassion for innocent victims. She was beginning to sound more like the kind of person his kind lived to serve, and he became intrigued about her story. 

     Fawn sat in quiet wait of his response. She wondered why he was taking so long. She waited for the small dots at the bottom to appear when he began typing, but there was nothing. Had she insulted him? Maybe he took it personally. She didn’t want that. 

     🥀“I’m sorry. You certainly showed me kindness, and I probably

          sounded cold for what I said. I hope you haven’t gone away.”

     🗡️“I’m here and I don’t think you sounded cold. Your experiences

          are just different from mine. I’m sorry for that. Is there

          something you’d like to talk about? As a friend, I can listen

          when you need to talk.”

     🥀“I was a foster child.”

     She took a sip of water from a bottle she’d left beside the sofa before continuing. 

     🥀“I was brought over here when I was five. I don’t remember

          much, just some woman I believe was my mother crying

          when I was taken away. She screamed and tried to get to me,

          but the people who were taking me hit her.

          I was afraid of them. They yelled a lot and threw me into a

          cage with other children. We were in that cage for a long

          time. If we had to use the bathroom, no one let us out. All

          we could do was make a mess on ourselves. They fed us a

          little the first day or so, but then they stopped feeding us so

          we wouldn’t make the messes.”

     Garrett watched the dots bounce as she typed. He continued to watch as he went to the kitchen for a snack. By the time he was done making a sandwich, her message appeared. He returned to the sofa and read it as the dots continued.

                 🥀“I don’t know how I came to be in this country. I was given

          something to drink like the others and we all fell asleep.

          When I was old enough, I heard about child trafficking. I’ve

          heard they use shipping containers on boats or crates on

          cargo planes.

          I woke up in a large room with some of the children I

          recognized and others I didn’t. Someone said not all

          the kids who came over with me from China survived.

          There were kids from other countries, too.

          After the adults in charge saw I was awake, they forced

          me to bathe and then they cut my hair. They put me in

          a beautiful dress and brought me to a van with other

          washed and dressed children. 

          We were told not to speak. We were told we would

          have new families and we were to obey what those

          families told us. If we didn’t know English, we would

          have to learn it. We would be forbidden to speak

          anything else.”

     As she sent it and started typing more, Garrett stared at the screen. It was evident she had been bought by an illegal adoption service. He waited for more with a lump in his throat. Stories about such children were seldom good. People who paid for foreign sons and daughters rarely did it with good intentions. 

     He set his half-eaten sandwich on the coffee table, unable to eat as his mind thought of the worst he had seen. 

     🥀“The new family had eleven other children. We were foster children.

          We weren’t adopted. I learned later that this meant the parents

          could continue receiving money from the government.”

     He thought about her words and quickly sent a message of his own. 

     🗡️“Where was this foster home? Do you remember any names?”

     Fawn wondered if she should tell him anything else. She still didn’t know him. She couldn’t risk telling him something that would allow anyone to find her. She and the other children were often told to keep their mouths shut about their origin and their trip to the United States, or else they would be severely beaten and perhaps killed.

     🥀“I would prefer not to say their names, but we lived in Utah.”

     Garrett rubbed his finger across his bottom lip in contemplation. Was she a runaway? She had to be at least eighteen to rent the apartment, but maybe she was just barely old enough.

    🗡️“Are you afraid of them?”

    🥀“I’m afraid of anyone I don’t know.”

     He took a deep breath. He was certain she meant him, as well.

     🗡️“May I ask your age? I only want to be sure you’re okay

          and no one is taking advantage of you.”

     🥀“22

          You?”

     🗡️“27”

     🥀“I think I should probably go for now. I’m sleepy and

          I think I might be a little hungry.”

     🗡️“Would you like for me to order something like I

          suggested?”

     🥀“No, thank you. I have leftovers. It’s just me so someone

          has to eat them.”

     🗡️“Understood. I hope we can talk again. Maybe I can tell

          you a little about myself next time so you can get to know

          your neighbor. I don’t want you to be afraid of me.”

     🥀“Maybe. Goodnight, Zhù.”

     🗡️“Goodnight, Yuè.”

     As soon as he ended the conversation, he called his brother. 

     “Doug, do you still have that contact in Utah?” he asked. 

     “Yeah, why?” Doug wondered. 

     “I need her to look up a possible case of an illegal foster home,” he answered. “Have her look into it going back at least eighteen years. They would have been collecting money from the government, which means plenty of forged and faked documents. If they were caught, it should be in court records. Maybe it was in the local news.

     Also, see if she can find out about a girl named ‘Yuè’ from that time period. She would have arrived from China around the age of five, but I don’t know how long she was there.” 

     “There are a lot of foster homes. It’ll take me a bit. Send me that name, will you?” requested Doug as he tried to write it all down. “Is this a new case? Are you still at the office?” 

     “Not a new case,” Garrett answered. “I’m home but it’s something I read about and I’m suddenly interested. If it involves trafficked children, it’s certainly something we should look into.” 

     “Old case, though,” Doug replied. “How did you come across it?” 

     “Conversation. Look, it’s getting late and I’m turning in early,” he answered. “I’ll talk to you about it tomorrow,” he promised before ending the call. 

     He didn’t know what his brother would think about the new neighbor, and he didn’t want anyone getting curious about her before he had time to learn all he could. 

     He tossed the rest of his sandwich away and went to the shower, where he would listen to her crying again for half the night.