Chapter One ~ Mysterious?

Saturday, October 3, 1998

Jim Frayne reached out to open and hold the door of the Blue Dragon Restaurant, the almost-eighteen-month-old Chinese restaurant that was Sleepyside’s newest and most exotic eatery.

“Hurry, Trix!” he urged.

Trixie Belden scurried under his outstretched arm, holding her jacket over her head in a vain attempt to keep the pelting rain off her hair. Inside the door, she stepped to one side so Jim could enter, and shrugged off the wet jacket. Next to the entry stood a coat tree resting on a large water-absorbing mat. She reached to hang the jacket on a hook and shook out her blonde curls. Jim hung up his jacket as well, though with considerably less drama and no water-spraying theatrics.

“Gleeps!” she exclaimed. “That rain is what Mr. Maypenny would call a real gullywasher!”

“It sure is.” Jim wiped his feet carefully on the mat before taking Trixie’s arm. “Well, we can’t do anything about the weather. Let’s concentrate on getting something to eat now; I’m starving.”

Trixie nodded and walked with him to a booth on the left side wall. As she slid into her seat, she noticed her favorite waitress get up from a table behind a floor screen that partially blocked a view of the door leading into the kitchen. Trixie knew that the girl, along with a couple of other servers, used the table to do homework when the restaurant wasn’t busy.

The girl stopped to pick up two menus and two wrapped silverware packets.

“Lee Song!” An angry voice shattered the quiet. A torrent of Chinese followed as the man pointed to a trail of water drops on the floor, leading from the door to Trixie and Jim’s booth.

The girl looked flustered. She dropped the menus and silverware packets and scurried into the janitor’s closet around the corner from the kitchen. In the time it took Trixie to notice the water drops, Lee Song was at the entry door with a mop and bucket. With practiced efficiency, she mopped up all the spots and returned the mop bucket to its home. In moments, she returned to their table with the menus and flatware, a welcoming smile on her face.

“I’m so sorry, Lee.” Trixie tried to apologize for wetting the floor. “That was my fault. I should have taken that mop from you and cleaned it myself.”

“Don’t be silly.” Lee brushed off her concern. “It’s part of my job to make sure we don’t have slip hazards. But I was so deep in my homework I didn’t notice.”

Trixie laid her menu down, knowing what she wanted to order.

“What would you like to drink?” Lee asked.

“Hot tea for both of us, right, Trix?” Jim asked with an inquiring lift of one eyebrow.

“Right!” Trixie bounced in her seat. “Can you take our food order, too? We’re ready and I’m hungry!”

Lee laughed. “Sure, go ahead.” She held a pen poised over her ordering pad.

Trixie and Jim gave their orders and with a friendly grin, Lee headed back to the kitchen with it. While waiting for her tea, Trixie decided to get up and walk around the small restaurant, since at the moment only one other table was occupied. She was surprised to find two other young girls studying behind the screen where Lee had been doing homework. They didn’t look like the same waitresses who’d been working at her last visit. One of them looked about the same age as Lee, while the other one seemed younger. Seeing Lee heading back to her table with a pot of tea, Trixie turned back as well.

“Thank you,” Jim said as Lee poured a cup for each of them.

“Lee, are those your sisters doing homework in the back?” Trixie asked. “I didn’t realize you had any brothers or sisters.”

“They are cousins, and haven’t been here long.”

Lee’s explanation made perfect sense, so why did her eyes slide away from Trixie’s gaze?

“Lee Song!” The man’s impatient voice let loose with another torrent of Chinese, and Lee hurried away. Just then, a bell mounted to the door jingled as another customer entered. The smaller of the two girls in the back trotted out to meet the new customers—an older couple—and bowed to them.

“Follow me please,” she said, leading the couple to a table.

Trixie was astonished. “Surely that little girl is too young to work,” she exclaimed.

“Kids can work for their family business in most cases,” Jim reminded her.

“Still, it’s very mysterious. I’m sure Lee was lying about those two girls being cousins who just recently arrived in this country. She was in my Chemistry class last year and never mentioned any family out of the country.”

“Trixie, don’t jump to conclusions.” Jim sighed. “You don’t do it as much as you used to a few years ago, but I don’t really see anything weird about those girls being here. Lee does her homework while she’s working almost every time we’ve been here.”

“I know, but she looked away when she answered my question. That’s why I think she wasn’t being truthful.”

“What else would those girls be doing here? This is a family business, they’re relatives, they’re doing homework during a slow time of day.”

“Haven’t you heard of human trafficking, Jim?” Trixie lowered her voice to almost a whisper. “People are brought here from other countries by traffickers, looking for a better life, and are taken advantage of by unscrupulous people who force them to work above and beyond what’s allowed in fair labor laws… all for food and a pallet on the floor in some flop house with ten people to a room. We’re learning about that in one of my classes. A Chinese restaurant in another state was recently raided and it was discovered that the owner was trafficking people to work in the restaurant and a massage parlor he owned as well. Those women weren’t allowed to leave the flop house except to work, and they were working ten hours a day, six days a week. They couldn’t shop on their own, or even go to the doctor unless the owner took them.”

Jim kicked her foot under the table. “Here comes our food,” he warned.

Lee materialized at their table with a rolling cart and the food they’d ordered—Trixie’s General Tso’s Chicken and Jim’s Beef and Broccoli.

As they ate, Jim told Trixie about his internship as a student teacher, and the classroom management techniques he had learned. Now was his opportunity to observe what trained teachers did, practice his own techniques, and evaluate their effectiveness. Her own introductory classes as a freshman felt boring and basic. She longed to get into the forensics lab and learn some skills—as Jim was now doing in a totally different arena.

She enjoyed the meal, and said as much to Lee, who returned to their table twice to check on them. But she didn’t forget about the two young girls at the table behind the screen. The restaurant had gotten busier as customers flocked in; couples, groups; individuals picking up orders. Both girls had come out on the floor to wait on customers along with Lee. Trixie wondered how much English they spoke. They were able to ask about orders and customers could point to the menu if they needed help. Still, in her mind she marked the new arrivals down in her mind as something to watch in the future.

By the time they finished eating, the rain had stopped and a light breeze had nearly dried all the puddles on the sidewalk. Trixie felt her jacket and it was still damp, so she shrugged and decided to carry it to the car. Jim did the same, but his arm settled across her shoulders and warmed her as they walked together. The crisp fall air carried a tang of smoke from someone’s burning leaves nearby.

“Jim, I still think there’s something suspicious about those two girls. I’m going to keep my eyes peeled and my ear to the ground.”

“Please just promise me that if you discover anything, you’ll report it to the police, and not try to track criminals to their lair.” Jim sighed. “I really do trust your instincts, Trix. But I don’t want to worry about covering gray hair before I’m twenty-one. Even the cops use backup and try to be unnoticed when they’re doing surveillance. They don’t confront the criminal alone in their own territory.”

“Jim!” Trixie stopped in her tracks and put her hands on her hips. “Please give me credit for a little more maturity than I had at fourteen! It’s been years since I did anything like that.”

Jim had already started to take an extra step when she stopped, and he almost stumbled. “Yes, I know. But please, you and Honey have had some narrow escapes. I don’t want to worry about you being in danger.”

“All right, I promise to take every precaution.” Trixie took his free hand with hers. “Now let’s get to the car. That wind is starting to get chilly.”

Trixie didn’t forget about the strange incident at the restaurant. Even though she racked her brain for the rest of the weekend, she couldn’t think of a good way to investigate her suspicions about the Blue Dragon’s servers without annoying Lee Song or arousing the suspicions of the owner—who as far as she knew was Lee’s father. She now wondered if he was related to Lee at all. He certainly didn’t act much like her own dad—Peter Belden would never have berated his daughter in public.

Could she possibly have stumbled upon a case of human trafficking?

Wednesday, October 7

Midway through the next week, her attention was captured next morning by a sign in the Student Center’s coffee shop.

Human Trafficking: Could it be happening to someone you know?

The sign invited students to attend a presentation by a visiting expert in advocacy for trafficking victims.

Gina Calabrese is a licensed detective of the Miami-Dade County, Florida, Police Department. She has eight years of experience in working directly with victims of sex and labor trafficking, and has led a team dedicated to identifying victims and providing resources to assist them to leave their enslavers.

Join us at the Student Center on Friday, October 16 at 7 p.m. and learn how you can be a part of the solution.

Whipping out her notepad, Trixie jotted down the information. I’ll let the rest of the Bob-Whites know, she thought. Some of them may be able to attend. In fact, I’ll bet anything Mart and Dan will want to, and they’ll already be here. Her brother Mart, and their friend Dan Mangan, were also students at White Plains Community College like Trixie, just a year ahead of her. The three intended to save money by attending community college for two years before moving to a residential campus university.

A sudden influx of students, both traditional recent high school graduates and older nontraditional students, pushed in through the doors and crowded into a line near the counter, and Trixie checked her watch.

Yikes! I’d better hurry. Most of the instructors don’t say anything if someone’s a few minutes late, but the Batman will probably call me a fapster or some other crazy made-up word if I walk in after he’s already started talking about the properties of a cell. “The Batman” was the name popularly given to the professor who taught classes in biology and microbiology. As a grad student he had done a detailed study of bats in New Mexico, and he frequently mentioned various esoteric gems of knowledge about the nocturnal flying creatures.

Outside the building she broke into a jog, and by the time she reached her classroom in the science building she was sweating and panting. It was worth it, though, as she was two minutes early for class.

The rest of the day, Trixie had half of her mind on the lectures and the other half anticipating the presentation about human trafficking. Not only was she interested in the topic because of Lee and the other girls, but she was also eager to meet a real woman police detective. She hadn’t given up on her dream of becoming a detective herself, but she’d started to wonder just what kind of a detective she might want to be. A police detective might be a better career than a private detective, and besides, in the state of New York, she couldn’t get a license as a private detective before she was twenty-five.

“Mart! Dan!” she shouted as she hurried to the student parking lot that afternoon. Most days, her schedule didn’t jive with the guys and she drove separately from Sleepyside. But on Wednesdays, they generally rode together. They all appreciated the chance to save money on gas, and enjoyed each other’s company during the commute.

They’d agreed to meet at the car at three thirty, and she was right on time. Her brother and Dan, approaching from another direction, were already nearing Mart’s trusty Dodge Dart.

The boys turned at the sound of her voice and Dan waved. He knew exactly what he wanted—to graduate with a degree in criminal justice and become a member of New York City’s finest.

“Did you guys see the sign in the Student Center?” she asked as soon as she was close enough. “The one about human trafficking. We need to go to the presentation. A detective from Miami is speaking on human trafficking.”

“I saw it and definitely plan to attend.” Dan’s eyes lit up. “There are people all around us who are being trafficked, and often no one outside of their group is aware. It’s a lot more common than most people think.”

“I wish Jim and Brian could come,” Trixie said with a sigh. “It’s on a Friday night, so I’ll mention it to them, but they were just home, and I bet they’ll want to stay in Boston that weekend to study.”

“You never know,” Mart said. “I wouldn’t want to predict what they’d decide to do. If human trafficking is as common as Dan says, I’d imagine they’ll encounter people in the school system or the hospital who are involved. A couple of years ago I’d never heard of human trafficking. Now it seems like every other week there’s something about it in the news.”

Dan opened the back door for Trixie and she settled into the car. Their conversation turned to other topics, but Trixie didn’t forget about the possibility that she might know someone who was being trafficked. She racked her brain trying to decide how she might probe to get more information from Lee Song or one of the other girls working at the Blue Dragon.

After a drive that seemed shorter than normal, Dan pulled into the Belden driveway and let Trixie and Mart out. “See you tomorrow,” he said with a wave before executing a neat three-point turn.

“Hey, I just thought of something,” Trixie exclaimed, turning to her brother. “If Jim and Brian, or even one of them, comes home for the weekend of the trafficking presentation, Honey could come home with them. That would be awesome! She hasn’t been home since last month. Boston just isn’t that far. And really, she could even ride the train. Oh, I hope they’ll come!”

“Hope away!” Mart laughed. “It can’t hurt anything. I know Diana won’t be home from Chicago. She’s already said she won’t be able to come before Thanksgiving. She’s homesick, but determined to stick it out. She worked so hard to get accepted into that art school that she’ll do whatever it takes.” He held the kitchen door for his sister. “In fact, I’m going to write to her now, because it’s my turn to cook supper tonight. You and Bobby, not to mention our parental units, will be astounded to partake of the culinary delights that will be offered for your delectation.”

“Right.” Trixie strode into the cheery red-and-white kitchen. “In other words, meat loaf, mashed potatoes, gravy, and creamed peas?” She dropped her books on the kitchen table and opened the refrigerator door, plucking an apple from the fruit drawer. “That better be a short letter; meat loaf and mashed potatoes isn’t the quickest dinner to fix.”

Mart was right behind her, reaching for an apple for himself. “Don’t you worry your pretty head about it,” he said with a chuckle. “Everything will be ready by the time Moms and Dad get home at five thirty.”

“Even if you have Bobby helping?” Trixie referred to her eleven-year-old youngest brother. “He’ll be home any minute now.” Bobby did enjoy helping in the kitchen; unfortunately, when he was helping Trixie, it always seemed there were extra messes to clean up. “Enjoy the help!” She stuck her tongue out at Mart and grabbed her books again, starting up the stairs to her own bedroom. She was determined to get some studying done before Mart had dinner ready.