Page 109 of Nobody's Fool

“I mean that your parents were involved in child trafficking. You felt guilty about it, which is understandable. You wanted to make amends. And now you work here.”

She looks stunned. But I can also see I struck gold.

“You’re not much for beating around the bush,” Jennifer says.

“Sometimes. But not right now.”

“I loved my parents,” she says.

“I’m sure you did.”

“They were good to me and my three siblings. We were a happy family. And the vast majority of their clients—the young people who engaged the modeling agency’s services—received exactly what they ordered: a modeling portfolio with professional headshots. Several of those young people became models. Many more were placed in good jobs in the entertainment and food industry.”

I impatiently gesture with my hand for her to get through this and when she does, I say, “When did you find out the truth?”

But she’s not ready yet. “I can show you testimonials from clients who said the Radiant Allure agency changed their lives.”

“I’m sure you can. Doesn’t make up for it though, does it?”

Silence.

“How did you find out?” I ask again.

“My mom,” Jennifer says. “On her deathbed.” Her eyes are on my face, but they are looking way past me. “She wanted me to understand. It was a tiny percentage of the teens, she told me. She and Dad only did it to the most hopeless cases—the kids who had nothing and no chance. And the profit from these interactions helped the Radiant Allure agency help other young people, ones who could be reached. ‘You can only tend the garden you can reach,’ Mom liked to say—it’s an old Buddhist expression, I think—and these girls could not be reached.” She looks up at me. “I loved my mother with all my heart, and the last thing I said to her on her deathbed was that I would never forgive her.”

We both stop now. The silence is pushing against the walls and windows. I let it. So does she. Part of me wants to reach out a comforting hand. I try to do that with a gaze instead. She seems to get it and gives me the smallest nod. Then she gestures for me to sit. I do. She takes the chair across from me.

“So yes,” Jennifer Schultz says, “I work here to make amends. It’s obvious and clumsy and inadequate.”

“But it’s something,” I finish for her.

“Yes. Who are you looking for?”

“She went by the name Anna Marigold. She was sent to Spain.”

“When?”

“Early 2000s.”

“A long time ago,” Jennifer Schultz says. A pendant of a butterfly hangs from a gold chain around her neck. She reaches for it now. “Funny. I kept waiting for someone to come to me like this, someone who lost a loved one they cared deeply about—or at least, someone that was missed. But you’re the first. Are you a relative?”

“No.”

“So maybe my mom was right.”

We both know she wasn’t, so neither one of us has to say it.

“What else do you know about the girl?”

I tell her most of what I learned from Harm Bergkamp. She takes notes. I tell her about Anna Marigold coming from somewhere near Penn State and the dead mother and then living with the aunt. I tell her how she worked cons with another man in Spain. Jennifer nods along as she scribbles. The story is not an unfamiliar one to her, I guess.

I don’t tell her that I was one of Anna Marigold’s “victims.” I don’t want her to think my motives are anything but pure.

“Do you know if this Anna Marigold is still alive?” Jennifer Schultz asks me.

“She is.”

Jennifer Schultz fiddles with the butterfly pendant like prayer beads. “Is she okay?”