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CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

I check in at the desk at the offices of a charity called the Abeona Shelter and ask for Jennifer Schultz. The building is located on the corner of Hudson and Harrison Streets in Tribeca. It was the New York Mercantile Exchange until 1977, but it’s always looked more like a cool fire station to me.

How did I end up here?

It started with a call from Polly after I downloaded my meeting with Harm Bergkamp to the Pink Panthers.

“I found something strange on the Radiant Allure modeling agency,” Polly said.

“Okay.”

“So the agency closed in 2004 when the two founders, Eunice and Vernon Schultz, retired.”

“Do we know where the Schultzes are now?”

“Both dead. Eunice died of cancer about a year after retiring. That might have been why they retired, I don’t know. The husband, Vernon, died in 2018. He was eighty-two.”

“So what’s the weird part?”

“We found their daughter. Jennifer Schultz. She said she would talk to you. In truth, she seemed anxious to.”

And here I am.

I’m led into a conference room where a woman I recognize as Jennifer Schultz from my Google searches awaits me. Without so much as a hello or handshake, she asks, “Why are you asking about my parents’ old agency?”

No reason to pull punches. “You know why.”

“Pardon?”

“Your working here,” I say, spreading my arms. “It’s almost too on the nose, don’t you think?”

The Abeona Shelter is an international organization that rescues children from danger. Abeona was the child-protecting Roman Goddess of safe returns, ergo the name of this place. The charity does a lot of good work, from what I’m told.

“What do you mean,” Jennifer asks, squinting, “by ‘too on the nose’?”

“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?”

“Yes.”

“But she has questions about her past.”

“Something like that,” I say.

“I have a private database, but it’s huge. Do you know how the Radiant Allure agency operated?”

“Tell me.”

“Our agency mostly worked out of kiosks in malls. Young girls would walk by—boys too—and we’d approach them and say that they were attractive and had a great look and maybe they should consider modeling. Really lay it on thick with the false flattery. Then we would try to sell them a modeling portfolio. Basically a photo shoot. Some people called it a scam, but our prices were competitive and hey, we weren’t the first business to sell a dream.”

“Did you work in the agency?”

“Yep. All four of us kids did. It was our after-school job. Good training for life. The agency had kiosks in dozens of malls throughout Pennsylvania and Ohio.”

“You said you have a private database.”

“Yes. I can’t make it public for privacy reasons. It would lead to many false claims and lawsuits. Do you have a photo of what Anna looked like back then?”

I realize that I don’t. There are still a few grainy photos of Victoria Belmond from that time period, so I google them. Not many. I see Anna in Victoria’s face, especially the eyes, but that might be mind games. I find the few photos taken right after Victoria was found, the paparazzi ones with no hair and shot from a distance because the FBI and her parents protected her privacy—these are slightly more accurate. Jennifer Schultz tells me to AirDrop them to her. I hesitate.

“Can I trust you to keep her identity a secret?” I ask.

“Of course.”

I AirDrop the best photo. She studies it on her phone. I don’t say Victoria Belmond’s name, and I can’t tell whether she’s figured it out.

“I have a team working with me,” I say to her. “They can do AI on this photograph and put hair on her head and de-age her, maybe clean up the image a little.”

“That might help,” Jennifer says. Then she looks up at me. “What’s going on, Mr. Kierce?”

“I have a tougher question for you,” I say.

She waits.

“Could your parents have been involved in a kidnapping?”

She blinks. Then she says, “In what way?”

“I don’t know. The obvious, for one—would they ever just kidnap a girl?”

“It would be easy for me to say, ‘Of course not,’ but…” She doesn’t finish the thought. She doesn’t have to. “I don’t think so. They needed the self-justification, I think.”

“Did your parents ever help move someone?”

“Move someone?”

“Like maybe someone brought your parents a girl to hide overseas?”

She frowns. “You think someone brought my parents this girl so they could hide her in Spain?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.”

“Okay then.” Jennifer places both hands on the table and pushes herself to a standing position. “I’ll start going through the database. Oh, and a more innocent possibility, Mr. Kierce.”

I turn.

“The girl you’re looking into—you think she was kidnapped.”

“Probably.”

“But there are many who don’t believe that, right? I mean, a lot of people think Victoria Belmond just ran away.”

Ah. So she does recognize the image in the photo.

“That’s right, isn’t it?” she presses.

“Yes.”

“So maybe that’s how my parents got involved,” Jennifer says.

“How do you mean?”

“If Victoria Belmond wanted to run away and never be found,” Jennifer Schultz says, “my parents would be the best at making that happen.”

Still mulling over Jennifer Schultz’s last words, my phone vibrates. The caller ID reads BELMOND , so I pick it up.

“Hello?”

“Lenore said you wanted to talk to me.” It’s Victoria.

“Could we meet?” I ask.

“Is everything okay?”

“I was in Spain.”

Silence.

“Victoria?”

“I’m here,” she says. “You found something?”

“I can come out to you.”

“No. My parents will ask a lot of questions. I’ll come to you.”