Chapter 186: Scams
"And the car stunts were the other option," said Sean.
"The safer option," said Mia. "That’s genuinely how it was presented to us. As the safer alternative." She almost laughed at the specific absurdity of that framing and didn’t quite make it to laughing. "There are six of us doing it currently. In this city. That I know of."
"How old," said Sean.
She looked at him. "The oldest is twenty-two. The youngest is." She stopped. "Sixteen."
The car was quiet for a moment.
"She goes to school during the week," said Mia. "She got recruited through a school friend who was already in it. They told her it was part-time flexible work." Her voice had changed slightly on that part, the flatness cracking just enough for something real to be audible underneath it. "She’s sixteen and she’s got a debt of eleven thousand dollars that they say she owes them and she’s standing in front of cars on a Sunday afternoon to pay it down."
James took another turn. Then his voice came quietly from the front. "No tail, sir. We’re clean."
Sean felt Mia register this without visibly reacting to it. The filing of information. The recalculation.
"Where are we going," she said.
"Somewhere you can sit down properly and eat something," said Sean. "You look like you haven’t done that today."
She looked at him. "I haven’t done it today," she said. "How did you know."
"You’re holding yourself a specific way," said Sean. "People who haven’t eaten hold themselves differently from people who have. Something about how the body manages its resources."
She stared at him for a long moment. "You’re very strange," she said. Not unkindly. Just factually.
"I’ve heard that," said Sean.
"The man who got out of a Rolls Royce and instead of calling the police or writing a check just looked at me and said get in the car," said Mia. "Yeah. Very strange."
"Would you have preferred one of the other options," said Sean.
She looked at her hands. "No," she said quietly. "I wouldn’t have."
"The people in the sedan," she said. "They saw me get in your car."
"Yes," said Sean.
"They’re going to know something went wrong with the stunt," she said. "They’ll think you paid me and I’m keeping it."
"What happens then," said Sean.
"They come to collect," she said. "With interest."
"Where do they think you live," said Sean.
"A shared house on Meridian Street," said Mia. "They put six of us there. It’s technically accommodation they provide, which is part of the debt, obviously." She paused. "I can’t go back there tonight."
"You’re not going back there tonight," said Sean.
She looked at him. The assessment running again, trying to categorize him, finding that the available categories kept being insufficient.
"Why are you helping me," she said. Directly. No softening around it.
Sean looked at her for a moment.
"Because you’re sixteen years old’s friend and you’re sitting in front of cars on a Sunday afternoon and the only reason any of it is happening is because someone built a machine specifically designed to trap people who needed money and then convince them the trap was their own fault." He paused. "That’s not something I’m going to drive past."
Mia looked at him.
Something in her face did something complicated and real that she clearly hadn’t intended to let happen, the specific expression of someone who has been managing alone for long enough that being seen accurately by another person produces a reaction they weren’t braced for.
She looked at the window quickly.
Pressed her lips together.
When she looked back her composure was mostly reassembled.
"The people running it," she said, her voice back to the flat careful register. "They’re not small. I know you probably think this is some street-level thing."
"I don’t think that," said Sean.
"The woman who runs the front, the agency, she’s just the surface. There are people above her I’ve never seen but I know they exist because of how she talks about them. She’s afraid of them." She paused. "When someone who is doing what she’s doing is still afraid of someone above her, the something above her is significant."
"I know," said Sean.
She looked at him sharply. "You know."
"I know it’s not small," said Sean. "I knew that from the sedan. Small operations don’t have Sunday afternoon surveillance on a girl doing a road stunt."
Mia held his gaze. "What are you going to do."
Sean looked at the city moving past outside. He thought about a twenty-three thousand dollar debt on a nineteen year old who had needed to pay her mother’s medical bills. He thought about a sixteen year old going to school on weekdays and standing in front of cars on weekends.
"I’m going to find out exactly what it is," said Sean. "And then I’m going to take it apart."
Mia looked at him for a long moment.
"You say that very calmly," she said.
"I do most things calmly," said Sean.
"Most people say things like that because they don’t understand what they’re saying," said Mia. "You say it like you understand exactly what you’re saying."
"I do," said Sean.
She held his gaze for another moment.
"There’s a girl named Soo-Jin," she said. "She’s the sixteen year old. She has a test on Wednesday that she’s been studying for when she’s not doing the stunts." She looked at Sean steadily. "Whatever you do, however you do it. I need her out first."
"Tell me everything about her situation," said Sean. "All of it. Recruitment, debt amount, what they have on her."
Mia looked at him.
Then she nodded.
And she told him.
James drove them through the city, taking the long way to nowhere specific, and Mia talked for forty minutes and Sean listened without interrupting and the picture that built across those forty minutes was larger and more deliberate and more carefully constructed than he’d guessed.