And the guards had done their job. According to their report, Henry Thomas showed up at the beach yesterday, like usual, and as he walked to his favorite spot, north of the Palace steps, he took a long look at Eliza. As any man would do. But Eliza had only buried her pretty face in a book.
Like she wanted nothing to do with him. Which was exactly what Anders would’ve expected. Nothing unusual.
The other report had come from Asia, the first night Henry was in town. Unannounced, Asia had pushed the bedroom door open while Eliza was celebrating her “honeymoon.” And what the burly guard saw was proof enough. Henry was happy with his wife. He would pay up and sign the deal.
Anders’s long-term plan, the one he’d made more than a decade ago when he sent for his then wife and children, was finally coming to fruition. He had paid the guards to get rid of Susan and Daniel. He didn’t need them. But Lizzie… Eliza… yes, Anders had always known he would make a fortune off her. Not by selling her to the Palace’s nightly customers. But by grooming her and prepping her… saving her for such a time as this. Of course Eliza didn’t like the setup. Which was why Anders didn’t expect his daughter to enjoy Henry Thomas.
If there had been a connection, Anders would’ve been concerned.
Instead, every report back from the guards was good news for Anders. As long as the young millionaire wasn’t somehow conniving secretly with Eliza, all was well. Because Anders had one very troubling problem with his daughter. All that reading had made her the most intelligent girl at the Palace. As a father, he was proud of the fact. But now—when he needed her unwavering obedience—her book smarts made him nervous.
A smart girl could work with the police. She could express doubts about what happened when Palace girls turned twenty. And as such she could find a way to bring down Anders’s entire multimillion-dollar operation.
Even if that smart girl was his own daughter.
Anders sat on his white leather sofa in his private room on the fourth floor of the Palace. His view was the best in Belize—a thin stretch of white sand and the prettiest ocean water anywhere in the world.
He leaned back and sighed. If only little girls didn’t grow up, if only they never left their teens.
But they did, and so he’d figured out a plan from the beginning. He treated the little girls like so many daughters. He bought them pretty dresses and bows for their hair and made them feel like princesses. So long as they did what they were told.
Anders believed the younger girls loved him. Much like a father. When the customers frightened them, the girls had Anders to turn to. He told them the same thing, year after year. “In the nighttime hours, if someone ever hurts you, come to me. I’ll take care of them.”
And—as children do—the young teen girls believed him.
Also the children looked up to the older girls, who had no choice but to make the younger ones feel at home. One big happy family, that’s how Anders saw it. Until the girls grew up.
When the girls became teenagers, Anders could watch their attitudes change. In the mornings, when he tried to comfort them or ask about their nights, they would turn away at his touch. They didn’t look forward to seeing him.
Which was why the awakening was so important.
After the awakening, the teenage girls better knew their place. They would make the younger girls happy, please the customers, and never—not ever—cross Anders McMillan. Otherwise the next awakening would be worse.
The fear he instilled in them from their fourteenth birthdays usually lasted till the girls turned nineteen. Then, somehow, another switch seemed to flip. Fear turned to sarcasm and obedience became arrogance. At that point, the girls clearly hated their existence and were smart enough to plot their escape. Whether they were reading from the house library or not.
So Anders had figured out a way to deal with this, also. As soon as the attitude surfaced, the older teen girls were given an incentive. Work hard, help the younger girls, recruit new children and take good care of the clients. If they did everything right, when they turned twenty they would get an envelope of cash. Ten thousand dollars.
And they could go free.
Anders took a sip of his Tanqueray and tonic. Since his business opened, every one of his girls had been gullible enough to believe him. It hadn’t occurred to any of them that Anders would never dream of letting his girls go. Not when they had enough information to send him to prison for life.
Not with his money in their pockets.
Freedom was an illusion for Palace girls. By the time they were twenty, they were beyond miserable. So Anders considered their death a gift, in some ways. The gift of putting them out of their misery.
In the beginning, he had tried holding on to the older girls—after all, they were good at what they did. Like Alexa, they brought top dollar. But the older girls kept trying to run away. He could drug them. But then they didn’t work well. So Anders had gotten in the habit of setting the girls free in another way.
Permanently.
He took another sip of his drink. The ocean was particularly beautiful today. Quiet. Serene. Each of his girls had this same view from the Palace. Every day. They were well fed and dressed like royalty. Why would any of them ever want to leave? Anders couldn’t understand it.
Beside him on the sofa, a quiet alarm buzzed on his cell phone. Fifteen minutes till showtime. More new men had sailed into the harbor today, a few of them first-timers. Anders smiled. Business was booming.
He shut the alarm off and then stared at the phone.
How was old Henry
