“Whose children are they?” I asked.
“They’re mine,” she replied with a trembling voice. “I adopted them.”
“That’s odd,” I frowned. “Because as I said before, there’s nothing on record to indicate an adoption, let alone three. Why is that, Ms. Baker?”
“Well, I…” she stuttered as she looked everywhere but at me.
“Okay,” I sighed. “Let’s just cut to the chase. We both know why you’re here, Ms. Baker, so let’s just speak frankly. We know you’re the one who was masterminding the trafficking of the children. We raided the base in Bermuda, and we have proof that you’ve been in contact with the men who were grabbing the kids. I know you kidnapped those children we found with you.”
“I didn’t!” she shouted as she slammed her palm down onto the table. “Those kids had nowhere else to go! Their parents were dead or in jail. They wouldn’t have had anywhere to go or anyone to protect them back in the Caribbean. I saved them!”
“That was very kind of you, Ms. Baker,” I sneered. “So explain to me why all the other children we found didn’t receive the same loving treatment. Why would you open your home to children in need and then turn around and use your organization to traffick children into this country to be used as slaves?
“I didn’t mean for that to happen,” she protested. Her hands were balled up into fists so tightly over the table that her knuckles were turning white. “I just wanted to help the children, and it all got out of hand.”
She was trembling now, and there were tears running down her face.
“Tell me what happened,” I instructed patiently.
“Hope for Children was a legitimate organization, at first,” she sniffled. “I didn’t have a lot of money, but I invested everything I had in making it work. We were doing so much good for the world, and I was so proud of being able to help so many children. Then one day, I went to visit Jamaica. I wanted to get a feel for the country and its culture. I thought if I did that, I’d be able to better understand the children we were helping.”
“Is that not what happened?” I asked tentatively.
“No,” she shook her head. “The things I saw were horrible—women and children living in squalor. Being abused and mistreated, even by the police who were supposed to help them. It changed how I saw everything. I realized that by sending them back, I would only be sending them back to a life of misery and poverty. No one cares about the kids once they’re ‘rescued.’ People will give donations and pat themselves on the back, but once they’re sent back home, no one cares about them anymore. I thought that if they were going to be forced to work and suffer in any case, maybe it would be better for them to stay here in the United States.”
“That’s insane,” I uttered, shocked by what I was hearing. “So you knew what you were doing was wrong, but you convinced yourself it was better than the alternative?”
“Well, isn’t it?!” Baker yelled. “At least here, they’d have more opportunities. Sure, they might have to work for a little while, but once they were grown up--”
“You’re making excuses,” I cut her off. “And you’re lying. You can’t even claim that you were trying to help orphaned children because the majority of the kids we recovered were taken from their parents under the guise of receiving an education.”
“I know that,” Baker hung her head sadly. “Davis tricked me. He told me the children he was sending me were all children he’d found living destitute on the street. By the time I discovered he’d been lying, I’d already brought dozens of children over.”
“How did you begin working with Davis?” I asked.
“I met him during my visit down to Jamaica,” she admitted. “I caught him speaking to a homeless child. I tried to stop him initially until he explained that the child wouldn’t have any chance for a future if he stayed there. He convinced me that it was better for the children to be sent over here in the long run.”
I frowned as I mulled over everything she’d said. It was clear to me now that Davis had played a big part in convincing Baker to work with him. However, since she was the one with connections within the United States, ultimately, she was the one who held the most power.
“Alright,” I nodded. “So what did you do when you realized he’d been deceiving you?”
“I felt guilty,” she muttered. “I realized we’d been taking children from their families and not rescuing helpless kids as I’d thought. I started making sure that the families we sent them to would actually take care of them and wouldn’t just put them to work.”
“You mean like the Andersons?” I asked as the realization dawned on me. That explained the sudden change we’d observed.
“Yes,” Baker nodded. “I knew they’d take good care of that little girl. I tried my best to find loving homes for every child, but Davis started grabbing more and more, and sometimes I had to make do with what I could.”
“Why not just stop working with him?” I asked. “You could have gone to the police and stopped him when you found out he was kidnapping children from their homes.”
“Well, I was worried,” she responded quietly.
“That you’d be implicated?” I asked harshly. “Or were you more worried about losing that source of revenue?” No matter what excuse she provided, I couldn’t overlook the fact that she’d exploited children for her own personal gain.
“That isn’t true,” she argued. “It was never about the money. I really cared about the future well-being of those children.”
“Did you?” I asked coldly. “Was Amber Monroe’s future well-being any concern to you?”
Baker’s face went white at my question.
“I never meant for anything to happen to her,” she claimed quickly. “I just needed that agent to stop poking his nose around. Davis contacted me
