Trafficked by Kim Purcell

thought about the truth that must be in any lie. “I went to the bathroom and I left it there. It’s a white leather purse with tassels.” She really did have a purse like that, but she’d decided it was too old for the trip to America.
    â€œWhy didn’t you tell us earlier?” Lillian asked.
    â€œI only just realized, after you started eating, and I figured it had probably been stolen by now, so I didn’t think there was anything we could do.”
    â€œMom, can I watch TV?” Maggie said, as if this was boring to her.
    â€œGive Michael a bath first,” Lillian said, then opened a drawer and heaved a thick yellow phone book onto the counter. She flipped through it and ran a polished pink nail down the page.
    A few minutes later, Hannah heard Michael giggling in the bathroom down the hall. The girl was just eight and she helped give her brother a bath. This was a good family. She wished she’d just given them the documents. Why couldn’t she trust someone for once?
    Lillian picked up the phone and dialed. “Give me Lost and Found.” Hannah was impressed at first by how fluent she was, but then, when she continued, her English was slow and halting. “I pick up my husband niece from airport two hours before and she leave purse in bathroom. It have passport, visa, airplane ticket.” She listened and asked Hannah in Russian, “Which bathroom?”
    Hannah had to think quickly. “Between immigration and when I came out. By the baggage area.”
    After a pause, Lillian said, “Elena Platonov.” She nodded a couple times as if the person could see her. “Okay,” she said, like “ahkay,” which didn’t sound right. Hannah remembered her English teacher drilling them on that “o” sound, lips forward, like they were kissing.
    â€œDo you want me to talk?” Sergey asked, reaching for the phone.
    Lillian stepped back, gave the person a phone number, and hung up. “Don’t insult my English,” she said, poking him with a smirk on her face. “You speak no better than I do.”
    â€œThat’s true.” He laughed. “What did they say?”
    â€œNo one has turned it in. They’ll call us if they find it.”
    She believed her. Hannah let out a sigh.
    Lillian frowned. She’d caught her sigh. Of course, Hannah thought, she wouldn’t be relieved if she were innocent—she’d be disappointed they hadn’t found her purse.
    Lillian looked down at the suitcase by Hannah’s feet. “I need to look in your suitcase.”
    â€œIt’s not in there,” Hannah said, mortified that Lillian was going to look through all of her things, especially her old underwear and the pictures of her family.
    â€œIf it’s not there, you don’t mind if I look.”
    â€œHere? In the kitchen?”
    â€œWhy not?” Lillian said.
    â€œShe could unpack her bag in the playroom,” Sergey suggested. “Where she’ll be sleeping.”
    â€œWhatever,” Lillian said, glancing at him with irritation. “Come on.”
    They led her down the hall and around the corner, past a washer and dryer and through a door. It didn’t look like a playroom to her—it looked like a garage. It had some old shelves filled with toys and a parking lot of children’s riding toys and bicycles. Next to the door was a sofa with a sleeping bag and a pillow, where she was presumably going to sleep. There were no windows, and the two garage doors were chained up. Was that so nobody could get in or so she couldn’t get out? It felt like a prison, and the pink and blue braided children’s rug in the middle of the cement floor did nothing to soften this feeling.
    â€œI wish I could sleep in the playroom,” Maggie sighed from behind her while Hannah stared in horror at what would be her room.
    Lillian laughed. “No, you don’t. After ten minutes, you