held a 4th degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do and had started teaching classes at the dojo on Wednesday evenings. Emily had developed her own style of weapons fighting over the years and had only recently given in to the dojo owner’s request to take on students and teach them her techniques. The dojo owner had been the first to learn Emily’s style, followed by Tom. Jamie had been next, and while she surpassed her father and the dojo owner, she still found it difficult to beat her mother.
More often than not, Emily used Jamie to help her teach the class, frequently having the students practice attacking Jamie and then explaining why Jamie defeated them.
Jamie knelt in the center of the room while Tom, Emily, and the other students circled her. The dojo owner acted as referee. Jamie was unarmed, which was her preferred way to start a match, but the students held a variety of weapons.
One of the students holding a bo, which was like a quarterstaff, attacked first. Jamie grabbed the bo, pulled herself to a standing position with it, and jerked it out of the student’s hands, causing him to lose his balance. She struck him with it in the center of his chest padding and then swung the bo to counter an attack from Tom, who was holding a wooden katana.
The students continued to attack, with Emily and Tom attacking only when Jamie was distracted. Tom managed to knock the bo from Jamie’s hands, but in a flash she somersaulted across the room to the weapons rack and selected a pair of katanas. She returned to the fight, attacking and fending off attacks from her parents and the other students until only she and Emily remained.
Both women held two katanas each, and the wooden swords were a blur of motion as mother and daughter strove for the victory. After several minutes of fighting, the dojo owner declared the match a draw. Jamie sat down as Emily explained why everyone else’s attacks had failed, and Jamie also commented on how she knew what to do to defeat her opponents.
After returning the equipment to the racks, the students collected their gear and walked down the stairs to the dojo’s main floor. Jamie walked up to Emily and gave her a hug. “You would’ve had me in another minute. I’ve never seen you fight that well with two swords.”
Emily smiled. “Thank you for saying that, but I’m afraid the best I can ever hope for with you is a draw.”
Tom walked up and joined them. “Are you two hungry?”
“Yes,” the girls said in unison.
“I have a tub of homemade chicken salad if you’d like to come back to my place,” Jamie offered.
“You don’t mind us being hot and sweaty in your nice townhouse?” Tom asked, grinning.
“No more than the other times you’ve come over on Saturdays, Dad.”
“Deal,” Emily said. “We’ll follow you back to your place.”
Jamie beat Emily and Tom back to her townhouse by several minutes. She had already taken the chicken salad out of the refrigerator, filled cups with ice, and set out several bottles of water and soda when Tom and Emily rang the doorbell. Even though they had keys to Jamie’s place, they never used them without Jamie’s permission.
Jamie opened her front door. “What took you so long?” she asked as Emily and Tom stepped inside.
“We’re not racecar drivers,” Tom joked.
She closed the front door and led them to the kitchen. “Mom, can you set the table in the dining room while I put my equipment away?”
“Sure,” Emily said.
Jamie ran upstairs with her dojo bag, and Emily moved Jamie’s mail off the larger of her two tables and placed it on the kitchen counter. She looked at the top envelope and recognized the Texas return address. It was from Steve. Looking at the envelope more closely, Emily realized that it was an invitation. She showed it to Tom.
When Jamie came back downstairs, Emily put the envelope down quickly. “I didn’t mean to snoop. I just saw that it was from Steve.”
Jamie just nodded and walked past her mother into the kitchen.
“It looks like an invitation,” Emily said softly, coming up beside her daughter.
Jamie took three plates from the cupboard.
“You’re not going to say anything?” Emily asked as Jamie reached for a bag of chips from the pantry.
“What’s there to say?” Jamie turned to face her mother. “It’s a wedding invitation. Steve’s getting married.”
“But you broke up months ago,” Emily pointed out. “Does it upset you that he moved on?”
Jamie shook her head. “That’s just it, Mom. I’m not upset at all, but part of me feels like I should be. It’s as if my relationship with him meant nothing, and you know that’s not true.”
“I know.” Emily helped Jamie take the food and dishes to the table. “The heart can do strange things to protect itself from getting hurt. This could be a coping mechanism. Or it could mean that you’re truly over him, and breaking up was the best thing for both of you.”
“I always believed that breaking up was the right thing. He was a great guy, but in the end, we each wanted things that the other person just couldn’t provide. I have no regrets, and I have no doubts, but I’d hate to think that I have no feelings left for him at all.”
“Are you going to the wedding?” Tom asked once they sat down.
Jamie smiled and shook her head. “No. What’s the point? His fiancé doesn’t need to meet me or know about me. I sent him a gift and wished him well, but that’s the end of it as far as I’m concerned.”
Emily nodded. “Don’t worry, Sweetie. You’ll find someone who can give you what you need, and then it won’t matter what you do or don’t feel about Steve.”
Jamie smiled at her mother. You don’t know how true that is, Mom. I have everything I need with Hunter. I adore him, and he adores me. I’ve never been so comfortable with a man before. Maybe I should go ahead to tell you and Dad about him, but I don’t feel like this is the right time. I don’t want you to think that Hunter is just a rebound boyfriend. He’s more than that. Much more.
4
Detective Jack Thrasher, Max Preston, and the members of the Intervention Analysis Committee met with Alasdair Stirling in the Lt. Grand Master’s office a week later to review the report and their proposals.
“We broke the information on human trafficking into three major areas.” Max handed a copy of the proposals to Alasdair. “Slave labor, sex slaves, and organ harvesting. Under slave labor and sex slavery, which work in similar ways, we identified several components. The first is acquiring the slaves, which can be from fake adoption agencies to purchasing victims from desperate parents to kidnapping victims. The second is the buying and selling of slaves, which can be handled by online auctions and special orders, and the movement of money across the transaction. The third is transporting slaves, which is the logistics of moving slaves across the globe to the buyers and keeping them alive during transporting.
Max gestured for Jack to present the next section. “Under organ harvesting, we identified two main components. The first is buyers placing orders for certain organs or tissues. The second is filling those orders, which involves selecting the victims, acquiring them, transporting the victims to the clinics where the harvesting takes place, disposing of the victims’ remains, transporting the organs to the buyers, and the movement of money across the transaction.”
Alasdair read each section carefully as he listened to Max and Jack review the report and proposals.
“In addition to a series of proposals regarding how the Order might intervene against human traffickers,” Max said, “we assembled detailed statistics and trends of the number of victims each year in each of the three major areas. We also included a summary of every intervention