‘It gets worse,’ Elise said. ‘She’s only allowed out once a week – a shopping spree with one of his bodyguards. She has internet at her home, but no email access. No cell phone. But she can watch all the television and Netflix she wants. She can drop a thousand dollars a week on clothes and stuff. She can work out in the compound’s gym and swim in its pool. But otherwise … no freedom. And now she’s five months pregnant … having turned seventeen two weeks ago.’

I shut my eyes. This was Todor’s great benefactor. This was the man paying my wife a salary to do his anti-abortion bidding … and also now covering my daughter’s salary.

‘How did she get Klara’s number?’

‘According to Amber when Kelleher came back that day from his visit to the shelter he had sex with her immediately – and fell asleep on her bed afterwards. She went through his pockets, found Klara’s card and hid it away in her bedroom. Kelleher never noticed its absence … or, at least, he never said anything to her. Just two days ago, when she was out having her weekly shopping spree at the Beverly Center mall, having already tried on a skirt and having worked out that there was a staff exit off the changing rooms, she came out and found a T-shirt and told the bodyguard that she was going back to try it on. With the bodyguard waiting by the entrance to the changing rooms, Amber went back in with the T-shirt, tossed it aside and made a dash for the staff exit. She ran down a corridor and right into a security guard. A sympathetic young woman – and, as Klara later found out, a graduate student in social work doing this mall job to earn a bit of extra money. That was her first bit of luck. She begged her to hide her – but wouldn’t explain why. The guard offered to call the police. Amber feared that as soon as the police found out she was Kelleher’s ‘ward’ he would use all his influence to get the whole thing hushed up – and she’d be sent back to him and never allowed out again. Taking a chance, she gave Klara’s card to the guard who decided to call Klara. After explaining the situation she put Klara on to Amber … and that’s when your daughter decided to take matters into her own hands.’

‘What do you mean by that? Surely she told her boss …’