“Somehow I managed to get the door closed and I stood there in the dark, just inside the front door, listening while they waited for my mother out in the front yard. When she showed up, I heard them grab her and slap her around a little. I heard them threaten her. They said she owed them money. ‘You have until Friday,’ they said. She told them she couldn’t get the amount she owed, that there had to be some other way out, a different way for her to repay the money.”

“What did they say then?”

Anna shrugged and smiled cheerlessly. “ ‘Your daughter,’ they said. ‘What’s her name?’ ”

“They wanted you instead?” Heloise’s stomach turned.

“I still remember how eager to please my mother’s voice was when she realized how easily she was going to be able to get rid of her problems. It didn’t even take her a split second to offer me up.”

“She paid off her debt with you?”

“Yes.” Anna nodded. “She drove me to a place the next day, an abandoned factory building down in Nordhavnen Harbor, dropped me off, and said, ‘Have fun!’ Can you believe that? She actually fucking said that.” Anna laughed, speechless for a second.

Heloise closed her eyes.

She didn’t have enough imagination to comprehend the depth of betrayal in the life Anna had lived, and she could only guess what that kind of thing did to a kid, to a soul.

“I’m so sorry,” was all Heloise could say.

Anna nodded without looking at her. “That first time, there were two of them. They smelled like sweat and cigarettes, and they just took turns, you know … and the next time there were three of them. It went on like that for a while. My mom would drop me off in front of the building and they would bring me inside.”

“How many times did it happen? How many times were you in that building with these men?”

“Seven or eight times, I think, spread out over a period of about a year. At some point they got tired of me, I guess. They probably wanted something new. Either way, it just suddenly stopped. I never asked my mother why it stopped—we never discussed it.”

“How many men participated in this?”

“Nine that I can remember.”

“Nine men?”

“Yes. There was also a tenth, but he always just watched.”

Heloise tried to swallow, but her mouth felt dry. “Was that … was that my dad?”

Anna Kiel nodded.

“How did you get in touch with him—now, so many years later? How did you know he was here in Paris?”