STEVENS AND WINDERMERE worked through other possibilities while Mathers studied up on the transatlantic shipping trade.
“Irina said the truck made a couple of stops before she wound up in Walker,” Stevens said. “Both times, the drivers dragged a bunch of women out.”
“Deliveries,” Windermere said. “Like fucking UPS. So who’s buying these women, Stevens?”
Stevens brought up a map of the country on his computer. “That truck wound up in northern Minnesota,” he said. “The highway she was on when they found her, the 200—it’s pretty much a straight shot from Duluth.”
“A hundred and thirty some miles from Walker. That’s, what, three hours on the road? Irina said the truck’s last delivery came a few hours before she escaped.”
“And it’s the easiest path across the state from Duluth,” Stevens said. “If they had a cargo of more women, they were probably headed to hook back up with the interstate around Fargo, head west.”
“So where’s their next delivery? And where’d they stop before Duluth?”
Stevens studied the map. “Could be south, could be east. Could be Canada. Pretty easy to slip across the border up there in the wilderness.”
Windermere stuck her head out the door and hollered for Mathers again. The kid showed up quick, Stevens noticed. And he showed up with that same unflappable smile, didn’t blink when Windermere asked him for a progress report.
“It’s tough sledding,” he told Stevens and Windermere. “Plenty of ships make that transatlantic run, and they call in up and down the coast, from Halifax to Miami and everywhere in between. Even if I can narrow it down, those ships carry thousands of boxes apiece. It’ll be a needle in a haystack trying to figure out which container held the girls.”
“We crush the needle in the haystack game, Mathers,” Windermere told him. “Keep working.”
Stevens watched the kid disappear down the hall again. Wished he shared Windermere’s good spirits. He considered the map some more, zoomed out to the entire Eastern Seaboard. Halifax. Boston. New York. Baltimore.
“The kid is right,” he said. “Every major city has a container terminal. They could have come in anywhere.”
Windermere caught the expression on his face. “Cheer up,” she said. “I have an idea what we can do while we wait for Mathers to find us our haystack.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.” She winked at him. “You know folks in Duluth, don’t you?”