Eve woke before dawn. She saw Roarke working on his tablet in the dim light he’d ordered in the sitting area. She felt the cat stir, uncurl himself from her lower back.
Her guards, she thought, and couldn’t decide if that annoyed or reassured.
Roarke glanced over when she sat up.
“You could take another hour.”
“No.” She shook her head. “I’m good.”
He set the tablet aside, rose to go over and sit on the side of the bed. “You had a restless night, and not much of that.”
“Sorry.”
Now he shook his head, took her hand.
“Dreams,” she admitted. “Irritating mostly, and faded now. Except the last one. I was a kid with a bunch of other kids, all of us chained on some sort of platform or stage. And you know how they have that guy, the one who talks real fast and calls out bids?”
“An auctioneer?”
“Yeah, that guy. The dream decided he’d be Richard Troy, and there are all these people sitting there—a lot of them I’ve put away, others all blurred. And they’re bidding on us, and he says he’ll start the bidding on me at a dollar because I’m not worth much. Got a lot of laughs out of that.”
When he pressed his lips to her forehead, she squeezed his hand.
“No, there’s the thing. After that, I was me. Now, not a kid. And I broke the chains. I broke them, and I woke up.”
He kissed her again. “As you did. As you would.”
“Damn right. So you don’t have to sit in the dark in your zillion-dollar suit keeping watch when you should be in your office buying Australia.”
“I don’t believe it’s for sale, and this suit only cost a quarter of a zillion.”
He rose to get them both coffee.
“I can get a jump on the day,” she continued. “And you can get back to yours. It didn’t really cost a quarter of a zillion, did it?”
He smiled, brought her coffee. “One day I’ll have to calculate your exact equation for a zillion.”
“As long as it’s enough to keep me in coffee, we’re good. I’m going to get a shower. No laying out my clothes. I’ve got it.”
She rolled out of bed. “Go take a meeting or whatever.”
“I’ll do that. We’ll have some breakfast in about thirty.”
When she went into the bathroom to shower, Roarke stroked the cat. “She’s steadied right up, so you’re off duty. Have another catnap.”
As Roarke left, Galahad stretched out and did just that.
She took a long, hot shower with jets on full to pummel some of the restless night away. She had those cracks, she reminded herself, and needed to be sharp to widen them into breaks.
The biggest break would be finding Dorian Gregg, but it wasn’t the only one she could work.
She had other names and faces now, and they gave her other trails to follow. She had locations to probe. Too many, sure, and the one she needed might not be among them. Yet.
But she had cracks.
The upcoming auction.
“Break the fucking chains, every one,” she muttered as she stepped out of the shower and into the drying tube.
Another robe waited for her, this one the color of the peaches ripening in the orchard.
Who the hell had an orchard in New York City? Roarke did.
The cat slept on when she came out, and apparently Roarke had taken that meeting, or decided to buy Australia after all.
For a moment she debated. Grab clothes and get dressed before he got back or program breakfast, because maybe pancakes?
Clothes first, she decided, and maybe she’d still beat him to the AutoChef.
In her closet she blew out a breath. There were times, like right now, the magnitude of choices made her head spin.
She started to grab black pants, then calculated.
He’d expect that.
She shifted to gray, which was almost as easy as black, eliminated a white shirt—also too expected—then got lost in the hues and colors and tones.
Blue worked, she decided. Nothing wrong with blue. A blue T-shirt, gray jacket—and hanging in plain sight, the magic lining. Gray boots. And anticipating him thinking she’d gone too heavy on the gray, grabbed a blue belt.
Christ, exhausting.
And time-consuming, she realized when she came out and found him at the bedroom AC. With Galahad busy inhaling his own breakfast.
The odds of pancakes plummeted.
“I was going to get that.”
“Done now.” He carried the domed plates to the table in the sitting area.
She set the jacket aside, then sat, poured more coffee from the pot he’d already put on the table.
When he removed the domes, she saw she’d been right about the pancakes. But the omelet, the bacon and berries and croissants didn’t leave room to bitch.
Naturally the omelet had spinach in it, but also plenty of cheese to offset it.
“I thought about working here for an hour or so, but I’m going straight in. I’d beat the worst of the traffic, and it’ll be quiet there, for a while anyway.”
“All right. Would you like to hear my take on the auction, the unregistered?”
“Yeah, I would.”
“I can come in later today, help EDD set up three fake accounts with all the background data necessary. You already have Willowby on one, so three is all, I think, we’d risk. And those we’ll spread out, geographically.”
“Okay. That’ll get us in, but bidding—”
“Each will have somewhere between, say, twelve million to fifty million. The lower numbers will appear to have other accounts, if anyone digs that deep. I would. This account would appear to be set up, offshore, for precisely this purpose.”
“Okay, I follow that. But you can’t toss that much money into an op.”
“I could, and would if necessary, but it isn’t. I said ‘appear.’ Just as we’ll make it appear, whenever we win a bid, the money—I assume it would be a down payment, the rest on delivery—has been transferred.”
“But it won’t be?”
“There won’t be any funds to transfer, but the amount will appear in the seller’s—or their agent’s—account. We’d likely have about twelve hours to identify the sellers, their locations.”
“How do you do all this?”
He ate some bacon. “Trade secret.”
“No, seriously.”
“I am serious, Lieutenant. I haven’t had to run this one for a very long time, but, well, riding a bike.”
“You’re going to ride a bike?”
He turned, grabbed her face with both hands, and kissed her. “I simply adore you. ‘Like riding a bike,’ they say, when you haven’t done something in a while, as you don’t forget how to ride a bike.”
“You could forget how to ride a bike. People forget all kinds of stuff.”
“Be assured, I haven’t forgotten how to run this con. And the tech’s improved considerably since last I did, so it’ll only be easier—as long as the NYPSD doesn’t arrest me for it.”
“You’re covered there. Twelve hours, from the transfer to the cutoff?”
“It may be longer, but I wouldn’t want to risk it. Meanwhile, we could work on hacking the other bidders’ accounts. It’s unlikely, you have to understand, we’ll get all.”
“We get the sellers, they’ll have records. Twelve hours, who knows how many girls sold and shipped out? I’m going to have to call in the feds. Teasdale’s good, she’s solid. I want to wait another day—thirty-six hours max. I’ll clear that with Whitney. I want to see how much of this we can put in place, what progress we make on the other angles, but I need to pull in the feds within the next thirty-six.”
She rose to put on her weapon harness. “We narrow potential locations, even by twenty percent, that’s major progress. We track back the abductees I’ve matched, maybe we find some crack, some little mistake.”
She swung on the jacket, began to load her pockets. “If we find Dorian Gregg, it blows wide open. If we don’t by end of today, I’ve got to figure she’s way into the wind, or they found her first.”
She turned back, looked at him.
“I’m going to say I was wrong.”
“It can happen. About what?”
“About pushing you back, or trying to push you out of this one. I worried about you worrying, and I didn’t want you hovering over me.”
He gave her a long, deceptively neutral look. “‘Hovering,’ is it now?”
“That’s how I justified trying to block you out, and I’m saying I was wrong. I’m steady, and I need you to believe that.”
“I do.”
“Part of the reason I’m steady is because of you. And when we find some of these girls—I know we won’t save them all, but every one we do? You’re part of the reason, too. We break the chains, you’re part of that.”
“I need to be. For you, for myself, for them. I need it.”
“I know that, too. If any of these cracks widen or break, I’ll let you know. If we find these bastards, and you want in on the bust, if I have time to notify you, you’re in.”
“Yes.” He rose, went to her. “I would.” He brushed his mouth to hers. “Take care of my cop.”
She wound her arms around him, held for just a moment. Then stepped back, put on the badass shades she hadn’t managed to lose already.
“Take care of the guy in the quarter-zillion-dollar suit. He looks damn good in it.”
She beat the worst of the traffic, and the morning cacophony of ad blimps. She cruised a three-block area around Tiko’s downtown location, circled the blocks, did it again.
She didn’t expect Dorian Gregg to jump out and wave, but she took the shot.
Even if she came back to her old territory, Eve thought as she continued the drive to Central, no reason for her to be up and out so early. Far too early for tourists, so the sidewalks opened for the dog walkers, the domestics heading to work, the street joggers, the street-level LCs finally calling it a night.
If she remained in New York, and Eve held on to that as highest probability, she had a hole, cobbled enough together for a flop, or had a contact they hadn’t unearthed as yet.
But Eve banked on her having the smarts to know whoever snatched and held her hunted her. And still, and still, she was barely thirteen. Scared, probably traumatized, possibly injured.
Crawl into a hole, she thought, pull it closed, and stay put.
Come out when the sidewalks teemed with people, she decided as she drove into Central’s garage. Snag a wallet, a bag, get enough money to buy some food, and crawl right back into the hole.
Nowhere else to go, no one to go to.
She rode the elevator all the way up, with very little traffic there as well.
Her lucky day.
Then she walked into Homicide, and Jenkinson’s tie assaulted her senses.
“What the hell are you doing here? And what the hell is that on your tie?”
“They’re dragonflies.”
“From what galaxy?”
“Unknown. We caught one. Zero-four-freaking-hundred. People ought to have the courtesy to kill each other at reasonable hours. We already bagged him—asshole. Knifes a guy right outside a sex club, both of them sky-high. He runs off, but we’re on scene when the fucker comes back, bloody shirt, pinwheel eyes, because he figured he could get back in to finish jerking off.”
“Sometimes they make it too easy.”
“Not at four-freaking-hundred. Reineke’s escorting his sorry ass down to Booking—probably catching a quick nap in the crib now. I just wrote it up.”
“Well, good work. You can catch a nap of your own.”
“Actually … You got a minute?”
“I’ve got one.”
“Maybe back in your office.”
She gave him the come-ahead and started back. “Are you angling for coffee?”
“Well, boss, if you’re offering. Frosty shades you got there.”
“As long as that tie’s in my office, I’m keeping them on.” She programmed the coffee. “Have you had enough time to think about it?”
“Yeah. I thought about it, talked it over with the family. Thought some more. I appreciate you putting me up for the promotion, and if I can keep doing what I do, just add more damn paperwork, I’d like to take a run at it.”
“Good. It’s the right call, Jenkinson.”
“Feels right, once I thought it through. I told Reineke. You gotta tell your partner, but if we could keep it with the three of us? If I tank it, I’d as soon avoid the ribbing or sympathy.”
“We can keep it between us, but you won’t tank it. Just brush up on some of the bullshit.”
“There’s always plenty to go around. Anyway, thanks.”
And with that item off the list, Eve checked on the status of the search for Dorian Gregg.
Plenty of tags on the tip line, with none of them panning out. But, she noted, a couple of shopkeepers in the area of Tiko’s downtown stall recognized her from around holiday time.
Nothing recent, and nothing after Christmas, she concluded after wading through all of the reports.
She shifted to Peabody and EDD’s search.
More names, more young faces. The efficient team not only grouped them in the categories she’d laid out, but geographically, added timelines.
Though it crowded her office, she started another board, and added the faces that hit the ninety-percent probability. Now she had twenty-three spread across an area under an hour’s shuttle flight from New York. Sixty-two outside that margin.
But the pattern, she thought. When you laid it all out, put it all together, the pattern came through.
Did they select and abduct nationwide? she wondered. Transport all to New York—or have other locations for holding the girls?
Did they specialize in this age group? Just Chicklets, no Kiddies, Ripes, and so on?
“I wouldn’t bet on that,” she muttered. “No, I wouldn’t bet on that. When you’ve got this slick a system, you don’t narrow it so close.”
She went back to her computer, ordered the search, same markers but changed the age range to six to ten years, limited it, for now, to New York, New Jersey—and, thinking of Mina, Pennsylvania.
While it ran, she shifted to the long, complicated list Roarke had generated.
With a city map on-screen, she began to place each property. With that done, she started runs on owners, and members of boards or groups that owned the properties.
Something else to bring EDD in on, she thought, as working solo, it would take her days to thoroughly investigate all of them.
Since she’d come in early for a reason, she got more coffee and stuck with it.
She heard Peabody’s pink boot clump just as her missing child search results came up.
“Jenkinson said you’d been here about an hour already.”
“I thought he was going to catch some sleep in the crib.”
“He caught a catnap at his desk.” She glanced over at the second board. “You’ve got them all up.”
“We’re going to need a third board. Goddamn it.” She had to push up. She gestured to the computer and paced to her window.
“We didn’t get—” Peabody broke off, then slowly sat in Eve’s desk chair. “These are younger kids. Younger girls. You’ve got eleven of them. Eleven in the last year.”
“Eleven that fit the pattern, in this geographic area.”
“Dallas, how could they hold that many girls? Eleven in this age group, the ones on the board in the younger group.”
“They likely have older teenagers. We’ll cross off adults, even young adults for now. But we’re going to run fourteen through sixteen. There’s going to be a mistake in there, goddamn it, some mistake in all of these abductions. Someone else who got out besides the two we know. Another body somewhere we haven’t tied in.”
“I’ll run the next group. I’ll do it.”
Eve said nothing, just nodded.
“Do you want EDD to spread out over these age groups, too?”
“Yeah.” Eve went to the AC, programmed coffee for her partner. “Let’s get that done, then I need them to assist in refining the properties Roarke’s earmarked.”
She took a moment, studying those pretty young faces.
“If this is the pattern, and it damn well is—a pattern, a system, a fucking business model—they need room, a lot of room to securely hold, what, maybe forty or fifty, and could be more, at any one time.
“Figure it, Peabody. You auction two or three times a year, maybe. Hell, maybe you have monthly sales like at the Sky Mall, you’re pulling in hundreds of millions. Two or three locations nationwide? You got yourself a billion-dollar enterprise. If it costs you, I don’t know, ten million or twenty million—hell, double that—in outlay, you’re fucking rolling in it.”
She got more coffee for herself. “You have the front or fronts to wash the profits when you need to. But you’ve got direct payments, and they’re going to be in places that don’t regulate. You infuse the business, sure. Need the food, the clothes, the payroll, and all that, but you’ve got the fronts.”
“And if you factor what Willowby said—the ones they call Pets or Slaves or Domestics? You’d have more.”
“We’ve got less than three days now before at least some of these girls get sold off. I’m damned if we’ll let that happen.”
“I’ll get started on the next age group, and I can let EDD know about the assist.”
“I’ll take care of that. I have to send Feeney the file anyway.” Eve rubbed at her eyes. “Hold on a minute. Roarke’s working on an idea to infiltrate the auction. It’s setting up fake accounts and backgrounds, and maybe hacking into the accounts of buyers we might identify to get locations.”
“How many warrants are we going to need for all that?”
“I’m leaving that to Feeney. It’s an e-geek area. But we need to put everything we have together, cohesively, convincingly. We’re going to have to bring in the feds at some point soon. And we’ll need to give Feeney all the weight we can for authorization to run this e-op.”
She turned back to the board. “If we find Dorian Gregg, we can bust this organization, put a big hurt there. But even if that happens, I want to go through with the rest. This may be a big one, but it’s not the only.”
“Damn right. All the motherfuckers need to pay.”
Amused, heartened, Eve looked back at Peabody. “Listen to the mouth on the Free-Ager.”
“I’m a cop, and a goddamn girl.” Peabody hissed out a breath. “Hell, there’s going to be boys, too. Maybe not the assholes we’re focused on, but there’s sure a hell of a market with these perverts for little boys.”
“And when we bust through this, we’re giving a hell of a lot of data to the feds to bust through that.”
“Okay. I’ll get on it.” She rose. “If it’s going to take another board, at least, you’re going to run out of room in here.”
“Yeah, I’m holding the conference room. It annoys the hell out of me. I like my space. But we’ll need one for full briefings, and when we pull in the feds. I’m going to request a meet with Whitney to discuss that part, and bring him fully up to date.”
“Maybe ask him to come down here. Set up the room, powerful visuals, right? If you need help with it—”
“I’ve got it, and that’s a smart thought. The visuals speak louder than a verbal report. Let’s get to it.”
“I’ll get your coffee set up in the room.”
“Another smart thought. You’re on a roll.”
And so was she, Eve thought as she went about the—for her—laborious task of transferring new data from her machine to the conference room, ordering printouts.
She took backups, just in case, and headed down to set it up.
Once she had, she contacted Whitney’s office, requested he meet with her, then did the same with Mira’s office. More backup, she thought.
And because she was there, she sat down with the conference room comp to continue her research and runs on the potential target properties and owners.
She had about thirty minutes in it when Mira came in on heels made up of lots of crisscrossing blue straps. Summer-sky blue, Eve noted, like her trim, knee-skimming suit.
“Thanks for making time,” Eve began, and Mira waved that off.
“I wanted to catch up, and I see even with your writtens I have considerable catching up to do. Good God, Eve, so many? It’s stunning, even knowing how many children are taken, it’s stunning to see them grouped together.”
“And they do, group together. I’m as sure of that as I can be. It’s not just gut, it’s pattern, and type, and system.”
“I don’t disagree. While that coffee smells tempting, I think I’ll stick with tea.” Before Eve could rise to get it, Mira waved her off again. “You said the commander would be briefed as well, so wait for him, do it all at once. You’re working, and I don’t want to interrupt.”
“It’s possible locations. A lot of possibles, even though Roarke culled them down more than I could.” She gestured to the screen. “I’ve got them marked on the map. I’m digging into who owns them. The site could be rented, but if it is, it’s going to be part of the business plan. Whoever owns the building has to be part of it. It’s too risky otherwise.”
“Because?” Mira asked as she programmed her tea.
“The owner or owners may decide to sell. They may send him agents or reps to inspect the property, make sure it’s in good repair, or appraisers if they’re considering selling.”
“Yes, I see. And with the sort of enterprise you’re outlining here, purchasing the building is a business investment, with much higher security.”
“And if you own, you can outfit as you need. Rooms, facilities, that security.”
Even as Eve spoke, Whitney came in. She got to her feet.
“Sir, I appreciate you coming down.”
He wore a dark gray suit over broad shoulders that carried the weight of his command. The silver in his close-cropped black hair added a kind of dignity to his wide face. He said nothing for a moment as he stood and studied the boards.
“So many,” he said at length.
“I believe more, Commander, but these are highest probability generated by Peabody and myself, and Feeney’s team in EDD. All fit the pattern, including three types of victims within the age range eleven to thirteen. I’ve begun, and Peabody is continuing, to factor in others between the ages of six and ten.
“Geographically,” she began, but he held up a hand.
“Let me get some coffee, and first tell me where we are on the second girl you believe escaped.”
“Sir, the canvass in the area of the witness’s stall turned up two shopkeepers who ID’d Dorian Gregg, from sightings last December. Both were sure of the ID, and reasonably sure of the time frame. December, prior to Christmas. We’ve yet to find anyone who’s seen her since then. We’re still canvassing.”
“And the LEOs in Freehold?”
“Are on watch for her. But she won’t go back there.”
He got his coffee. “Dr. Mira?”
“I agree with the lieutenant on that. She has nothing there. She may have found a way out of New York between the time she escaped and we identified her and put out the alert to transportation stations, but that would be awfully quick work even for a bright young girl.”
“If Mina had a plan,” Eve added, “it would have been to get to the police and/or contact her parents. Dorian Gregg wouldn’t do either. Possibly, last resort, but she has no reason to trust either her mother or the authorities.”
“You’re putting a lot of weight into the stand she got away because of the planted blood.”
“Yes, sir. If they recaptured her, she remained a valuable product, but on the loose, she’s a liability. Smarter to discredit and implicate the liability, especially one with a history of trouble and some violent behavior while you continue to hunt for her. Find her, sell her off cheap, or eliminate her.”
Eve paused.
“Which they might have done,” she said. “She’s smart, and she’s been on the streets before, but these people are organized and experienced, and very well funded. They had several hours’ head start on us in the hunt.”
“And knowing all that, you want to continue to deploy the manpower to canvass.”
“Yes, sir.”
He nodded. “I agree. I read her file, and your report. She’s had a raw, rough life. You should know Truman’s been terminated from her position at CPS.”
Now he sat. “Geographically?”
“Geographically,” Eve repeated, and brought him fully up to date.
He stopped her several times, questioned, consulting Mira for opinions. And when Eve finished, sat back with a second cup of coffee.
“Authorizing and running this e-op would be easier with the FBI already on board.”
“Possibly, Commander, but we’ve got the best on it, and we have movement. I’d like the next thirty-six hours to refine it. I would also request we go through Agent Teasdale. She’s not only proved capable, but she knows the team we’d have working that area. It’s not for credit for the bust, sir.”
“I know that very well. Why another thirty-six?”
“For the chance to find Dorian Gregg, that’s primary. An opportunity to find her, to gain her trust before the bureaucracy crowds in. We may get more cooperation from her if we offer her a choice.”
“A choice of what?”
“The foster system, or a place in An Didean.”
As Whitney’s eyebrows lifted, Mira smiled.
“Very good,” Mira murmured. “Very good. First, a choice gives her some personal power, and second—you don’t believe for a minute she’ll go for the system. The school offers some freedom, some boundaries, of course, but a way out of the cycle she’s been trapped in.”
“The feds may not have that choice to give, or may not want to offer it. I think I could convince Teasdale on it, but she wouldn’t have the full authority, as I see it, to give that the green.”
“So you’d preempt them, make a deal with her, which we can use to block—or attempt to block—other avenues. You have to find her first.”
“Yes, sir, and if we don’t in the next thirty-six, the odds are we won’t, at least not before this auction. But there are a lot of lives at stake. If we find her, any information she has leads us to this organization, the location of many of the faces on these boards. We shut it down without alerting any other locations, any other sellers, buyers. And we follow through with the e-op, with the feds, to break the backs.
“Mina Cabot remains central. I want the person who ended her life. If I can get the person who abducted her, the people who held her, the ones funding it and profiting from it, that’s gravy. But it’s fine with me if the feds take them down. I’m still looking for a child killer, and I’m hoping we find Dorian Gregg alive, and she points the finger.”
“All right. We’ll see where you are in twenty-four. If your progress justifies it, you’ll get the thirty-six, and I’ll authorize the op. I need to be kept tightly in the loop on that.”
“You will be, sir, and thank you.”
He rose. “Find the girl, Dallas.” He looked back at the board. “Let’s find all the girls.”