They found Dorian’s building on the sketchy edge of the city. The eight-story concrete block tower butted up against a strip mall and faced a road thick with grumbling traffic. It looked as if it had seen better, brighter days—and all of them had passed half a century earlier.
Considering the gray dinge over the peeling puke-green paint and the visible weeds growing out of sagging gutters, whoever owned the building didn’t trouble with pesky details like upkeep.
They parked at the strip mall, walked and stepped over a low, pitted concrete curb.
Eve mastered into a skinny lobby and eyed the pair of elevators. The skull and crossbones painted on one of the doors had her aiming for the stairs.
More dinge, she noted, some grime with it, and a lacing of trash. The tenants, at least some of them, didn’t appear to worry about upkeep, either.
They hiked to the fourth floor.
By her eye, she judged the industrial beige walls hadn’t seen a fresh coat of paint in over a decade. Most of the doors—army green—had numerous locks.
Not a camera or palm plate to be seen.
She knocked on 412.
It took several more knocks before the door across the hall creaked open a few inches and thumped against the security chain. Eve saw a single eye, the side of a nose, and the corner of a tight-lipped mouth.
“She’s in there all right.”
The door creaked shut again.
Taking the neighbor’s word for it, Eve gave the door a solid pounding. “Ms. Gregg, this is the police. We’re here about your daughter, Dorian. Open up, or we’ll come back with an entry warrant.”
An empty threat, but it got the desired result, as locks snicked and clacked, a chain rattled, a bar thumped.
The door opened, and Jewell Gregg barred the way. A tall, mixed-race woman with a headful of gold-tipped black twists, she folded her arms over her chest. She wore snug red shorts that showed off the snake tattoo slithering up the outside of her left leg, and a tight white tank.
Despite the pouches under her eyes smeared with yesterday’s mascara, she owned a dissipated sort of beauty. Behind her the apartment smelled of stale smoke and last night’s Chinese.
“That girl’s in trouble again, and it’s nothing to me. I’m done. So you can tell her, since she thinks she’s so smart, to figure it out herself.”
“Ms. Gregg.” Eve held up her badge. “I’m Lieutenant Dallas. This is Detective Peabody. We’re NYPSD.”
“This ain’t New York City.”
“We believe your daughter’s in New York. Can we come in?”
“I don’t have to let you in, do I?”
Not going to budge, Eve thought.
“No. We can talk right here in the hallway.”
“Fine by me. Can you hear all right, you nosy bitch!” Gregg shouted it as she sneered at the door across the hall.
To Eve’s amusement, the woman behind the door called back. “Yeah, I can hear just fine, thanks.”
“When’s the last time you saw or spoke with Dorian?”
“I don’t know. Last summer, maybe. Don’t know, don’t care. That girl’s been nothing but trouble to me since the day she was born. A thief’s what she is, a sneaky little thief.”
“Your—at the time—twelve-year-old daughter goes missing last summer—you think. You didn’t file a missing persons report, go to the authorities?”
“I said I’m done, didn’t I? They find her whiny ass, haul her back, she brings trouble before she takes off again. I got a life of my own, and I’m living it. She can live hers.”
Peabody tried to insert a little soothing balm with the placating tone of her question. “Does she have friends or other relatives she might go to?”
“Got some bitchy little sneaks for friends.”
“Names?”
Jewell sneered at Eve’s single, snapped word. “How the hell do I know? They don’t come around here. That girl says we live in a dump and how she doesn’t like who I date. Well, la di da, maybe she can go live in a palace like a princess.”
“Relatives?”
Gregg shrugged. “My grandmother’s somewhere. Queens, maybe Yonkers. She doesn’t approve of how I live my life, so fuck her. We don’t speak, maybe ten years now. Who needs that?”
“Would Dorian know how to contact her?”
“Don’t know how, don’t know why she would. That old lady’s got nothing except bad knees from scrubbing other people’s floors. Ran my own mother off, too, with all her ‘Do this, do that,’ and God knows where she ended up. I got away from the old bitch. Probably should have left the brat with her. I’d be better off.”
“If we could come in, see Dorian’s room, her things, it might help us locate her.”
“She ain’t got no room here, not anymore.” Jewell fisted her hands on her hips. “I said I’m done! Got rid of her things. And you don’t come in here without a search warrant.”
Before Jewell could slam the door, Eve slapped a hand on it.
“You continue to hold professional mother status and collect your payment for same every month.”
“Why the hell wouldn’t I?”
“Because, by your own statement, you’re done being Dorian’s mother. She’s been missing for nearly a year, but you filed no police report. You said she no longer lives here, and you’ve tossed out her belongings.”
“So the fuck what? I’m still a mother. Gave birth to her, didn’t I?”
“You’ve willfully defrauded the federal government and the state of New Jersey. Believe me when I tell you I’m going to report same, and you’ll be getting another visit from the authorities. You’ll also face questions on the fact you haven’t reported a missing minor child in your custody—all while reaping the monetary benefits.”
The look in her eye, ice-cold rage, had Jewell backing up a step.
“You’re going to do some time, Jewell.”
“I am not! You shut the fuck up over there,” she shrieked as a burst of laughter erupted behind the neighbor’s door.
Instead of shutting up, the woman shoved the door open.
She had an easy decade on Jewell Gregg and lacked her tired beauty. In its place was cool dignity.
“She smacked that child around. I saw it myself.”
On a howl, Gregg shoved Eve with murder in her eye for the neighbor.
“That’s called assaulting an officer.” Eve spun her around, slapped restraints on her. “Peabody, notify the locals so we can get the ball rolling here on Ms. Gregg.”
“Happily.”
“Stay there, would you?” Eve asked the neighbor, who beamed smiles.
“Happily.”
“Jewell Gregg,” Eve began, “you’re under arrest for assaulting a police officer. Additional charges to follow will include filing false reports on your minor child’s status in order to receive the monthly stipend for professional parent, failure to report a missing minor in your custody, destroying or removing evidence.”
“You’re not in New York! Get your hands off me.” She tried to jab Eve with an elbow.
“And now top it off with resisting arrest.”
“Bullshit. This is bullshit. I know my rights. I know my rights.”
“Yeah, well, I’m going to read them out to you anyway. You have the right to remain silent.”
Two other doors opened. A young woman juggled a baby on her hip in one. A man who’d surely hit the century mark watched from another.
“This is harassment. You all see this harassment? I’m getting a lawyer. Lawyer, lawyer, lawyer!”
“Heard you the first time. One’ll be provided for you, as since you owe the government every dollar you raked in since Dorian went missing, you may not be able to afford one.”
“I don’t owe nothing to nobody!”
“Add the fines—pretty steep—plus the interest on the money you took by fraud?” Eve sucked in a hissing breath. “Ouch.”
Down the hall, the old man applauded.
“Any charge for being mean as a snake?” he called out.
“You shut up, you old fuck, or I’ll shut you up.”
“You really don’t want to threaten physical violence on your neighbors in front of the police.” Peabody spoke cheerfully. “Freehold officers on the way, Lieutenant. And I’ve notified the Professional Parent Service for this county of the fraud.”
“Good. Contact Dorian’s caseworker. I want a conversation. In New York,” she added as she calculated the time. “He or she can get his or her ass to us.”
It took time, more than she’d bargained for, to brief the local cops, file the assault and resisting charges, and turn Jewell over.
But she took more to speak to the neighbors, starting with the one across the hall.
“Ms. Rhimes—”
“Just call me Tiffy. I feel like we’ve been through a battle together. I told the social worker that woman mistreated that girl. Smacked her in the face—I saw it myself more than once. Last time I saw her shove that girl out the door, smack her twice, and tell her to get the fuck out. How that man—can’t remember that one’s name—could stay as long as he wanted. I know it was after ten at night when she booted her out the door.”
Tiffy sighed.
“I waited till she’d shut the door again—you could hear her laugh through it while that little girl’s on the floor there where she went down. I asked Dorian if she wanted to come in. I told her she could sleep in Edwin’s room. Our son,” she explained. “He’s in college, gonna be a teacher. But she said she’d be okay.”
“Did you see or speak to her after that incident?”
“Once or twice. I work at home four days a week, so I’m mostly here. You ask anyone on this floor, or my friend Karlie two floors down, or Mr. Brewster on the first, that girl never caused any trouble around here. And you’d see her with bruises, or a split lip—one time a damn black eye. I told that social worker, but that woman, she said Dorian was clumsy, and she got into fights, too. I guess Dorian didn’t say different.
“I last saw her—I think it was last August. I know it was hot because Hank and I—my husband—went out to sit on the fire escape to get some air. Building’s going to hell as you can see. It didn’t used to be this way, but it’s going to hell now. We saw her walking toward the town center. She had her backpack. I never saw her come home. Never saw her again. I hope she’s all right.”
“So do we.”
“I know I’m no relation, but I’d sure appreciate it if you’d let me know when you find her. Let her know Tiffy and Hank and Ed, too, are thinking of her.”
She had Peabody talk to the woman with the baby while she took the old man.
Statements and memories ran close enough to Tiffy’s to solidify the pattern.
The Freehold police secured a search warrant, and opened the door for New York.
It didn’t surprise her to find no trace a kid ever lived there. Or to find Jewell had a closet full of clothes and shoes. A decent supply of wine and beer. And a tidy supply of illegals.
“No wonder the kid took off,” Peabody said as they got back in the car. “I mean, if she took off.”
“She took off. She may have gotten snatched up before she got far, might’ve spent some time on the streets first. But she took off. And no, it’s no wonder.”
“That woman? It’s like she hated the kid. Not just she didn’t love her or take care of her, but there was real animosity there.”
“The kid was a meal ticket.” Eve didn’t hit the sirens because she needed time to settle. “Nothing more than a way to pull in a monthly check without doing anything for it. She abused a program set up for parents so they can opt to stay home full-time, so they have that choice. Or because the job they can get won’t cover child care. It was a damn good day for her when Dorian took off. Now she could get the check and not have the annoyance of the kid.”
“I thought you were going to punch her.”
Surprised, Eve glanced over. “Did I look like I was going to punch her?”
“No, that’s why I thought you might. You were so pissed, and not letting it show.”
Eve looked at the signal on her in-dash. “The Cabot family’s on their way to Morris. I imagined punching her,” she added. “Arresting her, knowing she’ll probably do two to five for the fraud—and that’s before they found her illegals, and doesn’t include charges, if they go for it, of child abuse, neglect and so on. I’m going to imagine she does a solid five inside.
“Better than a punch,” Eve decided, then hit the sirens.
Peabody grabbed the chicken stick. “Here we go again.”
When Eve walked into Homicide, Jenkinson’s tie assaulted her eyes. He’d outdone himself—if such things were possible—with a single, huge, atomic-pink, googly-eyed cat staring out from a neon-purple background.
She pointed at him. “My office. Peabody, set up a conference room.”
She went straight to her AutoChef, waited as Jenkinson shuffled in.
“You like cats,” he began.
“I like my cat. I mostly like cats. That cat looks like somebody shoved a shock stick up its ass.”
Desperate to ignore it, she jerked a thumb at the AC. “Want coffee?”
Suspicion flickered into his cop’s eyes, but he stepped over to program some. When you got a shot at Dallas’s coffee, you took it.
“Give me a roundup.”
Suspicion flickered away again. “Carmichael and Santiago just caught one. Headed out about ten minutes ago. Stabbing death, a customer in one of the fancy boutiques in the Meatpacking District. Baxter and Trueheart are in Interview A, pushing the prime suspect on the one they caught a couple of days ago.”
“Strangling, loft apartment, East Village.”
“That’s the one. They liked the ex for it all along, but he’s been slippery. But the slippery slipped up, and they think they’ve got him. Me and Reineke, we pulled out a cold one until something comes in hot.”
He eased a hip on the corner of her desk. “Remember that double, seven years back? Married couple, well-off, both about fifty, bound and gagged in their living room, throats slit.”
Eve flipped back in her mental files. “Upper East Side, private residence. Looked like a break-in, but that didn’t jibe. Was that yours?”
“Yeah.” He shook his head in disgust. “Knew it had to be the son but couldn’t shake his alibi. Insurance money, that’s why he did it. Five-million-dollar policy on each of them, with double indemnity. He walks away with twenty. He just had to slit Mom and Dad’s throats to get it.”
“Got a new angle on it?”
“He thinks he’s in the clear, right? Smug bastard. He’s got himself a fancy penthouse—same building as Nadine.”
“Nadine?”
“That’s right. Fancy digs, keeps a boat, too. Living the high life, but not with the skirt he used for his alibi back then. He dumped her a while back. He’s got a new one now.”
“And maybe the old one will find her memory adjusting.”
“That’s the hope.”
Eve nodded as she programmed coffee for herself. “It’s worth the push. Meanwhile.”
In defense, Jenkinson pressed a hand over his atomic cat. “Now, boss.”
“It’s not about the damn ties. Don’t make me think about the damn ties.”
“They brighten up the bullpen.”
“They burn the air in the bullpen. However, I’ve put you up for the sergeant’s exam, and I’m asking you to seriously consider taking it.”
He looked pained—like the cat had given him a quick, sharp swipe. “Aw now, Loo, why’d you do that?”
“I’m going to tell you why. Your end first. You’re the highest-ranking detective in my bullpen, and with the longest tour of duty.”
“Just because you figure I’m old—”
“Shut up. It’s about experience, instincts, skill, and knowledge. You have all of what’s needed to make DS. If you’re thinking you’d outrank your partner, I outrank mine by a lot more. It doesn’t matter.”
Studying him, she drank some coffee. “It’s the rhythm,” she continued, “the relationship, and the trust. You know that. And you’re not going to stand there and bullshit me saying you don’t need the boost in pay.”
He shuffled his feet. “More money’s always a plus. You’d have gotten a nice boost if you’d taken the captaincy when they offered it. I hear things,” he added. “I know Whitney offered it—and it was overdue—and you turned it down. I figure it’s because they’d boot you upstairs and take you off the streets.”
“You figure correctly, which is another reason I want you to take the exam. I’m a street cop. So are you. I don’t intend to change that. I run this division, and I’d be stupid to take my most experienced detective away from what he does best just because he makes detective sergeant. You’d do what you do now, but with a boost in pay and rank. Don’t you be stupid.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “The administrative shit.”
“Yeah, and that’s my end of why we’re having this conversation. Unless you’re out in the field, you already handle things when I’m jammed. I’ve got a family coming in shortly—I’ve spent most of today away from my desk on their daughter’s murder.”
“The kid in Battery Park. Fucking fuck does that to a kid needs to fucking rot in a cage for a couple lifetimes.”
Since she agreed, wholeheartedly, she nodded again.
“I hope to make that happen. I have more room to because I know damn well I can come in here and ask you to catch me up. You can and will. I can ask you to take charge if I need to, and the rest of the bullpen respects that, because—despite the damn ties—they respect you. And goddamn it, I’d fucking love to dump some of the paperwork on you now and then.”
He smiled at that. “You’re the boss. You could do that anyway.”
“You make sergeant, and I can dump some of it now and then without feeling guilty about it. So that’s my end, but it circles around to this. You’ve earned it.”
He stared down into his coffee. “I’ll think about it. I’ll talk to my other boss—the one at home—and we’ll think about it.”
“Good enough. Now take your electrified cat and get out of my office. I don’t have much time.”
He drained his coffee first. “I appreciate you putting me up for it. I appreciate that.”
The minute he walked out, she switched gears, updated board and book, wrote everything up with a copy to Mira. She considered more coffee—boots up, time to think—and heard Peabody coming.
“Heard back from the caseworker,” Peabody told her. “Pru Truman. She’s coming in. It’ll take some time, but she’s coming. I got the feeling her supervisor ordered her to come.”
“If the supervisor’s not an idiot, that’s a good call. Her charge is missing, and has been, yet no report on that? Custodial parent’s arrested—which would’ve happened before if the caseworker paid attention. Yeah, she’s under the hammer on this, and so’s her department.”
A few hours, she thought. She’d have the victim’s family, then Dorian Gregg’s caseworker, and the day was bleeding away. She needed a consult with Mira, and had to find a way to squeeze it in.
“We’ll keep the conference room,” Eve decided. “I ought to put her in the box, but we’ll keep it cool and professional. In the meantime—”
She broke off when Roarke appeared in the doorway.
You never heard him—those (former) cat burglar moves. So seeing him could come as a jolt to the heart.
Those wild blue eyes, that mane of black hair, that incredible face, and a mouth sculpted by artisan angels that curved for her in a smile that could turn the brain to mush.
He said, “Lieutenant,” and the whisper of Ireland made her want to nibble on that excellent mouth. “I’m interrupting.” Then he smiled at Peabody, gave the flip of her hair—the hair she insisted on streaking with red—a flick of his finger. “I’m hoping to get to the house and see the current progress.”
“The kitchen cabinets.” Peabody spoke as if she spoke of gods. “They’re just so mag. Ours and Mavis and Leonardo’s. I can’t believe it’s really happening. Sorry,” she said to Eve. “But wait till you see. I’ll go extend the conference room.”
“You’re pressed for time,” Roarke observed as Peabody hurried out. “I expect this is new.” He stepped to the board. “Children? Ah, God, she can’t be much more than twelve.”
“Thirteen. Both of them. I don’t know the status of the other as yet. I wasn’t expecting to see you until I got home.”
“I was in the area.”
“That’s happening a lot.”
“A project,” he said vaguely. “Am I seeing this correctly? The second girl’s blood found on the first’s body? You don’t think one child killed the other.”
“I don’t. Not that it can’t and doesn’t happen, but not here.” And since he was here, why not use him? “Tell me what you see when you look at them—the ID shots.”
“Lovely young girls. Exceptionally lovely. Different types, certainly. The second looks defiant, a little angry, while the first seems happy to pose for the ID.”
“I think the exceptionally lovely plays in. Mina Cabot was abducted last November—early November—on her way home from soccer practice. Devon, Pennsylvania. Nice, affluent neighborhood. I think Dorian Gregg—Freehold, New Jersey, the hard side of town, abusive, neglectful asshole of a mother—ran off. She had a history of it—then got grabbed. I don’t know where or when, but I think the two of them got out from wherever they were being held together.”
Considering her time, she filled him in quickly.
Even before she’d finished, he took her by the shoulders. And the worry in his eyes had those shoulders going tight.
“Eve, working a case like this? Young girls, abductions when you’ve barely come off another abduction investigation. Add the high probability of rape, abuse, trafficking. I can already see it’s wearing on you.”
“I can handle it. I am handling it.”
“Don’t ask me not to see it wearing on you. Don’t dismiss that.”
She heard the edge, and stepped back from him. “I’m not.” Bullshit, she admitted. “Fine, I am, because I have to work the case. I don’t have time to delve into my psyche. I don’t know Dorian Gregg’s status. Did she get away, get caught? Is she alive, is she dead? I don’t know, and until I do, I’ve got two victims.”
His voice stayed absolutely, perfectly, infuriatingly calm.
“It never occurred to you to assign another team to this, or give Peabody the lead?”
She didn’t know exactly what hackles were, but she knew when hers rose, hard and sharp.
“No. You need to back off because I don’t have time to get into this with you right now. I have the family coming, then the second girl’s useless excuse of a caseworker. I’ve got some threads to pull, and I need a consult with Mira, and she’s probably going to be gone for the day before I get through the rest.”
“Invite her and Dennis to dinner.”
Annoyed and cruising toward pissed, Eve shoved at her hair. “I don’t want to socialize with her. I need a consult.”
“A working dinner,” he countered in that same even tone. “I’ll grill some steaks. I’ve got the hang of it now. Summerset can take care of the rest. You’ll have time to do what you need to do.”
“And you—” She knew him. “You’d see what the shrink thinks about how I’m handling it.”
“Yes. If you don’t think I’m entitled to that, you’re wrong. It’s probably even somewhere in your bloody Marriage Rules. I’ll stop by her office and take care of it.”
“Good luck getting past her dragon. Her admin,” Eve said when he looked blank.
Then he smiled, and she hissed out a breath. “Never mind. You won’t have any trouble there. But I haven’t said this works for me.”
“You want me to back off? Make it work. I’ll see you at home.”
Pissed at her, she thought when he walked out. A little bit—maybe more than a little—pissed at her. And damn it, if anyone should be pissed, it was her. Nowhere in her Marriage Rules did it say he could walk into her office and question her competency on a case.
Nowhere.
And they’d get down and dirty on that one the minute she had time.
She started to sit, to take two minutes to clear her head, when Peabody signaled from the bullpen.
“The Cabots are here, Lieutenant.”
“Take them to the conference room. I’ll be right there.”