Livia Lone (Livia Lone #1)(77)

She really did help people, she knew that, and when it happened, it was just . . . magic. And when helping wasn’t possible . . . when a repeat rapist slipped through the system . . . sublimation took the form of her hobby. And it wasn’t just sublimation. She also understood that her high-risk activities, even her decision to become a cop, were ways of proving to herself over and over that she wasn’t a victim anymore, and never would be again.

It was interesting how much insight you could have into your own pathologies, and how little impact the insight would have on your underlying needs.

Or on your behavior.

At times, though, none of it mattered. At times, all the sublimation and atonement in the world weren’t enough. And the only thing that might help would be to know what had happened to Nason. Just to know. Just to know. Nothing more than that. Just to know.

Facing Tyler, she realized, the culmination of a decade and a half of anxiety and desperate hope, had overwhelmed her defenses, and made all the horror and loss immediate again. And now, looking out at the city, she felt so . . . empty. Alone. So f*cking bereft.

She shivered against the wind and watched the lights and let her grief have its way. After a while, she was able to think clearly again.

Four kids. Not three. And two of them sisters.

Why such a specific cargo? She thought back to her conversation with AUSA Velez, and how he had explained the way trafficking worked—wholesale down to retail. So had Skull Face sent them all off to market just hoping buyers would turn up?

No, that didn’t make sense. Skull Face was using a gang with no experience moving people, only with drugs. Why would he do that, unless he had a designated buyer somewhere in the vicinity? A buyer who wanted, who had ordered, something specific, forcing Skull Face to turn to Weed Tyler and his gang despite their lack of relevant experience?

Or maybe . . . it was because of their lack of experience?

She made a mental note to log in to the FBI’s crime database, to see if she could cross-reference the name Kana. It was a long shot, but worth a try.

So someone had, what, bought them all? Ordered them, the way you would order a pizza?

She imagined it. Get me a Guatemalan housemaid. Get me a Chinese busboy. Get me a little Thai girl to rape.

No. Not just a little girl. Two sisters.

Where had that thought come from? Maybe from the way the Montlake rapist had used his victims’ love for each other to manipulate and control them. The way Skull Face had done the same to Livia with Nason.

The way Mr. Lone had done.

Was that why she had found herself thinking about the Montlake case? Was her unconscious trying to tell her something?

She shook her head. It didn’t make sense. How could Mr. Lone have arranged it? All the way from Thailand? It was a coincidence. A sick, evil man sees a powerless little girl, and takes advantage of his good luck. A crime of opportunity, not of planning.

His brother. Ezra Lone. The senator.

It was still too far-fetched. She didn’t believe it. But . . .

Assume both brothers are that sick. And assume they have the connections to pull off something like what you’re imagining.

Okay, but there were still too many pieces that didn’t fit. Like the fact that there had been other girls in the container from Thailand. Why had Skull Face and his men left the rest of them alone? Why had they been interested only in Livia and Nason, the sisters? If Livia and Nason were some kind of special shipment, wouldn’t Skull Face and the others have abused someone else?

She remembered the way Skull Face had looked at her, when despite her own fierce hunger she had given her food to Nason.

Could that have been it? Was that the sick kink he couldn’t resist? The opportunity to control a little girl by manipulating the girl’s love for her own sister?

And then the opportunity to rip away even that small victory, by violating the sister anyway?

But Nason hadn’t even made it to Llewellyn. Skull Face and his men had sold her somewhere else. Or . . .

. . . killed her. Because no one would want to buy merchandise as damaged as that.

She pushed her fist to her mouth and bit down on the knuckles. She hated thinking it, but of all the possibilities, that the men had killed Nason seemed by far the most likely. The only thing that made the thought even remotely bearable was that it didn’t feel true. Her mind could say what it liked, but in her heart, she had never stopped believing her little bird was alive, out there somewhere, and that one day she would find her, envelop her in her arms and never, ever let anything bad happen to her again.

She waited again for the emotions to pass and her mind to clear.

All right. Maybe the Lones had wanted sisters because sisters would be easier to use against each other, easier to control, something like that. Maybe some kind of sick turn-on. The same sort of thing Skull Face had found so irresistible. The same sort of dynamic involved in the Montlake rapes. But then . . . Nason would have been on the barge from Portland with Livia. And Skull Face and his men never would have damaged her the way they had.

Unless they hadn’t meant to damage her. Not the way they did. Only to use her, like they had used you. And then you cut them, and Skull Face forgot he was handling merchandise ordered by a customer, merchandise he was supposed to deliver more or less intact. He lost control. He needed to hurt the helpless victim who had just cut out his eye. Hurt her in the worst way imaginable. Through her sister.

She choked back a sob. Many times before, she had suspected it was her fault the men had hurt Nason so badly. But it had never felt so true.