Desperation in Death (In Death #55)(30)

“Like a uniform.”

“Like a uniform. You go into the military, what do they do? Put you in uniform. You’re not an individual, you dress alike. School uniforms, team uniforms, cop uniforms. It’s part of the training, right? It’s part of being trained to eat when you’re told, sleep when you’re told, follow orders.

“She had good muscle tone,” Eve continued, pacing again. “She got exercise. Yeah, maybe she did that on her own to keep in shape, stay strong, but if you’re grooming a girl for sale, you don’t want pudge, right? You want in shape. She used some product in her hair, too. They had to buy it for her, or provide it.”

She turned back to Roarke. “When you go to market a product or sell it, you want it to shine, right?”

“You do, of course.”

“Do you know anything about this kind of business?”

“I’ve stayed well away from anything of the sort, always.”

“I know that, but you might know somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody.”

“I can promise you, if I’d heard a whisper of such a thing, I’d have told you. But…” He walked over, poured himself coffee. “We have the shelter, the school. I can also promise anyone who works there would do the same, and report it to me if not to you straight off. But I’ll ask.”

“I don’t think this is a new operation. Whether it’s a couple girls at a time, or a lot of them, it’s not a damn start-up. Mira said sophisticated, and that feels right. The kid might’ve gotten out because she was damn smart, or because they got a little careless.”

“Why not both?”

“Yeah, why not? When you’ve run a business smooth for a while, you might get a little careless. Then you get somebody pretty damn smart who figures out how to take advantage of that. She got out.”

Eve went back to the coffee herself, and with it turned to study Mina’s ID shot. “She got outside, in the rain. The shirt’s trashed, but the pants. Probably cost a bundle, and maybe you’re frugal there. More likely you put her own back on her so it looks more like she’s been on the street. She’s way too clean for that, way too clean and polished up, but you do what you can.”

She walked to the board, tapped one of the crime-scene stills. “Take her shoes. Take everything, but you put her own necklace back on her. Break the chain like somebody tried to grab it, then just had to run. Use some of Dorian’s blood. It’s not a bad setup.”

“They’d have moved the body well away from wherever she escaped, wherever she died.”

“Yeah, a good distance. The murder weapon’s real wood—Peabody said maybe an old stud somebody ripped out. You wouldn’t find that on the ground in the park.”

Now she slid her hands into her pockets, rocked back and forth on her heels. “High-end suburb of Philadelphia, and the wrong side of Freehold, New Jersey. Maybe Dorian headed toward Philadelphia, got grabbed there. But why would she?”

“No connections for her there?”

“No connections anywhere. She got busted a couple times for theft. If you were a kid running off from a lousy situation and liked to steal, why not head to New York? It’s closer, full of tourists, plenty of places for a street kid to hide out.”

She started wandering again. “Easier to snatch a street kid, less risk, and less likely anybody’s looking too hard for her anyway. Maybe she got snatched in New Jersey, maybe she did head to Philly. Or maybe she made it to New York.”

She turned back to Roarke. “For me, that makes it only one out of three the same person grabbed both of them.”

“Scouts.”

She pointed at him. “Exactly. Assembly line, you said before. You have to keep the products rolling on that line. I’ve got nothing on another kid—male or female, wide age range—missing from Devon, Pennsylvania.”

Following her logic, he went back to studying the board.

“You wouldn’t want to dip in that pool too often. It’s far too small.”

“And you know why you dip in that pool in the first place? Street kids aren’t generally all that healthy, they may have addictions by the time you get to them. They’re unlikely to be virgins. You want prime product, you have to hunt for them where they’re more plentiful.”

After dragging her hands through her hair, Eve blew out a breath. “I have a detective who deals with this sort of thing. McNab knows her. I’m going to pull her in for a consult tomorrow.”

She looked back at him. “How would you put together a business plan for all this?”

“Well, Christ Jesus.” He dropped into the chair at her auxiliary station. “All right then. You’d need a location, a place to keep the girls. Even if you started small, one, maybe two, you’d need a secure place.”

“It’s not going to be a house, not a private residence. Mina wasn’t kept in a basement like Mary Kate Covino was. She was too healthy, too clean. No restraints. You’re keeping them for months. Privacy and security, absolutely.”

“A retrofitted warehouse, perhaps, or if you’ve the wherewithal, an apartment building or the like.”

“All those windows in an apartment or office building.” It just didn’t gel for her. “It’s hard to keep all those windows secure.”