Desperation in Death (In Death #55)(40)



“Oh. Okay. How—”

“I have to go up to EDD.”

“Did something break? How long have you been here? Shift just started.”

“I got in early. Read the notes. Do you know if McNab’s clear?”

“He closed one yesterday afternoon, but—”

“Read the notes,” Eve said again. “And yes to the damn coffee.”

She swung through the bullpen, tried to avoid eye contact with Jenkinson’s tie as he stood by his desk slurping coffee.

She failed, had her retinas blasted by what might have been a depiction of the big bang.

She just kept going.

She’d known, of course, she thought as she jumped on a glide. Willowby’s general information hadn’t been news. But she hadn’t known, not fully, the details. The terms used for the children in trafficking. The categories, she supposed.

She needed a hook, and Willowby might help her find it. She saw some openings now. Dorian Gregg could bust those openings wide, but she’d begun to see.

When she stepped into the carnival of EDD, Jenkinson’s tie seemed tame, almost ordinary. Colors blasted and clashed, neon baggies, polka-dot suspenders, screaming T-shirts, and crazed airboots.

She spotted McNab standing in his cube, hips twitching, long blond tail of hair swaying as he worked on whatever he worked on.

She moved quickly into the sanity of Feeney’s office.

He sat at his desk, scarred brown shoes up, baggy, crap-colored suit reassuring. As was his explosion of ginger, gray-threaded hair.

His basset hound eyes slitted in concentration as he studied his wall screen.

“Got a minute?”

“Barely got my ass in the chair, this crap coffee in my hand, and already caught one. Fricking cyber fraud, already hauled in five mil inside twelve hours, targeting centenarians. I get that old and stupid, stun me.”

“You’ll get that old, but you’ll never be that stupid. I need McNab, or somebody on his level you can spare.”

“I just tossed the boy one.” Frowning, Feeney slurped coffee. “I could have him pass it off, maybe. You need an EDD man on the dead kid?”

“It’s a ring, Feeney, I know it. A trafficking ring.”

As she filled him in, he put his feet on the floor.

“You got him. I can shut down this scam in an hour—it’ll pop up somewhere else, but I can shut it down. You can have me, too. Sick sons of bitches. Give me the data on the kid you think’s in the wind. I can put some of my uniforms out there.”

“Thanks for that.”

“We’ve got some channels into porn sites, helped bust a trafficking case—adults though—a couple months ago. Bringing women—eighteen, twenty, twenty-couple—over from Eastern Europe on a cargo ship, jamming them into two or three rooms on the Lower East, then renting them out to pervs, using the better-looking ones for underground porn sites.”

“Yeah, this is like that, only bigger. More rooms, I think. Slick, sophisticated, Mira called it. I’m going to copy you on what I’ve got. Anything pops for you, I’m ready to hear it.”

“You got that. I’ll pull Willowby up here, have her and McNab work in the lab. Let me shut this damn stupid shit down. I’d pass it on, but one of the suckers who tossed in five K is the wife’s grandmother.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“You think she’d know better.” He shook his head in disgust. “Promised Sheila I’d take care of it myself.” He grabbed one of the candied almonds from the rickety bowl—crafted by Sheila—on his desk. Popped it.

“Stun me,” he repeated. “Put me down.”

“Solemn oath. Thanks.”

She headed out and back to Homicide.

Peabody, her eyes horrified, looked up.

“Oh, Jesus, Dallas. They’re like sales kits. Like brochures. It’s…”

“I know. Send them to your unit and get me some printouts. Send them to McNab and to Feeney. I need the desk. Come back in ten.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Take your coffee.”

Peabody just shook her head. “I think I’ll get some water right now.”

Rather than look at Willowby’s data, Eve engaged her ’link.

Moments later, Nadine Furst, not exactly camera ready, Eve noted, but ready for something, came on-screen.

“Dallas. I’m in the last few hours of a thirty-six-hour moratorium on work of any kind. I’m about to have an elaborate breakfast with my moratorium companion.”

Jake Kincade, rock star and Nadine’s lover, angled on-screen. “Hey, Dallas.”

“Hey. Sorry to interrupt. Nadine, why don’t you give me the contact of your top assistant or researcher and I’ll give this to him or her.”

“Give what? Damn it.”

“Go, Lois,” Jake said, and kissed her cheek.

“I haven’t had any media source in my life for twenty-four hours. Twenty-seven,” Nadine corrected. “It’s a record. I bet Jake I could make it thirty-six. I bet extreme sexual favors.”

“Win-win,” Jake said off-screen, and made her laugh.

“What did I miss?”

“Get to Central and I’ll tell you.”

“Off record until?”

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