Desperation in Death (In Death #55)(46)

It wasn’t very big, but she’d never had big. It was clean, and had a window where the sun shined in. It had a bed and a dresser with three drawers and walls painted a bright, bold blue.

“I like the color. It’s pretty.”

“The last girl who stayed here painted the walls her favorite color.”

“What happened to her?”

“She moved on. She liked to cook, and got a job in a restaurant kitchen, and a little place of her own. It’s how it should work, the moving on when the time comes. Until it does, this is your room.”

“Do I have to pay for it?”

“You do, by following the code, helping to keep it clean, sharing what you have or acquire with everyone.”

She got up slowly, then stood in her borrowed pajamas—sweats shorts and a T-shirt. “I don’t feel dizzy. I promise.”

“An excellent start. Let’s continue our tour.”



* * *



While Dorian got her tour, Eve walked into the bullpen.

“Listen up! I need volunteers to take shifts manning a tip line.”

She ignored the collective groan because she—sincerely—sympathized. “We’re looking for information on this girl. Peabody, put Dorian Gregg’s ID shot on the main screen.

“Dorian Gregg, age thirteen—you can read her data. A runaway and likely abductee. We believe she was held in the same child trafficking facility as Mina Cabot. Cabot, also thirteen, was found early yesterday morning, impaled.”

She briefed them quickly.

“Officer Carmichael, if you’ll select four uniforms to assist on the tip line. Detectives, you can rotate, two hours on unless you’re running hot.

“We need to find this girl before whoever killed Mina Cabot finds her. Any tip that doesn’t include her being carried off by alien overlords gets a follow-through. Even the alien overlords get documented. The media’s about to cut loose on this, so we’ll get the leading wave of calls in the next twenty-four.

“Any problems, I’m in my office till end of shift, and working this at home when I get there.”

Because, Eve thought as she went back to continue her searches, if they didn’t find her in the next twenty-four, odds were she went rabbit, or got herself caged like one.





10





In her office, Eve pored over search results.

She knew the expression was “finding a needle in a haystack,” but that was bogus. Who the hell would put a needle in a haystack? Plus, she wasn’t entirely sure what a haystack was, exactly.

Still, she accepted trying to find probable, even possible buildings that fit her requirements in the whole of New York equaled the damn needle.

On the other hand, if somebody was stupid enough to toss a needle into a stack of hay, the needle was in the stack of hay. So she adjusted some factors of the search, started another run.

While that worked, she shifted to Peabody’s progress, and McNab’s, and Feeney’s.

Too many girls, she thought. Too many names and faces. But she believed she had a better shot at finding a pattern.

She separated the potentials into two categories. What she thought of as the Mina type—solid family, good neighborhood, no history of trouble. Then the Dorian type—basically the opposite. She added a third category for a mix. The girl from a good home who fell into trouble anyway. The girl with a crappy homelife who kept her head down.

She divided those into subcategories: rural, urban, suburban.

With that, she began the arduous task of picking through the case files, looking for similarities.

And found some.

She looked at her board, considered the size of her office. She thought about the conference room, then grabbed what she needed before walking out to the bullpen.

“I’m pushing an angle,” she told Peabody. “I already see four girls snatched on the way home after a post-school deal. Sports practice, a play rehearsal, a tutoring thing—all regular schedule stuff.”

“That’s a good angle.”

“Maybe. I’m going to take it home, work from there. You can do the same.”

“I think I’ll kick it up to the EDD lab with McNab. Primo equipment there. You know, I kind of thought this was a needle in the haystack, but once you get into it, you can see, with some—like the after-school stuff—a kind of pattern.”

“Right. Why is there a needle in a haystack?”

“I don’t know. Someone dropped it?”

“Seems dumbass to look for it. I mean, a diamond in a haystack, okay, but who can’t get another needle? Anyway, send me whatever needles you find.”

She let it roll around in her head on the way down to the garage. First you have to spot the kid, so—most likely—scouts troll schools. Once you spot the kid, you just spend some time stalking—not even that if an opportunity jumps in your lap.

Snatch the kid, transport the kid, collect your fee. Had to be a sizable fee, Eve thought as she got into her car. Kidnapping a minor would get you a very long stretch.

The scouts had to blend into their hunting ground, she concluded as she swung out of the garage and into snarled traffic.

Good clothes, decent haircut in an upscale area. Or a uniform—delivery person for instance. Repair guy. Cop.