Taken in Death (In Death #37.5)(15)

“I might have something.”

Eve shoved up from her jerry-rigged workstation, hurried to Callender.

“We’re getting a lot of little communications. Kids are out of school. In the listening area, we’ve probably got at least a dozen or more playing around with this thing. But I think . . .” She shook her head. “I can’t hold it. It’s weak . . . and it’s gone. I just can’t triangulate, Captain, it’s wavery, and there’s too much interference.”

“Clean it up, boost it,” Feeney ordered. “Let’s see if we can hear the transmission.”

“Working on it. It’s through Trueheart’s boosted unit. Yeah, I got that, cutie,” she said, Eve assumed, to Trueheart. “Hold your position. We might pick it up again. Let me work some magic here.”

Patience straining, Eve waited while Callender worked a keyboard manually. Behind her, Peabody rose to answer a brisk knock on the door. “Keep the nosy out,” Eve snapped. “Come on, Callender.”

“I’m getting it. It’s like trying to pull a whisper out of a hurricane.”

Then Eve heard it, indeed hardly more than a whisper. A knife . . . licked blood . . . make us vampires . . . hurry.

Eve whipped out her comm. “Trueheart, answer him. Keep him calm. Tell him we’re looking for him, but ask him if he can tell you anything about where they are. Anything. How it looks, sounds, smells. Make it fast.”

She heard Trueheart, his easy voice, call the boy by name.

“Hey, Henry, we’re going to find you. It’s going to be okay. Can you tell me where you are? What do you see, Henry, what do you hear? What—”

With her comm open, Eve heard the wavery response.

A room . . . two beds, no windows . . . make us eat cookies. Cake. Cut me. Hurts. Send good witch, hurry . . .

“Henry,” Trueheart began, but even the hum of the transmission dropped away. “He’s gone, Lieutenant. I’m sorry.”

“His battery’s low.”

Eve turned, saw Roarke behind her.

“Yeah.” Feeney hissed through his teeth. “I was afraid of that.”

“It’ll hold a charge for about twenty hours, depending on usage, but he’s just a boy, isn’t he, and might not have charged it up recently.”

In his elegant business suit, his mane of black hair sweeping nearly to his shoulders, Roarke shifted to study the board. “I’ve seen their faces all over the reports, through the day. And hers.” He looked back at Eve. “I’ve brought some equipment that may add to what you have here, but the problem will remain, I think, the limitations of the toy he has, and the battery life of it.”

“He got through once. He’s going to get through again.”

“He seemed a smart and steady one for his age.” Roarke smiled a little. “We’ll bet on him then. I’ve brought some other supplies. Coffee.”

“Oh thank God.”

“And food’s on its way—pizza,” he added before Eve could object. “We’ll work better with food in us.”

“Everything’s better with pizza,” McNab claimed. “Hey, Baxter, let’s go out and haul in the new toys.”

Roarke took Eve’s hand briefly, squeezed it. “Well then, let’s see what we have.” And shedding the jacket of his suit, moved to join the e-team.

EVE SWITCHED OFF WITH TRUEHEART, TOOK THE BOOSTED unit. She needed the air, needed to walk.

Cold, she thought as the wind kicked at her. The days were colder now, and shorter. This one would be ending soon.

She knew what it was to be a child, alone and afraid in the dark, in the cold.

Using her earbud, she contacted Teasdale to check in.

“No communication as yet.”

“How are they holding up?”

“By a thin thread now. It helped to be able to tell them you’d captured a transmission from Henry. I . . . Yes, Tosha, it’s Lieutenant Dallas. She’d like to speak with you, Lieutenant.”

“All right. Put her on.”

“Lieutenant, please, have you heard any more?”

“Not yet. But I’m out right now, scanning for another transmission. We’re all working on this.”

“Gala. Did he say she was all right? Did he—”

“He didn’t say she wasn’t. We’ve got cops canvassing a mile radius. We strongly believe the children are inside that area, and they’re both alive and well.”

“If Ross and I could come home, if we could try to reach them ourselves—”

“You’re better where you are. Agents Teasdale and Slattery are experienced.” Terrified parents shuddering over her shoulder was the last thing she needed. “Your sister’s going to contact you at some point. You need to be ready. You need to do and say exactly what they tell you. And you need to trust us.”

“They’re just babies. They still believe in fairy tales, and that their daddy can keep the monsters away. Don’t let her hurt them. Please, don’t let her hurt them.”

“Nothing’s more important than getting your kids back safely. Believe it. I promise you, when we have more, you’ll know it. We won’t stop looking for them.”

Eve slipped the comm back in her pocket, covered ground, circled, backtracked. And stood scanning buildings as the day ended and the long night began.