by CJ Lyons
Seth leaned forward. “We never shared our copy with anyone. It had to come from the medical center’s files.”
“Don’t worry. Taylor will track it down.” Walden took his cue, escorting June from the room. She didn’t protest, but Seth did, half rising from his seat, his gaze following them through the glass walls of Lucy’s office. “But—”
To Lucy’s surprise, Oshiro also pivoted his bulk, ready to follow June and Walden.
“Sit down,” she ordered the Deputy Marshal.
His expression could have toppled an oak tree, but Lucy deflected it with a raised eyebrow and glare of her own. “Want to tell me why a Deputy US Marshal on the Fugitive Apprehension Strike Team is pulling protective duty on a witness in a civil trial beyond his jurisdiction?”
Seth shifted in his seat but Oshiro remained impassive. “Taking vacation. Boss has no say who I spend it with.”
Okay. So it was going to be one of those situations. No wonder they’d come to her—going off the DOJ’s roadmap was a talent Lucy had reluctantly embraced over her sixteen-year career with the Bureau. And with her squad already on the chopping block, she had nothing to lose.
She turned her attention to Seth. “Yesterday you learned of this threat, called Oshiro, he takes a sudden vacation, and you and June come up to Pittsburgh from DC so he can protect June until the Supreme Court arguments?”
He shook his head. “Until the baby is born. And after if we don’t find the bastard by then.”
A father protecting his wife and child. She didn’t blame him. She’d do the same. Had done the same two months ago.
She waited and he continued, “This case could be a game changer in the fight against child predators. But nothing is more important than my family. I don’t care what it takes, we need to stop this SOB before he can hurt June or the baby.”
“Why Oshiro?” she asked. The two men glanced at each other.
Oshiro didn’t squirm but he did seem uncomfortable—first time she’d ever seen that kind of flinch, as microscopic and fleeting as it was, from the inscrutable Deputy. “Because I’m the guy who could’ve caught June’s father, but didn’t.”
Bernhart leaned forward, his face earnest. “You don’t know that. Besides, it was fourteen years ago.”
“The bastard who bought her from her so-called Daddy got away back then because I was too young and stupid and cocky to imagine that the idiot I’d stopped for running a stop sign was anything other than the mild-mannered suck up he’d seemed. It was my first year on the job, working a rural township PD. Stupid, rookie mistake. I never ran the guy through NCIC, too eager to get on with ‘real’ policing. Never knew until too late that he was wanted for possession of child pornography. If I had hauled him in, Mr. Green Elephant, maybe I could have gotten the real identity and location of June’s Daddy and we wouldn’t be here today.”
It was the longest speech Lucy had ever heard Oshiro make. “I don’t understand. You discovered his identity but he’s never been questioned?”
Oshiro didn’t meet her gaze. “The township I was working in was forty-some miles away from the mall where they found June later that night. And once she was in Children and Youth’s custody and they pieced together what had happened to her, it was days later that they released her photo to the press, searching for her family.”
“So what made you think you had stopped the man Daddy sold her to?”
He hauled in a breath, shifted his weight, then finally looked her in the eye. “I stopped the guy, he apologized, handed me his ID and registration, was so polite. Looked like some college professor or something. But on his front seat, next to him, there was this eight by ten photo of a little girl. He saw me looking at it and gave me a story about how it was his daughter’s school photo and he’d promised her he’d get it framed as a birthday present for his wife, but he’d forgotten and the frame store was closing and that’s why he was in such a hurry.”
“You let him go,” Lucy said.
“I let him go. Then I see June’s photo at roll call a few days later…but it was too late.”
“By the time the State Police pieced everything together, he was dead,” Seth explained. “Murdered.”
Daddy cleaning up his tracks. Quietly, efficiently. No wonder he’d been able to elude investigators for all this time.
“I doubt if Green Elephant Man would have given us Daddy anyway,” Seth said in a quiet tone that Lucy knew was aimed at assuaging Oshiro’s guilt. From the way Oshiro studied the floor, she doubted it helped. “Not like anyone else we’ve caught, not even the guys we’ve sued have been able to provide any useful intel on Daddy. And if we had caught Green Elephant Man sooner, what would have changed? June still would have ended up in foster care. Her pictures would still be out there. Only thing different is that we would have linked her to the Baby Girl collection too soon for her to be able to testify or bring the civil suits—she would have been too young. And maybe she and I would have never met.”
Both men fell silent, each staring at the ultrasound lying on the table between them.
Lucy brought them back to the here and now. “What makes you think it’s June’s father behind this? Why not some other pedophile determined to stop the civil suits, using her father’s name to frighten her?”
“What does it matter?” Oshiro said. “A threat is a threat.”
“I’m not saying you’re wrong. I just wanted to know if you have any more evidence.” Playing devil’s advocate, searching for holes in a case theory was something Lucy did with her team all the time. It kept them on their toes, prevented tunnel vision that might blind them to other possible investigatory avenues.
“You mean other than his boasting in public?” Seth asked, tapping the print out of the Backlist ad.
“Take a step back. The man who called himself Daddy and created the Baby Girl collection was obsessed with June. There’s a good chance he’s still just as obsessed with her as he was back then.”
Oshiro made a noise that translated to, “duh.”
Lucy pivoted the ad so it was face up before the two men. “He may still want her, but he definitely does not want to share her like he did when he released the Baby Girl collection.”
“I don’t understand,” Seth said, pulling the ad closer and scrutinizing it.
“I have no idea if the threats during the earlier court proceedings came from Daddy, but I’m fairly certain this one does.”
“Right,” Oshiro said. “So we’re on the same page.”
“No. I’m saying you need to look at the bigger picture. Witnesses like June have their identities protected by the court.”
“Of course,” Seth said. “That’s why the lawsuit only uses her first name.”
“But I think June’s pregnancy and the fact that her first name is not very common allowed someone to learn her real identity. After all, how many pregnant women would be coming and going from courthouses during the same time as June’s testimony? Any casual surveillance would easily identify her after a few appearances.”
Seth frowned. “So that means it isn’t Daddy after her, it could be anyone? But you said—”
“I said it could have been anyone threatening her earlier. But this,” she nodded to the ad, “this came from the man so obsessed with her that he isn’t willing to share her or her baby with his fellow pedophiles. We may have other threats to deal with in the long haul, but this immediate threat, this is from June’s father. And it’s bigger than that.”
Seth shook his head. “I don’t understand.”
Oshiro pulled the photocopy up to his face, comparing it with the real ultrasound. Then he nodded as he saw what Lucy had spotted earlier. “He’s not just threatening her. He’s staking his claim.”
“Exactly. Which is why he removed any identifying info from the ultrasound image in the ad. Daddy is a legend among child pornographers. If he emerges from the shadows after not being heard from for fourteen years, you can bet they’ll listen and obey.”
Lucy nodded. “Which means it’s not only about finding Daddy—it’s about protecting June from an anonymous army commanded by a man techno-savvy enough to hack into a medical center’s protected database.”
Seth pushed to his feet, leaning his weight forward onto the tabletop. “We need to do both. Oshiro, you take June, hide her, keep her safe. And you,” he directed a laser-sharp gaze at Lucy, “you and I are going to find this bastard, hunt him down, and make him call off his dogs. And I don’t care how the hell we do it.”
Chapter 7
OF COURSE, IT never was as simple as that—a fact that Seth Bernhart, as a former AUSA, should have known. It worried Lucy that he’d allowed his emotions to get the better of him. She could understand why, with his family involved, but it made her leery. Would he be less of an asset to protecting June and more of a liability?
Oshiro picked up on her feelings. After she sent Seth out to work with Taylor and Walden, the Deputy Marshal lingered behind, just long enough to meet her gaze. “Don’t worry about Bernhart,” he grumbled. “He’s solid.”
Then he was gone to commandeer a cubicle and arrange for a safe house for June. Lucy stared through the glass walls of her office, watching body language tell a story as Taylor coaxed a smile from June while they worked at searching her online footprint for any signs of a security breach. Walden looked over from his own workstation, his chair pushed uncomfortably far from his desk as he positioned himself between June and the door, playing the role of protector.
Seth hovered behind June, one hand on her shoulder, leaning between her and Taylor as he added his own details to the database Taylor was constructing. But it was June who Lucy focused on. She’d survived, not just Daddy’s abuse but also the trauma of entering a world she was wholly unprepared for. Despite all that, she’d found the courage to stand up and try to make a difference.
Lucy glanced at her desk littered with a backlog of memos and office detritus. Meeting someone like June put things in perspective.
The child predator known as Daddy had gone undetected for over two decades—in fact, if he hadn’t released the Baby Girl collection and made the mistake of selling June when she grew too old for his preferential needs, he might never have gotten onto their radar at all.
How many more men like him were out there? It was a question she asked herself so often that she’d worn the edges off like a worry stone, no longer charging her with anxiety and anger but rather simply leaving her exhausted and feeling older than someone still a year shy of forty should.
Avoiding her desk with its overflowing in-box, she turned to her window garden. From the water sitting in the saucers, it was clear her bromeliads and orchids had suffered from too much attention rather than neglect. The thought brought a smile as she pictured each of her team members wandering in here on some random pretense to care for her plants while she was gone.
Why had Daddy kept Baby Girl alive? she wondered as she examined the plants, seeing if she could salvage any. Why sell her instead of killing her? Did he need money so badly that it out-weighed the risk? But the Baby Girl collection of videos and images should have easily netted him six to seven figures.
Maybe he had feelings for Baby Girl, in his own warped way? After all, it had only been the two of them for almost ten years. Could she even be his biological child? Had Daddy grown too attached, unable to destroy the evidence that was his Baby Girl?
Huge, huge risk. Born of sentiment? Hubris? Greed? Or simple naiveté?
Her cell phone rang. Nick, calling to check on her between patients.
For a fleeting moment, she was tempted to ignore his call, let it go to voice mail. Not because she resented the intrusion—far from it—but because sooner or later they’d need to address her future here at the Bureau, or lack there of.
She sank into her desk chair, her ankle thanking her with a sigh of relief, and answered.
“How’s it going?” Nick asked.
“Good,” she lied. He didn’t answer right away, so she amended it to, “Fine.” Still he waited—he knew her much too well. “Okay. The foot hurts like a sonofabitch and it’s the least of my worries.”
She gave him a quick rundown of the imminent demise of her squad and the decision she faced. “So what do you think? Can you see me sitting at home watching soap operas and eating bonbons?”
“As if.” The sound of his office chair squeaking as he leaned back emphasized his words. “We’ve talked about this. I’m fine with anything you want to do, as long as—”
“Megan,” she interrupted him. “We need to put her first. She’ll never let us move.” Not that Megan had spoken to Lucy about it. Any time Lucy or Nick broached the issue Megan left the room, refusing to discuss why she was so adamant about staying in the house where her grandmother had died.
They’d talked to the trauma counselor about it, but she didn’t have any answers, either.
Lucy hesitated, hating what it might do to her already shaky relationship with Megan if she and Nick forced the issue. “Unless maybe this is an opportunity. Do you think it’s a good thing for her to leave, start fresh?”
“Don’t go putting this on me.” His voice held a subtle tone of warning.
“You’re right. We need to decide together. But I’m not sure if even bringing it up is going to upset her. She’s so volatile—I’m never sure if she’s going to lash out at me or give me the cold shoulder.” Of course, she couldn’t really blame Megan. The one and only thing they seemed to agree on was that it was Lucy’s fault that her mother had gotten killed.
The logic was irrefutable. If Lucy was a “normal” mom instead of an FBI agent, then her family would never have been targeted. Who could argue with that?
“It’d be worse to hide anything from her,” Nick said. “The trauma counselor thinks Megan’s processing her grief in a very mature manner for a thirteen year old. I have to say, I agree. When I was driving her to school this morning she told me that since you were going back to work and would be too busy, she’s taking charge of Sunday dinner.”
Lucy was glad he couldn’t see her wince. Her mom usually hosted Sunday dinners, the table laden with all her most treasured family recipes—recipes Lucy, whose idea of cooking was pushing a button on a microwave, had never mastered. Loss swept through her, leaving her cold despite the sunshine streaming in through the window.
“One more thing to blame on me and my job,” Lucy noted.
“Not true.” Typical Nick. He’d never let her get away with feeling sorry for herself. “She’s trying to help, Lucy. She needs to do something to fill the void left by—”
“Nick. She won’t even talk to me, not about anything important, can barely look at me. And when she does, the look on her face—” Lucy broke off. It wasn’t just the pain she saw in Megan, it was the reason behind it.
If Lucy hadn’t been working late that day two months ago, her mom wouldn’t have been at their home to babysit Megan. It was only sheer luck that Megan hadn’t gone home right away after her karate class that had saved her from being there when the killer struck. Every time Lucy looked at Megan, it wasn’t just her mother’s loss she felt, it was the enormity of how easily Megan could also have been killed.
“Nick.” She swiveled her chair so her back was to the glass windows of her office, her voice barely above a whisper. “I don’t know what to do. Was I wrong to come back to work?” It certainly felt so, the way the administrative Fates had conspired against her. “But quitting, what would that teach Megan? That her mom is scared? Too weak to keep fighting the bad guys? Wouldn’t she feel even less safe?”
They’d had this conversation dozens of times over the past few weeks as Lucy pushed through her rehab in order to return to duty. Being an FBI
agent, doing what she did—it truly was who she was, but Lucy was prepared to sacrifice it if it meant helping her daughter to heal.
But of course nothing was ever that easy. Even Nick, with his years of experience working with PTSD patients, didn’t have the answer.
“I wish I knew,” he said. “All we can do is take it one day at a time.”
She was glad he couldn’t see her eyes roll. One day at a time was the mantra the trauma counselor used at every visit. Lucy wanted to do something, anything, fix things. How long could she face yet another “one day” waiting for time to work some miracle of healing?
“I told Megan we’d go out to your mom’s house,” Nick continued. “Collect the recipes and pans and stuff. Maybe this afternoon? Might be a good time for you two to forge some kind of detente.”
Lucy swallowed her sigh before the phone could send it to Nick. “I’m not sure. Work.”
There was a long pause. Too long.
“Sounds like you already decided to stay with the Bureau. Even if it means accepting a position you’d despise.” His Virginia accent sharpened. Megan wasn’t the only one dealing with the trauma of what had happened two months ago.
“It’s not like that. Walden asked me to look into a new case.” They both knew Walden never asked anything for himself. She gave Nick a brief overview. “And we only have three days to find this guy before the Bureau shuts us down for good.”
“Anything I can help with?” Nick’s expertise was in trauma, which made him particularly astute when teasing through victims’ profiles.
Lucy filled him in on her thoughts about June’s threats and the man or men behind them.
“You know this isn’t new behavior, right?” he asked when she finished.
“What isn’t?”
“There’s no way a man with that level of obsession didn’t keep track of June after he left her at the mall. What happened to the Green Elephant Man?”
“ID’d as a guy living in,” she glanced at her notes, “Pine Grove Mills. About forty miles away from where June was left. But by the time they got to him, he was gone.”
