by Hunt, James
“Senator, I appreciate—”
“The ambassador’s heart is in the right place, but there is a more pressing issue in our city that needs to be addressed, and that’s the drug epidemic,” Pierfoy said. “We are the hub for opioid use and production for the entire western United States. It is an epidemic that is eroding the very foundation of our communities, and it won’t be long before they collapse under their own weight.”
“Sir, I don’t have much experience with drugs,” Grant said.
“No, you don’t,” Pierfoy replied, then lifted his finger and pressed it against Grant’s chest. “But you’re skilled in finding people. And with your previous background in Homicide, I know you have the stomach for the more violent crime scenes. And during the department exchange program, you logged more hours with S.W.A.T. than any other detective in the state. I know you don’t have any trouble banging on doors. Both on and off the clock.”
Grant shook his head. “Off the clock?”
Pierfoy lowered his voice and raised an eyebrow. “I’m quite familiar with your past, Detective. Even the unsavory parts.”
Grant stiffened. He should have known better. You couldn’t outrun time. The seconds ticked away like drops of blood from an IV, and once it was done, so were you.
“I want you to end this war on drugs, Detective,” Pierfoy said. “Help me give the communities back to the people who want them to be a safer place for their families. Help me end this violent war we have raging across our entire state. I know you could do a lot of good.”
Before Grant answered, the senator held up his hands and backed away. “Just think about it. I know you have a lot on your plate, but it would be a disservice to give your answer so quickly, like you did with the ambassador. I’m in a hurry to get this done, but I’m willing to wait until I get the right people.” He flashed a grin, but it lacked the well-natured smile of the ambassador’s.
Grant lowered himself into the driver seat of his cruiser, his mind sifting through the morning’s events and the past twenty-four hours. Grant knew offers like these were inevitable. He was aware of his skill at the job, but no matter how low of a profile he kept, he couldn’t hide the results of his work. Work which required his attention.
* * *
The precinct was busy. More movement than usual. There hadn’t been any call-ins yet, but Mocks felt it brewing. And it made her nervous.
Detective Susan Mullocks leaned back in her chair, which practically swallowed her whole. She’d always been small, and it had always pissed her off, though she’d reached a level of acceptance now that she was pushing thirty. She rocked slowly back and forth as she flicked the lever of the green Bic lighter in her left hand. The flame appeared and disappeared in rhythmic strokes. Mocks’s hand performed the ritual involuntary. Old habits died hard.
She tucked her shortly cropped brown hair behind her ears, which exposed a small, pretty face. Freckles spotted her pale cheeks, and she kept her green eyes on the phone. In her two years with Missing Persons she’d spoken to dozens of parents, but this time felt different. This time she knew it was coming, and that knowledge only worsened the anxiety.
Mocks pocketed the lighter and reached into the bottom drawer of her desk. She removed a fresh pack of strawberry Pop-Tarts and discarded the wrapper on the growing pile of trash on her desk. The other officers joked that she ate like a NFL linebacker but never put on any weight. She cursed that when she was younger. Now she clung to it for dear life.
She opened her mouth to take a bite when her cell phone buzzed in her pocket. She hesitated when she saw the name on the screen. She wasn’t in the mood to open this particular can of worms right now. But she knew that putting it off would only make it worse. She set the pastry down and leaned forward on her desk.
“Hey,” Mocks said.
Rick paused. “I wasn’t sure you’d answer.”
“I’m waiting for Grant to get back from his award show,” Mocks said. “I’ve got some time.”
“I don’t really want to do this over the phone, when are you going to be home?” Rick asked.
“I don’t know,” Mocks said.
A sigh. “Honey, I—if you’re not willing to take the time to talk about this I don’t know what we’re going to do. We need to figure this—”
“Look, I’ve gotta go,” Mocks said, and then hung up. It wasn’t the most tactful goodbye, but her mind hadn’t changed. And she didn’t know how to tell him that without crushing him. It had made them so distant. They were like roommates who didn’t get along anymore. They hadn’t even touched one another in over a month.
Mocks chomped a huge bite out of her Pop-Tart when the desk phone rang, and she reached for it with a cobra-like strike. “Neheckhive Mullhocks.” She swallowed the pastry, and repeated herself. “Detective Mullocks.”
“I’ve got a mother calling in, Detective,” Officer Banks said. “Says her daughter was taken at the mall. Her friends even have video.”
Mocks leaned forward, her forearms crunching over the empty wrappers on her desk. “What’s her name?”
“Hannah Mauer,” Banks said. “Daughter’s name is Annie Mauer. That was all I was able to get out of her. Good luck.”
A beep, and then the call came through. “Hello, this is Detective—”
“Please, you have to help me.” The woman’s voice was quick and panicked. “My daughter, someone took her.”
“Okay, ma’am, I need you to calm down for a second—”
“She was at the mall with her friends and they showed me the video of her being taken. It was some man, he was driving a truck,” she gasped for breath, and then swallowed. “Someone took my daughter!”
Mocks sandwiched the phone between her shoulder and her ear and broke off another piece of Pop-Tart, nodding along and remembering to keep her voice as neutral as possible. “I understand you’re scared, Hannah. But I need you to hang with me for a couple minutes and just answer some basic questions, okay?”
Hannah’s breathing slowed, along with the pacing of her words. “O-okay.”
“Great.” Mocks popped another piece of strawberry-frosted deliciousness into her mouth. “Now, what was the mall you dropped your daughter off at?”
Mocks nodded and replied with affirmative grunts as she devoured the pastry. She squinted her eyes shut, the rambling in her ear so shrill she had to lean away from the receiver a few times to avoid a pierced eardrum. She didn’t bother with a pen and paper to jot down notes. She didn’t need to.
Everything Hannah Mauer said into Mocks’s ear was permanently recorded in her brain. Annie’s description, the clothes she wore, birthmarks, age, birthdate, all organized neatly into the computer that was her brain.
“Okay, and that’s the mall on the east side?” Mocks asked, flicking a crumb of hard icing off the top of her wedding ring. “Did her friends mention anything else?”
Malls were busy on the weekends. Made for good conditions for snatching kids. Only a small percentage didn’t make it home. And that small percentage found their way to her desk with parents sounding just like her. Well, maybe not just like her.
“I-I-I don’t know what to do,” Hannah said, and she started cry. “I don’t know where my daughter is.”
Mocks halted the next piece of pastry to her lips and set it down, brushing the crumbs from her long sleeves. “Hannah, I know exactly what you need to do. Do you have a pen and paper? Or anything to write with?”
“Y-yes, just… Hold on, I…. Okay. I’m ready.”
“Good,” Mocks said. “Get a ride to precinct eighteen in downtown Seattle. That’s where I work. Once you get here, we’ll have you fill out an official statement. By the time you arrive, I’ll have all of the paperwork ready to give my boss to gather the resources to find your daughter. And I’ll need you to bring a few things. A recent picture of Annie, and any health records you have. And the video your daughter’s friends took. Okay?”
“Yeah,” Hannah answered. “I can do that.�
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“Now, is there anyone that would have taken your daughter?” Mocks asked. “Family members, the father, anyone like that?”
“No. I-I don’t know who it could have been,” Hannah said.
“That’s all right,” Mocks answered. “Just get here and ask to speak with Detective Mullocks and Detective Grant. My partner and I will be handling your case.”
“Thank you, Detective,” Hannah said. “I’ll be there soon.”
Mocks set the phone down and devoured what remained of the Pop-Tart. She exhaled through her nose and tugged at the long sleeves that concealed the marks in the crook of her arms.
She rose from the desk and walked back to Cyber. She weaved between the officers in the halls, the cops scurrying to get out of her way. When she was a rookie she had been bulldozed. But it only took one chop-block on an unsuspecting traffic cop to get everyone’s attention. At five foot nothing and one hundred pounds, she used what leverage she could to her advantage. Thankfully the cop escaped with only a bruised ego.
Cyber was tucked away in a corner office at the very back of the building. They didn’t get a lot of foot traffic; in fact, they preferred no traffic at all. It was a request that Mocks was happy to abide by, but Grant always liked doing things face to face and she thought the situation called for his tactics. It was something she admired about him and simultaneously drove her nuts.
Their last missing person case had landed them in some type of abduction conspiracy. Or at least the start of one. The perp from the same case had been logging into a website designed as an online class for abductions. It was how she learned all of the techniques. And if it hadn’t had been for Grant, then she would have gotten away. Cyber had been trying to crack the site’s source code to find out who created it, but it was tough sledding.
“Hey,” Mocks said, knocking on the door. “Where are we at with the website from the Givens case?”
Four bodies turned in their chairs, slowly. The dimly lit room made the motion ominous. Three of them returned to the glow of their computer screens, and only Sam remained. He grabbed his laptop and walked past her without a word, turning into a small nook behind their office.
The site was already up on Sam’s laptop when they turned the corner. He typed a few lines of code, sighed, and then leaned back in his chair. “I spent most of last night trying to work my way through the firewall, but haven’t made a lot of progress.” He crossed his arms over his stomach and chewed on his lower lip. He looked up at Mocks, the fluorescent lighting not doing any favors to the dark circles under his eyes.
“We need progress, Sam,” Mocks said. “I just got an abduction call. A little girl at the east side mall.”
Sam’s face went pale. “You don’t think the people who logged in here are—”
“Starting to apply what they’ve learned?” Mocks asked. “Yeah. I do. So I need to know everything you do.”
Sam exhaled a shaky sigh and placed his fingers on the keyboard, drumming them over the letters without striking down. “We know that there were one hundred and seven users that signed into the site since its creation, which was six months ago. I know there are at least seven users who have logged into the site within the past forty-eight hours, and I also have the usernames of eighty of the one hundred and seven individuals who have logged in.”
“That’s our starting point,” Mocks said. “Cross reference those usernames and see if we get a hit on anyone.”
“I’ve tried, but with only a username as my only data point it’s hard to find any type of match,” Sam said.
“What about the site’s contents?” Mocks asked. If she knew what the abductors were taught, then they might be able to get a step ahead.
“It’s impressive,” Sam answered, typing a few commands to pull up the site’s coursework. “I have taken a lot of online courses over the years. Most of them were just ‘read this’ and then ‘answer these.’ Nothing but regurgitated thoughts. Whoever made this site put a lot of care and thought into it. The creator intended for their students to become the best. They cover everything in regards to an authority’s response to an abduction: search efforts, negotiation techniques, S.W.A.T. formations for home invasions, media response, coordinated efforts across multiple agencies, our entire playbook is on here.” He paused a moment, and then cleared his throat. “There was one thing in particular I found I thought you should know.” He hit a few keys on his laptop, and the website uploaded a schematic. For explosives. “It seems that our abduction instructor has a scorched earth policy when their students are caught by police. The site suggests either rigging a vest to blow for the kid, or wiring the safe house that they’re staying in to explode.”
“Master abduction artists who dabble in explosives. Fantastic,” Mocks said. “So they know the type of kid to look for, when to take them, and how to get away with it.” She clenched her fists. “What kind of sicko would make something like this?”
“Someone who’s grown bored.”
Mocks and Sam spun around and saw Grant standing in the hallway, staring down at the computer screen.
“How long have you been standing there?” Mocks asked.
“Long enough,” Grant answered, switching his eyes from the computer to Mocks. “Banks said you had a call-in.”
“Mother says her daughter was taken at the East Side Mall,” Mocks said. “Where’s your medal?”
“It’s in the car,” Grant answered, then turned to Sam. “What’s the timeline on finding out who created the site?”
“If I can find the root IP, then maybe twenty-four hours, but that’s going to be tough,” Sam said.
“All right,” Grant said, giving Sam a pat on the shoulder. “Let us know when you have something.” Grant disappeared down the hall.
Mocks lingered behind. “Let me know if you find anything on that cross reference. And Sam, this is a priority.”
He gave a nod, and Mocks chased Grant back to their desks, which sat directly across from one another. She pressed her knuckles onto her desk while Grant sifted through a few notes.
“Did you already take down the report for that girl?” Grant asked.
“Working on it,” Mocks answered. “Mother is on her way now. But we’ve got some time before she gets here.”
“Get a package together for Lieutenant Furst,” Grant said, reaching for the squat filing cabinet he kept all of his cases inside. “I want to follow up with the Givens girl.” He gestured to her Pop-Tart box. “Hand me one of those, will you? I didn’t eat breakfast.”
Mocks tossed him a packet, and he tore it open and took a big first bite as he scanned the file.
“Anything exciting happen at the ceremony?” Mocks asked.
“No,” Grant answered, then closed the file and returned it to the drawer. “You stay here while I go and speak with the Givens girl.”
Mocks placed her hands on her hips. “Why can’t I come?”
“Because you didn’t take any notes from the phone call,” Grant answered, then looked up. “Or did you actually decide to write something down this time?”
Mocks grunted and plopped down in her chair. “Imprisoned by my own mind.”
Grant placed the remaining chunk of strawberry pastry in his mouth, and then slid on his jacket. “I’ll call you when I have something. And you let me know what happens with the mother. What was the name of the girl that was taken?”
“Annie,” Mocks answered.
Grant froze. The color drained from his cheeks, and for a moment Mocks thought he was going to pass out. But after the momentary glitch, he wiped a few of the crumbs from his mouth and looked down at his watch. He squeezed one of the side buttons, and it beeped, starting that timer of his. It was a ritual, one that he performed with every new case. He always seemed to be fighting time, but she never really understood why. Maybe it helped keep him focus. After all, she had her lighter.
“We’re already behind in the first hour,” Grant said. “Get the paperwork to Furst ASAP. I
’ll call you when I’m done with the Givens girl.” He nodded to the mess on her desk. “You keep eating those damn Pop-Tarts and you’re gonna turn into one.”
Mocks raised a fresh one and smiled. “One can only hope.” She watched him leave, and that same ominous feeling from earlier clouded her senses. It was like a bad taste in her mouth that she just couldn’t rid herself of, no matter how many frosted strawberry treats she ate. She looked at her phone, knowing the next time it rang, it was going to be for another abduction. The only question was when.
* * *
The park was busier than usual for a Saturday afternoon. Craig Johnson blamed the weather. The sun had finally made an appearance after nearly a week of clouds and rain.
Children sprinted around the playground, chasing after one another, their high-pitched squeals of laughter carrying across the park. Kids played on the swings, the jungle gym, glided down slides, indulging in all the activities with friends. There was so much joy. So much life.
Craig came here often, but not too often. His rusted beater of a car had the potential to attract unwanted attention. And he made sure that he always parked in different locations and mixed up his times throughout the day and week. Saturdays were always a special treat he saved for himself when he’d been good.
It was a type of elated torture when he parked his 1986 Toyota Corolla one hundred yards from the park’s entrance. He cut off the engine, slouched low in the driver seat, and zoomed in on the kids with his phone to get a better look, keeping an eye on the parents at the park’s perimeter.
Sometimes he recorded the kids with video, or snapped pictures, and other times he would do nothing but watch. But today was special. Today was different.
The crowded and chaotic scene made for perfect conditions. He glanced over to the notepad that contained all of the scribbling he’d written from the class online. It was a godsend. All the tricks and tools to perform a successful abduction, all laid out in perfect detail.
Craig was wary about the website at first. There was no guarantee that it was real. What worried him most was that it was a trap to find people that were troubled. People like him.
