But the idea of Mal with Paige, even in the past, pissed him off to no end.
“Hardly. Mal is great, yes. But I don’t play in my own pond, Mick. No matter what the rumors are. Your brother is hot—and I’ll be the first to admit it—but we have always been just friends. There’s plenty of hot guys out there for me, if I so chose.”
“Yeah. Like the Cards’ baseman? How did that work out for you?” Even he heard the bite in his words. He’d known about the baseball player. She’d brought him to her brother’s wedding. “You still seeing each other?”
Her expression darkened. “No. He didn’t like competing with my traveling for the job.”
“Didn’t he travel a good portion of the year?”
“Some guys, Mick, are incapable of figuring out their own issues. Do you think our killer was a man or a woman?”
So it was no more personal questions, and back to their task at hand. He could deal with that. “I don’t know. Did it take a lot of strength to cut their throats? Probably not.”
“Cold. Horribly cold for someone to do that.” She rubbed her arms, though the air around them wasn’t chilly. “Why do people kill? For profit, revenge, greed, anger, insanity, jealousy. So why would someone do this?”
“The reasons you listed, most are passion or desire related. Except for profit. It’s a possibility.”
“Hmm. Maybe. It definitely took some serious planning, wouldn’t you think? And it had to be someone they trusted.” She started down an alley between two lots. Mick stayed at her side. “This was probably their main route. It leads to the road here. What are we? A mile from the Gateway Mall area? Close enough for them to do what they had to do, then disappear back this way.”
“You’re very certain this is a theft ring?”
“Almost positive.” They kept walking for another five minutes. He could see the shopping district up ahead.
“Work it out for me. Help me understand. What would be involved in a gang like this?”
“There’s usually older members, of course. They look out for the younger, it’s the way of things in this type of group.” Her pace slowed as they rounded the corner. Traffic was buzzing by, both vehicle and foot. Mick stepped closer so he could hear her. “They target a retailer. Two or three go in and scout merchandise. They’re looking for displays that are close to the exits, or not well watched. Items that are easily slipped into bags or purses. Some will even carry backpacks, but will leave them by the doors. Anything to appear like normal teenagers out for a day at the mall. Their clothes and hair are clean and neat, not the least expensive, either. They want to look normal so that you don’t pay much attention to them. They’re a store in the mall’s target demographic. Would you look twice at them?”
“Aren’t the clerks trained to watch for shoplifters?”
“They don’t go through half as much training as these girls do.”
“How so?”
“Where’s your badge, Brockman?”
He patted his front pants pocket where he normally carried it. “Here.”
“You sure?” She held something up for him to see, then flipped it open. It was definitely his. He slipped his hand in his pocket and pulled out another, almost identical. Hers.
“How in the hell did you do that?” He had to admit it, but she’d impressed him. He’d like to think he was more aware of his surroundings than that. “Lock picking, pick-pocketing—what else?”
“Whatever you had to. And I took yours when we came around the corner. I bumped you and it was just a matter of slipping yours out of your pocket, and mine in a few minutes later. Figured you were the type to need a demonstration.”
“You were that close, and I didn’t feel a thing.” Surprising. Because Mick would have bet good money on knowing every move she made—he was just that hyper aware of her whenever she was near. “You’re good.”
“I was better before. The first few weeks we were with the ring, I went through some pretty intense training.”
“You, not Carrie?”
“No. Part of the deal I made was that she could help with any tech stuff, but anything illegal or out on the front, I did. I wanted her protected.”
There was a load of history in her words, but he was hesitant to press. “I see. So these girls—are they always girls? —are well-trained in the less than up-and-up shopping techniques. What’s the next step?”
“They do practice runs, never taking anything but checking out the security. And never the same girls to prevent recognition. They may do this two or three times to work out all the bugs, check the security schedules, look for employees that are weaker at watching the front of the store or who are lazier than others. Check when managers are on duty. That type of thing. And it can be boys, but boys tend to draw more attention. Stereotypes.” She paused and pulled the hair band from her hair. She attempted to readjust it, struggling a bit with the long strands in the wind. He could smell her shampoo, over the scent of the city around them, over the smell of the Italian seasoning and mozzarella cheese from the pizzeria behind her. “There are better uses for boys than the theft front. Carriers, repackagers. Even brute labor. But everybody takes a cut, and most profits go back to providing for the gang. But the leader of the group always takes the largest percentage. He—or she—is in it for total profit.”
She looked damned beautiful with the sun shining on her hair, with the long brown strands around her shoulders. She finished and he couldn’t help think what a damned shame it was. She didn’t wear her hair down often, but when she did, he often turned into a complete babbling idiot. Mick usually just resorted to glaring at her then. He was glad when she finished, and he could get his brains about himself again. “So…you think this was a leader gone rogue?”
“Way too soon to tell. It could even be a rival, at this point. Or even a crazy guy squatting in the warehouse who didn’t want to share the roof over his head.” She stopped walking again. “We’re not going to get witness statements this far out. If they were smart they wouldn’t hit this area in groups any larger than three. Stay unobtrusive.”
“Still, I’ll get a few agents to walk this area, get some photos circulating.”
“We need to head back to the cars. I want to drive over to the runaway shelters I know. See if anyone recognizes the girls.”
“You have photos?”
“Yes. I had Cody sync to my cell. Just head shots. I’ll have one of the computer techs do some facial reconstruction once we have hair and eye color confirmed. Make them look less corpse-like.” She looked around. Mick followed her gaze. “Small shops. Macy’s, Papa John’s, places good girls can go in and out of without incident. We’ll need to get someone on security cameras for this entire area.”
“A mile away from the crime scene?”
“I’d go out at least two miles. How long do you think it would take a healthy teenage girl to run two miles? Especially if they practiced?”
“Not long.”
“Exactly. They could do the swipe, then head home by the time mall security or the police had even arrived on scene.” She abruptly turned; Mick followed suit. “Might have the canvasing agents start with the stores that teenage girls would frequent the most, then check convenience stores and bodegas. The ring might practice with snatching food and candy.”
“And in the meantime? What do you and I do?”
“Get the team together. Share what we’ve found. See if there’s anything they’ve got anything that we don’t. Hope we start getting more information from forensics by then. Don’t plan on going home tonight, I want to be here when the reports are hot off the printer.”
“Noted.”
Chapter 6
Agent Camden Lake had spent his life searching for the missing, the lost. The ones that were gone somewhere, but never forgotten by the ones who’d loved them.
He’d lost his younger sister a week before his nineteenth birthday. She’d been home alone for the first time, and when he’d said goodbye to her th
at evening, he’d never seen her again.
Cam would never forget how he’d felt those days right after Lia’s disappearance. How he’d worried for her and wondered.
He’d dedicated his life to finding other people’s lost loved ones in the hopes that he’d find his own sister someday. Or at least he’d be able to prevent someone else’s sister from going missing.
Cam had requested his assignment to his native land of Texas for a few good reasons—namely, his family still lived in the same home they’d lived in when he was a child. His mother refused to move, fearing that if she did Lia would return and not know where to find them. The second reason was that his sister had disappeared within the Texas borders, and that was where he would remain until he had the answers he sought.
He knew the statistics, and he knew the chances of finding his sister, but that didn’t stop him from working on her case nearly every minute that he could.
He’d not stop until he found out what happened to her; in the meantime, he does his very best to help others find their loved ones as quickly as he could.
That was why he had been there at his desk fifteen minutes past eight that evening. His boss, a good man that Cam admired and respected a great deal, led an older man over to his desk. “Cam, I’m glad you’re here. I was hoping to find someone from your team.”
“What do you need?” Cam had plans that included a bottle of beer and the waitress from the pub near his apartment. But one look at his boss’s face had him revising that plan.
“This is a friend of mine from twenty something years ago. He needs our help. Bill Avery, Camden Lake. Cam, Bill’s twenty-four-year-old daughter disappeared from her college parking lot after orchestra practice. This was two days ago. And the locals have no leads.”
“Let me see what we can do to bring her home, Mr. Avery.”
Cam wouldn’t stop until he had the answers Mr. Avery needed.
Chapter 7
Hurry up, and wait. That was the true nature of the job with the Bureau. It wasn’t all guns blazing and excitement like television made it out to be. It was a lot of paperwork, a lot of making connections from facts that were often pulled from a dozen different sources.
Paige was good at that. Her education and formal training were in humanities—languages, in particular—but she also understood the way young people felt when they had no other choice in the world. That was from experience she’d used tons of times before. This case would be no different, even though it touched the nerve of familiarity far more than any case ever had.
Her desk waited, where it always did, in the exact center of her team’s portion of the bullpen. The rest of her team waited there, Hernandez, Evan, and Josh. It was just going to be the four of them plus Mick. They’d pull from other departments if needed, but this would form the backbone of the investigative team.
Josh was a hell of a victimologist, and he was the one who spoke first. “Find anything out there?”
“Just that there are some seriously intelligent people involved.” Paige nodded toward 3B2, the conference room her team usually used. “Five?”
“You bringing the baby-sitter?” Hernandez smirked toward the bank of offices where they could see Mick. He’d headed up there to check his desk and messages before they were to meet up in the conference room.
He’d been surprisingly easy to handle out in the field. She’d half expected him to be snipping and snapping at her the entire time. But while he’d been a bit abrupt a few times, he had been professional all the way.
She had to respect that.
“No attitude with him. We don’t have the time. He’s here by special assignment of Director Dennis, we have to play ball.” Paige made sure the warning was clear. They all knew that as the most senior member of the team at the moment, she was taking point. And that meant working directly with Mick.
“He can’t be trusted. We all know that, even if he is Al’s brother.”
“Chill, Saul, we all know you don’t trust anyone. We play by the rules, and old Mickey won’t have anything to make a problem of,” Jazz said. She rode heard on Hernandez almost every case. They were partners and worked exceptionally well together.
“Just don’t know why they pulled from IA instead of letting Al or PJ run the case. It doesn’t make sense.”
“I think he’s going to cover all of Sebastian’s paternity leave. So we’re stuck with him for at least a month.” Paige grabbed her tablet out of her desk drawer. “Let’s get in there and get a profile going. That’s why we have Josh with us in the first place.”
“I have a few things in mind,” Josh said. He stood and looked at the others. “I think we’re dealing with an extremely cold, calculating son-of-a-bitch here.”
“You sure it’s male?” Paige asked. She’d met some damned cold women before. And she’d thought earlier that it was male. But a second opinion was good.
“Statistically, it makes sense. A mass murder of this extreme—definitely male.”
Nothing else was said until they were in the conference room. Paige took a spot at the table. Mick was the head of the team for this one, so he’d take the center.
It was all politics, the kind they played every day. So why was she so aware of it now?
He came in half a minute behind everyone else. He’d rebuttoned his suit jacket, and it made his shoulders look ridiculously broad. Mick was bigger and stronger than any of the guys in the room, and he drew attention. Was he aware of it? Or was she just a bit crazy?
***
Mick wasn’t going to make the mistake of messing around and wasting time. He looked at the team, mentally reviewing all he knew about each one of them. It wasn’t much, besides Paige and Compton, that was.
He hadn’t looked directly at Paige’s team because that would have meant looking at his sister’s. And he was almost one hundred percent certain the traitor wasn’t on Team Three; the director had agreed. “What do we know?”
He saw the resentment on half the team’s faces. Paige’s wasn’t one of those faces. “Pretty certain it’s a male.”
Josh Compton nodded. “Still need to figure out the why, but I’d lay good money on it being a male in his late thirties.”
“We’ll need more than just hunches.” Mick looked at Hernandez. He ignored the man’s look of challenge. He wasn’t there to compare who had the biggest equipment. He was there to find a killer—and a traitor. “You?”
“No security videos, no vandalism reports, no sign of these girls anywhere. Waiting on Questionable Documents to report back.”
“Why?”
“The IDs we found with the victims don’t match any of the girls physically. We’re trying to find the real owners before we go forward. Dr. Lucas will send me the results once she’s finished.”
“Other forensics?” He didn’t expect much at this point. The PAVAD forensics department was good, but they couldn’t work miracles. The clock—and the machines they used—only went so fast.
“Still preliminary,” Agent Therez said. “Processing DNA of all the victims. Isolating what was used to chemically subdue them. Cody’s going to bring the results to us when she has them. Her team is pulling an all-nighter on this one.”
“I’ve pulled some auxiliary agents from the pool. They’re out now talking to the convenience stores, gas stations, and chain stores within a three mile radius to see if any of the girls frequent them. I’m waiting on photos from the M.E. before I can go any further.” Evan Stephenson marked on the digital map the area they were focused on.
“That’s a good start. Agent Brockman and I think we may be dealing with an organized theft ring gone sour,” Paige finally spoke; Mick looked at her. She was quiet, subdued, and he could see the fatigue around her eyes.
They discussed everything they knew, and what they were theorizing for the next half hour. After they’d exhausted all their current information Mick knew they were stuck for the time being.
He checked his watch—it was close to ten p.m.
He’d been given the case ten minutes after four that afternoon. They’d all put in a full day before even starting this case. Going over what little they had when they’d been there for hours wasn’t going to do them a damned bit of good.
“Everyone go home. Rest for tomorrow. As soon as we have the forensics reports in will move forward.”
He recognized the surprise on most of their faces. What had they expected? That he’d work them non-stop? “Fresh eyes will only benefit us in the next few days.”
They wasted no time in getting out of their chairs. He grabbed the woman on his left before she could go more than a couple of feet. “Not you. We’re heading down to the basement. Checking in with autopsy.”
Chapter 8
"THIRTEEN females, ages approximately sixteen to thirty. Four African Americans, five Caucasians, the rest undetermined at this point.” Jules moved around her office awkwardly, her belly throwing off her center of gravity. “Been dead approximately forty-eight hours, plus or minus four.”
Mick fought the urge to pick his brother’s wife up and tuck her carefully into her chair. She had less than a month left until his nephew made his entrance, and it was hard for Mick not to hover. God knew Mal was overprotective enough. And he agreed with his brother—she shouldn’t be working, still. She should be at home, nesting or something. “Should you be here this late?”
“A mass murder comes into my office, I need to be here.”
“And your assistant can’t handle it?”
“Mia’s out for a few weeks. Surgery on her burns. It needed to be done before I am on maternity leave.”
Mick knew the story. An agent had suffered a psychotic break and started a fire in the hotel several PAVAD teams were in. Jules’ assistant Mia had almost died. “And you don’t have others to help?”
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