He knew there were sixteen people in her office. She didn’t have to be here this late.
“Mick…I’m not helpless. And your brother is in his office. He’ll be here in fifteen minutes.” Jules patted his hand. “But I do appreciate your concern. Paige, is he behaving himself with you?”
Mick felt his neck heat. Jules had always called him out about the arguments he’d had with Paige. The two women were extremely close, and made closer by their shared experiences with the bastard who’d targeted his brother Mal.
Just what that son-of-a-bitch had intended for the two of them had his gut boiling. He ruthlessly pushed the rage back down. The guy was dead, he could do nothing about what had happened.
Mick had been in the hospital ICU barely alive when these two women had gone through hell. He’d not forgive himself for that anytime soon. If he’d been a little sharper on the uptake, maybe what had happened to them wouldn’t have. Maybe he could have stopped it somehow.
“We’ve declared a temporary truce.” Paige’s words were soft, tired. Mick looked at her; her eyes were clouded. What was bothering her?
“Maybe it’ll last.”
“Maybe. What else do you know about the girls?”
“Well fed, clean, clothing was reasonably well cared for. Dental work on all the girls were decent. These aren’t typical street kids. But why they were there in that warehouse, I don’t know. There weren’t any signs of sexual abuse. At least not recent. All had the same tattoo on their back right shoulder. These aren’t workers, either.”
“Send a photo of the tattoo to my cell when you get a chance.”
He listened to her preliminary report, trying to put it all together.
Paige hadn’t said much. He wondered at it.
Fifteen minutes later his brother knocked on the office door and came in. Mick stood. He had waited around for Mal, and he knew Jules knew it. He didn’t give a damn if it annoyed her.
She was his brother’s wife; he’d take care of her when his brother couldn’t. That was just the way of things for him.
Just like he’d be walking Daviess to her car in the parking lot.
It was after eleven. She didn’t need to be in the parking lot alone that late at night.
Chapter 9
THE apartment in Dallas was no different than any other lower rent cardboard box Cam had been in over the last decade. Sometimes the tenant did a decent job making it feel like a home. Most times the people he ran across in his job didn’t give a flying rat’s ass about home.
This woman’s place reeked of stale beer, aging trash, and sweat.
He tried not the let the stench get to him. At least not in front of the locals in blue. Police didn’t often tolerate FBI in this area. He couldn’t look like a wimp.
“What are you hoping to find?”
“Any connection to this woman’s daughter.”
Twenty-four-year-old Ariella Dawn Avery had been missing for forty-eight hours.
Finding her alive was Cam’s main goal.
He knew the odds were against that—he knew that better than anyone.
His sister Cecelia would have been thirty this year.
Cam was this close to finding out what happened to Lia, and he worked her case whenever his own position with the FBI’s Missing Persons unit permitted it.
He reviewed his sister’s case every night before sleeping, hoping something new would strike him.
It never had.
Lia was out there somewhere, either alive or dead. He just had to find her.
In the meantime, there was a young woman out there who needed him to find her.
He’d dedicated his life to finding missing loved ones. Sometimes he succeeded, many times he didn’t.
Too many times all he could do was return the body.
He thought of the dark-eyed girl in the photo—hopefully her fate wouldn’t be like so many others.
“What the fuck you want?” The woman glared at him from dark brown eyes that were glassy and empty.
“When was the last time you spoke with your daughter?”
“Daughter?” She laughed, then wiped at her nose. Strung out, most likely coke. “Only one I have around here is a bastard son. What did he do? I’m not paying for a lawyer for that little shit, neither. So you might as well go.”
“Ariella Avery, twenty-four. Father Bill Avery. Mother, Denise Daviess. That’s you, correct?”
She snorted. “Ain’t seen that girl in twenty-something years. Not my problem.”
“You’ve not spoken with her in the last week?”
“I’ve never spoken with her. Don’t plan on it, either. Now, I gotta work. Have that little shit to feed somehow.”
Cam studied her. Was she lying?
The last number on Ariella’s cell had led him there. Someone had spoken to that girl. He wasn’t leaving without a few more answers. “Where’s your son?”
“Around.” She smirked at Cam. At one time she had probably been halfway decent looking. About three thousand shots of booze ago. “Simon! Get your lazy ass out here!”
A skinny boy came out of the back room. Thin, and had the look of his sister.
“Yeah?”
“Cops want to talk to you.” She grabbed a bag off the couch. “I got to go to work. Lock the doors.”
She walked out without a backward glance, leaving her son at the mercy of three law enforcement officers.
The boy looked at him. “What do you want?” His voice cracked. Cam revised his estimation of the boy’s age. Younger.
“Simon, I’m Cam Lake. I’m with the FBI’s Missing Persons unit.” He handed the boy his business card. “How old are you, son?”
“Twelve.”
“Seventh grade?”
“Ninth. I skipped a few.”
“Wow. I’m impressed.”
“I haven’t done anything.”
Cam studied the boy. The clothes weren’t expensive, but they were clean, neat, and conservative. Unlike the mother’s. The boy took care of himself. What did that tell him?
She’d left a scared boy alone with strange men. Some mother, there.
He looked for obvious signs of abuse—at least the physical kind—but he didn’t see any. No real signs of neglect, either. Just emotional, then.
But was the alternative worse than this kid’s reality?
Cam would place a call on the kid’s behalf as soon as he left the apartment. “We’re trying to find your sister.”
“Which one? I have three sisters. I think. It might be two brothers and two sisters, though. She won’t really say.” There was a world of confusion the kid’s dark eyes. “Sometimes there are more. You never can believe her.”
Cam hadn’t expected that. The first thing he’d be doing once he had access to a computer was researching Denise Daviess’ history. “Ariella.”
“What about her?”
“She’s been missing for two days.”
“I talked to her two days ago. What happened?” Fear was in the boy’s eyes. Was he capable of having hurt his sister? He was a tall kid, obviously, but very thin. And he seemed genuinely worried.
“Your mom said she’s not spoken to Ariella in years.”
“She hasn’t. But I have.” Guilt now.
“Tell me about it.” He looked at the two local LEOs. “You two want to wait outside?”
They nodded.
He waited until they were out in the hall. “What’s the deal? My only job here is to find your sister. I want to do that before she gets hurt. Can you help me?”
The boy nodded, then sat down on the faded chair. “Ariella found me two months ago.”
“Found you?”
“She was curious about our mother, and she came here. I was the only one home. I knew who she was when I saw her. She looks just like me. I knew she had to be one of my sisters.”
“You have more than one.”
“My mom’s had five or six other kids. She never tells me the truth. I found some bir
th certificates once. My mom was selling them.”
“I see.” He’d make a note to look into that, too. It was a stretch, but it was possible Ariella’s identity might have led to her current situation. “What happened to these other kids? Do you know their names?”
“Ariella. That’s the only one I can remember.” More guilt. “I’ve been trying to find the others.”
“Any particular reason you’re so curious?” He’d heard of birth families reuniting, hasn’t everyone? But for a kid to be looking, that was a bit unusual in his experience.
The kid stared at him for a long, long time. Something about the eyes ate at Cam. Made him want to help this kid, no matter what. “I want to find one of them. I hope they will help me get away from her.”
“DPS will do that.”
“If there’s a good enough reason. But she never gives them one. She never hits me. She always has food in the apartment. And she makes me clean it. And I do well in school and never cause any trouble.” Bitterness coated the kid’s words. “I don’t want to live here anymore. She hates me.”
“And you were wanting to move in with Ariella?” Ariella was a college grad student living on a very small income. She lived in an apartment a hundred feet from her father and step-mother. There wouldn’t be much room for a little boy.
“I want out of here. Ariella was helping me, man. She was going to talk to her dad about me staying with her. She was going to do that this weekend.” Tears were in the dark eyes. “You have to find her, you have to.”
“I’m going to do my damnedest. And kid? I’ll do what I can to help you with this problem of yours, too.”
He half thought he saw hope in the boy’s eyes.
Chapter 10
SOMEONE pounded on Paige’s door an hour before her alarm was set to go off. Cletus, her bed-hogging sleep companion, woofed loud enough to shake the whole house and ran toward the door. Paige hopped from the bed, certain something was wrong. She’d not had too many visitors to her apartment since back before Christmas; she didn’t want the knocker to wake up the Reynolds’ family so early. Especially the babies. And if it was one of those Reynolds was the knocker, then something was definitely wrong somewhere.
The knocking didn’t stop, just grew more fervent. Paige checked through the peep hole.
Mick stood on her porch, glaring at the peep hole. She yanked open the door. “What are you doing here? What’s happened?”
“Got a call from your sister-in-law. Thirty of those IDs found were from the Houston area. Grab your bag. I’ve got us a flight out in an hour.”
“Couldn’t we have the information faxed from whatever agency is handling it?” She’d have to call Dan, have him take care of Cletus for her. And what about Carrie?
“Texas State Police is playing hardball. Not being cooperative. We don’t have time to wait for jurisdictional bullshit. We’ll fly down today, find what we need, then fly back home before forensics are even finished processing what they’ve collected.”
It made a lot of sense. It would only take a day, at the absolute most. It would save them a lot of time, especially if they had to wait for forensics. “The rest of the team?”
“Chicago for Therez and Hernandez. Some of the IDs traced back to there. Evan and Josh are canvassing the neighborhood around the warehouse, and talking to the Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Combing photos for hits.”
Paige knew exactly what that meant. Extremely time-consuming and disheartening work. Seeing the faces of children that were out there and probably never coming home. It hurt her every time she looked at the databases. “We have anything else to go on?”
“Just what TSP post has the case. Get dressed.”
She looked down, recalling exactly what she was not wearing at the moment. She’d spent so many years sleeping in dirty clothes as a girl that she slept in hardly nothing at all now. A tank top and gym shorts were it at the moment. No bra, no underwear. And that was easily apparent in the early morning chill.
And Mick’s eyes were trained on the white shirt, exactly where they shouldn’t be. “Perv.”
“When it’s right there in front of him a guy is going to look.” He did finally look away though, long enough to check his watch. “You’ve got five minutes to get dressed. Or I’ll be happy to help you.”
“Dog needs walked.” Sometimes it was better to retreat. And when faced with Mick this early in the morning that was the only option she really had. “Leash is on the chair. Don’t let him poop in Ally’s vegetable garden.”
***
Mick walked the dog. The big beast pulled enthusiastically on the leash, showing that he needed a bit more training to be manageable. He gave the dog the command to heel. Cletus ignored the command.
Five minutes later he led the dog back into the small apartment to wait for his owner.
She hadn’t been wearing a bra, and though her chest was small he’d been well aware that what she had was probably a perfect handful. And the shorts? They were smaller than his hands, undoubtedly. He’d had a hard time looking at the black knit and not imagining his hands in their place. His fingers curled.
The black pantsuit she wore when she came out hid most of what figure he knew she possessed. He couldn’t help but think what a shame that was. And she’d subdued the dark hair into a simple braid. He felt strangely sad to see the transformation.
He’d known she was physically beautiful—that was kind of hard to miss—but he’d never really noticed how downright sexy a woman like her could be.
He’d never been attracted to extremely thin women before. Mara had been soft and curvy and built. Mara had also been a little too short for him; unlike Paige, who was only a half a foot shorter. He wouldn’t have to crane his neck down to kiss her, would he?
He glared at her, wondering just exactly where those thoughts had come from. He would not think of Paige that way.
It would lead to only madness.
Ten minutes later she had her bag slung over her shoulders and was kissing the dog good-bye. Mick could almost swear the animal was pouting. “That dog is spoiled. Where did you get him?”
“Case. Right before Sebastian and Carrie hooked up. Stray. He reminded me of one I’d had as a teenager. Until animal control took him and I didn’t have a way to get him back.” She hugged the animal again. “I’ll have Ryan and Gracie take care of him until I can get home. You think this will only be a one day thing?”
“Should be. We’ll be back tomorrow, noon at the latest.”
“I hope Carrie can hold off until I get back.”
“When is she due?”
“Halloween.”
“That’s three days away. Close.”
‘Very. I’d planned to take the week off, but…the teams couldn’t afford both Seb and I off. So…”
“So.”
The rest of the conversation turned toward the case. Ten minutes later they were preparing to board. It would be a short flight to Texas. Then they’d hopefully be on the next step to finding out the real names of the girls in Jules’ morgue.
Chapter 11
MELODY Beck got it, she really did. Her partner didn’t like the FBI. Most of the people she knew at TSP didn’t. FBI were a bunch of paper-pushers and blowhards. At least, that’s what they said. But how many of them had a sister that was a part of the best FBI division in the country? Not many, she bet.
“Have they said who or what office?” She asked her chief, a man she liked and respected a great deal.
“Didn’t get that far. Whomever it is, I expect you to work with them cooperatively, but we have jurisdiction and will be making any arrests. See that they understand that.”
“Yes, sir.” It didn’t matter to Mel, just as long as the perpetrators were caught and dealt with appropriately. She’d never understood the posturing and bull crap that went on with different agencies. “Jarrod? You think we should send an officer to meet the Feds at the airport?”
Her partner glowered—he rea
lly was good at that, Mr. Doom-and-Gloom. “No. I say we pick’em up ourselves. Not give them a chance to overstep. What flight?”
The chief passed on the information. “I don’t even have their names. Just that it’s a man and a woman. Good luck.”
Mel listened to Jarrod gripe the entire drive. It wasn’t unusual—he grumbled quite a lot. He usually didn’t mean anything by it. Jarrod was good at what he did, but seeing all the bad in the world, just made him even less positive than he already was by nature. Most days it didn’t rub her wrong. Most days.
“We just babysit these agents, keep them busy, while we work the case. We’ve worked under crappier conditions than this.”
“I just don’t understand why they can’t do their jobs, and leave us to do ours.”
“Who knows? Maybe they will. Not all agents are bad.” They’d both met more than a few when they’d been in St. Louis the previous year. A serial killer had targeted Melody’s older half-sister. Their father had been up in Missouri trying to protect that sister. She and Jarrod, and her younger sister Brynna, had rushed up there to help, as well.
Her sister was a special agent with the FBI out of St. Louis. So was her sister’s husband. Melody had liked them both, and had met several of their friends at her sister’s wedding.
“Classic overachievers.”
“Jarrod, that’s enough, ok? I really don’t need the added headache.”
Fifteen minutes later they were waiting at the gate, with a sign that said FBI. Jarrod held it and glowered at everyone who walked by. For such a handsome man, he was such a butt at times. But she loved him; he was the best partner she’d had.
Passengers were arriving. Melody studied them, wondering if she’d be able to pick out the agents by what they were wearing. She knew to look for a couple, thanks to her chief. But most of the ones coming toward them were obviously not federal agents.
Then she saw a dark-haired woman and gave a surprised laugh.
Jarrod looked at her. He grinned his handsome grin. “Well. Guess I wasn’t expecting that. Might not be so bad after all.”
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