by Lorie O
“What’s up?” Noah asked.
“Just thought I’d see if you’ve heard anything through the grapevine.”
“About?”
Perry knew Noah wouldn’t tell him anything confidential. But there were times in the past when a case had turned haunting and knowing an old buddy who was FBI helped out. Occasionally, Noah had tips that cracked a case wide open.
“We’ve got a sexual predator in town,” Perry began.
There was silence on the other end of the line, which meant he had Noah’s attention.
“There’ve been two cases so far,” Perry continued. “Two teenage girls, lured in by someone they thought was a boy from their school. They chatted online, agreed to meet, and then the girls disappeared. We’ve found one of the girls, but not the other.” He took a breath and heard Noah curse under his breath. If anything, unloading on his old friend helped Perry focus. The attitude at the station that he might be chasing ghosts, or that this wasn’t something that merited anyone being assigned the case full-time, pissed him off. “Last night a third girl snuck out of her home to meet a boy she’d been chatting with online. Her father followed her and watched his daughter park the family car at a pizza place. As she started toward the restaurant a man got out of his car and went after the teenager. If the father wasn’t there to run after his daughter, he would have lost her.”
Noah cursed again. “I haven’t heard anything. You been assigned the case?”
“Nope.” Perry ground his back teeth together, forcing himself not to unload his frustrations over his conversation with his Chief. “Keep your ear to the ground for me, though. Will you?”
“Will do,” Noah said seriously. “Keep me posted as well. If there’s anything I can do, let me know.”
“There is something,” Perry said, and turned at his exit, then slowed on the off-ramp as it rounded and merged into the main street of his neighborhood. “I found some Web sites.”
“Oh yeah? What kind of Web sites.”
“Pornography. The kind where the girls are barely legal, if that.”
“They’re a dime a dozen, my friend.”
“Tell me about it,” Perry growled, images of the pictures he had printed for the Chief turning his stomach and twisting it into a ball of pissed-off rage. “These Web sites are a bit different, though. They’re worded carefully, as most of them are, but they look as if you could bid on these girls, buy them off the auction block. I need help understanding ISPs and domains and crap. Because from what I can tell, and if I’m right, the Web sites were created here in the Kansas City area.”
“No shit.” Noah must have put his hand over the phone at his end, because he mumbled something too muffled for Perry to hear. More than likely Noah was explaining to his new lady, who Perry knew was a cop up in Lincoln, Nebraska, what the conversation was about. “Let me get back to you on that one. I might be able to e-mail a file I have on a flash drive that explains domains and web hosting.”
“Appreciate it, man,” Perry said. “Sure hope that lady of yours doesn’t come to her senses.”
“She’s got it bad for me, what can I say?”
“Lost cause,” Perry mumbled, again feeling that pang of jealousy before hanging up.
The police radio installed under his dash beeped and chirped just as Perry pulled into his driveway. He put the car in park but didn’t cut the engine as he listened to the dispatcher send two cars to a disturbance over at a nearby mall parking lot. Dispatch reported a female, age sixteen, was reported missing by her friends and they were trying to get into her car to retrieve their belongings when passersby grew concerned the teenagers were breaking into the car. Perry listened a moment longer to see who was dispatched and where they were right now. Then grabbing his phone, he auto-dialed dispatch, the words teenage female missing ringing in his head.
“Cliff, this is Flynn. I’m ten forty-two but just a couple blocks from the Shawnee Mission mall.”
“Unit Six is already ten ninety-seven,” Cliff said while other dispatchers talked in the background. “Apparently he was a couple blocks away.”
“Franco up to bat again.” Perry shifted into reverse and backed out of his driveway. “I’ve got a personal interest in any teenage disappearances right now. Do you know how long she’s been missing?”
“Negative,” Cliff said. “You know Franco isn’t going to take lightly you stepping in on his call. I’m sure it’s something he can handle.”
Perry snorted. Franco Romero didn’t like any case that wasn’t high profile. If he couldn’t make the news with an arrest, he’d let the perp go. The arrogant prick cared more about how he looked in his uniform than he did about crimes going on around him.
“I’ll just do a drive-by.” Perry knew Cliff didn’t care one way or the other.
“Ten four,” Cliff said, ending the call.
Perry headed around the corner toward the mall parking lot. He gripped the steering wheel, his insides hardening with predatory rage as he took in the familiar surroundings. Pulling in the first entrance, he drove to where Franco was already parked, his lights flashing on his squad car as he walked around the front to where a handful of teenagers looked more nervous than angry. Perry had picked up his nieces and their friends too many times in this parking lot after they spent a day at the mall. This was more than home turf. This was where his girls hung out, where they laughed and played, flirted and shopped. He exhaled, making it sound as if he growled. There had better be a rational explanation why these kids were locked out of their friend’s car and unable to get their things. Whoever the girl was who drove them better be inside the mall, her cell phone dead, or possibly distracted by a boy from her class. If the online predator was sniffing around this mall, Perry’s nieces weren’t safe. He’d turn this goddamn town upside down finding the prick whether the Chief liked it or not.
Perry parked behind the squad car, checking out the group of kids who huddled close to one another, watching Franco warily. He wasn’t sure whether he recognized any of them or not. His nieces weren’t here, but that knowledge offered him only a small amount of relief. Every kid standing alongside the car in question looked about Dani and Diane’s age and very well could be friends of his nieces.
He didn’t get out of his car right away, taking his time absorbing the surroundings. Franco was busy barking at the kids, playing it out as if he were rough and tough and every one of those boys and girls was up to no good. Perry wanted to send a right hook to Franco’s head for being a prick. The kids were obviously nervous as hell, didn’t appear to be ready to run, and shifted nervously, each of them growing paler and wide-eyed the longer Franco ranted loud enough for Perry to hear inside his car.
There were other cars parked down the long row, each stall marked with fresh, bright white paint. The car with the missing driver parked on the outer edge of the lot, with most remaining cars parked closer to the mall entrance. Perry watched two ladies, probably about his age, walk through the lot with their purchases in various-sized bags that each lady held in her hands. They strolled slowly, curious as they watched the scene, but stopped at a minivan and loaded their bags, then headed out.
Another lady strolled through the parking lot in a short dress that showed off leg clear up to her thighs. Her waist was so small he bet he could wrap his fingers around it. She paused, as if hesitating, possibly not remembering where she parked. When she leaned against a parked car several stalls down, Perry got the impression it wasn’t her car. She looked like she stopped just to watch Franco yell at the kids.
Perry acknowledged that many of his nieces’ friends were too hot for their own good. And at their age, they were so excited with their brand-new sensual bodies and no longer being awkward little girls, they went out of their way to show off what they had. More than once Dani’s and Diane’s friends had flirted with him. It was vaguely amusing. Not once had Perry ever been aroused by any teenage girl, even when they stretched out in his sister’s backyard, tanning in little mor
e than string bikinis. They were children, goddamn children, no matter what their bodies looked like.
Something about the young woman leaning against her green hybrid, her arms crossed against her waist and her full breasts partially exposed under her low-cut neckline, did more than distract him. He grew hard watching her, focusing on her pouty lips when her tongue darted out and moistened them. She never once looked his way, but if Perry didn’t know better he’d swear she knew she had an audience and posed, offering one hell of a view of her hot, perfectly shaped body.
If one of his nieces dressed like that, he’d march her right back to her bedroom to change into something more decent. In spite of the lady leaning against her car giving all appearances of being a teenager from her attire down to the way she leaned against her car, her body language screaming attitude and a saucy nature that would probably be hell to take on, Perry guessed her to be probably in her early twenties. He wondered if she dressed to appear younger than she actually was on purpose.
As he took his time getting out of the car, his attention was torn between the conversation now playing out between Franco and the group of teenagers and the young woman leaning against her hybrid. Her short blond hair was tousled, possibly gelled, like some of the teenagers wore their hair. If it weren’t for the curves, the way she filled out her sleeveless minidress, and how her slender legs were crossed and very much on display, he might have guessed her a bored teenager trying to stay out of the scene yet very much a part of it. Perry walked toward the group of kids. Franco spotted him and straightened, intentionally looking away from him and deepening his voice as he addressed the kids.
“Whose car is this?” he demanded.
“She’s not here.” A freckle-faced boy stepped forward. “Olivia gave us rides here, but we can’t find her. We thought she ditched us, but here’s her car and it’s locked. Our stuff is in there.”
Perry glanced again at the young woman leaning against her hybrid while Franco called in the tag and continued questioning the teenagers. It was obvious she was attentively watching the teenagers who loitered around the car Franco was calling in. As Perry watched her, she shifted her attention to him. She had blue eyes, bright blue eyes that were sharp and focused and widened when she realized she did in fact have an audience.
It hit him that a sexual predator might watch a teenage girl the way he was staring at this woman right now. If Perry were determined enough, he could approach the woman, engage in a conversation, and leave with her. Even if she went with him against her will, there weren’t enough people around for anyone to notice, especially if he were to gag her, or even drug her. No one would give them a second glance if Perry were a predator, and if he were confident in his moves.
The thought made him sick, hardening his insides and pissing him off. A quick survey showed there weren’t any other people loitering around them. Perry stood in front of his car, staying put, and squinted at the parked cars nearby. No one sat inside any of them.
The teenagers moved, leaving their huddle, when another car pulled up and a woman got out, hurrying over to Franco and not bothering to turn off her engine.
“That’s my daughter’s car,” she announced. “Where is she?”
Perry glanced again at the woman leaning against the hybrid as the teenagers, who apparently knew the lady who’d just arrived, all started talking, quickly informing her when they’d last seen her daughter.
The woman with the hybrid appeared to be listening attentively to the anxious chatter that escalated in tone to worry and panic when it became apparent that her daughter, Olivia Brown, was missing. Franco was on the phone with Dispatch confirming who had called in the disturbance. Perry headed toward the woman, deciding it wouldn’t hurt to learn what she might have seen.
As he walked around the teenagers toward her, Perry stared at the woman and those bright blue eyes of hers flashed defiantly. She straightened and then the material of her short dress swayed over her perfectly shaped ass as she jumped into her car.
“Hold on a minute,” he called out.
There wasn’t a car parked in front of her hybrid and the woman started hers and peeled out. As she drove away, Perry repeated her tag number out loud to himself. If she was a witness to anything, he would find out.
Chapter 2
Kylie Donovan would nail the son of a bitch to the wall.
“Look at her,” she hissed, staring at the pictures of Maura Reynolds her parents had provided the FBI. “She barely got a taste of life.”
“Which is why you were called in.” Paul Hernandez sat at the computer, clicking his mouse repeatedly while biting his lower lip. “All right. I’ve sent the files I pulled off her hard drive to this flash drive.” Paul tapped the small drive plugged into the USB port in the tower next to him. Then pushing his glasses up his nose he stared at her over the thick brown rims, looking very much the computer geek that he was. “She chatted with a boy named Peter for three months and last October agreed to meet him at the movie theater.”
Kylie stared at the pictures, barely hearing what Paul said. For a moment she didn’t see the pretty young teenager. A half buried, naked body broken and twisted in an impossible position, Karen Donovan, Kylie’s older sister, appeared in her mind, also dead, her legs and arms bent the wrong way.
She knew why she was called in, for the same reason she was flown from city to city any time the local police ran into a snag with online predators. Especially when their prey were teenage girls. Kylie wouldn’t say why, and she wasn’t convinced she knew the reason herself, but she was good at tracking assholes who fed off of innocent teenagers. For some reason, it came naturally to her. It wasn’t something she was proud of, understanding the minds of twisted bastards who fed off of innocent teenagers. She saw the beauty of young girls, how virgins inexperienced in the art of seduction yet provocative in their willingness to flirt and explore could be more of a turn-on than a fully grown woman who was already jaded from life’s experiences.
That was how Karen was, her older sister, cocky and a flirt, flaunting her perfect body and teasing and torturing every boy in their high school. Karen loved every minute of it. And Kylie, being younger and not yet as developed, envied the hell out of her beautiful, perfect sister, who managed to get every boy at school to stumble over his own feet to do anything for her. Kylie couldn’t get any of them to give her the time of day. Of course all of that ended the day her sister died.
Kylie pinched her nose, blowing out an exasperated breath, and put the horrible memory out of her head. Someday she would quit seeing her sister every time she took on a new case. “You’ve tracked the ISPs?”
“That’s why you’re working solo, kiddo.” Paul probably wasn’t more than five years older than Kylie, possibly in his mid-thirties, yet he spoke like an old man.
He looked like a nerd, but there was an easygoing side to him Kylie immediately liked. She’d spent the day with him, after flying into Kansas City and renting a car to drive to the suburb of Mission Hills. And in that short time she already knew he would be volumes of help in gathering data for this case.
“I’m still working on narrowing it down to a specific computer. Our perp is jumping around. But whoever is chatting with these girls is using city computers. The Mission Hills, Kansas, Law Enforcement Center for one, and other city offices, but I’m narrowing it down, and it’s not looking pretty.”
“You think he’s a cop?” she asked, keeping her emotions at bay.
Someone who’d taken an oath to uphold the law, to protect and serve, to watch over the youth of their city and make sure they were safe, was tested and put through rigorous courses in order to earn his, or her, badge. Any signs of being fucked up should have been detected long before he donned that uniform. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d arrested someone in uniform, though. A bad seed could pop up anywhere. Unfortunately, working in law enforcement could make a man, or a woman, believe he, or she, was invincible, above the laws he enforced on everyone e
lse. It didn’t happen a lot. But it did happen. Kylie wouldn’t hesitate in making her arrest, no matter if her perp wore a uniform or not. It wouldn’t take her long to gather intel, scope out the town, and find her guy.
And anyone capable of doing this to a young girl was a hell of a lot more than mental-he was insane, not worth saving or wasting tax dollars on to rehabilitate. As far as Kylie was concerned, he should be made to suffer a horrendous death worse than what he put his victims through.
“What I think doesn’t matter,” Paul said, as if he followed her line of thinking and came up with the inevitable conclusion. He was still clicking his mouse repeatedly and staring unblinking at his computer screen. “It’s our job to find proof. Just the facts, ma’am.”
Kylie turned to study Paul. Although still light outside, heavy shadows stretched across the small office. Light from his monitor cast different shades of color over his hard, dark face as he continued jumping from screen to screen. There were streaks of silver in his black hair and crow’s-feet stretched to his temples, more visible through the lenses of his glasses that he stared over as he focused on the computer. He was a gaunt man, but not grossly unattractive.
The thick gold band on his ring finger and the heavy gold chain around his neck stood out against his brown skin, making them look more like intentional bling-bling than jewelry he’d probably worn for so many years he forgot they were there. Something told her, in the week or so she’d spent communicating with him prior to arriving here in Mission Hills, that her opinion of him summed up his nature: the computer geek taken for granted and often forgotten by agents in the field until they needed his talents. Special agents like him were overlooked in the heat of the action, yet Kylie wouldn’t be as ready to jump into this case if it weren’t for the profile he’d already created on her perp.
Paul pulled the flash drive out of the USB port and held it in his hand, palm up. Kylie walked over to his desk and took it.
