Chapter 12

Eve spent the best part of an hour taking them all back through the steps. Nashville, Philadelphia when she arrived on the run, Shivitz, and two staff members who were there when Shelby walked out the door for the last time.

She left unsatisfied, and left them in considerable turmoil.

"I can't decide if they're worried about being sued—though who's going to bother?—about getting fined or cited—and I can't figure out how that would work, exactly—or if they're guilty they might have abetted a murderer."

"I think it's some of all of the above." Peabody settled into the car. "Do you want the line on Mikki Wendall?"

"I do."

"The mother had a substance abuse problem that resulted in neglect, unemployment, and eventually eviction for nonpayment of rent. They ended up on the street where the mother did some unlicensed prostitution for food, shelter, and more often illegals. Got herself bashed up a few times and the kid got busted for stealing. CPS finally stepped in, and Mikki ended up in The Sanctuary with the mother doing a short stint and obligatory rehab."

"Where'd you get all this?"

"From the source, the mother. She didn't put any bows on it, Dallas. She was a junkie, whored herself, let the kid run the streets, encouraged her to steal what she could. She skipped out on the rehab the first round, got busted again, got the shit kicked out of her in jail, and had herself a personal epiphany. Stuck with rehab, did a full ninety days in with follow-up meetings, got a job cleaning offices at night, and worked days in a sweatshop off the books, saved up for an apartment and petitioned to get the kid back."

"How quick did they pass the kid back?"

"It took the best part of a year, with the mother taking regular pee tests, regular counseling, and CPS visits. It sounds like she was one of the success stories."

"They're rare."

"Yeah, so it stands out. During the year she was saving up, working, getting the supervision, going to meetings, she met this guy. Worked maintenance at the office building where she cleaned. Straight-arrow type, and they ended up cohabbing."

She shifted. "I ran him just to tie up the ends, and he's clean. He passed muster with CPS, with the court, and they granted her custody. Kid comes home."

"Where it doesn't end up a little happy family."

"Nope. Kid won't go to school, won't pull her weight. Sasses, sneaks out at night, steals from them. The mother found illegals—which she flushed—and a knife hidden in the kid's room. The knife scares her, but they're going to stick it out, get more counseling."

But the kid's done with that, Eve thought. Done with all of that.

"And the mother finds out she's pregnant. Sees it as another chance. She's going to do it right this time. She's clean, going to stay clean.

"She catches the kid coming in stoned, middle of the night, still has a twist of zoner on her. They fight about it, and the kid runs out, mother runs after her. Tries to pull the kid back upstairs, and the kid shoves her down them."

"The kid pushed her pregnant mother down the stairs?"

"She didn't know she was pregnant, but yeah. Left her there, and just kept going. She was hurt pretty bad. I checked on the medical, and she told me straight. It was touch-and-go on the baby for a couple days, pretty touch-and-go all around. And she said she made a choice, and let Mikki go. Hated herself, but she was afraid of her own kid. She didn't file a Missing Persons, didn't file charges because she didn't want the kid sent back to juvie. She said Mikki said they weren't family, that she had family and she was happy with them, to leave her the hell alone."

"So she did."

"Yeah, she did. She spent two weeks in the hospital, another four on doctor's orders bedrest at home. The guy went out looking for Mikki when he could, but they never saw her again. They've got two kids now, a boy about the age Mikki was, and a girl a couple years younger."

"She fucked the kid's life."

"And she knows it. She tried to fix it, Dallas, and she couldn't. Now she's got to live with knowing her daughter's been dead all this time."

"Mikki didn't go back to the new home—to HPCCY—so they weren't the family she spoke of. Shelby, I guess. And the old building where they formed that family. Shelby, DeLonna, and T-Bone. We need to find the other two, dead or alive."

"They're off the grid. I can't track either of them. Records show they were with The Sanctuary, then with HPCCY. DeLonna got into a work/study program at sixteen, then poofed. So unless that's bogus, she wasn't one of the remains. T-Bone stayed until he hit eighteen, then just vanished into the city. No data on him after he left."

"Pass them to McNab," Eve ordered. "If he can't find them, I'll give them to Roarke."

"I'm all over that. Are you buying this clusterfuck deal with Shelby?"

"I haven't decided. I can see how it could happen—shoddy, but the kid had some smarts. Timed it when everything was messed up, mixed up, and the doc looked legit if you didn't look real close. I want to verify the signature. If it's not his, Jones looks a little clearer on it."

"You have to wonder why she wanted out all of a sudden, getting better digs and all that."

"Better digs, but not hers. Not her rules." She'd had decent digs in the state facilities, Eve remembered. Mostly three squares. And she'd wanted out as much as she'd wanted to live.

"Somebody offered her something she wanted more. Or she saw the chance to take what she wanted more. Freedom. No rules but her rules, do what she wants when she wants. Eat what she wants when she wants. It's not like family, Peabody—most of where you end up if you're a kid without a safety net—it's okay, it's decent, and they're trying to help. But it's not family. It's two slippery steps up from prison."

"Did you ever run?"

"In the early days, yeah. And I know I was lucky they caught me. I'm lucky I realized pretty quick juvie's only a half a slippery step up from prison. So why not take the extra steps, do the time, take what you can out of it?"

Eve shook it off. "But she risked getting caught, getting dumped in juvie instead of a group home because it was all shit to her. I knew plenty like her, and most of those, I can guarantee, ended up slipping down that half a step into a real cage."

"I guess some of it is shit," Peabody considered. "It's just the best shit we've got."

"She wanted out, and she knew how to bargain, probably blackmail, cheat, steal, whatever it took. But somebody helped her get out, and I'm going to take a leap and say the probability's high the person who helped get her out killed her."

"Well, here's a thought. If Jones or his sister are psycho kid killers, they've had their pick from a garden variety for years. Unless those specific kids were specific targets, or there's some meaning in the number twelve."

"Yeah, I'm going around on that. The brother was there."

"The dead brother? The lion lunch brother?"

"That's the one. Try this on," Eve said with a glance at Peabody. "Say he's a psycho kid killer. He has access to the vics, at least we can be sure he had access to the ones connected to the home. He had access and knowledge of the building. They dropped that he helped with repairs now and then, so maybe he can build a few walls."

"Then why did he go to Africa, unless he wanted to become an international psycho kid killer? We should check to see if any kids went missing over there before he got eaten."

"We'll do that. But as to why, what if they caught him? The siblings—the do-gooders? Or maybe it doesn't go that far, but they catch him behaving inappropriately with one or more of the girls. Can't have that. Ship him off, time for a missionary stint. And the king of the beasts takes care of him."

Eve didn't like the ending. "We're sure he and the lion went a round?"

"I verified the report, the death certificate, the cremation, and the transportation of the ashes back to New York."

"Rather have a body," Eve muttered. "Better, I'd rather have a live killer so we can bag his sorry ass. But we're going to play with psycho dead brother some."

"It's hard to see either one of them covering for him if they found out he'd killed those girls."

"Blood. Water."

"Okay, maybe so. But they don't strike me as stupid, or as gamblers. Would they just leave the bodies there?"

"Not if they knew about them, and I'm tripping over that one, too," she admitted. "So, like I said, maybe it didn't go that far. And maybe this is a dead end and the dead brother was just another do-gooder who provided a lion with a tasty meal."

"Like the Christians. You know how the Romans fed them to lions to the cheers of the crowd?"

"Why did they do that?"

"Bloodthirsty?"

"I don't mean the Roman guys, that I get."

Peabody blinked. "You do?"

"Bloodthirsty," Eve repeated. "Better you than me. Power. But I don't get the Christian guys. Why not say, why yes, Roman asshole who can feed me to the lions, Luigi or whoever is a very fine god."

"Luigi?"

"Whoever—then run away to the—what do you call them, the caves."

"Catacombs?"

"Yeah, those. Run off there and have some wine, plot out your rebellion, and organize to kick some Roman ass."

"I'm still kind of stuck on the god Luigi, but I think they were peaceful."

"Yeah, and where did that get them? Lion dung."

"Eeww."

"Exactly." She turned to the dash 'link when it signaled. "Dallas, on screen."

The next girl smiled out at her.

"There's a missing on her," Eve said. "Cross-check it. I remember seeing her."

"Cross-check going. Kim Terrance, age thirteen. Runaway from Jersey City, New Jersey. Filed by the mother. Father incarcerated at the time for assault."

"Get the current data."

"It's coming up. Mother remarried, two years ago, relocated with spouse to Vermont where they run a small resort. Spouse has two grown offspring. Quick background shows pattern of abuse by first husband, and a restraining order. He's doing another stretch now—assault and rape, second wife. She's got a regular flag in her file for the Missing Persons, with comp-generated age enhancements."

Peabody brought the latest one up, showing a woman in her late twenties.

"She's still looking, Dallas."

"I'll make the notification. Let's see if we can dig out any connection to The Sanctuary, HPCCY, any staff or residents."

"This makes seven of them," Peabody said as Eve pulled into Central's garage. "Five more left. It doesn't get easier."

Eve added the new faces to her board. The last, Terrance, hadn't had a chance to grow into the comp-generated face. She'd been stuck forever at that awkward between-stage when the teeth seemed too big, the eyes too wide.

She wasn't on the resident list Philadelphia had given her. To be sure, she contacted CPS, then wheedled, browbeat, and nagged the overworked and unlucky social worker who answered to dig into the archives.

There'd been a file on Kim Terrance—some truancy, some shoplifting. Counseling for her and her mother both times the mother had run with the kid to a women's shelter.

And both times the mother had gone back, dragging the kid into the hot hell their lives must have been. A pattern, Eve thought, too often repeated. At least the vic's mother had finally broken the chain, but not until she'd lost her kid to the streets, scraped herself off the bottom of her personal barrel.

And all too late, Eve thought, too late for the kid to trust the woman who'd boomeranged back to the man who beat her, who took swipes at the child they'd made together. Too late for the kid to care about the fear and self-loathing that kept a woman tied to an abusive man, too late to care about breaking the pattern, turning the corner.

Too late for her to ever grow into her face.

She finished up her notes. Not a churchgoer like Lupa or Carlie. Not a girl taking a shot at rebellious independence like Linh. Not, from the accounts, as hardened or tough as Shelby.

More like Mikki, Eve supposed. Sick of it all.

She spent some time on the 'link, tugging some threads, snipping off others. Then, because it nagged at her, checked Peabody's data on Montclair Jones.

The youngest of the four, he'd barely made it to twenty-three. Seven-year gap between him, Eve noted, and Philadelphia. Homeschooled like his siblings, but unlike Nash and Philadelphia he hadn't taken a spin through the public sector for the certification in social work.

Unlike sister Selma, nearly thirteen years his senior, he hadn't traveled, then planted himself far away, made a family.

She dug back, shoved forward, shoved sideways.

When Peabody came in, Eve held up a hold-on-a-minute finger, continued to talk on her 'link.

"I appreciate the help, Sergeant Owusu."

"It is my pleasure to assist you in any way."

Peabody angled her head to see the face that matched the crisp and musical voice. "I will speak with my grandfather and my uncle. If there is more information I will contact you. Good evening to you, Lieutenant."

"And to you, Sergeant."

"What was that? Who was that?"

"Sergeant Alika Owusu, of the Republic of Zimbabwe Police and Security Department."

"No freaking shit! You were talking to Africa?"

"A small part of it."

"What time is it there? Did you hear any lions or elephants or anything?"

"She was on the night shift, which was lucky considering I don't know what the hell time it is there because I'm here. I didn't hear any roaring, or anyone screaming as they were being mauled by the local wildlife."

"I'd like to see an elephant," Peabody said thoughtfully. "Not in a wildlife refuge, but in its natural habitat. And I'd like to hear a hyena, even thought they're supposed to be mean and crazy. I'd like—"

She finally caught Eve's stony stare.

"Anyway enough about that. You're on the idea of Montclair Jones."

"I want more clear intel on it, that's all. I managed to track the sergeant down. She was a girl when the whole lion-eating-man deal happened. She remembers Jones a little—remembers better what was left of him after the lion, which her grandfather killed."

"Aw." The romantic safari building in Peabody's head shattered. "I know, man-eater, but still. It's just the nature of the beast, right?"

"Rogue man-eating lion, small village with tiny, tiny children, slow old ladies, and hapless pets. Lion loses."

"I guess. But she confirmed Jones was lion chow?"

"She confirmed there was an incident, and a missionary named Montclair Jones who worked in the area was attacked and killed."

"Which jibes with his siblings' story, and the official data."

"Yeah, yeah." She drummed her fingers on the desk. "It bugs me, that's all. Biggest sister Selma, goes off on missions, finds her place in Australia, marries a sheepherder. Why do people herd sheep?"

"You're wearing a wool jacket."

"I am?"

"Soft," Peabody said reverently as she snuck a stroke down the sleeve.

"Hands off. Anyway, she's herding sheep, making babies, and younger brother and younger sister are getting college degrees, doing missions, and eventually pooling their resources to buy the building on Ninth and found The Sanctuary.

"Some of those resources, FYI, come from a small inheritance, and a share of the sale of the family home after the mother's suicide, and after the father sells the home to go on a mission."

"I saw the self-termination in the file," Peabody commented. "It looked, from what I scanned, she'd had bouts of depression since her final pregnancy."

"Popping one out when you've got three—one's a teenager—and you're rounding the bag to fifty sounds depressing to me."

"I don't... On second thought," Peabody considered, "it kind of does."

"So both mother and youngest son have some treatment for depression, anxiety. And baby brother sticks close to home until Mom opens the veins in her wrists. After, he lives with Jones and Jones. He didn't go for any higher ed or certification—did one youth group mission to Haiti at eighteen. And never went to any out of the country again."

"That all sounds depressing, too."

"Probably, but the mother had a history of emotional and mental challenges, ending with her offing herself with the classic slit wrists in the bathtub."

"It's less messy, and the hot water helps numb. But bathtub." A little glint shone in Peabody's eyes. "I didn't go back that far."

"It's a standard self-termination style, especially for females, but the bathtub's a little bell. From what I can tell he did mostly scut work at The Sanctuary. Some cooking, cleaning, repairs, assisting in classes or groups. No real authority."

She rose, tapping the old ID photo of Montclair Jones she'd put on her board. "Then, about the time we've got twelve dead girls tucked between the walls at The Sanctuary building, his sibs send him off to Africa.

"He'd traveled before that one time, on the missionary trail, but never again out of the States, never alone, never without one of the sibs or an experienced associate." Eve shook her head. "The timing sure is interesting."

"But if they knew, they'd have gotten rid of the bodies," Peabody insisted. "And I don't know how they could've just kept quiet all this time, or gone cruising along knowing all those girls were in that building."

"Hangs me up a little, too. But the time line... If he were here, if he still lived and worked here, he'd be number one on my list. So, for now, he's number one on my look-a-little-harder list. What did you get?"

"A big goose egg. There's no connection I can find linking the latest two vics ID'd with The Sanctuary, HPCCY, Nash, Philadelphia, any of them."

Eve nodded, as she'd laid the same goose egg. "We have the Korean market linking Shelby and Linh. We're going to find other connections, just that nebulous. I'm taking this home. I need to spread it out, shuffle it up, look at it from other angles."

"Did you notify next of kin on the latest?"

"I talked to her mother. She didn't know any of the other vics, never heard of The Sanctuary."

"How'd she handle it?"

"Glazed over some," Eve said as she packed up what she wanted. "But toughed it out. She'll claim the remains when we're clear with them. I backtracked, too, and got the data on Jubal Craine. His wife killed him, set their barn on fire with him in it."

"She must've been very upset."

"Apparently she got a little ticked off when he beat the crap out of her, yet again. But according to everything I can find, he was alive and well, and in fricking Nebraska during September of 'forty-five. And since his daughter didn't slip the leash again until November of that year, he didn't have any reason to come back here."

"You didn't really think he'd killed them."

"No, mostly because I don't think he'd have spent all that time in godless New York, or if he had, any of those girls would've gone with him without a serious fight." She yanked on her coat. "But it was a loose end."

"McNab's on the hunt for DeLonna and T-Bone. We'll probably take that home, too."

"If he finds them, either of them, I want to know asap."

She carted the file discs, headed out.

Deliberately, she drove home through the insane circus of Times Square. She studied the packs of teenagers, the packs of girls she gauged to be on the cusp of their teens or just over the line.

She'd never sought out a pack, alone had suited her. Too much bouncing from place to place in the beginning in any case, she thought, even if she'd been inclined to the pack mentality.

But she understood she represented the exception.

They looked alike, she noted, streaming along under the flooding, jittery light that kept the dark away and invited everyone to the endless party. Their coats, hats, scarves, gloves might be different colors, but a definite style ribboned through most. Clunky boots that must have weighed like anchors, bright pants worn tight, bright coats worn big, hats with long ties flopping.

They sucked on tubes of fizzies, yammered on 'links, chowed on warm, soft pretzels they tore apart and shared.

And they stuck together as if hooked by invisible wires.

Boys scattered through some of the groups of older girls, but the younger ones—the vics' age range—largely stuck with their own kind. Not only gender, she saw now, but class.

She picked out huddles of cheaper boots, thinner coats, most of them hatless with streaks of color through their hair rather than their wardrobe.

She spotted one helping herself to some scarves while her two partners kept the vendor busy on the other side of the stall. She watched the handoff to the girl doing a brisk walk-by before Light Fingers wandered around to her friends, all innocence and empty pockets.

Would they wear them, sell them?

Then the light changed, and she drove on.

You couldn't pull them all in, couldn't chase them all down, couldn't wrap them all up in the system so they came out the better for it.

Some, as Roarke had, were just surviving, taking what they could from the streets so they'd have food in their bellies or enough to catch a vid. Others just looked for a quick thrill, some noise, some movement, with them so much in the center.

And all of them thought they'd live forever.

She left the crowds, the noise, the jittery lights behind, and drove toward home.

The elves had definitely paid another visit, she thought as she studied the house. It looked like some elegantly wrapped gift with its starry lights, countless wreaths, flowing greenery.

A long way, she thought, a long, long way from the single spindly tree Mavis had pushed on her every year.

"Mavis." She said it out loud. "Crap, crap. I forgot." She glanced at the time, winced, then grabbed her file bag.

If they were already here, Summerset would have something snide to say. Hell, he'd have something snide to say anyway, but she'd deserve it—a little—if they were already here.

And she needed a few minutes to get upstairs, update her board. A few minutes to just sit and think.

She stopped herself from dashing inside—it would look as if she knew she ran late—that she cared she ran late. Instead, she sauntered in.

He stood there, of course, looming in black—but she didn't hear voices.

"Fortunately for you, your guests are running a bit late," Summerset told her. "And had the courtesy to contact me to let me know."

"Not a guest." She shrugged out of her coat, tossed it over the newel post so he could scowl at it. "Don't answer to you."

Grateful they were later than she was, she saved any insults on cadaverous looks for another time, and jogged up the stairs with the cat on her heels.

She went straight to her office, hit the house search. "Where's Roarke?"

Roarke has not yet arrived.

"Even better."

With some luck she'd get her board updated, get one hit of coffee while she studied it, and let her brain circle around.

She tried a new system, live girls front, remains back.

On the front she pinned parents, guardians, the staff of The Sanctuary.

She connected Shelby and Linh, Shelby and Mikki. Shelby, Mikki, and Lupa, as they'd all been in residence together whether or not they'd interacted.

She pinned Seraphim as a girl, and as an adult. Another connection.

She got the coffee, sipped while she circled, changed photos, took another hard look at the tubs, the bathroom areas where she believed the girls had died.

She sat at her desk, propped up her boots, and studied some more.

Mikki went looking for Shelby, that played for her. Had Shelby already been dead? They didn't die together or they'd have been hidden together. No, Shelby and Linh, they'd died together, and very likely on the night, or near to it, they'd stopped in the market next door.

Lupa, Carlie Bowen, LaRue Freeman. Next group, stacked together. Had he killed them all in one night? Why the rush? And a lot to take on.

But it's his sanctuary now, so there is no rush.

Time line again. Three days between Lupa going missing and Carlie Bowen. Not killed together, concealed together. With LaRue possibly between. She was listed as Victim Four. After Lupa, she thought, before Carlie.

But no other connection between them yet come to light.

What did he—

She glanced over as the cat jumped off her desk, and watched him pad his pudgy way over to Roarke.

"You're later than me."

"So I've been told." He studied her face as he crossed to her, then stroked a fingertip gently down her bruised cheek. "As I was told about this?"

"Huh? How? Oh, your security guy?"

"Yes. One of Frester's private security, was it?"

"She objected to my presence. I objected when she put hands on me and actually tried to pull her stunner. She objected when I pushed her face to the wall—and she got in one lucky backfist—just caught the cheekbone."

"So I see." Now he brushed his lips over the bruise.

"She really objected when I put her on the ground and cuffed her. So I won."

"There's the upside," he said. "Still, it could use a cold pack."

"Maybe later. Mavis should be up here soon. I wanted to talk to her about street kids, girl packs. Girl packs now, ice packs later."

"Hmm. You've identified more, I see."

"Yeah. I was going to update you, but I guess it should wait for later. We've still got five more outstanding. I've made some connections, and I'm trying some new angles."

"Such as this." He tapped Montclair Jones's photo. "Lion fodder."

"Yeah. The timing bothers me, so I'm just playing around with it. The timing, his lack of real work or apparently any desire for it. His mother's suicide—slit wrists, bathtub. His treatment for depression like his mother."

"He's your top suspect. I can hear it."

Damn it, she thought when she jammed her hands in her pockets, he was.

"He just fits. But I can't interview him, I can't look at his eyes. I can't know it. I can tell you Shelby Stubacker forged docs to skip out of the home. Jones claims he didn't sign the doc, and I'm having the signature tested. Nobody knows who took her out, if she walked out on her own, what. It was all moving-out-and-in confusion."

"You think she had help."

"I think she was pretty canny, but where does a kid get the document paper, because it looked legit at a glance. How does she know what documents, what paperwork? The judge's name on it, real. The caseworker, real. I think a girl who knows how to trade blow jobs for brew knows how to trade for information and documentation. Montclair Jones was early twenties, young enough to be stupid. Well, men are stupid about blow jobs."

"It's difficult to resist challenging you to prove that. I believe my intelligent quotient can stand the test."

"Even you, pal, lose brain cells when your dick's involved. But let's stick with Jones, the younger. She bartered bjs for favors. He could have gotten her the doc paper, the names. Nobody's going to say anything if he goes into his brother's office, right?"

"I'm sorry, I'm having difficulty understanding. I was thinking about my penis."

"Funny. And probably true."

She got up again, circled again. "You ran with a pack. Would you have just ditched them, taken off on your own?"

In the end, he supposed he had. "Some are more loyal than others."

"Yeah, I get that, too, but the instinct, if you've formed a pack, is to keep it. I wonder if she planned on getting the others out. Could she have had the idea they'd all flop back in the old building? Familiar place, but without the rules, the supervision. Before she can follow through, she's dead. This one gets reinstated with her rehabilitated mother."

Eve tapped Mikki's photo. "The last thing she'd want if she had plans to hunker up with her friends. Before long, she takes off from there, and violently."

"And if she'd been meeting or intended to meet Shelby at the building..."

"She'd walk right in, and she's dead."

She circled again. "Still..."

"We're late!" Mavis bounced in on thigh-high platform boots as red as Rudolph's nose. Her hair, a twisting, curling, corkscrewing mass of sunshine covered with silver glitter, tumbled around a face that lasered out smiles.

She danced over, a high-on-the-thigh skirt of Christmas green scattered with silver stars fluttering as she tossed her arms around Roarke, then Eve for hugs.

"I'm totally juiced you thought of get-together time, because we haven't—just us—in a while. Leonardo's down with Bella, but you said I should come up, Dallas. The house looks ultra mag Santa time. Bellamina's seriously dazzled. And—"

She broke off, frowned at Eve's board.

"Work. I was just finishing up. I just wanted to ask you a couple questions about street life, girl packs, street packs, flops, chain of command. Anything I can get."

"It's work," Mavis said slowly, in an un-Mavis-like tone. "The girls in the building on the West Side. Their bodies, in the old building. I turned off the screen because I didn't want to hear about it."

"Sorry, but I wanted to pick your brain a little," Eve began.

"They're all dead, these girls? All of them?"

"Yeah." Eve didn't like the way the rosy glow in Mavis's cheeks died to sickly white. "Let's go downstairs and talk about it."

"A case. Your case. But I knew them. This one, and this one. This one, too."

"What?" Eve gripped her shoulder. "What do you mean?"

"I knew her." She gestured to Shelby. "And her." Now Mikki. "And her." And lastly LaRue Freeman. "I knew them, Dallas. Before you. I knew them before you."

She turned her face to Eve's with tears shimmering. "They were friends of mine."