“Isn’t it possible Hobe will find a way to satisfy him, to keep him using her, until he makes that mistake or you find the mother figure?”
“Sure. She’d have to be damn smart and even more self-possessed.”
Shake it off, she reminded herself. For a minute.
“I’ll take care of the dishes. No, I’ll do it,” she insisted when she saw him start to object. “It’ll give me time to clear my head. I want to push some of this at Mira, see how she thinks. I need to tell Peabody to meet me at the lab, and I’m leaving a message for Harvo that I need some answers when I come in, first thing in the morning.”
“Again, what can I do to help?”
“Financials, at least right now, don’t play in.”
“And that’s a pity for me.”
“He has to have a place. He knew that playground, so I think he lives or works, owns or rents a property in that area. Close enough he’d pass by it often enough to target it. He needs a place private enough where he can take these women, hold them.”
She circled the board. “He wouldn’t keep them drugged out or gagged the whole time, right? What would be the point? And he fed Elder. She was awake enough to eat a meal before he killed her. He knew the bars—he had to spot them to want them. Lower West, Tribeca, Chelsea, maybe Little Italy. Maybe. It’s a big area. He has a vehicle. Doesn’t mean he owns it, but he has use of one.”
“So I should start looking for a building—a house, a warehouse, garage—something secure enough he could keep prisoners. Which is what they are.”
“Owns or rents—single individual, most likely male. It’s a big area and, hell, it may not be owned or rented in his name, but it’s somewhere to look.”
“So I will.”
“Could be a workplace, if he runs it, and it has a private, secured area. It’s a big area,” she said again.
“Then I’ll get started.”
She dealt with the dishes, and it gave her time to clear her head, align her thoughts. After programming coffee, she sat at her command center to send some of those thoughts, some questions to Mira. She sent memos to Peabody, to Harvo.
Then she called up a map on her wall screen, and highlighted each point.
Elder’s apartment, her workplace, the playground. Hobe’s apartment and workplace.
He has a territory, she thought again, and her own territory fell into it. Where she once lived, where her friends now lived. Where she worked.
Did he pass by her old apartment building or walk past Cop Central? Maybe he got takeout from the same places she had once upon a time.
Or, she admitted, lived or worked just far enough away he had his own little spots.
Bits and pieces, that’s all she had. So she gathered them together and worked to make them fit.
The mother, she thought again. It was all about the mother.
The mother was the key.
BEFORE
Joe took care of her in the big old house his paternal grandparents had left him when they’d died—died together as they’d lived together for sixty-eight years. His parents had resented that, of course, though they’d had no love for the place. As they’d resented him for using the family money for his education, then settling for work in the ER instead of a more prestigious private practice.
She’d begged him not to take her to a hospital, not to call the police. He’d agreed primarily because besides dehydration, exhaustion, exposure, infected insect bites, her injuries were minor. He had the means and skills to treat her at home.
And he agreed because she’d seemed so desperate and fragile.
She didn’t remember her name, or anything else. She had no identification or belongings other than the clothes on her back.
She knew she’d walked a long way, but couldn’t tell him how long, or from what direction. When she’d hydrated, when she’d eaten the soup he heated for her, she seemed strong enough to shower—as she’d asked.
Still, he stayed right outside the bathroom door.
He put fresh sheets on the bed in the guest room, gave her one of his T-shirts to wear.
He treated the bites—the poor woman was covered with them. Treated the broken blisters on her feet. He gave her an antibiotic, and kept watch in case she had an allergic reaction.
She slept twelve hours and woke disoriented and a little feverish.
Citing a family emergency, he took off work for five days.
While she ate, slept, healed, he studied dissociative amnesia. When he thought her stable enough physically, he tried basic talk therapy, cognitive therapy, guided her through meditation techniques.