“That puts my number up to seventeen. The other thing is the pretty level. It’s, you know, in the eye of the beholder and all that.”
“Use your judgment there. We have to start somewhere, Peabody. Odds are they’ve snatched up others who aren’t as physically striking, for other levels, purposes. But we start with—what is it?—the high-end. When we bust this open, we bust it all.”
“I get you. Stupid for me to think: You’re not pretty enough, like she didn’t count. That’s not it.”
“It’s not. We keep the focus tight, we have a better shot. Keep at it.”
As she walked back to her office, it occurred to her she wouldn’t have made her own cut. Too skinny, bony—what was the word? Gawky? She supposed it applied. Definitely not a high-end product.
Had he raped her to “season” her or because he enjoyed it?
Probably both, she concluded. And it didn’t matter, she reminded herself. Unless her own experience somehow applied, somehow helped the investigation, it didn’t matter.
She got more coffee, sat, and thought: Location.
But where did she start? What kind of building/facility? Not abandoned, condemned, up for sale, and not—she believed—recently acquired.
What type?
An apartment building, converted office building or warehouse, factory. Something that could be tightly secured.
Apartments and office buildings had windows. Sure, you could install one-way glass, break-proof.
A big expense, she considered. Less glass in a warehouse or factory, and either of those might have—likely had—shipping docks, garage access.
She’d do a search, for what it was worth, and take a hard look at anything that seemed remotely hinky. She admitted Roarke would have a better system, but she didn’t want to ask him.
Stupid, she admitted. Like Peabody feeling guilty about judging girls on their looks. But she just didn’t want to put him into this one. It hurt him, brought too much stress and worry with it.
So she’d get it started her way, and while she ran properties, she’d pull up Peabody’s search results and start digging into missing girls.
Too many, she thought, too many lost, angry, scared young girls. She needed to find one to have a chance at helping others.
She glanced back at Dorian Gregg.
“You’re the damn key, Dorian.”
* * *
She felt better. A lot better. One of the other kids, a girl named Chi-Chi （totally made up）， helped her into a shower. It didn’t embarrass her to get naked in front of Chi-Chi. Her months at the Academy had killed any modesty in her.
And it felt so good to get clean.
They gave her clean baggies, a T-shirt, and the doctor—if he was a doctor—used a healing wand, a cold pack, put some sort of wrap on her ankle. Whatever he did to her knee hurt like fire for a second, then eased almost all the pain.
He said she had a concussion—the worst of it—a sprained ankle, and had knocked her knee out of alignment. He’d aligned it again. She was supposed to keep the knee and the ankle elevated as much as possible, and rest.
She didn’t see Sebastian for a while, but that was okay. She was tired, and since Mouser—he seemed to think since he’d found her, he was in charge—brought her a grilled cheese sandwich and ginger ale, she wasn’t hungry.
Mouser chattered away while she ate, but since her head didn’t hurt very much, she didn’t mind. He said they got to stay there as long as they wanted. But they had rules and stuff. No fighting, no bullying, no stealing from each other.
They could steal from marks, sure, but had to be careful so they didn’t get caught. No illegals, no alcohol.
What came into the family—they thought of themselves as family—belonged to the family.
Everybody took an oath to keep it all secret. Most were runaways, like her, or abandoned, like him.
Mouser’s mother had left him in a flop and hadn’t come back again. After three days, he ran out of food, and went out, wandered the streets.
She drifted off as Mouser told his story, and drifted into dreams.
Her mother, her mother. She could see her mother, hear the raging voice, feel the hand crack over her cheek. Even in the dream it burned like her knee had.
Like fire.
Then it wasn’t her mother, but someone else. Cold, hard face, cold, hard eyes, not raging hot like her mother’s. She jabbed something into her side, and the fire blazed. Bigger, bigger than the knee, than the slap, than the dozens of slaps of her life.
She cried out, but only in a piping gasp as her lungs burned, and her legs gave way.