Now she paced. She’d find the mistake, she’d damn well find it. She’d only been through six files so far. The fact that she hadn’t found it there didn’t mean she wouldn’t find it in any of the others.
She’d rather be out on the street, doing something that felt like action, like progress. But the simple fact remained on this one, the action and progress lived in files.
More coffee, she decided. She just needed more coffee.
She heard Peabody coming seconds before she caught the scent. She turned to see her partner carrying in two plates.
“You got pizza?”
“One pepperoni, one veggie—the veggie’s my excuse to have pizza. Out of your office AC. And the only reason I got out of the bullpen alive with it is everybody knows what we’re working on.”
She set them on the conference table. “We gotta eat, Dallas. Roarke told EDD he’d be in soon, and he’d push you to eat anyway. Probably not pizza.”
Peabody had a point. And a check of the time told her morning had somehow become two in the afternoon.
Peabody pulled a tube of Pepsi out of one pocket, one of Diet out of the other.
“Time’s slipping away.” Frustrated, Eve cracked the tube and drank. “One way or the other, I’ve got to call the feds in tomorrow. Hell, maybe that’s best. Either I’m not seeing something, or it’s just not there.”
“We’ve hit a little wall. We’ll push over it.”
Thinking of that, Eve mentally shifted back to locations. “I’m going to have Uniform Carmichael put together a team. They can start paying the properties a visit. Just need a bullshit excuse. Community outreach should work. Just get in and sniff around. Going in knowing the possibility it’s a front, you might just smell something off.”
“Couldn’t hurt.”
Peabody sat, took a slice.
Giving up, Eve did the same.
“I’m wondering if some of the abductions come from scouts that root in a certain area. Service people, repair people, delivery people. Fucking cops—and I hate that one, but we have to let it in. People get used to seeing them, don’t look twice.”
“Plumbers,” Peabody speculated, “IT people, handymen who cover an area, or even if they don’t, people don’t usually look twice at a work truck or van driving through the neighborhood.”
The pizza hit the empty places in exactly the right way.
“Maybe you live in a neighborhood and take a kid from it,” Eve considered. “Get the kid, drive off, travel to a pickup location, or all the way to the target area.”
“The business there would have to be a front, too,” Peabody pointed out, “or most likely, for that to work.”
“Yeah, but if it’s connected with the front here, say the outlet where they make the underwear, the uniforms. It feels smart, and this is a smart operation. You wouldn’t pick up a kid every day, or even every week. You go about your business, pick the kid, and have all the time you need to watch until you hit at the right time. Street kids—the Dorian type—that’s a different system.”
Pizza, Eve thought as she ate, answered almost all needs.
“Let’s try this. Plumbers, like you said—so we look for a big operation here with our probabilities. Plumbing supplies, commercial plumbing operation. Same with IT. General repairs, I’m not sure what you attach that to, but we’ll find it. The sewing, tailoring operation. Delivery services—plenty of big operations for that. Utility shit. You know, solar installation and repair. It’s an angle.”
“I’ll tell McNab to plug it in, too. The more, the better. I’ve got more kids, Dallas. I started on open cases where the girl didn’t hit that physical beauty level. I found seventeen more, so far, from six to sixteen, that fit the abduction pattern. I’m going to put them in the categories—ages, good neighborhoods, runaways—but I needed the break.”
“Seventeen. I’m going to get Carmichael started, and hell, maybe I’ll tug on Teasdale today. We’ve got the cracks, but we’re not widening them.”
She took a second slice. “We should’ve had a solid sighting of Dorian Gregg by now if she stayed in the city, if she went back to her former territory. She’s either gone, they grabbed her back, or she’s dead somewhere.”
“Gone’s most likely,” Peabody commented. “She had a window before we ID’d her blood. She climbed out and booked. We could get lucky, and she’ll get picked up somewhere.”