“Sure, but he has to promise.”
“Fuck it all, Mavis, he can’t arrest anybody. He’s not a cop.”
“And thank the gods for it” was Roarke’s fervent opinion.
Mavis laid one hand on her belly, the other on her hip. “He has to promise anyway.”
Eve pressed her fingers to her eyes, breathed in what she could of calm. “Fine. Roarke give Mavis your word you’ll stick to the deal I made.”
“I’m to give my word on a deal without knowing what I’m giving my word on?”
“I’ll fill you in,” Eve snapped. “Just give it.”
Ignoring Eve, he turned to Mavis. “Do you need this?”
“Yeah, sorry, but yeah.”
“Then you have it. I’ll adhere to what the lieutenant’s agreed to.”
“Mag. Whew. We need about an hour. I really want Bella away from the house, plus the crew’ll be gone. Better that way. I’ll go on back now, and you can come in like an hour.”
“Peabody, go with Mavis.”
“You don’t trust me!”
“I trust you. I just don’t know enough about all the rest to feel good about you heading back alone. That’s all. Peabody’s with you.”
“Okay, iced. They’re into the master baths, Peabody.” Mavis pointed at Peabody, at herself, then shot two thumbs up.
“Oh boy, oh boy!” Peabody scrambled up. “Can’t wait.”
“Well, cha,” Mavis said. “See you soon.” She glanced at the faces on the board one last time. “You’re doing the right thing.”
As she walked out with Mavis, Peabody glanced back at Eve and mouthed, I’ve got her.
After they’d gone, Roarke turned to Eve. “All right then, what did I just give my word on?”
Eve scrubbed her hands over her face. “I hope to all those gods you called on it’s the right thing.”
And told him.
He listened, waited, watched her pace it off.
“I understand completely why you distrust the man, and feel you’re being pressured—with Mavis as the vise—to agree to something that doesn’t feel quite right to you.”
“You’re going to say ‘but,’ and I’m going to want to punch you for saying ‘but.’”
“But,” he said, nonetheless, “you know she’s alive. You know she wasn’t found by the people who abducted her, held her, who killed Mina Cabot. However you feel about Sebastian, she has been and is safe.”
“And we’ve devoted how many men, how many hours into finding her while he’s had her hidden away? It’s very likely she started running with his gang when she got into New York last year. Then she goes poof, but he doesn’t report it. Those kids come and go—how many come to hard ends?”
“That’s one way to look at it. Another is, at least for a time, they have somewhere to go where they’re not beaten, raped, or otherwise abused. You have your stand on it,” he continued, “and it’s natural for you. Mine’s a bit more flexible. Regardless, Eve, you’ll soon know what she knows.”
“That’s the only thing keeping me from kicking him in the balls.”
“Let me give you something to lighten the mood you’re completely entitled to.”
She shot him a simmering look. “You’re pandering.”
“Well, I am, but it seems fair enough. On the other hand, in addition to the profile Willowby—who’s a sharp one—already established, we have three more. And, not to bang my own drum too loudly, they’ll stand. Each has a nice deep financial pool to dip into—varying amounts, of course,” he continued, as he got coffee for himself.
Fizzies equaled the drink of choice in the EDD lab, and he’d had enough fake sugar for the next six months.
“Varying backgrounds as well, and some with a whiff of trouble with law enforcement. Some with a history, minutely created, of pedophilia and/or purchasing from other outlets.”
“That’s quick work.”
“Time was a factor, after all. And now the team in EDD is working with some hack we devised. More work there, but we’ve enough time, I think, to complete it. And if so, we’ll be able to hack into other buyers’ accounts, pull out the information you’ll need to break this all down.”
“Or the feds will.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Hey, me, too. But tomorrow, I call them in. I’m going to push hard for a joint op with the NYPSD in the lead. I can make a case for that, especially if we’re able to hand over data that turns into arrests—by those feds—outside of New York. And more, that leads to finding and rescuing victims—these and, with more luck, at least some who came before.”