“I didn’t take her,” Becca hastened to assure him. “I had nothing to do with it. I didn’t even know she was missing.”
“I know.”
“You do?”
“I talked to her about an hour before she disappeared. She seemed distracted.”
“Well, she has been busy ruining my reputation.”
Nico frowned. “She was doing that for me.”
Diego tensed. “For you? Why?”
“I was looking for a way to get Becca to back away from the Circle investigation. Her digging was making some people higher up very nervous, and I was close to getting the evidence I need. They were getting skittish enough that the Boss cancelled an important meeting with his uppermost tier of employees.”
“What did Eve have to do with this?” Becca asked.
“I was giving her a story. She was going to bust the Circle wide open. Until then, she was supposed to distract you enough that I could wrap up what I needed. Last night, Eve and I were supposed to meet up. I haven’t seen her since.”
“Do you think the Circle took her?” Diego asked.
“No, it wasn’t them.”
“How do you know? They’re capable of anything.”
Nico shot him a dark look. “I know because I’m rather high up in the organization. I’d have heard about something like this.” He didn’t sound proud of that status.
“Unless they found out you’re DEA,” Becca pointed out. “They may have taken her to get back at you.”
Something akin to fear and concern chased each other across his features before he frowned. “No. This is something different. I think it has to do with the damn blog posts she put up about you.” Under his hard exterior, Nico’s frustration and concern were clear. “I asked for her help, but I didn’t realize it would put her in danger. I only wanted her to convince you to back away. So my question is—” Nico pinned Becca with his gaze, “—who has Eve?”
Becca blew out a breath. “I didn’t know she was missing, but if it’s related to her recent posts, it must be the Fan.”
“The Fan?”
“A killer who’s been stalking Becca,” Diego said. “He’s been acting protective of her, calling her his partner. I wouldn’t put it past the guy to take Eve because of what she said against Becca.”
Muttering an expletive, Nico sent a hand through his hair.
Wednesday, 9:35 a.m.
SSAM Offices
Damian knocked on the door of Lorena’s office. She looked up from her computer screen and removed her reading glasses. Black eyes gleamed with intelligence and a natural curiosity.
“Hey,” she said, smiling in welcome. “Come in.”
He moved farther inside but didn’t sit down. “Hope I’m not interrupting.”
“I was just looking through the applicant list from the past few years.”
“Anything interesting?”
“There are a few. Thought maybe you could take a look through them and see if anything peculiar jumps out.”
Damian took the file from her. “Becca should be in a little later. And she’ll have company.” Damian told her about the conversation he’d just had with Becca.
“You want me to check out Nico’s story?” she asked. “I know someone at the DEA who could do some quiet digging.”
“Don’t do anything that could disturb his cover. I just want to know if he’s being truthful.” And if he was to be trusted...if they’d made a contact within the Circle, someone who’d been there for years and could give them a unique perspective on the human trafficking operations within the organization, their investigation into whether the Circle took Sam might move forward by leaps and bounds. “Nico knows where Eve lives. The three of them are heading to her place to see if they can find anything.”
Her forehead creased in concern. “I don’t want to see you get your hopes up. Even if the Circle took Sam, she might not be alive.”
The words came from her heart, so he couldn’t fault her for being cautious. She’d known him at his lowest—at least the lows he’d hit in the past fifteen years since she’d joined SSAM, soon after he’d created the agency—and she’d always sought him out with a word of comfort or support. Besides, he trusted her professional opinion. “If Nico has an inside track with the Circle, and if he can be trusted, it’s worth helping him. He says he’s close to blowing things wide open.”
“That’s encouraging.” Her gaze was warm, as it always was when she reassured him. “And I certainly don’t mean to be discouraging. I want you to find Sam’s killer.”
“I know.” He turned to leave but paused, thinking he might ask her out for coffee. He’d wanted to in the past, but something always stopped him. Fear of impropriety. Or maybe it was self-preservation. He wasn’t sure he could bear more rejection, more loss. He was about to take a risk when Catherine entered.
“There you are,” Catherine said. “I tried buzzing you at your office. Your ex-wife wants to speak with you. It sounded urgent.”
Whatever interest—real or imagined—he’d detected from Lorena was gone when he turned back to her. She was absorbed in her computer screen again. Disappointed, Damian walked to his office just a couple doors down and phoned Priscilla.
“Thank you for returning my call so quickly.” Priscilla sounded as if she’d run to the phone, which was so out of character for his elegant ex-wife that his instincts went into high alert.
“Is there a problem?”
“I heard about the internet posts defaming SSAM. Why would anyone say you’re using illegal means to hunt killers?”
He sighed. “It’s not true.”
“Well, I knew that, of course. I just wondered if I should give her a talking-to.”
He smiled. The image of Priscilla, carefully coiffed and manicured, fighting someone for his honor eased some of his tension. “She was trying to discredit us. Or, more specifically, Becca.”
“You don’t sound worried.”
Not about the agency, he wasn’t. He was careful to keep a sterling reputation. SSAM was his life, and he took pride in the good it did. “Eve Reynolds has other reasons for posting what she did.”
“Were you getting too close to something? Does it involve our daughter?” Priscilla sounded breathless. Hope did that to a person. It built you up before it stole everything from you, including the very breath from your lungs.
His chest squeezed in empathy. “I can’t get into it.”
“You have something new. I can hear it in your voice. What do you know about Sam?”
He hesitated.
“Please.” Priscilla never begged. Which showed how desperate she was for closure, too. “As Sam’s mother, I deserve to know what’s going on.”
“It’s very likely nothing...”
“I can judge that for myself.”
He took a deep breath. “We may have a new lead on a case that could be related. But it’s still a long shot.”
The Fan. Tony. Nico. Suddenly people were popping out of the woodwork. People who might know something, but were also secretive and knew how to hide the bodies. He had to be careful how he handled them.
“And how does Samantha fit into this?”
“She would have been the type a human trafficking ring specializing in child prostitution would prey on.” She’d been conveniently alone, happily distracted, and a beautiful, innocent girl when someone had taken her.
There was a long pause. “What would they have done with her?”
No way was he going into the gory details, but he could give her the ultimate outcome. “Some women or children they’ll sell into the sex trade, or to work in sweatshops, in other countries, or to serve any number of needs, depending on the buyer. Some buyers are looking for pristine American girls. Some just want laborers or sex slaves. The traffickers ferry them up into Canada or down into Mexico, or even across the ocean to Europe or Asia. Babies, they sell to parents looking to adopt on the black market.”
“Jesus.”
&nbs
p; Prayers wouldn’t help, not that that was what she’d meant. But it brought a grim twist to his lips, since Priscilla rarely cursed on any level. Lorena, on the other hand, swore whenever the occasion called for it. She joked it was her Latina-Italian-Irish mixed blood, so she couldn’t help herself. When her blood ran hot, her tongue was the release valve. Damian was shocked that his thoughts had him comparing the two women.
“So what’s next?” Shaken by Damian’s revelations, Priscilla’s voice quavered. “And is there anything I can do to help?”
“We have to find Eve Reynolds. She went missing yesterday evening.”
Priscilla was quiet a long moment. “Are you in trouble?”
“No, but we might be able to help. In return, I may have news about Sam soon. But there are no guarantees,” he warned. “It’s been twenty-some years.”
“I’m well aware of that. I just... My God, Damian. If she’s out there, alive...I wonder what she’s been through.”
And whether it would be better to be dead. That thought haunted him. Damian’s mind had gone there many, many times in the weeks since he’d learned of the Circle.
“I know.” It was all he could say. There were no adequate words. Whether she was dead or alive, Samantha very likely had gone through hell. But if she was alive, he would fight the beasts of Hades to get her back. “I’m doing what I can.”
“Thank you. Please keep me posted.”
He hung up and turned back to the pile of case folders on his desk. So many people, looking for answers, justice, peace. He’d help as many of them as he could, hoping to find his own in due time.
Lorena poked her head in his doorway, a curtain of ebony hair brushing her cheek. “Got a lead.”
He waved her in. “Tell me.”
“I was reading the comments on Eve’s blog. There was one posted by a user named SF just a few minutes ago.”
“SF? SSAM Fan?”
“I think so.”
She came around his desk and leaned across him to bring up Eve’s blog on his computer screen. He couldn’t help inhaling a deep breath of her as she scrolled through the extensive comment list. Her hair smelled of some exotic island fruit. Mango, maybe.
She pointed at the screen and pulled away, oblivious to his momentary lapse in control. “There. Read that one.”
The comment was a response to the one Damian had posted yesterday.
Eve Reynolds will regret the vile things she’s said here. Damian does all he can to make our world better. His organization gets rid of the worst of the worst. The people who kill for no reason. And Becca is a sweetheart. I spoke to her myself, and she’s a good person. The people who die are meant to die. They live on in the memories, in the tributes the living pay to them. What kind of tribute will you receive, Eve? And what crap will you spew when you unburden your conscience?
“It sounds like he does have her,” Damian said. “Eve baited him, probably without even realizing the hornets’ nest she’d stirred up.”
“He says he’s spoken with Becca personally. I wonder if telling her that will trigger her memory.”
“Hopefully, before he hurts Eve.” Damian felt excitement and concern war within him. Chasing a killer and racing against time was a heady combination, but it affirmed his life’s purpose. He was going to catch the monster.
Wednesday, 1:00 p.m.
SSAM Offices
The conference room at SSAM was filled with the usual suspects, plus one. Nico seemed unable to smile, but whether that was a character flaw or related to the current circumstances and his concern for his friend Eve was up for debate. Becca was betting on the latter.
“He gave the initials SF,” Damian said. “But we think that simply stands for SSAM Fan.”
“And he’s basically admitting he took Eve,” Becca said.
Beside her, Nico’s scowl deepened. The man blamed himself, but Eve had made her own decisions about how to go about this. He’d been stoic as they’d gone through Eve’s apartment, looking for signs of foul play.
“At her apartment, there were signs of a struggle, and a cord that had slipped under the edge of the couch.”
Across the table, Catherine shuddered.
“Fits the Fan’s MO,” Lorena said. “He strangled Fanta, the woman he branded with the Circle symbol.”
“Eve’s not dead.” Nico’s words were quiet and firm.
Lorena shot him a sympathetic glance. “No, probably not. He’d want to interview her first, I think.”
“Why did he use the symbol on Fanta?” Becca asked. “If he wants to partner with me to help find out what happened to Sam, why would he use the brand?”
“It could be an identity issue,” Lorena said. “He thinks he’s one of the good guys...or he wants to be one of us, but he has a compulsion to kill. Or he wanted to get our attention, or Tony’s.”
“He does seem to enjoy interviewing people,” Einstein said. “According to the prison logs, the Fan has been interviewing Tony, under the name Jack Johnson, for months. His visits date back to before we knew there could be a connection between the Circle and Sam’s disappearance.”
Becca sat forward. “Maybe he’s trying to understand himself and his own urges. Trying to make killing okay in his mind.”
“I was thinking that, too.” Lorena tapped her pen against the table as she thought. “We have a killer with a conscience.”
“At what point will he trust me enough to let me initiate contact?”
“Maybe try Eve’s blog, as we did with Damian. Obviously, he’s been monitoring the comments. If you left another one, this time indicating you understand his motives, he might feel comfortable enough to contact you again.”
“But he needs to know hurting Eve won’t be okay with me...with us.” She shot a glance at Nico, who was looking even more grim.
Nico realized she was watching him and spoke up. “Better yet, find him and let me tell him personally.”
“What about the Fan’s reference in the blog comments to having spoken to you before, Becca?” Lorena asked. “Do you remember talking to anyone who may have seemed odd or out of place?” She read part of the blog comment. “And Becca is a sweetheart. I spoke to her myself, and she’s a good person.”
“If we’ve spoken, it might have been brief. I just don’t know.” Becca racked her brain, trying to picture faces and recall voices that might not have caught her attention at first. But trying to force the memory seemed to make it more obscure.
Lorena continued reading the Fan’s latest comment. “They live on in the memories, in the tributes the living pay to them. What kind of tribute will you receive, Eve? And what crap will you spew when you unburden your conscience?”
Suddenly, Becca sat up. “Wait. That’s it.”
“The tributes?” Lorena’s eyebrows came together.
“No, that last part. He mentioned that on the back of the photo he left for Diego, too.”
Diego pulled the photo out and read the back again. “Unburden your conscience. Tell me no lies. A circle binds her forever...”
Lorena nodded. “The unburdening fits with his documentary...trying to figure out the lines between good and evil—”
“No, it’s where I heard that line before,” Becca said. “It was the photographer from the wedding. Vanessa introduced us, when I bumped into him outside the elevators at the hotel and nearly knocked his camera from his hands. He told me not to burden my conscience with guilt about it. I don’t remember ever exchanging names.”
Catherine slid a folder across the table to her. “Those are the pictures from the wedding photographer. There’s a CD with all of the digital images on them too.”
“You finally got them.”
“Yes, and I went through them already,” Catherine added. “But I didn’t see anybody who didn’t match with the guest list.”
Becca flipped through smiling photographs of the wedding party. “Because the face we were looking for was behind the lens. How did Vanessa hire this man?”
“Vanessa’s mother. He apparently approached her with an impressive resume. She looked at some of his work for some big-name magazines and newspapers and hired him.”
Becca searched the CD case for the photographer’s name, then grabbed the stack of personnel files that included applicants to SSAM, flipping through until she found the same name. She tapped her finger on the application. “Patrick Bigelow. That’s the name of the photographer and it matches one of the SSAM applicants. He applied several years ago, even before Tony’s arrest.”
Damian turned to Einstein. “Check if the address he gave on his application is current. Call the CPD and fill them in. Have them send a couple officers to meet us there.”
Chapter Twenty
Wednesday, 1:20 p.m.
South Side, Chicago
“You’re a wildcat, I’ll give you that.” Patrick wiped from his face the water Eve had spit at him. “I was trying to be hospitable. You don’t have much longer on earth. I would think you’d welcome a little kindness. But then, I forgot you’re no longer a reasonable woman.”
Patrick scowled through the tiny window in the cell door. It was an old root cellar, and three walls were still dirt. It was also conveniently located off the basement of his house, which he’d soundproofed years ago when he’d started making his videos.
When Eve opened her mouth to scream, he slammed the little window shut, closing her into darkness, keeping her sounds muted.
A moment later, he opened it again.
“I can be reasonable,” she quickly said. Her words were raspy from her damaged throat. In her apartment, he’d held the cord tight around her neck until she was unconscious, enjoying the surrender he’d seen in the stubborn woman’s eyes. He bore her claw marks on his hands with pride. She’d fought back but he’d been stronger. Even if she’d screamed now, the sound wouldn’t have reached anyone’s ears but his, but he wanted her to recognize who was in charge. “I won’t scream. I promise. Tell me what you’re doing, Patrick. Why did you take me? What are you trying to do?”
He chuckled. “There’s the investigative journalist I know.”
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