by Stacy Green
“Sorry to keep you waiting.” I closed the door to the conference room and tried to smile at Prince. “I’m still working on getting the victims into the database.”
“No problem.” The corner of Prince’s mouth lifted in what I assumed was meant to be a friendly gesture. Prince’s intensity intimidated much of the staff, but I admired it. She never stopped fighting for the victim, and she didn’t mind stepping on a few bureaucratic toes to get the job done.
“I’m happy to help.” She said nothing else, and I took my cue.
“Right.” I sat down across from her. “I really appreciate your coming out to Alexandria.”
She rested her elbow on the table and raised her eyebrow. “I hope it’s something I can help with because it took me nearly an hour to get here. This time of year is tourist central.”
I couldn’t argue with that. Philadelphia was no slouch in terms of traffic and general chaos, but the greater Washington, D.C. area surpassed anything I’d ever experienced. The area seemed to be busy all the time, the interstates heavy with commuters from Maryland and Virginia, every one of them in a fantastic hurry. The single cab ride I’d taken from Alexandria into D.C. had moved at the pace of an arthritic snail, and I’d vowed never to do it again. Even historic Alexandria overflowed with people, many of them locals with their heads down, hitting up their favorite coffee shops and going about their lives. But a whole lot more were tourists eager to step back into the past of one of the most richly historic cities in the Northeast.
Unlike any place I’d ever been, but maddening at times. I understood Prince’s irritation.
Prince yawned, revealing carefully straightened and whitened teeth. She covered her mouth politely–a gesture I wasn’t used to from cops. Most of them were blunt and methodical but had no time for gentility. “How are your computer geeks coming along? Did you identify any of the girls in his picture collection?”
Last week, a tip about teenage sex trafficking victims had led the FBI and Metro police to a known pimp and drug dealer holed up in Anacostia, the District’s ghetto. Prince was the lead Sex Crimes Investigator and had been charged with interviewing the girls in the apartment, as well as locating the dozens of teenagers whose pictures were on the pimp’s laptop. She’d called my office for help.
“My team is working hard to do that,” I said. “I’m hoping to have something for you by the middle of next week. And your question actually brings me to my favor.”
As case manager, I’d received a copy of the digital files taken off the pimp’s laptop after the task force’s raid. Some of the pictures were years, even decades, old. He’d kept photographic records of his girls, most of them indecent. One of them looked heartbreakingly familiar. I pulled the picture up on my phone and showed it to Investigator Prince.
She took the phone for a closer look. Her carefully controlled expression finally slipped as she briefly closed her eyes. “Damn. She spent too many nights with the needle.”
The snapshot told a sad tale. The woman appeared to have been in her mid-forties when the picture was taken, but the evidence of hard drug abuse on her face meant she could be much younger. Several of her teeth were missing, sores caked her skin, and her eyes bore the vacant look of the high. “Since she’s older, this woman isn’t in any of our systems. I’m trying to identify her. I don’t suppose she was one of the girls in the apartment?”
Prince looked back down, her face pinched in concentration. “Nope. All of them were in a lot better shape than this poor thing. From the looks of her, I’d say she was finished. Adonis is a selfish pimp, so if he’s got a girl broken in, he keeps them. Once they’re too ruined by drugs to attract even the cheap johns, Adonis rotates them into his drug running business. This woman was probably a mule.”
J. Adonis had to be one of the most ridiculous pimp names I’d encountered. Worse than Preacher. Known to run women and teenagers all along the eastern seaboard, Adonis had laughed during the bust yesterday, telling Prince he’d be out in less than 24 hours. “Is your buddy talking yet?”
Prince grinned. “He’s still trying to comprehend that we’ve actually nailed his ass this time. I’m enjoying watching him sweat.” She handed me the phone. “What’s the date on the digital file?”
“Summer, three years ago.”
“From the looks of her, she’s probably dead by now. Why the interest?”
Because this woman looked like the decade-old mug shot Kelly had dug up of Agent André Lennox’s sister, and I wanted to give him some kind of closure in her disappearance. Lennox had given me a glowing recommendation for the job at NCMEC, and he’d saved Chris’s life. Probably mine too. Giving him an answer on his sister was the least I could do with the new resources at my disposal. I didn’t want to tell Prince that, however. If this turned out to be Jasmine Lennox, I wanted to deliver the news myself. Lennox didn’t need to hear it from the law enforcement gossip mill.
“She looks very familiar,” I said. “I might have come across her during my social worker days. I worked a few multistate cases, so I hoped she might be one of the pimp’s girls you had taken into custody.”
“No chance,” Prince said. “What about NamUs?”
“That’s exactly what I was about to suggest,” I said. The U.S. Department of Justice’s National Missing and Unidentified Persons Database served as a massive repository of missing persons and unidentified bodies in the country. The Unidentified Persons Database held information about the thousands of corpses across the country that hadn’t been identified, including body features and dental information, as well as photographs of any remains.
“I’ve gone through it, and there were no photographic matches. The only unique body features I can see in this picture are her teeth. A medical examiner with better eyes might see something I didn’t. But I don’t have the clearance to enter her picture into NamUs.”
“And I do.” Prince reached for her plain black bag. “Might as well get her into their system. She’s probably already dead and lying in a morgue somewhere. But I don’t think you’ve got much of a shot. We don’t have her dental records or any real identifying marks.” She pulled out a digital tablet and started typing.
“Well, there’s one,” I said. “If it’s the woman I’m looking for, she has a distinct tattoo on her left arm of an angel with blue and silver wings.”
Finding Jasmine Lennox’s arrest records before her disappearance had been an easy task for Kelly. Her last intake report, dated only months before she’d disappeared, listed the tattoo as well as a gold ring and chain. I doubted those were on her body when she died. She or her pimp had probably pawned them for drugs.
Prince fiddled with her tablet, pulling up NamUs’s website. “Let’s hope she didn’t end up falling into the river. That makes identification twice as hard. But no matter how she died, chances of that tattoo being visible on her body are probably slim.” She spoke with the resignation of a woman who’d seen the cruelty humans are capable of inflicting on each other. Like every other good cop I knew, Prince could be both disgusted and removed from the situation.
A trick I’d never managed. I killed the bad guys instead.
Not anymore.
Mother Mary insisted killing was my only natural path, that I’d found a way to justify the visceral need because I couldn’t accept the truth of what I was.
She can’t be right.
Prince typed quickly. “This’ll take a few minutes. I’ve got to upload the picture from the seized file. What’s the number?”
“225.”
More clicks from the tablet. I looked away to hide my impatience. Immediately, my mind snapped back to the silver dollars dangling in my memory like poisonous spiders in their intricate webs.
Someone wanted to tell me something. Who and what, and how did I go about getting those questions answered? The meaning of the coins escaped me, but whoever sent them had a specific message.
The press over the arrest of serial killer Mary Weston had barely di
ed down in Pennsylvania and Maryland. My name had been mentioned over and over, although none of the quotes were direct. Despite my saving her life, Beth Ried hadn’t been grateful enough not to harass me for an exclusive. In fact, she believed that her kidnapping allowed me to catch Mary finally, so I owed her the interview. Perhaps this was her way of getting me back for refusing.
But what the hell was the point?
Silver had a meaning in symbolism and mythology, but I’d have to do my research for the details. At least I’d have something to do tonight instead of hanging out with Mousecop. Not that I wanted to socialize. A singular life suited me, at least for now. Some days it took all of my strength not to use the huge amounts of data provided by NCMEC for my own dark gains. I went home utterly exhausted from the effort, but proud. Kelly had been right, at least for another day.
“You met Mary Weston.” Prince’s hazel eyes watched my reaction, no doubt cataloguing every facial tic. “And you saved that reporter.”
Cold chills swept over me at how Prince had guessed my train of thought. “I was in the right place at the right time.”
Prince’s grim smile made it clear she wasn’t buying it. “I read the case file. Mary Weston asked for you that night. You’re friends with her son.”
My throat tightened up. “She’s crazy, and I’m thankful she’s in prison.”
Prince glanced at her tablet, frowning when she saw the search hadn’t completed. I frowned, too, because her laser-like attention honed right back in on me.
“Her father started it all and passed it down to the daughter. Do you think Mary and her father didn’t kill her son because they wanted to bring him into the family business?”
A nerve in my calf rippled with tension. I hoped my skin didn’t appear as clammy as I felt. “I don’t know. I’m just glad we managed to save Chris.”
Saying his name seemed alien. It didn’t belong in this place–my new start. As much as Chris had done for me, he was part of my past life. I desperately needed to keep him there.
“He’s damned lucky to have you.” Prince glanced again at the tablet. “Finally. We’ve got a possible match. The winter after the picture was taken–at least according to Adonis’s coding–police found a female under the age of thirty in an alley in Chicago. And we know Adonis had drug business there. Cause of death appears to be a heart attack. Winter cold kept her from deteriorating too badly.” She tapped the screen again. “You want to see the picture?”
I was still trying to slow down my heart rate. Her questioning shouldn’t have bothered me. The case was sensational and a crime aficionado’s dream. But Prince seemed like the type of cop who instinctively knew there was more to everything than the crumbs on the surface. “Yes, please.”
She didn’t seem surprised by my lack of hesitancy. I was struck by a warm sensation that I’d finally found a place where my darkness actually fit in. Everyone working in this office–case managers, assistants, analysts–had all seen more bad things than the average human being. It was like being in a bizarre club.
Prince turned the tablet to face me. Two morgue shots of the woman in J. Adonis’s stable were pulled up on his screen. Her haggard face very clearly matched the picture seized during the raid. But nearly a decade of drug use made comparing that wretched face to the mug shot Kelly had found nearly impossible.
I didn’t need it.
Jasmine Lennox’s mug shot had been taken in the summer, and she’d worn a sleeveless top. The body in the Chicago morgue clearly showed the angel tattoo still in remarkable condition.
I’d found Agent Lennox’s sister.
I promised to keep Investigator Prince in the loop about my Jane Doe, giving her the story that the Jane Doe was a former volunteer at one of the shelters I’d worked with as a social worker. Prince’s caseload was heavy enough she gave me the clearance to contact Jane Doe’s family–a family I led her to believe I still had access to. As soon as I’d walked Prince out, I took the elevator back to my floor and sequestered myself in my cubicle under the guise of paperwork.
My first call was to Kelly. Her phone went to voicemail, which made me smile. Kelly had made big strides since coming with me to Maryland during Chris’s disappearance. She’d started getting out more, taking walks around Rittenhouse Square and even making regular grocery trips. That meant she didn’t always answer her phone right away, and that made me immeasurably happy. She deserved the best kind of life. I left her a message about Jasmine Lennox.
It took much longer to get the nerve to call Lennox. After all, I’d stuck my nose in his personal business. Most people took offense to that, especially high-ranking FBI Agents who may or may not enjoy basking in the power their position afforded.
But my meddling had been from a completely good place–a new experience for me. I didn’t have a single personal motivation; I just wanted to help the man who’d done the same for me.
Dropping the news into a phone message would have been crass and cruel. So when Lennox didn’t answer his phone, I just told him I had some urgent information and to call me as soon as he had the chance.
The files from Prince’s raid needed to be addressed. My team had possible identifications on two more of the girls, and I needed to put in a request for one of our affiliates to search for an address.
Instead I opened my browser and typed in ‘1986 Statue of Liberty.’
The results came back immediately. As I’d suspected, the coins matched the statue’s 100th birthday commemorative silver dollar. They were nearly pure silver–much more than the normal circulation coin. Beyond that, I couldn’t figure out any reason why someone would send me two of them.
The Statue of Liberty meant freedom, a new chance at life. I grimaced at the irony. Only a few people knew exactly how much of a new life this one was for me, and none of them saw it as a joke.
Save for one.
I dropped back against my chair hard enough the front rollers came up. “Her.” I hissed the word through clenched teeth.
Mary Weston had taunted me about how foolish I was for not accepting my fate. This was exactly the sort of mental flip-off she’d issue. She could have sent the silver spoons–of course she had! Spoons were her disgusting weapon of choice. Why she chose silver I didn’t know, but maybe whomever she had working for her on the outside and sending her trinkets thought they were pretty. Damned if I knew or cared.
I didn’t know who would align themselves with Mary Weston when she’d been charged with the murder of two Maryland girls–with more charges pending–but I’d find out. I snatched up the phone and dialed the state correctional institution in Muncie.
My other line beeped, and I cursed. Security calls were priority. Grumbling, I switched the line.
“Lucy Kendall.”
“How you doing today?” Bobby, one of the front desk guards, drawled pleasantly. After three months living in the D.C., I still couldn’t get used to the outright friendliness of most of my colleagues. When I’d made my first visit and interviewed for the position, I’d envisioned grimness, no different than a police station: lots of gray, plenty of Berber carpet and plastic chairs, and an overall feeling of despair for the things witnessed on a daily basis.
I’d been greeted with just the opposite. Walls painted a bright, rustic orange, adorned with pictures and insignias of the numerous law enforcement and political figures who’d worked with the program lined the generous break room area. Smiles on the employees faces–even the sex trafficking and child pornography units, inundated with filth all day long. These people knew how to function properly surrounded by the worst life had to offer.
“I’m good, Bobby. What’s up?”
“Well, it’s kind of strange.” The pleasantry in his voice strained into unease. “I’ve got a criminal investigator from the Park Police asking to see you.”
“The Park Police?” Any number of law enforcement officials visited us on a daily basis, and I had regular meetings with various investigators and FBI agents working m
issing kids’ cases. The Park Police worked for the National Park Service, and in the Washington, D.C. area, its jurisdiction was massive. But I didn’t have any cases involving a disappearance from a national park, and nothing had come in on the hotline.
Bobby cleared his throat. “You ought to just come on down. He’s pretty antsy.”
“I’m on my way.”
I nodded at my team, who were all busy but had an ear on everything going on around them in cube land. We rarely exchanged more than general pleasantries, although I knew from their occasional chatter that all three of them had families. One came from a law enforcement background. Another had military experience. They’d stopped trying to draw me into conversations after my first week, but we’d fallen into an easy routine of discussing the case at hand and then figuring out the best way to handle it.
Most days I preferred to work in a private room, but at the moment I didn’t want to leave my cubemates. The feeling that something terrible waited downstairs flooded my system. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what it was.
My soft, leather flats felt heavy as I made my way to the elevator, passing the only section of the building where a code was needed to enter. These were the analysts who dealt with child pornography, searching for connections between children and predators. Like all NCMEC employees, they received regular wellness consultations.
I wouldn’t last five minutes in that area.
The elevator dinged to a stop, and I stepped out into the lobby. It was large and inviting with natural light streaming in from the windows facing the street. Two male security guards/receptionists held court over the lobby. No one got through without Bobby or Dean clearing it.
Bobby swiveled to face me, his dark eyes worried. His large hand rubbed the back of his neck, leaving pale streaks across his mocha-colored skin. “He keeps checking his phone, got that agitated pace going on. Something’s not right.”