And he’d wanted Paige.
The guy had drugged her and then kidnapped her and Mick’s sister-in-law Jules and nearly killed them all before Mick’s brother Mal, Sebastian Lorcan, and the rest of PAVAD calvary came rushing in.
Mick had almost bled to death in the snow-covered driveway of his home.
That s.o.b. had wanted Paige and Jules as his own personal collection.
Mick understood it in the fact that they were both beautiful and engaging women. But Stubborn and Hard-headed were their nicknames.
Lorcan spoke to the forensics team inside. Lorcan’s ex-wife Agent Cody was heading up the scene. All evidence would coordinate through her and her partner Dr. Reynolds.
And with thirteen victims there would be a lot to process, and it would be time consuming. It would take several days to get all the information back.
“What’s your first impression of these girls?” He might not like Paige’s style, but he wouldn’t deny that he respected her mind. And her skills. Up to a point.
He didn’t doubt her competency, just her judgment at times. Reckless, she was so damned reckless that it scared him.
He told himself it was because she was his sister’s partner, and responsible for his sister’s safety every day.
But he knew the truth.
She acted too damned much like another woman he’d worked with. And lost.
Mara had had big dark eyes and a sweet mouth too. She’d had zest and zeal and heart driving her, just like Paige. And look what it had gotten her.
There had only been three people at her funeral. Him and her brother and father. He’d not been able to answer their questions about why she’d made the choices she had. The accusations in their eyes would haunt him forever.
“Thirteen girls and women, clean, healthy, not malnourished. Variety of ethnicities. Fingernails were buffed. These girls were someone’s possessions. And he—or she—took good care of them.”
He nodded. The girls—and women’s—conditions told them quite a lot. If they had been low on resources such as food or clothing, it would have painted a different picture. “But how do we find out who?”
“By asking the right kind of questions.” She stopped walking and turned toward him. Natural lighting from one of the large windows on the outer wall of the warehouse haloed around her, drawing eyes her way. She could draw attention even dressed in a serviceable black pantsuit and leather boots. Black made the contrast between her pale skin and dark hair and eyes even more noticeable. Her skin was so flawless it looked almost unreal. Any other woman and he would have chalked it up to some seriously expensive cosmetics. But Paige Daviess wore minimal makeup. “We’d probably better just get this out of the way.”
He tensed. “Oh?”
“Don’t get in my way on this, Mick. I get that Director Dennis needs someone higher up the chain than me. But you’re a paper-pusher and an axe-grinder. You are not CCU.”
“And you are.” He was quicker to anger with her than anyone. He forced himself not to allow the anger to take over this time. “Listen up, Daviess, and listen close.” He crowded her space as a bit of that anger leaked through, trapping her between him and the concrete support post behind her. “This is my case. You’ll follow my lead. No matter what. Or I’ll sideline that scrawny ass of yours for the entirety of this case. Maybe even sidelined perfectly.”
***
Paige wanted to scream. Why did she always feel that way with him? He was one of the few men she had to look up at. At almost six feet tall she was usually able to meet guys at eye level. But he was six inches taller than she was, and she hated that she had to tilt her chin to keep her eyes on his.
Ass had trapped her against the concrete post deliberately. Just to prove his was bigger.
Mick was good at intimidation; he’d tried it with her several times before. She slowly stepped around him, purposely brushing against him. He stiffened. “Thirteen dead, Agent Brockman. Dependent on us, God help them, to find the answers. This is what I do. Because places like this, girl’s like these? I know them. Better than someone like you ever will. So don’t you dare stand there and think for a minute that this is something you know more about than me.”
Paige shoved past him and studied the environment. The warehouse was nothing different than any of the others she’d been in. Lived in. She’d slept in hundreds of similar places. More than she would ever be able to remember—or count. She looked for Cody, the senior forensic tech, and her friend. She needed a friendly face, if just for a moment.
To remind her that she was not that girl anymore. She threw one more look over her shoulder. “Go home, Beaver Cleaver. You’re not wanted or needed here.”
She wouldn’t let him—anyone—see how she was shaking inside. How harsh words with him always ate at her after it happened.
Why? Why did he always do that to her? What had she ever done to him?
Not that it mattered. The only thing she needed to deal with was the fact that someone—possibly more than one someone—had brutally killed more than a dozen women.
Without hesitation.
Paige wasn’t stopping until they had that killer.
Mick Brockman wasn’t going to get in the way of that.
Chapter 3
NUMBER one, victimology. Number two, crime scene. Number three, method of death.
Paige repeated the triad to herself as she and Mick bypassed the security that had been put into place to preserve the scene. The warehouse looked like any other in the neighborhood, a dingy tan paint on the outside, cracked concrete surrounding it. The locks had been rusted out years ago. There was nothing to keep the girls out. Had that been their downfall?
Were they killed because of being in this location, or was it something else?
There were still old boxes crammed on metal shelves in a third of the building; Paige took a look in one. Plastic automotive parts, probably useless at this point. Unless one could find a specific consumer.
Mick was across the aisle checking boxes himself. She studied him for a moment. He was so danged big. He wasn’t fat—she’d seen him without a shirt a few times, and there wasn’t a piece of him out of place. He looked like a statue. All perfectly molded and chiseled. He didn’t exactly look real… His hair was very short, but it was thick and rich brown. It wasn’t dark like his brother’s, nor was it the platinum that was his sister’s. He was somewhere in between.
His eyes were just as blue as his siblings’, maybe even bluer. She’d never really compared. His shoulders were very wide, like a linebacker’s. She’d seen pictures of him from high school in a football uniform. Al had said once that he’d been offered football scholarships, but had had his heart set on the military. So instead of college, he’d joined the army right after high school graduation. She’d seen those pictures, too.
She had to admit he’d looked pretty good in a uniform. Now he wore a severe suit and tie. So perfectly presented.
She felt a little ragged, a little sweaty, and a bit dusty after only two minutes in the warehouse. “Anything interesting over there?”
“Car parts.” That was all he said.
She was used to fighting with him. She wasn’t used to working with him. There was a big difference.
“That’s all I’m getting over here, too. And they’re dusty. I don’t think they’ve been touched.”
“How far along are the forensics teams?”
“I think they were still printing the epicenter of the scene. Then moving outward. I’ll have to ask Cody.” Who should be deeper inside the warehouse somewhere. She and Mick were only in the first section. It wasn’t like what was depicted on television, completely processing a crime scene took more than a few hours. It could sometimes take days if the scene was big enough.
“Let’s head in, see if they’ve found anything we can use.”
She walked at his side, well aware of him. Wasn’t she always? She felt like he was watching every move she made. He watched her all the time.
It shouldn’t have bothered her—he watched everyone. It was part of his job. But there was something different in the way he looked at her. There had been from the first moment they’d met. She and Al had just been partnered up, and he’d been in for the weekend from his previous field office.
He’d taken one look at her and they’d been sniping at each other ever since.
She went through the large metal doors into the smaller back section of the warehouse. Where the girls were found. The bodies were about to be taken back to the autopsy department, but everything else remained for now. There were five people still working around the area. Cody and Kelly were at the center, dressed in white sterile jumpsuits and hair nets.
Paige paused. She wanted to look at everything again.
Mick stopped, and looked down at her. “You all right?”
“Just looking. Thinking.”
“Care to share?”
“Initial impressions. This room gets cold at night, I bet. It’s why they’ve put blankets up over those windows there.” She pointed at the area near the roofline. “It doesn’t help much, but it takes enough chill off. They don’t want to risk getting sick out here.”
“You have profiling experience?”
“Just what I’ve picked up from Sebastian. And the past.” She kept her voice low. “They had plenty of room to spread out in here, yet all of their beddings were within a few feet of each other. They liked each other, and trusted each other enough to sleep close. These girls have been together for a long time. Possibly years.”
“Age range was pretty wide. At least ten years between the oldest and the youngest.” His hand was on her back as he shifted to talk to her. Did he realize that? His hand was huge, and it felt like it was burning her skin through the back of her suit jacket.
“It makes me wonder how long they’ve lived here. We need to talk to the owner. They have to have been here a long time; why hasn’t the owner noticed?” She looked at the radius surrounding the main crime scene area. There was a kitchenette along one side. A four burner propane camping stove. Pots that were cleaned and arranged neatly. A stack of thirteen plates was next to a plastic tote. “Their kitchen, and their sink. Plenty of food over there.” She pointed to a shelf filled with pastas, canned sauces, canned fruits and vegetables. Several weeks’ worth. “This was definitely home base. They may have started off as runaways or street kids, but that’s not what I’m seeing here. They lived here, definitely. And have for a while.” Unlike the warehouses where she and Carrie had stayed for a night or two at a time. They’d kept moving, sleeping wherever they could—sometimes taking turns to keep the other one safe. They’d been like rats in alleys, trying to survive while staying out of sight. But these girls… “Someone took care of them, and I don’t think it was just the older girls.”
They moved around the warehouse slowly, taking in every aspect of it. There was a pile of textbooks in one corner.
It hurt Paige to look at those books, remembering the six she and Carrie had lugged with them everywhere. English, Algebra, French, General Science, and US History. She knew they’d been high school level. She and Carrie had taken turns reading the books to each other back then. As entertainment, and so they didn’t feel so stupid. It had been a struggle, but those six books had allowed them to pass the high school equivalency exam. Had allowed them to get into college. It hadn’t been the best school, but it had taken them. And they’d made it work. They’d succeeded, hadn’t they?
Especially Carrie. Her computer skills, self-taught, had made that college education for the two of them possible. And it had bought Carrie’s building, where she and Sebastian lived and rented out the apartments below their loft. Paige had never forgotten that it was Carrie who had gotten them out of the gutter.
Or at least… she had thought it was. When she’d found her brother Luc back in March, she’d learned he had been the one to find them, to buy Carrie’s computer program—and to jack the price of that program up by a factor of ten. It had really been Luc who rescued them, though they hadn’t known that, then.
She slipped on a pair of gloves, then used a pen end to lift the flap of the top book. Pre-Algebra. She checked the spot for a name—Billie Tomlin. The year beside it was 1988. Probably not the name of one of their victims, then. The book was older than most of their victims. At least.
“Yeah, found those,” Cody said from behind her. “A few other things. Including totes full of clothing.”
“Not something typical street kids carry with them. But a band of thieves, maybe.” Paige stepped back from the stack of books. “Did the clothes still have labels? Did they look like they’ve been worn?”
“Definitely worn, but not too badly. They’re taken care of, and I found a bottle of laundry detergent and fabric softener. I’d say the girls were wearing these clothes,” Cody said. “Eating this food, and sleeping in these beds. They’re not overly expensive, but they aren’t the cheapest either.”
“What do you mean?”
“They’re small camping cots. Someone went out of their way to ensure these girls were comfortable. Look here. We found several batteries over in this corner. Hooked up to a converter. They were pulling solar power in through those windows, not enough to run a lot. But probably a cell phone charger. A laptop now and then. And when it got too cold, that small infrared heater there.”
Things had certainly changed since she and Carrie were out there, hadn’t it? Or maybe… “This is definitely a sophisticated ring of some sort. Someone was using these girls for profit, and I don’t mean prostitution.”
“We need to find what it was they were selling.” Mick was at her back again, wasn’t he? Why did he always end up behind her somehow? This wasn’t the first time he’d been in her space. For such a big beast, he moved light on his feet at times. “I don’t think it’s here.”
“So they were probably taking whatever it was to another location. Smart. If they were raided here, there would be nothing to tie them to the actual theft.” Paige looked over her shoulder. “Our first bet should be to hit the stores within a few miles of this place. And look for a second location. They store the goods somewhere.”
“Hernandez.” She pointed to her teammate, and Mick started across the loading bay toward the Hispanic guy around his own age. He was speaking to a middle aged man.
“Walter Smith, Supervisory Special Agents Mick Brockman and Paige Daviess. They’ll have a few questions for you.” Hernandez nodded at Mick. “Walter runs the property management company that handles this warehouse. Owner of record is a corporation along the Oklahoma-Texas border. The owners have never stepped foot in the building as far as Mr. Smith is aware. I’ll head to the van and see what I can find on the company.”
They guy didn’t like him; he and Mick had tangled before. Still, Hernandez knew how to do his job—or I.A. would have ousted him already. “Keep me posted.”
“I’m sure you’ll have eyes on everything we do.”
Paige touched her teammate on the forearm briefly. “Saul…”
“I gotcha. Good luck, P.J. I think you’re going to need it.” Hernandez smirked at Mick, and Mick bit back a retort.
He knew how people saw him, and he was ok with it. Could deal with the lack of trust and nasty remarks. He’d signed up for it when he’d transferred to I.A.
“Mr. Smith, who has access to this warehouse? I see that there’s fencing. Does it run completely around the property?”
“It does. And you have to have a key to get in. I’m not sure how the girls managed.”
Mick studied the property manager—white, graying, glasses. He reminded Mick of his father. “How often do you check the property?”
“Not often. If I had—”
“You have security for the building, correct?” Paige asked. “How many and when?”
“We don’t, actually. Nothing of real value was ever stored here. We have a company we contract out with to do routine maintenance. They’re scheduled fo
r twice a year. The rest of the time, the place just sits.”
“Why?”
“A tax loss. The place isn’t used for intended purposes—it’s really not used at all, that I can see. The company just owns it, and mine maintains it. I don’t know the owner’s reason. I just follow the contract. I’m sorry, I wish I could tell you more. Like how they got in there.”
“So they were in that warehouse for some other reason.” Paige tapped some notes into her phone before looking at Mick. “Did anyone finally track down the warehouse owner?”
“Hernandez was tracking down the corporation on the deed, but I don’t think we’ll get much more tonight.”
Chapter 4
Mick needed to get out of there, but he’d never let that need show. Not in front of the people surrounding them. But one look at Paige’s face let him know that she at least was feeling the same. “Do we have what we need here?”
“I think we do.” Sadness was on her face. “They were young, had the world in front of them. We need to find the person who did this fast.”
She reminded him so much of Mara in that moment Mick felt sick. The physical traits were all Paige, he couldn’t deny that, but the big dark eyes and compassionate heart were just like the woman he’d lost. Sometimes when he looked at Paige, the grief for Mara resurfaced, reminding him of what he’d lost. And where he’d failed.
Paige more than anyone reminded him of that girl that he had almost loved. Reminded him of what he’d almost had.
It had taken Mick a few years, and several holes in his chest to make him realize that. “Come on. The only way we’re going to do that is by doing our jobs.”
She didn’t say anything else as they walked back the way they’d come. It would take several hours—if not a few days—for the forensics team to finish with the scene. Then it would take a while for the lab technicians and forensics teams to process what was brought in. It wasn’t a bit like it was on television. There was a lot of waiting and delays and going in circles.
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