“How long ago did she go missing?”
“About four months.” He nodded slowly and then frowned. “You’re thinking that he had her all that time?” he asked, clearly disturbed by the thought.
“I don’t know what to think,” she said flatly, “but at least now we’ve got the two of them together.”
“We don’t actually,” he said softly. “What we have is him taking a photo of her, but she is even a little bit farther away. She is walking on a street here. Almost as if he were casing her as his next victim.”
“But there aren’t any images of her as a victim, are there?” She quickly got up and checked to make sure they had been through all the DVDs. “Maybe he didn’t have time to make one?”
“Or he wasn’t the one who actually had her,” Rodney said, staring at her. “Which kind of supports your theory that more than one perv could be involved, a ring of deviants.”
Her stomach churned. “We have to do a wider circle, do a complete canvass of the neighborhood, all the streets around, to see if Ken was ever seen with a child, if he was ever seen taking photos, movies, things like that.”
“I’ll get someone on that,” Rodney said. “And we’d better get back to Forensics, to see if they can find anything more on that address in that screen.”
“And I think fresh eyes need to go through some of these,” she said, rubbing at her eyes. “We’re exhausted.”
“And we could be going through this again and again,” he said. “It’s a horrible stash of child porn from a pedophile. We don’t know what all else could be there.”
“What about his little black book that we found in the safe?”
“Forensics kept it,” he said. “But I’ve asked for photocopies. Let me check.” He pulled out his phone, nodded, and said, “Yeah, we’ve got them here.”
“Send them to the printer,” she said. “I’ll take a copy home with me.” The idea of going home, even as exhausted as she was, seemed wrong. Maybe with a shower and a couple hours sleep she’d be refreshed. She said, “I don’t know what else is going on here, but we’ve got enough that we should crack something. And to think that Ken’s already dead? Well, that just pisses me off even more.”
“But who murdered him? Who would do that? That is the question.”
“The little girl’s father,” she said instantly. “Think about it. If that was your daughter, and you knew who’d taken and abused her…” She said to him, “Spin it around. Wouldn’t you?”
He looked at her and winced and said, “Yeah. Damn right, I would. If it was my son or daughter that he’d done all that to, hell yeah. You know that most of the people on the planet would say the world is better off without the sick son of a bitch. But, of all those people, who is the one who had the balls to do it? And why now? Why not when he had the little girl—if he had her—and rescue the child?”
“I don’t know, but I’m damned determined to find out.”
*
Friday Afternoon
Simon walked ontothe cruise boat, heading out for the weekend. If nothing else, he needed to get away, to just refresh his mind and to go back to something he knew. It wasn’t about making some money by gambling, not that he ever said no to money. Still, after getting that cashier’s check from the local land-based casino, he was fine. But one never had enough money, not in this world. As he walked into his cabin, he shrugged off his jacket and hung it up. He brought three suits with him for the evenings. They had another hour until they set sail. He was restless and headed out onto the deck.
He was in jeans and a T-shirt at the moment, and the Vancouver air was warm and a perfect temperature for this cruise. By the time he got to the front side, he stopped, picked up a gin and tonic from the bar, took a sip. He knew instinctively that the detective would return to his place to look for him, and maybe it was cowardly, but he didn’t want to see her.
Every time he saw her, the connection between them deepened, and so did his abilities. It only occurred to him this morning that somehowshewas strengthening his abilities—a scary thought. But all the more reason to stay away. His phone rang just then, and he glared at it but didn’t answer it. It wouldn’t stop ringing. He swore, downed the rest of his drink, and answered it.
“Detective, I’m on a cruise, and I’ll be heading into international waters soon,” he said. “So I won’t be answering your calls.”
“When are you back?” she asked, all businesslike.
“Early Monday. I plan to have a late breakfast and debark midmorning on Monday. Why?”
“We’ve had some breaks in the case.”
“Interesting,” he said. And, in spite of himself, he asked, “Something that’s useable?”
“The safe had a lot of videos,” she said. “I’m sure you can imagine of what.”
“From those numbers I gave you?” Pleased, he leaned over the railings and stared at the deep dark ocean beneath him. “I know it’s just a drop in the hat,” he said, “but I’m glad that I contributed in some way.”
“A lot of the things you’ve done have contributed,” she said. “I just haven’t figured out if it’s in a good way or a bad way just yet.”