“Manner of death?”Chadwick asked, seeming to ignore the way her hand rested on the bend of his elbow as he tapped notes into his phone.
“It appears as though her face was held in sand,” Aiello said.“Which is a horrible, horrible way to die.But I brought you in because it looks as though she’d been held and abused for a good two days—or a gawdawful two days—and that could give you a small window to find your missing girls.Also because the sand is specific, and I’ll send my lab results to your point man when they come back in an hour.”
“You really put a fire under the lab,” Gideon said in pleased surprise.
“The minute I saw your case run across my feed,” she verified, and her swallow of anguish was very real.“My youngest sibling was trans,” she said softly.“He… he walked into a bar for a drink, and somebody spotted his binder and….”She shook her head.“He died two days later of a brain hemorrhage, and my parents buried him under his deadname.This hits close.Nobody’s looking for her,” she said, her eyes overfilling, and Carlyle hated her even more because he didn’t hate her at all.
He disappeared for a moment, running out of the cold room to the vending machines, and he came back with a water as she and Gideon were entering the corridor.
“Here,” he said, producing a bit of toilet paper he’d grabbed while he’d been at it.“Sorry.Couldn’t find any tissues.”
“There’s some in my office,” she said, her voice clogged as she took the tissues.“But thank you.That’s kind.”She wiped her eyes carefully and blew her nose, then accepted the water.“Both of you—I know you’ve got to run, but let me know if I can do anything else.”
“Where was the body found?”Gideon asked.
“Under the carousel at Adventure Park,” she responded.“It was shipped to Manhattan because they don’t have any special-victims facilities or personnel.”
“We’ve gotten that impression,” Carlyle growled.“Our victims disappeared from Bed-Stuy, and the officer who took their guardian’s statement was—”
“A piece of work,” Aiello confirmed.“Yeah, my friend who works in Bed-Stuy wanted better for our girl in there.”She gave a weak smile.“And lucky me, I got you guys.”Her smile dimmed.“Bring them home, okay?”
“We’ll do our best,” Gideon said and kissed Aiello on a messy cheek.
Then he turned, and Joey stuck to his heels as he strode toward their vehicle, already on the phone with Crosby to alert the rest of the team.
Crosby reallywasefficient running point.Fifteen minutes after they were on their way to Bed-Stuy, he was back with coordinates.Garcia and Pearson had picked up their victims’ scent at a diamond store, because somebody had seen a customer she’d remembered with two teenaged girls, both of them seeming “a little freaked out.”The woman had looked up the customer’s name and address—five blocks down the street from the diamond store and within walking distance of Adventure Park.
There was a construction site with a sand pit next door.
He lived in the basement of a walkup, and by the time Chadwick squealed his SUV to a halt and Joey found his stomach and his eyebrows, the other two units were in place.
Denison took point, Harding at her heels, while Pearson and Garcia took the back.
It was Chadwick, with his wandering eyes and amusement park brain that glanced up.
“Oh shit,” he said softly.“Oh shit.”
The girls, both of them, naked except for white cotton granny briefs with little flowers on them, were on the third-story ledge of the apartment building, backs against the wall, both of them terrified.
“Tell them to stay there,” Joey muttered.
“You tell them,” Chadwick snapped before giving his badge number and location to the local fire department.
So smart, Joey thought, before spotting his hand- and footholds, taking a running jump, and climbing the side of the crumbling building like a rock wall he just hadn’t had the chance to practice on yet.
GIDEON TRIEDto remember his words as he communicated with the fire department.Joey Carlyle in action was something special.His hard, fit body scaled that wall like a lizard’s might, sinuous as a gecko, fluid muscle attaching itself to the nooks and crannies of the crumbling mortar and broken siding like he had claws instead of fingers.
A sound from the ground floor broke his trance, and he heard Denison call, “Watch him, he’s going out the side!”
Gideon sprinted into position as a wriggling body slithered through the window from the underground apartment, small and slender and naked in the late fall chill.
This isn’t the perp,he thought.This is another victim.
Still, he needed to stabilize the situation.He called out, “Law enforcement!Freeze!”as the figure ran through the narrow alley between buildings, helpless sobs issuing from a throat that sounded shredded with screaming.
“It’s not the perp!”Gideon shouted.“Talia, it’s a vic!”
“Got her!”Gail called, sprinting up alongside that shivering adolescent figure and—instead of tackling, placing her body between the shaking victim and Garcia, who was coming up behind.
