Page 163 of Slack Tide Kill

The anger built in Sally's chest. What had happened to that mother? What had happened to the child? Had he or she gone to good parents, people who'd loved them, raised them well? Maybe they'd gone on to live a productive life.

But she feared not.

"Sally?" Liam said.

She blinked and focused on him. "Yeah. I'll call the team, get them on it. Warrants, physical trawl through the records, whatever it takes."

"Agreed." He looked over, concern in his eyes. "But we should be realistic, Sally. Even if some record of this adoption exists, how long will it take to find it? 24 hours, minimum, and that's if we get lucky. Days or even weeks are more likely."

Sally mumbled something.

"You OK?" Liam asked.

She tried to shake it off. "Just thinking about that child. They got sent away as a baby, then came back. What would it have meant, to come back to this place? Looking for your mother or your father, and find Reg Rook?"

Liam sucked his teeth. "That's some shitty lottery. You'd be better off not knowing."

"Unless you had nothing else. If the adoption was bad? If the child was abused. Bounced around the system. If it went like that, then Reg was right here? He welcomes his child back, gives them a role? What wouldn't they do for him?"

Liam scowled. "And a man like Rook would've drained that well dry. Exploited his own child. Had them kill for him. We already know he kept this person away from everybody else."

Sally felt a sickness spreading through her. "Isolated. Running whenever he called. Hungry."

"If any part of that is true, it's disgusting. So let's put some flesh on the bone."

Sally raised her phone and made the call. DI Gemmell answered, and she explained briefly what they needed. She asked him to keep it quiet, just their team and nobody else.

"If the record's out there, we'll find it," Gemmell said. "Just get back here; Isla's officially a red advisory now, threat to life."

Sally hung up and watched the rain splash and swipe on the windshield. 24 hours wasn't fast enough. The killer could have struck again a dozen times by then. They could be long gone.

They needed it faster.

She thought of family.

Her own mother and father dashed through her head. Her mother had been hooked on religion, punishing every slight 'against God' with a whipping. Sally had been forced to go cut her own switch many times. Her legs had bled on her sheets after.

Her father had been more an absence, always on the road selling whatever latest crackpot product he glommed onto, then gambling it all away on local roadhouse boxing matches before coming home drunk in the small hours.

Violence. Tears.

Another raindrop fell, splashed, split and ran. Wipe. Another and another, each splitting into multiple trails before the next wipe came. She thought about fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, each generation wiping the slate clean, but taking on the crimes and pain of the past.

Then the train of Sally's thoughts jolted, as if it had just run off the tracks.

"You all right?" Liam asked.

Sally barely heard him. Working it through. Testing for holes.

"I know that look. You've got something."

"I think so. Meeks gave a reason for Roarke wanting Reactor Logistics. He said it was because of Roarke's uncle."

Liam frowned. "His uncle. Right. But he also said, and I know this is true because I spent a whole morning running down the family tree, that Reg had no brothers. Roarke has no uncle. So that's got to be…"

He trailed off. The rain kept splashing, countless generations of raindrops splitting and spreading downward. Then his mouth dropped open. He turned to Sally.

"Shit. Really?"