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She spins, leveling me with a cold glower. “I’m looking for the girl we know is in trouble. You deal with your girlfriend—who you barely even know—on your own. He’s more than likely not skilled enough to hack the hospital feed. It’s even more unlikely that he’d be stupid enough to have been there, given how organized and smart he apparently is, given our new predicament. Leave. Me. Alone.”
She spins back around, and I blow out a long breath. “Fine. Find Erica Norris. Find him.”
“I plan to. Thank so much for your approval,” she says snidely.
I hate to admit it, but she’s right. I have no business asking her to stop looking for a girl we know is in trouble to find my girlfriend. She’d be safe and tucked into her house with police protection if I hadn’t lost my temper in the hospital. I should have texted her. My phone was dead, and I had no idea someone would notify Duke of what happened.
I didn’t want to worry her, so I was just going to tell her about it later. When she could put her hands on me and know I was okay, see it with her own eyes. Who the fuck is notifying Duke about anything?
“Why would anyone from our department let Detective Duke in on that attack?” I ask Craig as I join at the board, where he’s staring endlessly at pictures.
Even he’s trying to stop Plemmons before he strikes again.
“I wondered the same thing,” he says absently. “His chief called him. The chief is being looped in on the case progression, considering we’re sharing this case with local law enforcement to join manpower. He called Duke as a courtesy to your girl, but said didn’t have specifics to share.” Craig turns to face me. “He had specifics. He just neglected to share, and our guys wouldn’t give her any information or forward her calls to any of our phones. She’s not on your call list.”
A chill washes over me.
“He knew she’d go there,” I say tightly.
“The chief is playing us because he wants this arrest,” Craig agrees. “His department gets the least attention because we’re their neighbors. All the high profile stuff from DC goes straight to us, along with all the outlying cities too. It’s more common here than any other place that we usually wait for an invitation for.”
“So he lets her in on it through Duke, knowing she’d rush to the hospital.”
“After we’d already told him we had local law enforcement guarding the hospital, checking anyone and everyone who resembled Plemmons. We told him we thought he’d want to find a way to observe our pain and see the fear or panic he’d caused.”
“And he wanted him to see Lana,” I bite out.
“And possibly even follow her home,” Craig says, his jaw ticking. “Fucking son of a bitch. I called patrol. They told me what happened. But I’m sending one of our guys to help watch too. We have some we can spare, even though they’re wet behind the ears still.”
At least one person understands that Lana is also a target, and where we know he’ll eventually strike if he’s even aware of her.
I don’t feel as paranoid or crazy now.
“Thanks,” I tell him.
He shrugs. “People will see me as rational on the matter, but find it an abuse of power if you do it. It made sense for me to step in. But I’m stepping in because I see what you’re seeing. Everyone else just sees Erica Norris.” His expression turns grim. “She’s been dead since the day he took her, even if her heart is still beating right now.”
I know this, but I don’t want to say it aloud to everyone else. In the backs of their minds, they know it too.
“Our only chance of saving her was stripped away when her father played a sexual sadist’s game,” Craig adds on a long sigh. “I don’t have to be a profiler to know that much. Our only advantage is knowing Lana is most likely on his list. We should be concentrating all our efforts there.”
“But we can’t,” I say, the frustration welling inside me.
“Because they want us looking for this girl,” Craig agrees. “And Lana is pissed at you. Her car’s GPS was disabled shortly after she bought it. Found that out, unfortunately. And either her phone is dead, or she removed the battery to keep us from locating her that way. Clever if it’s the latter. Any reason your girl would work so hard to cover her trail like that?”
Even I admit that’s weirdly suspicious. “Lana is extremely private. She’s also not as trusting of law enforcement as I originally thought.”
He nods slowly. “Makes sense. Most people don’t trust the government in general right now. If she’s big on privacy and civil rights, it’d make sense. Does she even have wifi? Because I can’t seem to find that either.”
“I don’t exactly take the time to sync up to wifi when I’m there, so I have no clue.”
“Well, anyway, I can’t find her. I had Sarah from white collar crimes helping me out. She said the girl knew how to keep from being found. She saw this a lot when she worked sex crimes. Women who were abused repeatedly dropped off grid and became isolated and private. I doubt that’s the case with your girl, since she seems comfortable in her own skin and unafraid, but I did find a lot of similarities in her privacy extremes to what Sarah was telling me. It’s always the first conclusion she draws.”
My stomach plummets. Nothing about her has labeled her as a victim, but I think back to when I first met her. She was more detached, readily defensive, but didn’t flinch away from my touch.
No. No. My head is too crowded right now, and I’m not thinking clearly. She’s not running from anyone. If anything, she’s too brave, not understanding the severity of her situation.
“Anyone who’d ever been physically assaulted in that way wouldn’t be turning away cops, when she knows she’s a potential victim for a sexual sadist. I want her in protective custody. The protective detail is no longer good enough. They’ll take it seriously if you back me.”
