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“Oh? Is that all?” Reo’s faint Southern drawl went sweet as honey.
“I have reason to believe they’re holding a woman there against her will. A very pregnant woman whose life will be over if she delivers before we get to her. If she’s not being held there, I need authority to search the premises for proof of her whereabouts.”
“Dallas, are they killers or kidnappers?”
“One’s led to the other. Reo, this woman’s been missing since Thursday. I may already be too late. Don’t make me later.”
“I need more than ‘you have reason to believe,’ Dallas. I tap-danced my way to your mandatory DNA. I push for a second warrant on a separate matter, the lawyers for the other team are going to scream harassment.”
“I don’t have time—” Eve cut herself off, breathed. “I’m going to put Peabody on, and she’ll give you the song. I’m putting an op together, Reo. With or without a warrant, I’m going in within the hour.”
Jabbing a finger toward the ’link, Eve strode into Roarke’s office.
“I’ve got your pattern, Lieutenant,” Roarke told her. “A maximum of ten children placed per year, at birth, for fee, a minimum of four. Over the past eight years, sixty-five placements, for a gross profit of sixty-five-million euros.”
“I’m getting a warrant for the East End house. I think they could be holding Tandy there. Baxter.”
“Got some way uptown e-toys here,” he said without looking up from the screen. “I’ve got six out of that sixty-five where the expenditures were significantly lower than the others, and in one case where the buy fee was reimbursed.”
“Jones, Emily, Middlesex and/or London, England.”
“That’s the name listed on the first and only expenditure to an individual other than the medicals on the reimbursed fee. And, Dallas? Tandy’s on here.” McNab looked over at her. “One payment to her late last May, recorded as returned in full early June.”
“Changed her mind, paid them back. But that didn’t do the trick. We’re going in.”
In her office she outlined the layout, as she knew it, of the house.
“The subject is most likely being held on the second or third floor. Third gets my vote. She may be restrained, and is undoubtedly guarded, certainly by cams. There are at least two suspects and one servant droid on the premises. Given the situation, we have to assume there is a medical as well, droid or human. Both suspects should be considered violent.”
She looked at Roarke. “Can you compromise their security by remote?”
“I can, yes.”
“Once the security is down, we go in fast. The priority is to locate and secure the safety of the subject. Peabody, you and Trueheart will head that. McNab, I need you and Roarke to take down any electronics, including droids. Baxter, that leaves the suspects to you and me. They resist, they’re restrained.”
“Any and all means?”
“I want them talking. Walking’s optional. Communicators on Channel A throughout. I want to know the minute the subject is located, and her condition. Here’s how we move.”
She turned back to the wall screen where she’d sketched the bones of the East End mansion.
When she’d finished, she went to the bedroom, strapped on her clutch piece, checked her primary weapon and her restraints. Then, because her eyes felt hot and gritty, she ran ice-cold water in the bathroom sink.
Sucking in her breath, she plunged her face into it.
She came up gasping, then her eyes met Roarke’s in the mirror over the sink. “Don’t tell me I’m burning low.”
“I don’t need to state the obvious, the other portion of that being this can’t wait until you’ve recharged.”
“You either.” Still dripping, she turned, touched his cheek. “You look pale. You hardly ever do.”
“The past couple of days remind me that you couldn’t pay me twice what I already have to be a cop.”
“It’s not about the money, it’s about the adventure.” When he laughed, she grabbed a towel, scrubbed it over her wet face. “I think about that dream I had where all this was tangled together. And son of a bitch, it was. It is. If I’d seen it before—”
“How?”
“I don’t know, but if I had, Tandy would be at home in her own bed right now, and Bullock, Chase, and the rest of them would be in cages.” She tossed the towel aside. “Jesus, Roarke, Jesus, the way I went in there tonight, got in their face. I put the pressure on them, and if they panic because of that, or push up the schedule…She was in there. Goddamn it, Tandy was in there, I know it. While we sat there and that bitch poured tea.”
