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He trailed me into the kitchen, where I filled in the offensive gap with a fistful of kibble. He immediately settled in to munch like he was starving despite being built like a muscular sofa cushion.
No signs of stirring from the bedroom. I opened the door and froze when I saw that the bed was empty.Fuck, where did she go?
But then I caught sight of a tiny foot sticking out from underneath. I crouched down and found her fast asleep, hiding under the bed.
I smiled at the cuteness of it, but then my smile faded. I had to wonder what had happened to her that she preferred to sleep under a strange bed rather than on top of it.
My mind went back to that photo studio, with its video and still cameras and its big bed. They couldn’t have involved her, could they? She was a baby.
The idea made me sick with anger. I didn’t kill them slowly enough.
But I had rescued the kid. She was safe now. I could find out where the hell she came from and, hopefully, where she belonged.
I sat on the floor with my back against the bed and waited. After a while, she pulled her leg back in. Several seconds later, a tiny blonde head poked out. She blinked up at me curiously.
“Hi there. I’m back, and I brought burgers,” I offered. Was this how one dealt with children? Even my childhood had not really been one, not after my parents died. Children were a bit of an alien species to me.
She considered me for a moment, then clambered out to sit beside me. “You sleep okay?” I asked. “I washed your footie pajamas this morning, they should be dry now.”
Another new experience, ordering girls’ clothes in her size online, doing my best to sort out everything from sneakers to a warm overcoat. Everything for little girls was candy-colored and looked unforgivably cheap. I tried to make sure that what I got her at least went together, but this was light years from purchasing a suit from my tailor.
We went to the kitchen, and she ate her fries so fast I was surprised she didn’t choke. The burger she worked on more slowly, with determined little chomps while she looked from me to her food and back again.
“You don’t talk much, do you, little one?” I sighed. My own burger was still wrapped, set aside while I watched her put away a meal that could have satisfied a large adult. How long since she’d had a good meal? How bad were things for her in that place, besides being trapped?
Don’t think of it now. It’s over and done.I couldn’t let myself get wrapped up in the horror too much. I had to find out where this kid belonged.
“So…the people in your house…was that your family?” I asked, sticking to yes or no questions.
She shook her head no.
I set my jaw and nodded grimly. “Did they take you from your family?”
A nod for yes.
Those crystal blue eyes looked so damn familiar. I knew where I had seen eyes just like them before. It had been a one-night stand half a decade ago, but I had never forgotten one moment of it. The girl’s coloring, like my past lover’s, was so distinctive that it seemed impossible that it was a coincidence, but I knew it had to be.
Alissa was the only past lover I thought of with such fondness that I regretted letting her go. She had learned the pleasures of sex in my arms and what she should expect from her lovers. Butas was my policy every time, I had moved on quickly, and had been open about that from the start.
“Do you want me to find your mom and dad for you?”
She nodded enthusiastically, almost poking herself with her shake straw.
“What’s your mommy’s name?”
She looked puzzled. Then again, at that age would a kid know what their mom’s name was, other than mommy? I doubt they did.
“Okay, kid. I’ll start looking later tonight. Don’t you worry about anything. I’ll take care of you in the meantime.”
To my surprise, she leaned her little head against my arm. I froze like a kitten had hopped into my lap, not sure what to do. Finally, I just said, “It’s okay, little one. Everything will be all right.”
I hoped that turned out to be true. As for the mystery of her parents, I was confident I could track them down. It was part of what I did. Nobody could hide from me, or be hidden, for long. It was part of why Vasily relied on me so very much. And a little girl with such a distinctive look? There had to be something in the newspapers if she’d been taken. Unless her parents had been involved in the underworld and had sold her. God, I hoped that wasn’t the case.
***
That night, once my little guest had finished her meal, bathed, and changed back into her clean pajamas and gone to sleep, I sat down at my desk with half a dozen laptops taken from theIvanovs and proceeded to break into them one by one. It wasn’t a perfect process. I couldn’t get past some of their passwords would need to ask Sergei for help on this, but I kept on, doggedly, until I managed to break into some of the files.
Ten minutes in, I almost wished I hadn’t. There were more files of illegal porn on those computers than I had ever seen in my life. Three categories, with crossovers, according to the included catalog file—non-consensual, snuff, and young.
