“She’s in rough shape, ma’am,” Ruiz added. “Please prepare yourselves…” After a pause, she said, “Yes, we’ll meet you there.”
“I want to call in Erica Lucas from SVU,” Jake said.
Ruiz nodded. “Good idea.”
Jake made the call to Lucas, apologized for waking her up and explained the situation with Luna.
“I’ll meet you at GW.”
“Thanks, Erica.”
“No problem.”
Of course, it was a huge problem to be called out of bed at the crack of dawn when you weren’t due to work for a couple more hours, but Erica was the best when it came to sensitive situations that might include sexual assault. This child deserved the best.
When the paramedics brought Luna out, her bruised, lifeless face made Jake want to kill someone. The paramedics’ urgency indicated that her condition was critical.
On the way out of the storage facility, Jake called Joe Farnsworth.
“Yeah, what’s up?” the chief asked, accustomed to middle-of-the-night and early-morning phone calls.
“We’ve got Luna Ahern. She was in a storage unit on Florida Ave and is in rough shape.”
“Good God. She was in a storage unit?”
“Yeah, the Mayfield kid told us we might find her there.”
“Is she… Was she…”
“We don’t know anything yet. She’s on the way to GW. We’ve notified the parents and called in Lucas.”
“Keep me posted, will you?”
“You got it.”
“Are you okay?”
“I guess so. I just hope we found her in time.”
“I’ll say a prayer.”
“She needs all the prayers she can get. I’ll be back to you when I know more.”
“Thanks.”
The owner of the facility chased after Jake. “He has three more units.”
Jake gestured to members of Ruiz’s team, and a sergeant stepped forward. “The guy who did this has three more units here. Take the bolt cutters and check them. Call in Crime Scene if needed and let me know what you find.”
“Yes, sir,” the sergeant said.
Ruiz was on another call as they got into Jake’s SUV to head for GW.
While Ruiz finished her call, Jake focused on the road as he sped through the start of rush hour with his lights flashing, filled with dread over what they would learn about Luna’s ordeal—and what might be found in the other storage units. Considering the info that they’d gotten from the informant who’d approached Cruz, anything was possible. Jake had seen a lot of awful shit during his decades on the job, but anything involving kids was always the worst.
Cases from more than twenty years ago still haunted him. While he sometimes forgot the details of a case, the youngest victims always stayed with him. They became his, and he honored them by remembering them.
His phone rang with a call from Sam. “Hey.”
