Andi snorted. “I doubt that. Everything about this organization screams overcautious. They would never knowingly risk exposure like that.”
“And we have a winner!” Shireen grinned. “Which brings us to the good news being bad news part I was talking about. Our bad guys are indeed overcautious. They hired the best to get this ad and chat up and running. A guy called ‘All-Eye.’” She rolled her eyes to show how unimpressed she was by that name. “The next part is what makes me inclined to believe in some higher powers again. All-Eye died two years ago, the same day he finalized the deal between our charming suspects and the trafficking ring. He was shot when the supermarket where he bought his energy drinks was robbed. We would probably have never found out about his death if the police hadn’t searched his apartment. They were looking for clues about next of kin they could inform about his death. When they looked into his laptop, they quickly realized something was very wrong, since the thing started encrypting itself the moment they touched it. So they brought it to the IT people of their precinct, who tried to hack into it. I hate to admit it, but All-Eye was a genius. All they could salvage before the entire hard drive fried itself was confirmation of his identity. Still, we were lucky because he hadn’t connected the chat to the virus he used to destroy all the content. That’s why it’s still out there.”
“Why wouldn’t those traffickers hire somebody else to take it down?” George asked with furrowed brows.
“A number of reasons. Chances are, they don’t even know the ad is still out. I assume the deal with All-Eye was to set the ad and chat up, make the deal happen, and then terminate the site. Since everything else had worked smoothly, perhaps they didn’t see the need to check if the site was really down. It would have been in All-Eye’s interest as well to delete it, so perhaps they got lazy.” She held up one hand with at least one silver ring on each finger when George opened his mouth to say something. “And if they weren’t lazy and had seen the site was still up, they may have decided not to take the risk of asking somebody else to take it down. Perhaps they have tried to contact All-Eye about it, and when he didn’t answer, they must have realized something was wrong. As I said, All-Eye was a genius and the equivalent of a rock star in the scene. They would have had a hard time finding anybody crazy enough to touch something All-Eye set up. He was known for placing nasty viruses to protect his content. Just leaving the ad up was probably their safest option instead of throwing stones at a potential hornet’s nest.”
“Can you find them through the ad?” Andi took another sip of his tea. The expression on Shireen’s face didn’t make him hopeful.
“That’s part of the bad news. Even though All-Eye’s laptop destroyed itself, the site with the chat is still protected. All communication ran through him, which means any leads to the other party are gone. We’ll keep digging, of course, but I’m not overly optimistic. The good news is, they haven’t hired anybody new in the last two years as far as we can tell, which could mean they haven’t expanded their operation beyond state borders.”
It wasn’t much of a silver lining, but Andi would take it on a crap day like this. “You think they’re not operating countrywide?”
Shireen nodded. “As I said, we keep digging. But the chat shows deals with a limited number of outside contractors, and the routes they’ve been discussing are all within South Carolina. That trafficking ring is a serious problem, but as far as I can tell it’s still local.”
“Thank you, Shireen. Keep us posted, will you?” Andi nodded at her, and George briefly touched her shoulder in a silent gesture of appreciation. Shireen nodded.
“Will do. Get those assholes!”
George and Andi left the IT department and headed for the morgue.
EVANGELINE’S WORKPLACEseemed even gloomier than usual, though Andi was willing to chalk it up to him being bone-tired and slightly depressed, thanks to the news from Shireen. If George had similar feelings, he didn’t show them openly. He greeted Evangeline with a little less reservation than the first time, which confirmed Andi’s suspicion that George was trying to warm her up to him. Smart man. Evangeline turned to Andi.
“You look like crap.”
“I love you too,” he snapped back, maybe with a little more emphasis than was called for. George visibly flinched. Evangeline just laughed, if a bit sadly.
“Sorry, Andi, I’m just telling it as it is. I’d be a bad physician if I wouldn’t point out your bad condition in case you hadn’t noticed yourself.”
“Evangeline, you cut corpses open, for goodness sake.” Andi raised his hands in a defensive gesture.
“Just because the dead are my area of expertise doesn’t mean I’m not fit to examine the living, as you well know. Given your sour mood, I have to stress how important it is for you to get some much-needed sleepona vave. We so do not need a repeat of the Harrison case.”
Andi sighed. “I know, Evangeline, I know. I’m going home after this, I promise.”
“What about the Harrison case?” George chimed in.
“Not relevant to this case. I’ll tell you about it later,” Andi said.Or never, he added in the privacy of his thoughts. That case had come close to breaking him, and he preferred not thinking about it at all. Evangeline shot him a glance before she turned back to George.
“Andi almost collapsed when working that case. As his partner, it’s your duty to see to it that he gets enough rest. He tends to overwork himself, which isn’t such a good idea at his age anymore.”
“I’m not that old, Evangeline,” Andi groaned.
George chuckled. “You may not be ancient yet, partner, but we both agreed not long ago that we aren’t as young as we used to be. I’ll take him home after this, Evangeline.”
She nodded, seemingly satisfied with George’s assurance. “Lelei. Now, I worked on those other two girls while you were busy busting those trafficking assholes.”
Andi didn’t even bother asking how she knew. Even though she worked down in the morgue, Evangeline had a way of always knowing what was going on.
“What did you find?”
Her eyes narrowed. “A lot of things, none of which make me the least bit happy. Let’s just say, if you do get the chance to skin the bastards responsible for all this alive, go for it. I’ll cover it up as an inevitable part of arresting them.”
“When you’re that bloodthirsty, it must be really bad.” Andi knew Evangeline was emotionally invested in all the victims on her slab, but it was rare for her to be so vocal about what she wanted done to the culprits. Going from her reaction alone, Andi grew even more determined to get the asshole responsible for all this.
“It’s even worse. But enough about me. I found out who your victims are.” She opened the first drawer with the second African American girl in it. “This is Tracy Longman, age seventeen. She’s a runaway from North Augusta, and we could only figure this out because her school had filed her as a missing person. Apparently her parents couldn’t be bothered, since they were too busy getting high on booze and cocaine.” Evangeline opened a second drawer, this one containing the Caucasian girl of the trio. “This is Jennifer Stenton, age fifteen. She’s from Bishopville, where she disappeared from her foster home. The foster parents are what the nightmare of every foster child is made of and didn’t bother looking for her or going to the police since they still received the checks from youth services. It’s only thanks to a social worker who insisted on talking to her after her foster parents had warded off any such attempts numerous times that she was finally entered into the missing persons databank. That was a week ago.” Evangeline looked like a goddess of revenge, her dark eyes blazing with the fire of righteous fury. Andi couldn’t blame her. If anybody had given a damn about those two girls, they might have been found. Or not, as the story of Lilly Cordon showed. But at least there would have been a chance. Andi briefly wondered how many children fell through the social net every year and very firmly shoved that thought to the back of his mind. There was no use pondering it now.
“What else can you tell us about them?” George asked through clenched teeth. He obviously didn’t like what Evangeline had told them any more than Andi did, and again Andi felt a strange sense of warmth spreading through his body. Having a partner wasn’t as bad as he’d thought. Having a partner who shared his sentiments was even better.
