Evangeline lifted a hand as if she wanted to touch Jennifer Stenton’s hair but didn’t finish the gesture. “They were both strangled, as you already knew. Just like Lilly Cordon, they were drugged up with several tranquilizers, which had started wearing off at the time of death, and they both show signs of sexual assault. There was no sperm I could extract to compare with our databanks, but the signs of repeated rape are obvious.” She sighed. “Also, Tracy Longman has been pregnant and given birth no longer than three months ago. I found stretch marks on her abdomen, as well as certain hormones in her bloodwork that would have been gone were it longer ago. As far as I can tell, the child was carried full-term, though I can’t say if it survived the birth. It was a natural birth, and it was painful because her entire perineum was ripped open. Somebody tried to stitch her up but did a piss-poor job. Unfortunately for her, that didn’t stop her kidnappers from giving her to men.”
Andi closed his eyes. Just thinking about what these girls had gone through made his stomach revolt. If his body hadn’t been so adamant about keeping the little nourishment it had gotten over the past twenty-four hours, he would have probably thrown up right in the morgue. As it was, he managed to keep it down, but it was a close call. George had his hands balled to fists, the knuckles turning white from the force.
“Do you think the baby’s still alive?” He was voicing Andi’s biggest fear.
Evangeline shrugged with a hopeless expression. “I hope so. Because why would they go to the trouble of having Tracy carrying full-term just to kill the baby once it was born? They obviously didn’t let her keep it, but there’s a flourishing black market for desperate couples who don’t meet the standards of adopting agencies. I pray those bastards simply saw this as another opportunity to make money and sold the child to somebody who wanted a baby at any cost.”
“And if not?” Andi’s mouth was operating on autopilot. He didn’t want to hear the answer. He didn’t want to think about all the other terrible options. Somehow, his brain seemed to not have gotten the memo.
“I don’t want to think about ‘if not,’” Evangeline said very firmly. “The easiest way to make money with that poor baby is by selling it into adoption. That’s what I’m going with; otherwise I won’t be able to sleep tonight.”
“Is there a way to find the baby via DNA?” George sounded defeated.
“Only if they were treated in a hospital for something serious. I’ve already added Tracy’s DNA profile to our database, and I’m going to make inquiries at the hospitals in South Carolina. I’ve also alerted youth services, though there’s not much they can do at this point. Hopefully, if we have to go across state borders in our search, they will be more of a help. The best way to find the baby would be if you busted that trafficking ring. They have to have information about their victims somewhere.”
“Way to put the pressure on, Evangeline.” Andi pinched the bridge of his nose. He really needed to sleep.
“See it as additional motivation.” Evangeline closed the two drawers with Tracy and Jennifer in them. “I’ll send you my detailed reports later and keep you informed about any new developments.”
“Thank you, Evangeline. You’ve been a great help, as always.” Andi turned toward the exit. He needed to get out.
“You’re welcome. Get some sleep, Andi.”
Andi waved. He heard George saying his goodbyes as well, and then they were on their way back to the office.
Chapter 17—Cul de Sac
AFTER Aquick stop at their desks, George insisted on driving Andi home. He looked paler with every passing minute, and George was getting seriously worried. He hoped it wasn’t his outburst after questioning Greg and Kathy that had contributed to Andi’s current state. The eight-minute drive to Stiles Point on James Island was accompanied by the kind of exhausted silence that comes after an all-nighter at work. George felt he was nearing a second wind, but one look at Andi told him it would be plain cruel to try and engage him in a conversation. The man’s head was leaning against the window of the passenger side door, his eyes were closed, and now and then he would shudder as if he were cold. George had the nagging feeling he should be doing something and didn’t know what it was. It made him nervous and restless, both feelings amped up by his lack of sleep.
The GPS sent him to a palatial-looking house set back from the street by a good hundred feet. George made sure he had the right address, because he couldn’t believe this was where Andi lived. He had known James Island was for those with deeper pockets, but he had assumed Andi was renting an apartment, not residing in a gorgeous little villa with blinding white railings on the front porch and a balcony wrapped around the first floor. Even though he was no expert in architecture, George could tell this house was old—not the run-down, shabby old they had seen in the neighborhood where the Cordons lived, but the well-preserved, dignified old that resulted from perfect maintenance over the years. If this house were a wine, it would probably sell at a thousand dollars per bottle, perhaps even more. A cross between a yelp and a snore snapped George’s attention back to Andi, who apparently had slid forward when the car slowed down and had narrowly escaped planting face-first into the console. “Easy, cowboy. We’re at your house. Only a few more steps and you can fall into your bed.”
“Not sure if I can make it to the bedroom. Couch is fine,” Andi mumbled while he fumbled for the clip of his seat belt. George managed to contain his eye roll and helped his clearly confused partner out. It was kind of nice, taking care of Andi when he was so helpless. So far the man had shown a degree of independence and self-sufficiency George had found a bit intimidating. Seeing his partner at such a low helped George overcome the last vestiges of resentment he’d still harbored after their visit at the hospital. Having been kept out of the loop had not only hurt his feelings but also his pride, and George was man enough to admit it soothed his ego that Andi was, in this moment, dependent on him.
After he had freed Andi from the evil seat belt, George left the car and went around it to open the door for Andi. His partner all but fell out of the car, clutching at George’s arm to keep himself steady. “I think I’m crashing,” Andi whispered, leaning a good deal of his weight on George. He was heavier than George would have guessed from his build, though it could be because Andi was more or less dead weight at this point. He somehow managed to get his keys out, and George opened the front door for him.
“Where’s your bedroom?”
“Second floor.”
George glanced around the beautiful ground floor with the open-living concept—clearly a change made a long time after the house had been built—and the floor-to-ceiling glass doors looking out into a garden big enough to host a broad wooden veranda, a gazebo in the far right corner, a pond roughly six feet in diameter, and lots of greenery that looked like a lot of work to maintain. He didn’t have time to ponder the grandeur of Andi’s garden, though. His partner was leaning more heavily on him with every passing minute, and if George didn’t want to carry Andi upstairs, he had to hurry.
“Come on. It’s just a few steps,” he coaxed his yawning partner.
Andi cooperated with sluggish movements, and they finally made it to the top, where George saw a hallway with two doors on each side.
“Which one’s your bedroom, Andi?”
“Second on the left.”
When they reached the door, George supported Andi’s entire weight—or so it seemed—on one arm while opening the door with his free hand. They entered the room in a graceless tumble of flailing limbs that almost sent them both to the floor. George managed to get enough forward momentum to place Andi on a comfortable-looking king-size bed with a lavender satin cover. Helping Andi get rid of his shoes and sliding between the sheets only took a minute. With a contented sigh, Andi snatched one of the four huge pillows and buried his head in it.
“I’m getting too old for this shit. Thank you, George.”
After that, he was out like a light. George waited for a moment, took a good look at the room even though a little voice inside his head told him to leave and stop snooping around. He silenced the voice by pointing out it couldn’t possibly be snooping since Andi wouldn’t have found his bed without his help. When the voice insisted it still wasn’t right to stare at the three picture frames with photographs of strange-looking beetles in them, George decided it was time to get some sleep himself. On his way out to his car, he couldn’t help but notice how exquisite everything in Andi’s home seemed to be—the broad leather couch with the two matching love seats was the kind of old only high-quality furniture could ever achieve. A short glimpse into the kitchen—it was practically impossible not to see the kitchen when looking at the couch—showed gleaming steel and glowing marble countertops accentuated by massive wood cabinets with glass doors. George knew there could be—and most probably was—a perfectly innocent explanation as to how Andi could afford such a grand home. Chief Norris wouldn’t have sent him to spy on Andi if getting rid of him could have been done through his ownership of the house. Still, the pragmatic cop in him found it highly suspicious. Just like he still found it suspicious how Andi already seemed to know something about the trafficking leader. He had stressed all he knew was that he had some kind of blood deficiency, but Andi could be lying. Hell, he had admitted to lying to George when it came to his “hunches.” The question was how much of what Andi told him was the truth, what was a blatant lie, and what lingered in the gray area between the two where the truth could be stretched to a point where it was almost indistinguishable from a lie? And how was George to tell the difference when he’d known his partner for less than a week and Andi was harder to read than even George’s mother when she was attending a social function? And it was such a shame too, because the team-oriented cop in him wanted to keep working with Andi. Having a smart, capable partner was something George always enjoyed, since it forced him to be his own best, to push himself to his limits and beyond. Andi sure did that. With a sigh that expressed both his inner conflict and his exhaustion, George closed the door to Andi’s house, got into his car, and drove home to get some sleep.
AT SIXthe next morning, George’s cell woke him from a deep sleep and had him cursing loudly while he blindly reached for the device that wasn’t at its usual place on the nightstand. He finally found it on the other side of the bed under a pillow, and if the ringtone hadn’t told him it was his brother Danny calling him, he would have simply shut it off and gone back to sleep. As it was, he accepted the call, though his greeting was more rabid wolverine than loving brother.
“What?”
