“Private investigator?” Salvi’s face screwed up.
“What are you doing here?” he asked again. “You just here for fun? Or are we working the same case?”
Salvi stared at him dumbfounded for a moment. “Working the same case?”
He stared at her but said nothing more.
“Alright…” Salvi said, opening and closing her compact again to cancel the beacon. “I think maybe we should go somewhere we can talk.”
Salvi ushered Dolson into the empty office tenancy, where the Trident team waited. The whole team was there this time, Mitch, Beggs and Hernandez included.
“Detective Lieutenant Ford,” Salvi’s boss introduced herself, holding her hand out to Dolson. He shook it. “You’re registered in Seattle,” Ford said firmly. “Why are you here?”
“Following a lead,” he said.
“A lead on what?”
“A missing person.” He glanced at Salvi. “And your officer is making people suspicious and jumpy, ruining my good work.”
“Is that right,” Salvi said. Ford shot her a look to shut up.
“Who’s the missing person?” Ford asked.
Dolson exhaled, knew he didn’t have much of a choice but to answer her questions. “Kendra Harris. Twenty-one.”
“What led you here?”
“She was last seen here in San Francisco, according to drone facial recognition records.”
“Whereabouts?”
“In the Sensation. So I came here and looked into it. Happened, by chance, to be walking around one night when I came across a digital poster outside the Slingshot station, asking for information on the whereabouts of another young woman. Pretty, around Kendra’s age. So I started digging. So far I’ve found five missing girls that were last seen here in the ‘Sation. Know anything about that?”
“No,” Ford said. “We’re homicide. Missing Persons take care of that. We step in when a body shows up.”
“So why are you snooping around Floor to Ceiling?” he asked. “Has a body washed up?”
“Yeah,” Ford said. “One of my undercover cops.”
Dolson nodded, stroking his jaw as his mind ticked over. “Was he searching for a missing girl?”
Ford paused, then nodded. “Yeah. He was.”
“Who was it? One of mine?” Dolson tugged up his sleeve to show a wrist band that looked like a miniature iPort. He projected a hologram carousel of the five girls. They were all young, attractive, well-groomed, a mix of ethnicities.
“No,” Ford shook her head, studying them.
“Then who was it?” Dolson asked.
“That’s not relevant,” Ford said bluntly.
“Isn’t it?” he asked. “Seems to me we got a sixth girl gone missing around the ‘Sation.”
Ford exchanged a look with Salvi.
“What have you learned?” Salvi asked Dolson.
“Well,” he said. “None of their bodies have shown up, so what does that tell you?”
Salvi and Ford exchanged another look.
“They might still be alive,” Hernandez answered for them, straightening. “Shit…”
Dolson nodded. “And if they’re still alive, but no one’s seen them, what does that say to you?”
Salvi felt the blood rush out of her. “Someone’s keeping them somewhere.”
“What are you saying?” Ford asked Dolson. “You’re thinking we might be dealing with some kind of sex slavery ring here?”
“It makes sense,” Salvi said, her voice not sounding as loud as she’d intended. Mitch looked at her with concern. “The drugs, the tech,” she said. “They keep them somewhere hidden, hooked up to the neural devices, keep feeding them the drugs.” She swallowed and looked back at Ford. “They’ll go for hours, days, and they won’t remember a thing.”
Bronte nodded in understanding. “And they get them so hooked on the drugs and tech, they won’t ever want to leave it.”
“Jesus…” Salvi said, turning away and rubbing the back of her neck. She pictured Myki, dazed, wrapped up in her sheets. Remembered waking in Mitch’s cuffs with no memory of what they’d done.
“So who do you suspect then?” Beggs asked Dolson aggressively.
Salvi turned back to watch Dolson shrug. “I haven’t got that far yet. All I know, is there’s a connection with Floor to Ceiling, and that a lot of very powerful people go there. Those with the money and the connections to do something like this. To make people disappear.”
“I saw you in Diabolique,” Salvi said. “How’d you get down there?”
“I bought my way in. Kendra’s parents are very rich and they’re funding me to find out where their daughter is.”
“So you’ve been there a few times,” Salvi said. “You haven’t met anyone you suspect? At all?”
Dolson shook his head. “I’ve seen some creepy fuckers down there, no doubt, but most, I think, are harmless. They don’t appear to force their fetish onto others.”
“You said most,” Mitch said. “Who doesn’t fit that profile?”
“I got talking to this guy one night, had a thing for androids. He’d been going to the club since it opened. He told me you see all kinds down there and they let almost anyone in, regardless of fetish. He said there’s only ever been one person he’s seen who had their membership cancelled.”
“And who was that?” Salvi asked.
“The guy didn’t give me a name. He just said this guy had a thing for cutting people up. One night he sliced a young boy’s back open. They kicked him out and he’s never been back.”
Salvi grunted. “So Chaney does have standards after all.”
Ford stepped toward Dolson and raised her iPort. She tapped at it and projected an image of Caine tied to the wooden wheel. “This the kind of thing the guy did?”
Dolson stared at the image in shock for a moment. “That your cop?”
Ford nodded. “And we’d very much like to find the person who did this to him.”
“Well, if it’s the same guy,” Dolson said, “you won’t find him at Floor to Ceiling or in Diabolique.”
Salvi looked at Ford. “What if he’s out on his own? What if that’s where the girls are? Maybe Caine found out and that’s what got him killed?”
Ford looked down at the floor. “Fuck!” she hissed. She rubbed her forehead and looked back up at the team. “Alright,” she said to Dolson. “You go back there, keep working it from the inside, but know this,” she stepped closer to him. “This is our
