“You know it,” Noah said.
“You sound so happy that I hate bringing up why I called,” Perry added, and accelerated on the interstate toward his exit. A drive-through would be his usual stop, but for some reason tonight he didn’t have an appetite. After interviewing the Wrights last night and then spending hours on the computer afterward searching and finding Web sites that possibly were the reason some jerk was stalking Sally Wright, Perry couldn’t eat or sleep. He needed his head on straight, if he was going to find whoever it was who was stalking teenage girls. Maybe after taking a shower and changing he’d get a burger and a twelve-pack.
“What’s up?” Noah asked.
“Just thought I’d see if you’ve heard anything through the grapevine.”
“About?”
Perry knew Noah wouldn’t tell him anything confidential. But there were times in the past when a case had turned haunting and knowing an old buddy who was FBI helped out. Occasionally, Noah had tips that cracked a case wide open.
“We’ve got a sexual predator in town,” Perry began.
There was silence on the other end of the line, which meant he had Noah’s attention.
“There’ve been two cases so far,” Perry continued. “Two teenage girls, lured in by someone they thought was a boy from their school. They chatted online, agreed to meet, and then the girls disappeared. We’ve found one of the girls, but not the other.” He took a breath and heard Noah curse under his breath. If anything, unloading on his old friend helped Perry focus. The attitude at the station that he might be chasing ghosts, or that this wasn’t something that merited anyone being assigned the case full-time, pissed him off. “Last night a third girl snuck out of her home to meet a boy she’d been chatting with online. Her father followed her and watched his daughter park the family car at a pizza place. As she started toward the restaurant a man got out of his car and went after the teenager. If the father wasn’t there to run after his daughter, he would have lost her.”
Noah cursed again. “I haven’t heard anything. You been assigned the case?”
“Nope.” Perry ground his back teeth together, forcing himself not to unload his frustrations over his conversation with his Chief. “Keep your ear to the ground for me, though. Will you?”
“Will do,” Noah said seriously. “Keep me posted as well. If there’s anything I can do, let me know.”
“There is something,” Perry said, and turned at his exit, then slowed on the off-ramp as it rounded and merged into the main street of his neighborhood. “I found some Web sites.”
“Oh yeah? What kind of Web sites.”
“Pornography. The kind where the girls are barely legal, if that.”
“They’re a dime a dozen, my friend.”
“Tell me about it,” Perry growled, images of the pictures he had printed for the Chief turning his stomach and twisting it into a ball of pissed-off rage. “These Web sites are a bit different, though. They’re worded carefully, as most of them are, but they look as if you could bid on these girls, buy them off the auction block. I need help understanding ISPs and domains and crap. Because from what I can tell, and if I’m right, the Web sites were created here in the Kansas City area.”
“No shit.” Noah must have put his hand over the phone at his end, because he mumbled something too muffled for Perry to hear. More than likely Noah was explaining to his new lady, who Perry knew was a cop up in Lincoln, Nebraska, what the conversation was about. “Let me get back to you on that one. I might be able to e-mail a file I have on a flash drive that explains domains and web hosting.”
“Appreciate it, man,” Perry said. “Sure hope that lady of yours doesn’t come to her senses.”
“She’s got it bad for me, what can I say?”
“Lost cause,” Perry mumbled, again feeling that pang of jealousy before hanging up.
The police radio installed under his dash beeped and chirped just as Perry pulled into his driveway. He put the car in park but didn’t cut the engine as he listened to the dispatcher send two cars to a disturbance over at a nearby mall parking lot. Dispatch reported a female, age sixteen, was reported missing by her friends and they were trying to get into her car to retrieve their belongings when passersby grew concerned the teenagers were breaking into the car. Perry listened a moment longer to see who was dispatched and where they were right now. Then grabbing his phone, he auto-dialed dispatch, the words
“Cliff, this is Flynn. I’m ten forty-two but just a couple blocks from the Shawnee Mission mall.”
“Unit Six is already ten ninety-seven,” Cliff said while other dispatchers talked in the background. “Apparently he was a couple blocks away.”
“Franco up to bat again.” Perry shifted into reverse and backed out of his driveway. “I’ve got a personal interest in any teenage disappearances right now. Do you know how long she’s been missing?”
“Negative,” Cliff said. “You know Franco isn’t going to take lightly you stepping in on his call. I’m sure it’s something he can handle.”
Perry snorted. Franco Romero didn’t like any case that wasn’t high profile. If he couldn’t make the news with an arrest, he’d let the perp go. The arrogant prick cared more about how he looked in his uniform than he did about crimes going on around him.
“I’ll just do a drive-by.” Perry knew Cliff didn’t care one way or the other.
“Ten four,” Cliff said, ending the call.
Perry headed around the corner toward the mall parking lot. He gripped the steering wheel, his insides hardening with predatory rage as he took in the familiar surroundings. Pulling in the first entrance, he drove to where Franco was already parked, his lights flashing on his squad car as he walked around the front to where a handful of teenagers looked more nervous than angry. Perry had picked up his nieces and their friends too many times in this parking lot after they spent a day at the mall. This was more than home turf. This was where his girls hung out, where they laughed and played, flirted and shopped. He exhaled, making it sound as if he growled. There had better be a rational explanation why these kids were locked out of their friend’s car and unable to get their things. Whoever the girl was who drove them better be inside the mall, her cell phone dead, or possibly distracted by a boy from her class. If the online predator was sniffing around this mall, Perry’s nieces weren’t safe. He’d turn this goddamn town upside down finding the prick whether the Chief liked it or not.
Perry parked behind the squad car, checking out the group of kids who huddled close to one another, watching Franco warily. He wasn’t sure whether he recognized any of them or not. His nieces weren’t here, but that knowledge offered him only a small amount of relief. Every kid standing alongside the car in question looked about Dani and Diane’s age and very well could be friends of his nieces.
He didn’t get out of his car right away, taking his time absorbing the surroundings. Franco was busy barking at the kids, playing it out as if he were rough and tough and every one of those boys and girls was up to no good. Perry wanted to send a right hook to Franco’s head for being a prick. The kids were obviously nervous as hell, didn’t appear to be ready to run, and shifted nervously, each of them growing paler and wide-eyed the longer Franco ranted loud enough for Perry to hear inside his car.
There were other cars parked down the long row, each stall marked with fresh, bright white paint. The car with the missing driver parked on the outer edge of the lot, with most remaining cars parked closer to the mall entrance. Perry watched two ladies, probably about his age, walk through the lot with their purchases in various- sized bags that each lady held in her hands. They strolled slowly, curious as they watched the scene, but stopped at a minivan and loaded their bags, then headed out.
Another lady strolled through the parking lot in a short dress that showed off leg clear up to her thighs. Her waist was so small he bet he could wrap his fingers around it. She paused, as if hesitating, possibly not remembering where she parked. When she leaned against a parked car several stalls down, Perry got the impression it wasn’t her car. She looked like she stopped just to watch Franco yell at the kids.
Perry acknowledged that many of his nieces’ friends were too hot for their own good. And at their age, they were so excited with their brand-new sensual bodies and no longer being awkward little girls, they went out of their way to show off what they had. More than once Dani’s and Diane’s friends had flirted with him. It was vaguely amusing. Not once had Perry ever been aroused by any teenage girl, even when they stretched out in his sister’s backyard, tanning in little more than string bikinis. They were children, goddamn children, no matter what their bodies looked like.
Something about the young woman leaning against her green hybrid, her arms crossed against her waist and her full breasts partially exposed under her low-cut neckline, did more than distract him. He grew hard watching
