Each picture was labeled with a name and a profile and a “personal message” from the girl. “ ‘Hi, I’m Amy,’ ” Luke read. “ ‘I was born and raised in Idaho.’ ” Amy clutched a potato some sick bastard had computer-enhanced to resemble male genitalia. There was Jasmine, raised in sunny California, and Tawny, raised in Wisconsin. Each girl was smiling seductively, and Luke wondered what had been done to them to force the smile.
“There’s a price list at the end,” Nate said.
“It’s a catalog,” Luke said dully.
“Exactly. And the logo for the company is the swastika with the bent ends.”
“Buy American,” Luke said. “I had a feeling we’d be looking at supremacist groups.”
“Look on page twenty-four.”
Luke did. “It’s Angel.” But they’d named her Gabriela.
“And page fifty-two.”
Luke’s pulse spiked. “It’s Jane Doe. They call her Honey. I called her that last night. That’s why she got so agitated. Are there other editions, earlier ones?”
“Yeah, two more. Looks like the catalogs are done quarterly, and this one is dated about two months ago. Luke, further on in this catalog are the two girls that were with Angel on the Web site we shut down eight months ago.”
“We lost track of those girls. Couldn’t find them anywhere on the Web.”
Nate pointed to the screen. “Now, we know where they went.”
“So either Mansfield was somehow involved with that Web site or he knew who was. How else could he get all three girls?”
“Don’t know. George and Ernie are coming in so I can grab some sleep. Maybe they’ll find something that’ll take us to the perv that ran the site. I’d give a lot to get my hands on him.” Nate searched Luke’s face. “You look as tired as I do. Get some rest.”
“No. I’ve got an hour before I meet Kasey Knight’s parents. Give me one of those hard drives.” He sat in front of a computer and closed his eyes, mentally preparing.
“You need anything? Lunch, maybe?” Nate asked, and Luke realized he hadn’t eaten since Leo’s eggs almost twelve hours before.
“Yeah, I forgot to eat.”
“You always do,” Nate said, and gave him a container from their small fridge. “Moussaka.”
Luke blinked at it. “How…”
Nate smiled. “Your mother came by with food for the office yesterday. She was worried we weren’t eating right with you off helping Daniel Vartanian’s case.”
Luke’s heart squeezed. I love you, Mama. “She’s a good woman, my mama.”
“And a damn good cook. Eat, Papa. Then search. Your eyes are faster than mine.”
So, armed with his mama’s moussaka, Luke sat down to view the stuff of which his nightmares were made. He scanned the directory, looking for any name that popped out. Some of the folder names were more self-explanatory than others. Whips and Chains, No Means Yes, Boys Will Be Boys… Luke had a pretty good idea of what he’d find in those folders. Then his eyes froze on one of the names.
Sweetpea, my ass. He clicked it open and his heart rose to choke him. Slowly he put the plastic container of food aside. “Oh my God. Nate, come here.”
Nate peered over his shoulder. “Horrible quality pictures.”
They were, grainy and blurry and off center. “Mansfield probably took them with a cell phone or hidden camera. Look, it’s Granville. With a girl.”
“What’s he doing?” Nate leaned closer, then sighed. “Aw, fuck, Papa.”
“Goddamn bastard.” Luke scrolled, each photo more vile than the last. Granville had tortured these girls, unspeakably. And Mansfield had somehow captured it all.
“What does Sweetpea, my ass mean?” Nate asked, pulling up a chair.
“You know about the rape club, right?”
“Thirteen years ago. Daniel’s brother Simon was the ringleader.”
“Not exactly,” Luke said. “We think Granville was the leader, but Simon was his partner. Daniel talked to the widow of one of the men who’d been in the club and she told him all the boys in the club had nicknames. Mansfield was Sweetpea.”
“Why the ‘my ass’ part?”
“I don’t know. Everything went to hell and Daniel got shot before I could get any more information. I’ll go see him and find out, but my guess is that Mansfield took these pictures as protection, in case he needed to hold something over Granville’s head.”
Luke continued paging through the photos, then stopped, and what little he’d eaten threatened to come back up. It was Angel. In all the vile perversion he’d witnessed, what Luke now stared at might be the worst. “Aw, hell, Nate.”
Nate closed his eyes. “Shit.” He swallowed hard, pursing his lips. “Shit.”
“We missed something, Nate,” Luke said, his voice as dead as he felt inside. “We didn’t catch those assholes who ran the Web site, but Granville and Mansfield managed to. That’s why those three girls dropped off the face of the earth all of a sudden. Granville had them here. Doing that to them. How did they get them?”
“I don’t know. But if it’s on one of these five hard drives, we’ll find it.”
Five hard drives. Twenty-five hundred gig. A hundred thousand pictures. “Dammit.”
“We’ll figure it out, Luke.”
“In time for the five girls Granville’s current partner took with him?” Luke said bitterly. “We’ve been at this for twenty hours and nothing fits. We’ve got a missing judge and swastika brands. We’ve got a name, Rocky, that means absofuckinglutely nothing. We’ve got a six-year-old homicide in New York and thirteen-year-old rapes, and they’re somehow connected. And we’ve got a girl who won’t goddamn wake up and tell us what happened.” He looked away, his temper a second away from explosion.
Beside him, Nate drew a careful breath. “And we’ve got a dead girl named Angel who we should have saved,” he said quietly.
A sob rose in Luke’s throat and, horrified, he tried to shove it back. “Goddammit, Nate,” he choked. “Look what he did to her. To all of them.”
Nate squeezed his shoulder hard. “It’s all right,” he murmured. “It wouldn’t be the first time one of us let go in here. That’s why we’re soundproofed.”
Luke shook his head, slowly grappling for his control. “I’m okay.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Okay, I’m not. But I’ll do what needs to be done.” He checked his watch. “I’ve got enough time to see Daniel before the Knights get to identify their daughter. Maybe Daniel knows something more.”
“You need to sleep, Luke.”
“Not now. I can’t close my eyes now. I’ll see that.”
Atlanta, Saturday, February 3, 2:30 p.m.
“Hello, Susannah.”
Susannah turned in the chair next to Jane Doe’s bed, surprised to find Mrs. Papadopoulos holding a big shopping bag in each hand. “Mama Papa. Hello.”
“I thought I would find you here, with this girl.”
Susannah smiled. “I thought you’d already forgotten about this girl.”
Her dark eyes twinkled. “I am mute when I leave. For now, I bring you these. Luka told my daughter Demi what my granddaughter bought for you. Demi was not pleased.”
“It was still very kind,” Susannah said, but Luke’s mother shook her head.
“So I send my youngest daughter Mitra out this morning to buy you proper clothing.” She held out the bags. “You like, you buy. You no like, Mitra will return.”
Susannah looked through the bags and smiled. “It’s all beautiful. Truly appropriate.”
“And everything was on sale.” Mama’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve been crying.”
“I went to a funeral. I always cry at funerals.” Which was a lie, but Susannah had to keep some dignity. “Here, come meet M. Jane Doe.”