Devoted in Death (In Death 41)

She brought coffee on a tray with the grace and ease of a longtime waitress.

“I work four nights seven to midnight, and one night – like tonight – five to two. Reed said how he might go out late, jam with his band some. They’re working on a sound, compu-boosted. He’s got a knack with computers. So when I got home and he wasn’t here, I wasn’t worried. But when I checked the house ’link – it was blinking so I knew there were messages, I got worried.”

She picked up her own coffee, set it down again. “The first message was from Benj—that’s Reed’s best friend, and one of the band. He was a little steamed. Where are you, sort of thing, why aren’t you answering your ’link. You could listen.”

“That’d be good.”

Quickly, Jackie rose, flipped on the message replay.

Hey, man, wtf! We’re still waiting. Answer your pocket, dude. You said you’d be here in a few. It’s been a freaking hour. Tag me.

The machine flagged the message at 1:06 a.m.

And the next, again from Benj, twenty minutes later. A third from a female – ID’d as Roxie Parkingston, lead vocalist – twenty-two minutes after that.

Reed, you’re scaring me now. I swear if I don’t hear back from you in another half an hour, I’m tagging your mom. Don’t make me tag your mom.

“She did,” Jackie confirmed. “I was listening to the message, her last message, when she rang through. She said Reed had talked to Benj when he was on the way – walking to this basement unit Benj and a couple of the other boys share on Morton, just off Seventh. They’ve soundproofed it, so they practice there. It’s only ten minutes away on foot. At most.

“Something happened,” she insisted. “He wouldn’t do this. We have a deal. All either of us have to do is say we won’t be home – no explanations, no questions. But we have to let the other know. We always do. And he was on his way to Benj and the band. His dream.”

“What would he have been wearing?”

Jackie let out a long breath. “I looked, to be sure. I got him a new coat and new boots. His birthday, Christmas. Brown Trailblazer boots – the real leather ones. It was his twenty-first birthday, and he really wanted them. And the coat, it’s a Moose brand parka. Hunter green. I think he’d be wearing black pants, a black sweater. It’s a band thing.”

“A girlfriend?”

“He’s half seeing this girl – Maddy – and I checked with her, woke her up. She hasn’t seen him for a couple days. He’s got the hots for Roxie. I can see it. Hell, she can see it, but he hasn’t moved on it yet. I’d know. So he’s half seeing Maddy, but it’s not serious, and she hasn’t seen him since they grabbed a pizza the other night.”

Eve asked more questions, got a sense of a happy-go-lucky sort of guy, earning a living, helping his mother with the rent, sliding along, and dreaming of fame and fortune rocking it out for millions.

As her own closest friend did just that, Eve knew it could actually happen.

She got the contact information on the bandmates, the half

-a-girlfriend, some coworkers.

“You’re going to look for him, right?”

“Yes, we’re going to look for him.”

“I know he’s of age, but he’s mostly still a boy. And he’s pretty.” She pressed her lips together. “I know there are people out there, people who prey on boys, even boys of age.”

Yes, there are, Eve thought, but she said, “We’re going to look for him.”

The minute she stepped out, she turned to Roarke. “Your building.”

“Apparently it is.”

“Then getting the security discs shouldn’t be a problem. Cam on the door. It would show him leaving.”

“I’ve already contacted the security company who handles this property. The system’s in the basement utility. I have the codes.”

“Can you get me copies? I want to get his description out. It’ll hit the morning reports. Maybe somebody saw him.”

“Five minutes,” he told her, and took the basement exit.

He was back in four, handed her the copy. “I ran it from nineteen hundred through oh-one-hundred. Just to cover the ground.”