“Kind of hard when I didn’t have one at the time.”
“Nah, no, you’re not flipping this back on me.”
“Well, there has to be some accountability.” She smirked.
Her phone rang and the caller ID was blocked. Not again, she thought. “I should probably get this.”
“Go ahead.”
Amanda answered on her way out of Malone’s office and headed for her cubicle.
“Detective Steele, it’s Patty—ah, Detective Glover.”
“Yes, Patty?”
“I heard you found the girls. That’s marvelous.”
“At least some of them will be going home.”
“Some more too, hopefully.” Patty paused a few heartbeats. “I have more good news for you. Now, I haven’t been able to track anywhere near all the clients yet—and sadly, I might never be able to. The money transfers are deeply rooted and hard to track. I was able to find that the deposits tended to go to a few different bank accounts and they always came back to a few names. Arrest warrants are in the works.”
“Great news.” Amanda would have loved to be there when they brought those miscreants down, but let those trained in that handle it. Speaking of…
“How did the interrogation go with Reid? And did you bring in Rhonda Osborne?” Amanda had got a signed confession from Jonah Reid that he’d killed Casey-Anne Ritter and Jackson Webb and then Amanda had handed him over to Sex Crimes.
“Reid will be going away for a long time. He’s still refusing to give up anyone he was working with,” Patty said. “These types never operate on their own, but we’ll do all we can to get him to speak, and if not, well, we keep working. Rhonda Osborne was brought in and questioned, but there’s no evidence to indicate that she was involved or facilitated Phoebe’s abduction. She was genuinely horrified when she found out that her friend had played a role.”
Amanda accepted that Patty and her team knew what they were doing, but she still had a niggling in her gut about Osborne. Then again, people don’t always truly know those closest to them. “Were you able to find out who purchased Phoebe Baldwin?”
“Unfortunately, not yet. Still working through the maze on the wire transfer.”
“Too bad.”
“We’ll get him.”
She would celebrate the day that man—or woman—got what was coming to them. “Please keep me posted on the girls I found, who bought them, etcetera.”
“Absolutely. I hope to keep in touch. I know you cleared the murders you were looking at, but…”
“I’d love to stay in touch. Thank you.”
Amanda ended the call. She was looking over at Trent’s cubicle, but he wasn’t there. As Patty had noted, she’d solved the cold cases, but she still had to see things through with Palmer. Reid had told her he wasn’t involved, and she believed him. She was just about to call Trent when the phone on her desk rang.
“Detective Steele,” she answered.
“This is Lily; Lieutenant Hill wants you to come to her office.”
“Right now?”
“Yes.” Hill’s assistant hung up.
Amanda got up and made her way to Hill’s office, and it felt like she was making her way to the guillotine. Lily told her to go on in and that the lieutenant was waiting for her.
She let herself in, but Hill wasn’t waiting alone. There was a man with her: mid-fifties, graying hair, still dark at the temples. Handsome and wearing a suit. He rose from a couch Hill had in her office when Amanda entered.
“There she is.” Hill grinned. It had Amanda wondering if she’d fallen and hit her head.
“Here I am,” she parroted and feigned a smile.