Deserves to Be Dead (Alvarez & Pescoli)

“Not as much as I do.”

Inside she was coldly furious. She’d dealt with a lot of sickos in her day, lowlifes who preyed on weaker victims, but the ones who targeted innocent children? Those fuckers could go straight to hell and Regan would be glad to help them along.

“I had a bad feeling about some of this,” Flowers said, leaning forward again. “Let me tell you about this Weeks character. Giving six hundred bucks back is the last thing I would have expected. He didn’t want any cops up there poking around. If we’re both thinking the same thing, he’s in on it.”

She said, “I need to talk to some feds. And that kid who ran away, we need to find him. He could be key here.”

Flowers rubbed the back of his neck, appeared to be mulling things over. “You know, I’d be willing to give you whatever help you need, but this isn’t my territory.”

“You want to just step away? Hide behind legality and jurisdiction?”

She was incensed. What a prick.

“I’d like to get back to fishing. Not to be rude, but this is really your problem, not mine.”

“It’s not entirely my problem,” she said, getting to her feet.

Damn. Her breasts hurt. She really needed to get to a spot where she could pump.

“Johnson’s still alive. When the shooter finds out he got the wrong guy, he could be back.”

“Could have gone all day without hearing that,” Johnson said. “Might be time to fish somewhere else.”

She said tautly, “Look, Flowers, this is child porn and homicide. You’re a pro. Or supposed to be. I’d appreciate it if you’d stick around for a couple days. You and Johnson are the only ones on our side who’ve seen the woman, or the RV, or even that Drake character. And without Johnson’s statement about seeing the girl in the teddy, we don’t have a lot to go on.”

Flowers didn’t argue. “So, look, I’m going to try to run this kid down, this Phillip, and try to find that RV.” To Johnson she said, “I don’t suppose you took a cell-phone picture of it . . . one that would include the tags? Was it local? Montana plates?”

Johnson was shaking his head.

“Didn’t notice and no, no picture, but I did see an advertising plate on the side. It said Luxury America Motor Tours, or something like that. I believe it was a rental: I kind of made a mental note, in case I wanted to try one out.”

She jotted the name in her notebook. “You’re smarter than you look.”

Johnson said, “I’ll have to think about that for a while.”

“I think it was a compliment,” Flowers said. “But I’m not absolutely certain.”

She ignored them. “One more thing, if there’s something going on with the girl, there are different possibilities. One would be that she’s been prostituted. The other is they’re making child porn.”

Her stomach tightened at the thought.

“Or both,” Flowers said. He, too, was grim. “But since she’s way out here, I’d say child porn is the better possibility. High-quality child porn. You’d need space, time, lights, decent cameras, plus the kids. And you might want to shoot some stuff out in the woods, as well as interiors. Sex, you could do almost anywhere. Photography, not so much. Especially video.”

“Describe Cheryl for me and Michael Drake,” she asked. “I’ll try to run ’em down.”

They did and she took notes.

“Tell you what. Since Johnson doesn’t want to get murdered, you guys could help out by scouting around up there. I can’t do that without a warrant, which would warn everyone. If you find something, just as tourists walking around in the woods like tourists do, I’ll get a warrant and we’ll swarm the place. We bust everybody in sight, and you guys are good to go fishing. While you’re doing that, I’ll find the Weeks kid and get a fix on the RV.”

“Walking around in the woods could be a little touchy,” Flowers said. “We’re not armed.”

“Maybe you’re not,” Johnson said.

Flowers stepped back. “Ah, Jesus, Johnson, you brought a gun?”

“You can’t go driving around the countryside without at least a nine,” Johnson said. To Regan he said, “Virgil doesn’t like guns.”

“And you’re a cop? Really?”