The Van Alen Legacy (Blue Bloods 4)

Mimi nodded. The Venators had a cover. If anyone asked for the reason they were in the slums, they played policemen on a missing person case.

"Yes. We are," Mimi replied in the girl's native language.

"A little girl like me."

"How did you know?" Mimi asked sharply. That wasn't part of the story. The fiction was that they were looking for a thief, a criminal, an escaped convict, a grown man. No one knew they were looking for a young girl, because then it would cause red herrings in the dreams. If the people knew what they were looking for, they would be sure to dream about it, and it would make the Venators' work that much harder.

"How did you know we were looking for a little girl?"

"Because she told me."

"Who told you? Told you what?" Mimi asked sharply.

The little girl shook her head, looking suddenly afraid.

"Did you scan her?" Kingsley asked with a tilt of his head.

Mimi nodded. That first night they'd arrived, she'd scanned all the kids. There had been nothing. But had she been thorough? Or had she been too gentle? The glom was unpredictable, some humans did not take well to the invasion of their consciousness. If they woke up during a session, there was a chance it could harm them, even drive them insane. Look what had happened to that so-called witness of theirs.

The Venators were skilled and meticulous, and hadn't damaged any Red Bloods so far. But maybe Mimi hadn't wanted to take that chance. Not with this little girl. She had done a cursory examination and had resisted probing the girl's core subconscious.

Sam removed a picture from his pocket. It was Jordan's school picture. She looked troubled and serious in her plaid uniform. "Have you seen her? Is she the one?"

The little girl nodded, clutching the stuffed puppy to her chest for dear life.

"Well, what do you know? Follow the little children, indeed," Kingsley said.

"Shush" Mimi chided. Her heart began to pound. Could it be possible that all along, the answer to their quest had been right in front of their noses? Following them every step of the way? When had the kids started following them? They had been there since the beginning, that first night. Could they have missed it because Mimi had been too weak, too much of a soft touch, to have scanned the girl correctly?

"Are you sure? Are you sure you have seen her?" Mimi wanted to shake the girl, although it was really herself she wanted to shake. She had let her feelings for the girl get in the way of her job. And since when did Azrael have feelings?

The little girl nodded. "Yes. That's her. Sophia." She called Jordan by her real name. Mimi felt chills up her spine.

Ted knelt before the girl. "How did you know her?"

"She lived over there," the little girl said. "with her grandma. We were scared of the lady. Sophia too."

"Where is she now?"

"I don't know. They took her."

"Who?"

The girl wouldn't say.

"Propon familiar," Mimi said gently, in the coercive tones of the sacred language. Tell your friends. She used compulsion. She didn't want to bring any harm to the girl, but they had to know. "Nothing will happen to you. Tell us what you remember."

"Bad people. A man and a woman. They took her away," the girl said in a flat voice. "On Monday."

The Venators exchanged sharp glances. They had arrived in Rio that day.

"And this grandmother of hers... is she still here?" Mimi asked.

"No. She went away a few days later." The little girl looked at them with large, fearful eyes. "Sophia said there would be people coming for her, good people and bad people. We weren't sure what kind you were at first. But she told us the good people would be with a beautiful lady, and you would give me a toy dog," the girl said haltingly.

"She told you we were coming?" Mimi demanded.

"When the good people come, she said to give them this." The little girl removed an envelope from her pocket. It was grubby and streaked with dirt. But the handwriting was beautiful calligraphy script, the kind usually found on ivory envelopes that announced a bonding.