Page 85 of Devoted in Death

“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.”

“That’ll do it.”

She ran it through her PPC, zipping forward until she saw Reed.

“Straight up midnight, and dressed just like his mother said. Hood up. It’s cold.”

She stood where she was, ran it straight through until she saw Jackie Mulligan walk to the door and key in.

“Three people out, two in between. No couples. And no reason to think they’d grabbed the kid, then bopped over here.”

“But now you’re sure.”

“Yeah. You up for a walk?”

“A walk in the cold and dark? Sounds just lovely.”

“He’d walk west,” she said as they stepped outside. “West to Seventh, turn south. “Ten-minute walk—probably a little less as he’d be walking fast in the cold. And somewhere along the route, he ran into them. Between midnight and ten after—if he didn’t detour. It’s a good, narrow window.”

She scanned as they walked, looking for more security cameras, for lighted windows, for shadowy spots where LCs or dealers or muggers might lurk.