Page 44 of Merciless Obsession

My eyes snapped to him. “I wasn’t. I just don’t like uninvited guests.”

“Can I come in?”

Shifting my sucker in my mouth, I stepped back and opened my door wider. I looked around again before closing the door behind him.

“What can I do for you?”

Lucas turned to face me. “My brothers mentioned you had an evidence board and more information about the kidnapping and killings of these young girls. I want to see it.”

I studied him. From what I knew, he was determined to find his friend that went missing a couple years before my sister.

“Follow me,” I told him, walking to the steps.

I led Lucas upstairs into my office. Walking across the room, I flipped my evidence board and stepped back, allowing him to get a closer look.

Lucas didn’t speak right away. His eyes first scanned the board with everything I’d collected so far before turning his attention to the board on the wall with the girls’ names, missing dates, birthdays, and the day they were found murdered, if it applied.

“A lot of the girls went missing in this area. It’s a park, right?” he asked, pointing to where a good amount of the red pins were on the map.

“Yes, it is.” I stepped closer, staring at the map. “Is that where your friend went missing?”

Lucas turned to face me. “I’m not sure. I know she was hanging out with her cousin and they never returned to their grandparents’ house. They were supposed to be going up the street to get ice cream the day they were taken.”

“Where do the grandparents live?”

He named the street. It was a couple blocks from the park.

“She must have really meant a lot to you if you held on to finding her after this long.”

Lucas adjusted his glasses. “She’s the only girl I’ve ever loved,” he stated. “When Adrian’s cousin Liyah was found and she wasn’t I figured she still had to be alive somewhere.” He opened the blue folder he had in his hand. “This is what she would look like today if she was found.” He handed me a sheet of paper.

“You mentioned before that all the girls had something in common.”

I grabbed it and studied the girl. She was a beauty—caramel skin, full cupid’s bow, blush pink lips, light brown, almond-shaped eyes with a distinguishable birthmark going through her right eye.

“Yes. They all came from low-income, damaged homes. Girls that would be written off as runaways. I guess whoever is taking them figured they wouldn’t be cared about if they went missing.”

I brought the picture closer. “You said your friend was with her cousin? Does she fit that profile?”

“Yeah. I guess. Her mom left when she was younger. Her dad was a con artist, who had got caught months before the girls were taken. Their grandparents had gotten custody of her so she didn’t have to go to foster care, but they were older, had no business raising a preteen, so she basically did what she wanted. Adrian wanted her to come and live with them after the summer but then they were gone.”

I glanced at Lucas. His jaw clenched and his top lip twitched before he adjusted his glasses again. His whiskey, round eyes shifted back to the board.

I knew what he was feeling. The cops told me I needed to just let it go. That my sister’s murderer was gone and it was time to move on. But I knew that wasn’t the case and the girls that went missing after her were proof.

“What exactly is it that you want from me?” I lowered the paper and stared at him.

“Who do you think is behind these kidnappings?”

“If I knew that then I would have been exposed their operation.” Pushing past him I set the paper on my desk and took a seat. Waking my computer up, I went to one of the files of information I’d found.

“All I know is they’ve been operating for a while. They’re skillful and have help staying off the radar. They seem to strike mostly at the beginning of fall when school starts back, and at the end of spring when school is ending. There have been incidents where girls went missing in between, however. Most of the girls taken vanish, but for whatever reason they kill certain ones. I haven’t found the connection between them yet. The cops hardly ever investigate and usually brush it off as a runaway.” I paused for a microsecond before clicking another file. “Some of the girls have appeared online temporarily. Their appearances were altered but it’s them. Not all are from around here either. Whoever uploads them is good, even I have trouble tracking their whereabouts, a lot of the time they have scramblers set up that hide their locations. Their pages are heavily encrypted with firmware that?—”

“Hold up.” Lucas put his hands up. “All that tech shit is something Emmet would know. I know the basics but what you’re saying is foreign to me.”

I sighed. “Just know they’re great at covering their tracks. The ads are only up for a couple hours. I’ve even found bidding sites but nothing that can indicate who is behind all of this.”

“Fuck,” Lucas mumbled. “So you’re telling me Adrian could have been trafficked?”