Page 28 of Forgotten Girls

“I don’t want to know the value.” Carter blew out a long sigh. “Hand it in and sleep well at night.”

“I always sleep well at night.” Beth met his gaze. “My heart tells me to give it to people who need it.” She suddenly frowned. “The thought of it going to buy weapons, when it was made on the suffering of children, hurts my soul.” She let out a long sigh. “Okay, Mister Incorruptible, I’ll make sure Uncle Sam gets the loot.”

Not believing that for a second, Styles gave her a long hard look, recalling another time she’d taken money from crime and dropped it into a local homeless shelter. She met his gaze and shrugged. He’d talk to her later. He rubbed the scar on his chin. “Okay, that covers the baby racket, but what about the kidnapped girls? We can’t prevent that happening and then there’s the girls missing from foster care.”

“That’s a tough one, but I figure they’re all tangled together. We have opportunistic abductions and the foster care racket, but from what we know from the past cases, both must be involved in the same scheme. If I work with Kalo, we might find an auction site.” Beth refilled her coffee cup from the pot on the table. “They’re not watching Kalo, and if he tracks them down, he might be able to put in an order. I can arrange the Bitcoin payment. That will appear legit. Then we wait.” She looked around the table. “We need to go big to bring the players out of the woodwork. I’m thinking we ask for six girls between ten and twelve. We can offer a massive amount, make it appear we have an ongoing business of some type, an exclusive brothel or similar. When they deliver, we’ll insist on a meet to transfer the rest of the payment and to establish an ongoing agreement for supply. They’ll want the big bucks and the easy sales. We’ll have them.”

“If the person who abducted the missing girl Shiloh Weeks is a player, it could be a way to find her abductor.” Jo nodded. “I can’t think of another way to locate her if she’s been taken out of her county. It might be worthwhile speaking to Sheriff Alton to see if she was able to get any information from Styles’ sister, Ginny. I know she planned to speak with her.”

“I figure taking the soft approach is a mistake.” Carter shrugged. “By all means go along that route, but you’re relying on the abductor to talk and I doubt he will. Beth has a valid point. It would be dangerous but could offer the shortcut we need.”

Considering the implications, Styles looked at Carter and raised both eyebrows. “The director will never agree to taking a risk like this. If we do it, we’ll need to do it alone and play our cards close to the vest. One wrong word, one mistake, and I figure we’ll be setting ourselves up for a quick and violent death.”

“Amen to that.” Carter shook his head slowly. “So are we giving it a try?”

The rush of the hunt shivered through Styles and he smiled at Beth. “Absolutely.”

THIRTY-TWO

After swallowing a couple of the pills Nate had insisted she take for the swelling around her ribs, Beth spent some FaceTime with Kalo. The teenage black hat hacker, who’d joined the FBI after hacking the Pentagon, had what Beth would call ongoing genius. He wasn’t a one-hit wonder. His skills expanded at a rapid rate and she realized just how fast young minds adapted to technology. She’d noticed toddlers picking up phones and playing games, and kids as young as twelve could create innovative software using advanced skills she would never have thought possible. It was as if something remarkable had been switched on in their brains. It had been unusual for her as a child to be in tune with programing, her instant understanding had been looked upon as peculiar. She craved information and found her skills expanded rapidly. Like Kalo, her brain processed data at an increasing rate. It was as if they were all becoming super cyborgs.

After explaining what she needed, she found Kalo enthusiastic and with a few angles of his own to explore. She smiled at him. “That’s a great idea. Find some back doors and we’ll see if we can pinpoint their communication network.”

“Sure.” Kalo wrinkled his nose and shook his head. “This part of the work gives me nightmares. If I find any sites, I’ll pass them on to you if you don’t mind. I’m trying to link all the names we have of the siblings from the DNA profile matches to adoption agencies. The problem I’m having is these places are much like their owners. They are there for a time and then vanish. I’m looking for a pattern. All these people have a pattern of behavior but don’t know it. I figure they wait as long as twelve months between vanishing and setting up somewhere else. They arrive in town with all their paperwork in order and appear legit. They actually arrange for a few legal adoptions to avoid suspicion, but for the illegal ones they have a judge waiting to move them through the system real fast. They use the judge’s discretion to avoid the normal checks usually required for an adoption agency. The judges are the constants and this is their downfall.”

Excited, Beth leaned forward in her chair. “All of the judges are involved in the ring but only handling a few adoptions to make them look clean?”

“My thoughts exactly.” Kalo grinned. “I figure if we can find them… well, their identities on the dark web, we’ll be able to use what we find for leverage. This is my realm of expertise. It’s like gaming. They’ll all have their online identities, and believe it or not, most of them are so overconfident they keep the same name. They don’t realize people like us are lurking in the dark waiting to pounce on them.”

Nodding, Beth smiled at him. “Okay, I’ll let you get back to work. Call me if you find anything interesting.”

“Oh, I’ll find something. With the both of us online, we’ll catch these big fish in our net.”

As Beth got to work, behind her she made out the soft chatter between the others. They had split the workload: Jo was in contact with the people searching for Shiloh and would follow up her theory with Sheriff Alton from Black Rock Falls. Styles and Carter were searching the internet for exclusive adoption agencies, ones that charged high fees and promised the earth. She’d suggested they look for any that serviced towns over a wide area, worked mainly via a website, and had satellite offices. While they were busy, she gathered all the strands of information she’d collected and went to work. It was dark outside by the time she’d discovered a tiny thread with a recurring word: Rotcod.

She stared at it and then followed lines of data finding Rotcod was like a big fat spider in the middle of a web. Data flowed in and out of the web constantly. She’d found the kingpin. Wanting to yell out and tell the others, she stared at the screen and swallowed hard. She’d vowed to make sure the kingpin of this despicable organization would pay for the lives he’d destroyed and taken. He was the king of the monsters and now she knew his code name. The name seemed to light up in her mind as it slowly reversed. Rotcod… Doctor.

Heart pounding, she scanned the screen. The incoming data streams were encrypted and indicated a sophisticated network of many players. Could this person known as Doctor be the same doctor Ginny mentioned had delivered her babies? The one who practiced in Blackwater and then conveniently vanished? She switched computers and hunted down Dr. Paul Benson. His credentials looked impressive and typical of a local GP. She delved back, hunting for his practices and found two of the same name in the US but dismissed them as impossible. Two others were possibilities: one in France and one in Spain. Using a satellite map, she located the buildings and found a small restaurant at one location and a beauty parlor at the second. Her suspicions grew stronger when only one of the hospitals where Benson had supposedly gained his qualifications had a listing of his name. She leaned back in her chair. He must be a qualified doctor, a fake would soon be recognized by a local pharmacist or there’d be complaints made against him. She found no reports on Dr. Paul Benson in Blackwater or the surrounding towns.

This man was smart, but Beth understood human nature and no one would erase their original qualifications. Having them would act as a safety net and the rope that would eventually hang him. Beth smiled. At last she could pull the noose tighter and all she needed was an image of him to run it through the facial recognition software. Soon, she’d discover the real person behind the fake name and the spider in the web. She opened the database for the Montana Motor Vehicle Division and ran the name. Drumming her fingers on the desk, she waited frowning when no results appeared on the screen. Next, she went state by state running the name and found a few, but none of them fit the age or race. In desperation, she went back to the listings of doctors in France. Maybe she could search the local areas for images, but when she scanned the page again, Dr. Paul Benson’s name had been erased. She went back to the Blackwater listing and slapped the desk in frustration. In the short time she’d been searching the MVD, the efficient machine behind the pedophile ring had deleted Dr. Paul Benson from existence.

THIRTY-THREE

Panic gripped Beth as she turned back to her other computer. The data moved across the screen in a rapid flow. She stared transfixed watching for any anomaly, but it was business as usual. No one had detected her intrusion. Relieved she hadn’t triggered a mass exodus, she stared at the data stream for some time just to be sure, and then copied a few pages as they slid down the screen. She’d have no trouble removing the encryption, and when she had, she’d apply the software to the incoming data stream and be able to read it. It wouldn’t be easy tracking down everyone involved, but with Kalo’s help they’d do it. Her stomach clenched. At last. The doctor was in her sights, and she had an overpowering desire to bring this monster to justice. Right now, she needed an image of the doctor, but as that was impossible, a description of him would have to do.

So close I can almost touch him. Beth smothered her exhilaration, turned in her chair, and stood. For now, she must withhold her revelations from the others. One slip and he would escape justice. This man was as slippery as an eel. She walked casually over to where Jo was sharing a desk with Carter. “Can you get back to Sheriff Alton and ask her if she can talk Ginny into giving a description of the doctor who delivered her babies?”

“Have you found something?” Styles looked up at her.

Avoiding his gaze, Beth shrugged. “It occurred to me that when we arrange a meet with an adoption agency and insist on meeting the attending physician, it would be good to know if it turns out to be the same man.”

“There’s something else you need to consider.” Carter stared at her. “We know the doctor is a pedophile, so ask Jenna to find out if he could possibly be Billy’s father.” He looked from Jo to Beth. “We know it’s not Shoebridge. Seems to me the only other man Ginny mentioned was Dr. Benson. If he is Billy’s father, we’ll have his DNA.”

Confused, Beth stared at him. “What good would that do when we meet him? I need an idea of what this guy looks like.”

“If he is the father of Ginny’s son, you can obtain an image of him.” Jo looked up at her. “I’ll call Wolfe. He’ll have Billy’s DNA. If he removes the mitochondrial DNA and runs the father’s through the Snapshot DNA analysis program, you’ll get a photograph. It’s been used for a time now. Haven’t you heard about it?”

The program was familiar to her and she smiled. “Yes, I’m aware of it, but I didn’t know it was that accurate. By all means, if Wolfe recommends it, I’m on board.”

---