Page 9 of Dolly

“There has to be a way out of here.” I pace my cell again. If I can’t forget, I can at least ignore for a while longer. “A loose block…a window somewhere? Maybe we can overtake the assholes and run for the door?”

She sniffles. I’ve made her upset.

“There’s no way out, Ken. I don’t know where any windows or doors are. The rooms upstairs—there aren’t any windows.”

“Okay, then we’ll have to watch, keep an eye out. There has to be a way.” I force a laugh. “I mean, we got in, right?”

She swipes the back of her hand over her eyes.

“We can’t just let them…” My words fade into the background. She doesn’t need a reminder of what happens when they take us upstairs.

“They’ll kill us if we try to escape.” She plucks the false lashes off and throws them to the corner of her cell.

I look at her, the dried blood on the dress, her legs, the rope burns on her wrists and ankles. I’m not entirely sure death would be worse.

Six

Brian

Cathy’s already waiting for me at the elevators when I step off. Just like her to be right on time.

“You’re going to make us late,” she chides, but hands me a coffee anyway.

“You could have gone in. Didn’t need to wait for me.” The taskforce has been given several offices on the floor above ours. The layout isn’t any different, but the atmosphere is a hell of a lot stuffier.

“I don’t know why, but I feel a united front here is best.”

I get the same feeling when we step into the room. There’s only three other officers in the room, and they are already eyeballing us pretty fucking hard. I shift my coffee to my left hand and take the lead into the room.

“Morning. I’m Brian Morton, and this is my partner, Cathy Niegel. We were sent over from the Lake Palos office.” I offer my hand to the largest of the guys.

He takes my hand in a firm shake and offers a quick nod. “Yeah, I heard you were coming down today. I’m Dominick Pierce, the lead on this case. This here is Connor Jacobs and Simon Philips.”

We exchange our pleasantries and small talk, which nauseates the fuck out of me, but I’m trying to play nice. Richards sent us over here to fail, I’m sure of that, but I don’t plan to. Two reasons. One: fuck him. And two: I’m a good fucking detective.

“I read over everything we were given. The last girl, Abigail, she’s been spotted?” Cathy asks, diving into work.

Pierce nods and points to the white board. “A tip was called into the missing persons hotline that she was seen online. A site called Dolls for Hire. We’ve been tracking it for a while now. Abigail isn’t the first girl.” He walks me over to a set of computers and gestures to Jacobs.

Jacobs hits a few keys, and in a matter of seconds, we’re lingering on the edges of the dark web. He types in another address and the home screen pops up.

“That’s her,” Cathy says.

Front and center, Abigail’s picture is the largest graphic on the page. False lashes, painted lips, rosy cheeks, mascara-tinted tear streaks staining her cheeks. Her hair is split into two braids tied with bows.

“She’s the big hitter,” Pierce says. “Live feeds every couple days. They just had one two nights ago. Horrible shit.” He winces at the memory.

“And you don’t know where it’s being streamed from?” This seems like an open and close case, why the hell were we dragged in?

“We’re getting locations pinpointed. Problem with the shit on the dark web is signals are jammed and ping-ponged all over the place. Every time we get a lock, it comes up empty.”

“Okay. Where do you want us?” Cathy asks, ever the diligent team player.

“Connor and Simon can show you the rest of the files we have. We didn’t send everything over to your office, so you’ll need to catch up. I’m going to check in with the computer geeks—see if they have anything for us yet.”

“Here’s everything.” Connor sweeps his hand over three boxes on the tables as Pierce leaves the room.

“How long has this case been going?” Cathy asks, lifting the lid off the first box.

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