Page 53 of Duplicity

Peter said, “He could’ve been here to take her. If he knew she would be here alone, he could’ve been waiting to strike. Romeo was going to mess it up. Things were planned and in place, so he had to hit Romeo rather than just waiting until he left or risking that she would tell the uniformed officer that she was scared over something.”

The lieutenant nodded. “We need to find her.”

Peter asked, “Any idea who it was?”

Simon backed up the feed again, trying to get a view of the man. “Hoodie. Similar height as Romeo, but that’s a rough estimate.”

“Can you ID him?”

The lieutenant said, “You know the players?”

If only he didn’t have to be connected to this at all, but he had to face reality. “Maybe.”

“Is this the case everyone is working on?”

Simon nodded.

Peter said, “I’ll run it down for you. Get you looped in.”

“Thanks.” The lieutenant rocked on his heels, then back to the balls of his feet. “This whole thing needs to be stopped.”He eyed Kendall suspiciously. Did the lieutenant think the guy might be in on it or at least know enough to leave things at the store set up this way?

Probably not. He’d seemed genuinely concerned that one staff member had covered for the other and left the place with only one employee working that night.

“How many abductions does that make now?” The lieutenant glanced between them.

Simon swallowed. Peter would’ve said, but Simon needed to be the one to voice it aloud. “Five or six, at least. And we know this isn’t the first time they’ve done it.”

“Done what?” Kendall asked. “What are you talking about, abductions?”

There was no way to fake that kind of surprise. Oh, the lieutenant had asked just to see this man’s reaction. He said, “If you’ll come with me, Mr. Kendall. Your other employee should be arriving soon.”

They trailed out, leaving Simon and Peter alone in the office.

“We need to stop this.”

Simon didn’t look at his brother. “We have no idea if they’re done or if they are going to take more girls.”

“So find out where this ‘party’ is going down.” Peter rolled his shoulders. “Let me stop it before it happens.”

Simon said, “I think we need to talk to Justice.”

TWENTY-ONE

Cat gripped her phone while walking through the lobby. She still had a few minutes before Simon and Peter showed up. “That’s a good idea, even if we have to wake up the household and drag Justice out of his bed. This thing is getting out of control.”

Simon had told her how the employee at the store was the latest victim. It had been a couple of hours since she’d been abducted, maybe longer. The clock was rapidly approaching midnight, and they all needed sleep, but with innocent—and underage—girls at the mercy of a nightmare, Cat had no intention of going to sleep without at least some kind of result.

He might have given his brother the information for the estate where he’d been held, at least the area he’d been in, but they needed more. “Do you know where Justice lives?”

“Hang on.” The background noise on the call changed. “I put you on speaker because I need to pull up what I found from the district network.”

“You hacked the school computers?” She frowned.

“In about three minutes.” Someone snorted, but it might’ve been Peter. “The address listed isn’t the same area as the estate, and his guardian is an aunt.”

“So something happened to his parents?”

“Who knows? It’s almost like the kid came out of nowhere. I don’t know that the aunt is even real. I mean, she has social accounts and an address. She has a website for a freelance graphic design business, but if you dig at all, it starts to have gaps.”

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