Karen Rose - Have You Seen Her?

"So where are we?" Steven asked his team. "Sandra?"

Sandra shook her head. "None of my contacts on the street have a clue. I did, however, get three very interesting proposals, but none of them looked like relationship material so I said no."

Steven's lips twitched as he took the report Harry pushed across the table. "What, you want stability and morality? Get your head out of the clouds, Sandra."

"Hell, who wants stability? I'd just settle for a guy who wasn't on parole for something too sick for the prime-time news."

"You need to get out of the gutter, Sandra," Nancy clucked. "Find yourself a nice accountant."

Steven rolled his eyes. So much for Nancy not matchmaking. You don't need a matchmaker anymore , he thought. You're having dinner with Jenna tonight .

Drawing on every ounce of discipline he possessed, he put Jenna and her big violet, passion-dazed eyes out of his mind and looked down at Harry's report. "The ketamine supply," he said.

Harry nodded. "Got back answers from all but two of the vet supply houses I queried on ketamine orders and deliveries. Only a few new customers in a hundred-mile radius and none with any irregular ordering patterns. No one has any unaccounted-for ket."

Steven scanned the list. "When do you expect answers from the other two supply houses?"

"I'll call 'em again today, Steven."

Steven gave him back the list. "Keep it up, Harry. I want to know how our boy got the stuff."

"I'd still like to know what he's using it for," Meg said softly from her spot by the window. "There are a lot of ways to immobilize a victim. Why ketamine?"

"I guess we'll find out when we find him," Steven said grimly. "Nancy?"

She shook her head from where she stood by the coffeepot. "I didn't get any hits on the like perps when I cross-referenced against the ketamine," she said. "Lots of crack, pot, and heroin, but no ket."

Steven sighed. "I didn't think you would. And other than the fact the two girls were members of the same parish and were both cheerleaders, I can't find any other areas of commonality. The Rushes didn't even go to church that frequently. Samantha was there last week, but Lorraine hadn't been to church in months." He pinched the bridge of his nose, annoyed the headache was already there. "I've retraced their known steps, talked to all their friends, but nothing matches."

"What about the cheerleading angle?" Sandra asked. "They would have competed against each other, gone to cheerleading camps together."

Harry looked at her, delighted. "Don't tell me you were a high school cheerleader?"

Sandra's expression went sour. "Don't go there, Harry. It was part of my misspent youth. I'm sure if I dug hard enough I'd find a few things you'd prefer were left alone."

Harry was undaunted. "Did you wear a little skirt and smile and everything?"

Sandra narrowed her eyes at him, then looked back at Steven. "You want me to check the cheerleading circles?"

Steven threw a warning glance at Harry who was still chuckling. "Beat the bushes, Sandra, see what you find. Kent? What about you?"

"Only that we found ketamine in Rush's tissue samples. But you knew that yesterday."

Steven's mind blinked back to yesterday and he remembered the man at the soccer match. The press. He suppressed a shudder at the thought. "Let's keep going, folks, we'll turn up something. And please, don't anyone talk to the press. Unfortunately that little jewel belongs to me."

Tuesday, October 4, 9:00 A.M.

"Well, you're early," Miss Wells said as she unlocked the library door.

Neil had been up since four A.M. pacing the floor of his tiny hotel room until he'd thought he would go insane. "I need to use your computer again."

"Well, help yourself," Miss Wells said. "Let me know if you need anything."

"I will," he promised. He sat down at one of the computers, brought up a search engine, and typed "Steven Thatcher and SBI." Then sat back to learn about the man who held the safety of Raleigh's young girls in his hands.

Tuesday ;October 4, 5:00 P.M.

Jenna carefully closed the door of Adam's car, then walked around the car and stared at the gas cap, rage making her body clench and tremble. The twenty-minute drive from school had taken sixty as Adam's car bucked and kicked and sputtered and threatened to leave her stranded. And with every buck, every kick, every sputter, every minute that went by she got madder and madder.

She could take vandalism in her classroom two days in a row. She could even take slashed tires, because they hadn't touched what was important. Adam's car itself.

But this time they had. Hopefully it was only water in the gas tank, something she could fix with a bottle of STP. And if it wasn't… she didn't know what she'd do, but it would be very bad.

Adam's car . His pride and joy he'd lovingly restored with his own hands. She could see him in her mind's eye, running his hands over the car's curves, and suddenly realized the memories of Adam's hands on his car and his hands on her were intermeshed. But instead of making her feel soft and tender inside, the realization made her even angrier.

Stupid juvenile delinquents whose parents hadn't bothered to teach them right from wrong. Idiotic kids who had no respect for other people's property. Who would do anything that was a means to their end . Who she couldn't touch because she couldn't prove they had anything to do with anything. She'd call Officer Pullman. He'd dust for prints and probably wouldn't find any that didn't belong to her or Casey. There was nothing, nothing she could do.

Her nails dug into her hands and she wanted to hit something. She couldn't remember the last time she'd felt so close to the edge of violence. Yes, she could. It had been the day she'd realized Adam was really going to die and there wasn't a damn thing she could do to stop it. That was the day she'd run for miles and still felt the murderous rage burning inside her, so she'd called a friend, Mark. Adam's best friend to be exact. Mark was also her sensei , her karate master. They'd sparred and kicked and thrown each other to the mat until all the rage was gone. He'd understood her pain and her rage and let her work it out.

She'd call Mark now. It'd been almost a week since her last workout and she was due.

Tuesday, October 4, 6:30 P.M .

Rudy slumped down in the leather chair across from his desk. "You wanted to see me?"

Victor Lutz frowned. "I called Blackman today to make sure you'd be playing this week."

Rudy looked worried. "I will, won't I?"

Victor wanted to slap Rudy's perfect teeth to the other side of his head. "Probably not."

Rudy shot up in the chair. "Why? I thought you said Blackman was fixing it."

"Apparently that was before your friends destroyed about five thousand dollars of school property. You're lucky Blackmail's afraid of me or you'd all be in jail, dammit," he hissed. "What the hell were you doing?

Rudy looked affronted. "I didn't do anything. The guys did. Just like you said to do."

Victor slapped the desk. "I said, target the teacher's belongings, not school property, you idiot!"

Rudy's face blanked and Victor once again cursed Nora's stupid genes. The boy had the IQ of a damn turnip. Victor leaned across his desk, hoping his face showed every ounce of frustration he was feeling. "Her belongings means things that belong to her . Like her tires. Like the little clay figures she keeps on the balcony of her apartment." His lips thinned. "Like her dog."

Rudy's eyes widened. "You've been to her place?"

"I've driven by. That's all. Now tell your stupid, brainless friends to stop vandalizing school property or you'll all be off the team."