Джеймс Паттерсон - The Red Book

I hold it back, best I can. “Does she have a last name?”

The girl nods. “Her name is Evalina Vacaru,” she says.

I don’t write it down. I don’t have a pad of paper in front of me. Didn’t want to spook the girl, make this seem too official.

Evalina Vacaru. Evalina Vacaru.

Our Jane Doe has a name.

“She is from Romania,” she says. “Timisoara.”

And so is this girl, Sadie—or not far from it. She pronounced the name of the city like a pro.

“I think…she is dead.”

“Why do you think that, Sadie?”

She nods, swallows hard. Looks away. “I saw…there is website for missing persons and unidented…unidentif…”

“A website for missing persons and unidentified bodies?”

“Yes, yes.”

It’s true. When the county doesn’t have ID on a dead body, they give out all the information they can—race, gender, height, weight—and post photos from the morgue. You have to go to a different page, after a warning that what you’re about to see will be graphic and shocking, but yeah, usually photos of the dead person will be on that site.

My name would’ve been posted there, too, as the lead detective. If you have any information that could lead to the identification of this individual…

“Evie was on…” Her voice shakes. She wipes away a tear.

Emotion, but this girl is well practiced at the stone expression, suppressing her hurt and fear and sadness.

“You saw Evie on that website? Photos?”

She closes her eyes, nods.

The county would have mentioned the tattoo on Evie’s ankle as well, maybe even posted a photo of it. Wouldn’t be hard for Sadie to confirm it was her friend.

I grab a tissue and a pen and notepad off the counter at the side of the room. Give her the tissue and slide the paper in front of her. “Could you write her name down?”

She does.

There’s no point in my playing totally dumb here. She knows from the website that I’m the lead cop and that Evie was murdered. But I don’t have to tell her everything I know, either.

“She was killed when the…little girl was killed?” Sadie asks.

“Yes, she was. Do you know why Evie was in K-Town?”

She shakes her head. “No. She left and did not come back. We did not know.”

“ We, ” I say. “Who’s we?”

“We…live with two other people.”

“Who?”

“Friends,” she says. “They are friends. Men, but…not boyfriends.”

Two men. She and Evie live with two men. The hookers and the pimps.

This prostitution ring is more than two girls. Maybe they house them separately. Not what I figured, but no reason that it couldn’t be true.

“Where do you live, Sadie?”

“I just…” She sighs again. “I just wanted you to know her name. So she could be…so the burial…”

“I understand, Sadie. I understand. Can you tell me where you live?”

“I do not…is that…do I have to tell you?”

“No.” I try to smile. “No, that’s okay.”

Sadie. No last name. No known address.

“How can I reach you?” I ask. “If I have questions about your friend?”

She hands me a slip of paper from her pocket. A phone number written in pen. Bogus, no doubt, but she was ready for the question. She doesn’t want me calling her.

“Sadie, can I help you in any way?”

“Me? No, is okay.”

“You’re an addict,” I say.

“No.” Like she expected that question, too.

“It’s okay. You’re not in any trouble. But I could help you get treatment.”

“No, I am not add—addict.”

Sure she is. And that’s only the start of her troubles. If her “friends,” as she puts it, find out that she came here, they’ll be none too happy. She risked a lot coming here.

But I can’t tip my hand. I’m not supposed to know any of this. “Okay. Well, can I help you get home?”

“No, is okay. I take bus.”

“Okay, then. Let me show you out.”

We head downstairs to intake. “Wait here a second,” I say.

I walk up to Vitrullo at intake. “Vin,” I whisper, “take a few minutes before signing this girl out. I need five minutes. Pretend like you actually work for a living.”

He glances over at her, then nods. “I can play a cop on TV.”

“Five minutes is all I need.”

Seven minutes later, Sadie leaves the station, turns right, heads south on foot, crossing North Avenue.

By now I’m in my car, curbed on Pulaski, slowly crawling forward.

Sadie’s about to show me where she lives.

Chapter 89

GOOD NEWS. Sadie walks to a bus, the 53 at Pulaski and Division. If she’d hopped on a train, I would’ve had to ditch my car and follow on foot, leaving me stranded wherever we end up and making me more visible to her.

That’s the problem with a solo surveillance. Usually there’s a team—you alternate, you communicate, you don’t have to expose yourself. Doing it alone ain’t easy.

But following a bus is. You never lose sight of it, and Sadie’s eyes will presumably be forward. The stops are a bitch, though; I have to keep my eyes peeled for her getting off.

Luckily, I see her jumping off, walking two blocks, and hopping on another bus heading south and west.

At a light, I check my email. I still haven’t heard back from the Romanian orphanage, but I have a message in my in-box from the prison I called, giving me a list of inmates released within the last three months.

Names and a lot of other information—probably offenses committed, sentences, amounts of time served—things I can’t read in Romanian.

But the names—those I can read.

One of them is Rudolf Vacaru.

Evie—Evalina Vacaru—was calling that prison looking for her brother. Missed him by three months. She had escaped from her traffickers and was trying to find a way home.

The bus ride, in total, is just under an hour, ultimately taking us into a neighborhood that is less residential than industrial.

Sadie gets off the bus and starts walking. Car traffic has lightened, and it’s getting harder to follow her without sticking out.

I park my car on 122nd and follow on foot. I keep a one-block distance, but I’m on the opposite side of the street, the north side, giving me a better angle. Sooner or later, she’s going to turn, and—

She turns left, disappearing through a large opening with an arched sign connecting the posts on either side. Looks like an old industrial park, long forgotten, shut down and left to wither. Once she’s out of my sight, and thus I’m out of hers, I do a hard jog, crossing the street and making up the distance in a few seconds. I hit the wall where she turned and peek around the corner, hand on my service weapon.

Sadie is still walking, the same pace, still no phone, just walking.

It’s a risk, following her down this narrow corridor, because this place is deserted. No crowd into which I could disappear, no reason why anyone should be here. If she sees me, it sets off bells and whistles. This whole thing could go to shit.

I follow her anyway. I need to know exactly where she’s staying.

This is an old mill of some kind. Most of the structures look like oversize garages, closed and locked now, dusty and rusted, but some structures look like old factories, too.

About four minutes into her walk, Sadie stops at a gate and turns. For a split second, I’m sure she’s going to complete that turn, do a one-eighty, and look at me squarely. Instead, she opens a latch, passes through the fence, and closes it.

With Sadie again out of my sight, I hustle up, stopping just short of the gate. I lean over, peek through the grating. It’s a loading area, with concrete steps leading up to a door. No cars. No sign of other people.