Page 41 of All He Sees
When the door to the room opened, Nicky looked up to see Ken holding a tray of coffees and a bag of food.
"Sometimes I feel like your errand boy, Lyons," Ken said, dropping a wrapped-up breakfast sandwich on the table. The smell of egg and sausage made Nicky's mouth water. He placed a coffee beside her, and she gratefully took a sip, relishing in the bold flavor.
"I can feed myself, Walker," she quipped, then shot him a smile. "But thanks. Sometimes it's hard to remember to eat on a case like this."
Ken sat across from her. "Agreed. How's the list?"
Frowning, Nicky refocused on her laptop. The list was all men, all under the age of thirty. As George mentioned, they were country club types, rich boys with esteemed families.
Nicky had been reviewing a guy named Burke Turner when Ken had come back. She refocused on the file.
"So far," she told Ken, "all these guys seem, well... innocent. No criminal record. This Burke Turner guy went to Yale. His record doesn't have a scratch on it."
"Maybe he's just good at covering his tracks or something," Ken said.
"I don't know," Nicky said. She grabbed the next name on the list. "And this guy, Eli Grant. He's the manager of a law firm." She read off the resume. "Criminology degree from Yale. Went to Harvard Law. Manages a shop downtown." She paused. "I mean, what the hell do I do here? I can't go to these people and accuse them of kidnapping girls."
Ken nodded. "Yeah."
"I mean, Turner has a list of honors as long as your arm, and this Grant guy volunteers at a shelter for women and children."
Nicky put down the list, balancing her coffee on the corner of it. "I wish I had something."
"So do I," Ken said. "We need to know where those women are."
Nicky nodded. "It's gonna haunt me." It already was.
"You really think George gave up all the names?" Ken asked.
Nicky let out a long sigh. "I don't know. I want to believe he did. Something like this is hard to prove. There's no paper trail. It was all just bribery. These guys could have given him fake names too."
Ken leaned back in the chair, running a hand through his dark hair. "We could be chasing our tails here."
Nicky shrugged. "Yep. But unless you have a better idea, I'll keep looking."
She continued to slog through the list. One name, near the end of the list, was Charles Medina. Nicky looked into him in the database and was surprised to see that he was actually much older than the others on the list. He was fifty-two...
And a multibillionaire.
What?
Nicky frowned as she read through his file. Charles Francois Medina was born into wealth; his parents founded a glass company in Florida, and Charles was sitting on the inheritance.
He had one charge on his record: an account of transporting exotic animals, one time, twenty years ago. That could have been what he wanted to use Onlooker for...
Unless young girls were his new "exotic animal" of choice to transport.
"This guy seems promising," Nicky said. "He sounds like an oddball billionaire, and he's got a record of trafficking exotic animals."
"Sounds worth talking to," Ken agreed. "Where's he at?"
Nicky checked his address and frowned. "Last known address... is way out off the coast?"
Nicky looked up the address on maps and zoomed in, getting a closer look at it--and it was a small island.
"He owns his own island," Nicky said.
Ken looked over her shoulder at the island. "And it's where?"
