I’m physically ill.

I close the laptop and try to concentrate on something else until the nausea passes. I sort through what I know. The two videos I saw were twenty minutes long. There are ten of them. Trish ran away after they started to get rough. I found her on Tuesday.

“Ryan, what day did Trish run away?”

He puts his book down and rejoins me on the couch. “She left on Sunday. She wanted to be gone before her mother came home from work early Monday. The men always came on Monday afternoon, after school.”

“They came once a week?”

He nods.

So Trish has had to endure this for almost three months. “Ryan, do you know how Trish came to know about me? She mentioned that she overheard her mother talking about me. Do you know who she was talking to? Was it the guys who made the video?”

Ryan shrugs. “I’m not sure.”

“Well, did Trish ever mention how her mother came to know them? Did she meet them at the hospital?”

Again, the shoulders roll, and his brow wrinkles with concentration. “I don’t know. Maybe. I know it started not too long after Carolyn’s last boyfriend left. Her mother was having trouble at work. I think she was worried she would lose her job. But after Trish started doing those-things-her mother didn’t seem so worried anymore. And she didn’t have to work as much. She only went in two or three times a week.”

A knock at the front door startles us both. I glance over at Ryan and he’s watching me, a look of concern on his face.

I motion toward the laptop. “Take your things into the bedroom. I’ll see who it is.”

He gathers up the computer, his books and backpack and disappears through the door without a word. I look through the peephole and see two familiar faces. With a frown, I pull open the door.

“Well, Agents Bradley and Donovan. What a surprise.”

Bradley is eyeing the unpainted front door. “What happened to your door?”

I don’t answer so he does it for me. “You have a little trouble? Throw someone through it maybe? I can’t figure out how you pulled that stunt with us at Frey’s, but I’m working on it.”

I flex my right arm. “I’m stronger than I look.”

He snickers and he and Donovan push past me.

“I don’t remember inviting you in,” I say.

Bradley smoothes his tie with the palm of his hand.“Really? Cause I could have sworn I heard you say come in. Eric, you heard it too, didn’t you?”

Donovan smiles and hitches up his pants. “Yep. I heard it plain as day.”

Bradley looks around the apartment. “Not much here. You a minimalist, Ms. Strong?”

My back teeth grind together in aggravation, but I manage to smile. “Why are you here? Can’t be to get decorating tips. Anybody who dresses as spiffy as you two wouldn’t need them.”

They both force grins and again, with no invitation from me, lower themselves onto the couch.

“Sure,” I snap. “Have a seat, why don’t you?”

I, however, refuse to give them the impression that I expect their stay to be anything but short. I cross my arms and peer down at them. “What do you want?”

Bradley crosses one leg over the other and leans back. “Your boyfriend seems to have pulled a disappearing act. He hasn’t gone back to his condo and he’s not at school.” He glances around the apartment. “He’s not here, is he?”

“Boyfriend?”

He raises an eyebrow. “Daniel Frey.”

“Oh.”

Donovan takes up the refrain. “Well, is he here?”

“No.”

“So, if I was to take a stroll into your bedroom, I wouldn’t find him. Is that what you’re telling me?”

“I’m telling you that if you were to take a stroll into my bedroom, I’d bring charges against you for unlawful search. Then I’d sue both your asses for harassment.”

Bradley’s posture stiffens, the playful mannerisms drop. “You are not helping yourself, Ms. Strong.”

“I didn’t know I needed help, Mr. Bradley.”

The two exchange the same kind of meaningful look they exchanged in Williams’s office a few hours ago. Donovan gives his head a shake and turns to look up at me.

“Do you have any idea what he’s involved in?”

When I don’t respond, he continues. “Do you know how many kids are victims of sexual exploitation every year? How many are raped, sodomized, forced into prostitution, beaten, strangled, and shot? We find their bodies in garbage cans and alleyways, on the bottoms of lakes and rivers, and in the middle of nowhere. Like the place they found Barbara Franco. Daniel Frey is a monster. And he has access to children everyday. He has to be stopped. Your mother is a school principal, for god’s sake. I can’t believe you wouldn’t want to help us bring him to justice.”

I think of what I just saw on Ryan’s computer. No one wants to get the men who did that to Trish more than I do. And if they are also responsible for Barbara’s death, I want them to pay for that, too.

But Daniel Frey is not the monster. I look into Donovan’s face and know there is nothing I can say to convince him or his partner. The only way I will ever do that is to find those responsible myself.

The silence lengthens between the three of us, broken finally when Bradley hauls himself to his feet. “We haven’t made an impression on you, have we, Ms. Strong?”

Donovan rises, too, but pauses for a parting shot. His curt tone rakes me with contempt. “If we find out that you harbor the slightest suspicion that we are right about Frey and you don’t help us, we’ll arrest you as an accessory. And just so I’m clear, that is an accessory to child endangerment, aggravated assault, pimping a child, and murder.” He watches as his partner starts for the door.

“Better think about that.” He takes a business card out of the pocket of his jacket and flips it onto the coffee table in front of the couch. “By the time you get out of jail, you’ll be an old lady.”

Well, not quite.

I watch the two of them let themselves out the same way they let themselves in. If I thought for one minute telling them about Carolyn or giving them the videos would change their minds about Frey, I’d call them back. But the videos don’t prove a thing. They have it in their heads that Frey is behind the ring and the only way I’m going to fix that is to produce the ones who are.

Chapter Thirty-Four

I lock the door before calling Ryan out of the bedroom.

“Who were those guys?” he asks. “And why were they saying those things about Mr. Frey?”

He looks confused and a little frightened. “They’re federal agents. They think Mr. Frey has something to do with what’s happened to Trish’s mother and to Barbara.”

He frowns. “Why would they think that?”

“It’s a long story, Ryan. And not important because you and I know he isn’t involved in any of it. The trick is going to be proving it.”

There’s another trick, too. Getting Ryan home without those two following us. “I’d better get you home. We’ll have to take the stairs. They’ll be watching the elevator and the front door, I’m sure.”

“But your car is parked out front.”

I smile at him. “I have another car. One I use for work, mostly. It’s in the garage downstairs. I think we can scrunch you down in the back seat and get out without them knowing.”

He slips the laptop into his backpack and slings it over his shoulder while I grab a denim jacket from the coat closet and slip it on over my’t-shirt.

“I wish I could talk to Trish,” he says softly.

I pick up my purse and fish car keys out of its depths. “You will, Ryan. Soon. I promise. Now I’m going to take you home and call my friend on the police force. He’ll tell us what we need to do to find out who owns that computer. He may need you to bring it in. Will you be okay with that?”

Ryan’s mouth draws into a firm resolute line. “If it will get Trish back, yes. But I won’t let him keep it. I won’t let anybody keep it. When we get these guys, I’m going to destroy it so no one will ever again see what they made Trish do.”