The Abducted Book 0 by Roger Hayden Page A

anyone’s mind around here is giving you the stink eye. Besides,
everyone on the force respects you. They know what
happened.”
    Miriam shook her head. “I walked away.
Police have a thing about that. They never forget.”
    O ’Leary opened his door
and shrugged. “You had no choice. Everyone knows that.”
    Miriam opened her door slowly.
Cigarette smoke drifted past from the group of white-shirt-and-tie
smokers. It looked as though they were planning to burn the
midnight oil. She still didn’t know exactly why
O ’Leary was so keen on having her around. She didn’t
understand his motivations any more than she understood her own for
agreeing to go along with it. She chalked it up to desperation on
both their parts.
    “ Where to now?” she asked as they
headed toward the building.
    “ We’re going to look at some case
files and find a link.”
    Miriam reached out and tugged on his arm in
protest until he stopped walking. They both did. The group of
smokers stopped and looked over at them. “Detective O’Leary, do you
really think now is the time to be going over paperwork? We’ve got
a little girl out there scared out of her mind. We need to be out
there looking for her. Taking action.”
    O’Leary placed his hand on her shoulder to
calm her down. “I understand that, but we already have the whole
damn force on it. They’re probably running around in circles. We
need to take the little time we have and get it right.”
    “ So we go door to door, check every
house in town,” Miriam said. “How hard could it be?”
    O’Leary cleared his throat. “Look, Miriam.
In my line of work, I have three main things to go on—knowledge,
experience, and instinct.” After counting on his fingers, he looked
at her as though the matter was settled. “And I’ve never been as
determined to get it right as I am now.”
    “ Me too,” she added.
    “ So are you with me?” he asked,
signaling to the building.
    “ As long as you agree to one thing,”
she said.
    “ What’s that?”
    “ That when we catch this guy, you let
me put a bullet between his eyes.”
    He said nothing as they walked down
the sidewalk, past the smokers, and toward the employees’ side
entrance to the building. O ’Leary swiped his key card
near a sensor. He pulled the door open as it unlocked and held it
open for Miriam. She rewarded him with a nod.
    A slightly overweight clerk in full police
uniform looked up from his desk as they entered.
    O’Leary showed him his ID badge hanging from
a lanyard around his neck. He then pointed to Miriam. “Need a
visitor badge for Ms. Castillo here, please.”
    The clerk nodded, took
Miriam ’s license, and ran her information. As they
waited, Miriam looked down the carpeted hall, flanked with offices
on both sides. The building itself was old, and some of the wood
paneling on the walls looked straight out of the 1970s.
    Nicotine stains were still noticeable in
areas near the ceiling, reminders of a time when smoking indoors
was permitted, ages ago. They had remodeled and added onto the
building, but its fifty-year-old character still showed in places.
The hall smelled of coffee. Plain-clothed and uniformed officers
crossed from room to room, lost in their own work. It was the
busiest she had ever seen the place. Only one other time came to
mind: last year, following the Dawson abduction.
    The clerk processed a visitor’s badge and
handed it to Miriam. They continued down the hall to the Criminal
Investigation Department, where his desk sat in the corner, with
paperwork piled high behind his nameplate. There were people
everywhere, men and women in suits mostly, on their phones,
gathering in small groups talking, and some typing wildly on their
computers. O’Leary didn’t know who half of the people were.
    One look at his desk, and he turned away,
turning to Miriam. “Let’s find someplace else where we can do this.
Somewhere quiet.”
    She nodded, and they walked along desks and
stopped at a corner