Read Online Bitter Waters by Wen Spencer - Free Book Online

in another room on the phone, doing laundry in the basement—” She rolled her hand to indicate that the other two kidnappings followed the same pattern. “Two have been in supermarkets, where the guardian was distracted for only a second. Very well timed. Very professional. The first one was so slick that we mistook it for an opportunist crime and focused on the neighbors. It wasn’t until the second kidnapping that we realized that the kidnappings were extremely well planned.”
    â€œAnd all the children are in foster care?”
    She nodded. “We thought that since the first two mothers were in Allegheny Women’s Correctional for drug charges that connected the two kidnappings. Then they moved to a baby who had been found abandoned a few months ago. Now—now this.” She pressed a hand to her mouth, keeping in whatever emotion that wanted to slip free. When she trusted her voice again, she dropped the hand away. “We’re contacting other field offices to see if these are serial killers that moved hunting grounds.”
    â€œHow did they find the foster children?”
    â€œHmm?” She had been focused on hooking her bra.
    â€œIt’s not like foster children come with big signs.”
    â€œWe’re not sure.” Camisole slid on over bra, and she reached for her silk blouse, carefully hung up to prevent wrinkles. “It might be someone employed by CYS, but it could be anyone from a caseworker down to a janitor. We’ve movedmany of the high-risk children to new homes, and started doing background checks on everyone that came in contact with the placing information.”
    â€œIf there’s anything I can do to help find the missing kids, I’ll be happy to do it,” Ukiah said. “Max might talk about needing to get paid, but that’s mostly trying not to set the precedent of working pro bono.”
    â€œGive a man a fish, feed him a day,” Indigo said. “Your mothers probably would have rather he taught you something safer.”
    â€œI’m good at this.”
    â€œYes, you are.” She stepped into her skirt, pulled it up to her hips, and zipped it close. It was a good thing that they had just finished, or he’d be tempted to take it back off her. “Here.” She slipped a small plastic self-sealing bag out of her skirt pocket and handed it to Ukiah. “They’re using stolen cars during the kidnappings and abandoning them. This white powder was found in all four cars. The lab is working on it, but I was hoping you could tell me what it is.”
    The bag was roughly the size of his thumb. Ukiah pulled open the seal and slipped his forefinger into the gritty white material. He sniffed it and touched the coated finger to his tongue. “It’s limestone that has been reduced down to lime by baking and grinding. There’s sand in it. There’s very old animal hair mixed into this; some of it’s cow and the rest is horsehair.” As he rubbed the last of the fine residue between thumb and forefinger, he found flecks of oil-based paint. “It’s horsehair plaster. At least a hundred years old. Before they used drywall or gypsum plaster, they used horsehair plaster to do walls. The horsehair is to help hold the mix together. Any house older than seventy or eighty years old would have some or all of its walls made of this stuff.”
    â€œThree-quarters of Pittsburgh, then,” Indigo said with utter disgust. She shrugged into her shoulder rig, making sure that the leather straps lay smooth over her white blouse, and the holster was snug under her left armpit. “I was hoping it would be much more unusual than that.”
    â€œConsidering the age, you might be able to show it’s all from one house.”
    From the nursery came noises of Kittanning waking up and not happy at finding himself alone.
    â€œGood timing.” Indigo slipped her pistol into its