Couldn’t everyone move on past that so things could get back to normal?
Except she had no clue what normal meant any longer. Just that it was going to be damned hard to return to anything remotely resembling it without Walden there acting as her counterweight.
“Are you coming to lunch?”
“I’ll meet you there,” she said, barely glancing up from the computer monitor.
“Sure?” He turned the affirmation into a question.
Lucy jerked her head up. “I can manage driving myself a few blocks. I just want to finish catching up.” She hadn’t been involved first hand, didn’t have the intimate knowledge of the case that Walden, Oshiro, and Seth Bernhart had. Plus, she could sense there were patterns here, swirling just beneath the surface of all the random facts.
He met her gaze and nodded slowly. “Have a care, Lucy. This case will swallow you whole.”
“Then why’d you bring it to me?” Especially now, she didn’t add.
“Seemed a no-brainer when Seth called me yesterday. Right place, right time, right investigator.” Lucy wondered if he meant himself or her. Didn’t matter, she was in it now and wasn’t about to be a liability, even if she was on modified duty.
She waved him away. “Order the Jagerschnitzel for me. I’ll be there in twenty.”
“You better. I’m not going to let good food get cold and go to waste.”
He left and she turned back to the case files. They had Walden’s investigative magic all over them.
It wasn’t often that they were able to identify a victim of child porn, not with images found randomly on computers all over the world and dating back a decade. Hell, they hadn’t even realized the collection was a collection of the same girl’s images, not until Walden pieced it all together.
She imagined Walden, hunched over a computer in a dark room, spending his days and nights, hundreds of man-hours, examining frame-by-frame, pixel-by-pixel, the worst kind of horrific images. Four years ago when he worked the Baby Girl case, he’d just lost his wife. He should have been lost in mourning—Lord knew, she would have been if she lost Nick.
Instead he’d poured his heart and soul and grief into saving one little girl.
New technology had helped to locate computers with the Baby Girl images but it had been a quirk of nature that had led Walden—and later, Seth Bernhart, the AUSA in charge of prosecuting the subjects who’d possessed the images—to June.
A birthmark. Not very large, just big enough and distinct enough to show up with image enhancement. They’d known the images were all taken in the same location but they hadn’t been able to prove they were all of the same girl—not as if they were time-stamped and not every subject had possessed the entire collection, so they found them randomly and out of order—until Walden followed the birthmark as it slowly grew with her.
Walden used the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s database, thinking best case scenario he’d find a missing person’s report or worst case a Jane Doe autopsy report. Instead he discovered a Jane Doe found report. From almost a decade before.
And then, with the help of Children and Youth, he and Bernhart had tracked June. Too late to save her but in time to help them maybe save others with Bernhart’s legal strategy.
When Lucy looked up, it was almost two o’clock—forty minutes since the others left for lunch. She grabbed her cane and bag and left her office, hoping Walden had ordered for her.
She was surprised to see Taylor still there, hunched over his keyboard, his face scrunched in concentration, resembling a toddler putting together a puzzle for the first time. As she watched, two of the High Tech Crimes guys were crouched low, trying to sneak up behind him, Nerf submachine guns at the ready.
Taylor’s fingers barely broke their rhythm as he pulled a lever beside his computer, unleashing a catapult filled with Ping-Pong balls at one would-be assassin and,
Except she had no clue what normal meant any longer. Just that it was going to be damned hard to return to anything remotely resembling it without Walden there acting as her counterweight.
“Are you coming to lunch?”
“I’ll meet you there,” she said, barely glancing up from the computer monitor.
“Sure?” He turned the affirmation into a question.
Lucy jerked her head up. “I can manage driving myself a few blocks. I just want to finish catching up.” She hadn’t been involved first hand, didn’t have the intimate knowledge of the case that Walden, Oshiro, and Seth Bernhart had. Plus, she could sense there were patterns here, swirling just beneath the surface of all the random facts.
He met her gaze and nodded slowly. “Have a care, Lucy. This case will swallow you whole.”
“Then why’d you bring it to me?” Especially now, she didn’t add.
“Seemed a no-brainer when Seth called me yesterday. Right place, right time, right investigator.” Lucy wondered if he meant himself or her. Didn’t matter, she was in it now and wasn’t about to be a liability, even if she was on modified duty.
She waved him away. “Order the Jagerschnitzel for me. I’ll be there in twenty.”
“You better. I’m not going to let good food get cold and go to waste.”
He left and she turned back to the case files. They had Walden’s investigative magic all over them.
It wasn’t often that they were able to identify a victim of child porn, not with images found randomly on computers all over the world and dating back a decade. Hell, they hadn’t even realized the collection was a collection of the same girl’s images, not until Walden pieced it all together.
She imagined Walden, hunched over a computer in a dark room, spending his days and nights, hundreds of man-hours, examining frame-by-frame, pixel-by-pixel, the worst kind of horrific images. Four years ago when he worked the Baby Girl case, he’d just lost his wife. He should have been lost in mourning—Lord knew, she would have been if she lost Nick.
Instead he’d poured his heart and soul and grief into saving one little girl.
New technology had helped to locate computers with the Baby Girl images but it had been a quirk of nature that had led Walden—and later, Seth Bernhart, the AUSA in charge of prosecuting the subjects who’d possessed the images—to June.
A birthmark. Not very large, just big enough and distinct enough to show up with image enhancement. They’d known the images were all taken in the same location but they hadn’t been able to prove they were all of the same girl—not as if they were time-stamped and not every subject had possessed the entire collection, so they found them randomly and out of order—until Walden followed the birthmark as it slowly grew with her.
Walden used the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s database, thinking best case scenario he’d find a missing person’s report or worst case a Jane Doe autopsy report. Instead he discovered a Jane Doe found report. From almost a decade before.
And then, with the help of Children and Youth, he and Bernhart had tracked June. Too late to save her but in time to help them maybe save others with Bernhart’s legal strategy.
When Lucy looked up, it was almost two o’clock—forty minutes since the others left for lunch. She grabbed her cane and bag and left her office, hoping Walden had ordered for her.
She was surprised to see Taylor still there, hunched over his keyboard, his face scrunched in concentration, resembling a toddler putting together a puzzle for the first time. As she watched, two of the High Tech Crimes guys were crouched low, trying to sneak up behind him, Nerf submachine guns at the ready.
Taylor’s fingers barely broke their rhythm as he pulled a lever beside his computer, unleashing a catapult filled with Ping-Pong balls at one would-be assassin and,
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