put those pieces together for herself? A thirty-four-year-old ne’er-dowell, Donnelin was known to have peculiar sexual tastes, but nothing that had crossed the line from twisted and weird to illegal. The Bureau had received multiple unconfirmed reports that the first-generation Irish immigrant had been enslaving runaways and selling them off to Mexican brothels, but no real evidence had ever been found. In fact, none of the FBI’s sources south of the border had ever heard of Donnelin or any of his known aliases. As a result, the Bureau had been reduced just watching and following. After nearly four weeks, Donnelin hadn’t given them even the hint of a reason to cut a warrant.
“Do you think Tony knows him?” Irene asked.
“I don’t know that, no. But we did all the surrounding research into the, um, industry. You know, the young-girl prostitution business—”
“They’re calling it human trafficking now,” Irene said. Sort of sad, she thought, that so horrendous a crime could be so common as to earn its own catchphrase. Her heart rate doubled for the instant that she allowed herself to see her girls embroiled in such a nightmare.
“Sounds way too sterile for me,” Amanda said. “But the point I was making was that maybe Tony found some contacts that way. He wouldn’t need to go anywhere near Donnelin.”
Irene closed her eyes, wishing that it was possible to make all of this just go away. Tony could be anywhere—literally, anywhere. In the hours that they’d been tracking down Jennings, he could be on an entirely different continent.
No, she told herself, that was not true. This was not a planned crime, this was a fit of passion. He hadn’t had time to prepare passports and plan for the thousands of tiny details that were required for foreign transportation. Even when traveling on commercial airliners, foreign travel was complicated. Throw in all the moving parts of a human-smuggling operation, and only an idiot would try to do it on the fly. And Tony Mayo was no idiot.
From a distant corner of her brain, Irene told herself that the passing time only helped Ashley and Kelly. They were sweet little girls, even at their pissiest, and she told herself that over time, their charm would erode Tony’s anger away. He wasn’t a true monster, after all, not in the same vein as Jennings. Surely over time, he would realize the mistake he had made, and—
What? What would he do then? What could he do then? Even if he repented and changed his ways, and decided that he’d made a huge mistake, by then, he’d have two witnesses. He couldn’t ever return them to their home, not without surrendering himself to a life prison sentence.
Was the certainty of a life behind bars enough motivation to kill the girls?
No! No, that couldn’t possibly be the only recourse. What he’d be forced to do, she thought, would be to carry through with his original plan. He’d have to sell her daughters to a second monster.
Irene understood that all of this was wild conjecture on her part, but she needed that in order to have the courage to go on. There had to be hope. There had to be a scenario in her head that would justify all that she had done, and all that she was willing to do to get her little girls back. If that meant concocting wild stories and scenarios, well, so be it. It worked.
What she couldn’t do was—
Her pager beeped on her hip. She didn’t care who it might be or what they might want, but she pulled the electronic leash from her belt and checked the message. It was Paul Boersky’s direct line, followed by the suffix 911 , which meant that it was an emergency. She and Paul had worked countless cases over the years, and she’d actually told him that she would be taking time off, and that she shouldn’t be disturbed until she returned. He wouldn’t have sent the page if it wasn’t important, and he wouldn’t have used the panic code if it hadn’t been damned important.
Irene braced herself. “May
“Do you think Tony knows him?” Irene asked.
“I don’t know that, no. But we did all the surrounding research into the, um, industry. You know, the young-girl prostitution business—”
“They’re calling it human trafficking now,” Irene said. Sort of sad, she thought, that so horrendous a crime could be so common as to earn its own catchphrase. Her heart rate doubled for the instant that she allowed herself to see her girls embroiled in such a nightmare.
“Sounds way too sterile for me,” Amanda said. “But the point I was making was that maybe Tony found some contacts that way. He wouldn’t need to go anywhere near Donnelin.”
Irene closed her eyes, wishing that it was possible to make all of this just go away. Tony could be anywhere—literally, anywhere. In the hours that they’d been tracking down Jennings, he could be on an entirely different continent.
No, she told herself, that was not true. This was not a planned crime, this was a fit of passion. He hadn’t had time to prepare passports and plan for the thousands of tiny details that were required for foreign transportation. Even when traveling on commercial airliners, foreign travel was complicated. Throw in all the moving parts of a human-smuggling operation, and only an idiot would try to do it on the fly. And Tony Mayo was no idiot.
From a distant corner of her brain, Irene told herself that the passing time only helped Ashley and Kelly. They were sweet little girls, even at their pissiest, and she told herself that over time, their charm would erode Tony’s anger away. He wasn’t a true monster, after all, not in the same vein as Jennings. Surely over time, he would realize the mistake he had made, and—
What? What would he do then? What could he do then? Even if he repented and changed his ways, and decided that he’d made a huge mistake, by then, he’d have two witnesses. He couldn’t ever return them to their home, not without surrendering himself to a life prison sentence.
Was the certainty of a life behind bars enough motivation to kill the girls?
No! No, that couldn’t possibly be the only recourse. What he’d be forced to do, she thought, would be to carry through with his original plan. He’d have to sell her daughters to a second monster.
Irene understood that all of this was wild conjecture on her part, but she needed that in order to have the courage to go on. There had to be hope. There had to be a scenario in her head that would justify all that she had done, and all that she was willing to do to get her little girls back. If that meant concocting wild stories and scenarios, well, so be it. It worked.
What she couldn’t do was—
Her pager beeped on her hip. She didn’t care who it might be or what they might want, but she pulled the electronic leash from her belt and checked the message. It was Paul Boersky’s direct line, followed by the suffix 911 , which meant that it was an emergency. She and Paul had worked countless cases over the years, and she’d actually told him that she would be taking time off, and that she shouldn’t be disturbed until she returned. He wouldn’t have sent the page if it wasn’t important, and he wouldn’t have used the panic code if it hadn’t been damned important.
Irene braced herself. “May
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