“Come on, she walked by? Friends say hello.”
“It was busy. Med convention in town.” When she simply stared at him, he added, “You stand up there without moving a muscle, see what you see.”
He had a point. “Where did she stay?”
“I don’t know.”
“I think you do.” And she did. She saw the uncertainty that raced into his eyes. “Where’d she stay?”
“Last I--”
“Excuse me, Detectives?” The desk officer stuck his head in. “A moment.”
Stacy stood and joined Patterson and the officer outside the interview room.
“We’ve got another victim.”
Stacy sucked in a sharp breath. “Where?”
“North Rampart. Near Armstrong Park. Same M.O.”
Stacy’s heart stopped, then started again with a vengeance. “Another young woman with a child?”
“No. An old guy. Also homeless. Just happened.”
The son of a bitch wasn’t killing to acquire the infants. Thank God.
Stacy turned and started back into the interview room.
“Killian?”
Patterson. Confusion in his tone. She didn’t stop or look back, simply returned to her seat across from Tinnin. “Where’d she stay?”
“What the hell, Killian? Release him. He’s not our guy. We’ve got to go.”
“Where’d she stay,” she asked again, holding Tinnin’s gaze. "I need that information. Now.”
“Vic’s still twitching,” Patterson said. “Come on, perp could be close by.”
She looked at her partner. “Go, then! I’ve got this.”
“You’re losing it, Killian. I’m going to have to report this to Henry.”
“Do it then. Take my frickin’ badge.” She unclipped it and slammed it onto the table. “Not now.”
“A warehouse!” the kid blurted out. “Upriver from the Quarter.”
Stacy was aware of her partner’s shocked silence. She turned back to the kid. “You’re going to take me to where Jillian stayed. Now.”
12:10 a.m.
The Mississippi River snaked its way around New Orleans, hugging the French Quarter, feeding the city. All along it, both up and down-river, warehouses dotted the levee, supporting New Orleans’ port, the busiest in the country.
“Where?” she demanded, buckling in.
“Are you crazy?”
She realized she must seem that way to him. Wild-eyed from lack of sleep, an emotional wreck. Her off the rails behavior at the Eighth.
She glanced his way. “Not dangerous crazy.”
“So you’re not going to hurt me?”
“I’m not going to hurt you.” He looked unconvinced, but buckled up anyway.
“The baby,” she said, easing away from the curb. “What’s it's name?”
“Jillian called her Peanut.”
Peanut. Stacy tightened her fingers on the steering wheel. Be alive, Peanut. Be safe.
12:25 a.m.
He led her to an abandoned warehouse just up-river from the French Market, at N. St. Peters and Elysian Fields. She pulled up and parked. Looked at him. “This is it? You’re sure?”
“I just dropped her off here. I didn’t go in.”
“That’ll do.” She popped open the glove box, retrieved her spare flashlight and handed it to him.
He looked at it, then back up at her. “Do I have to?”
“Yeah. Man up, dude.”
He grimaced. “I bet it smells in there.”
It did. Of mold, unwashed bodies and God knew what else. Stacy moved her flashlight beam over the interior. Basic, metal walls and supports, concrete floor.
Jillian hadn’t been the only one to call this warehouse home. Cardboard boxes, ratty old blankets. Figures curled into balls under those blankets. A few huddled together, staring blankly at her.
Eight squatters died in a warehouse like this last winter. It had caught fire and burned to the ground. She shuddered. “Police,” she called. “I’m looking for a baby. Jillian Ricks’ baby.” She swept the beam over the huddled figures. “She called her Peanut.”
Silence.
“I don’t want any trouble. Just the baby. She’s probably been crying.”
The transient didn’t trust anyone, particularly police. They lived on the fringe for a reason, none of them good. Mental illness. Abuse. PTSD. Bad, frickin’ luck.
She dug a bill out of her pocket. Held it up. “I’ve got ten bucks for the one who takes me to her.”
“Twenty.”
Stacy swung in the direction the crackly voice had come. A woman. Face obscured by dirt and wild gray hair.
Stacy dug another ten out of her pocket. “Show me, and it’s yours.”
The woman pointed, then held out her hand.
Stacy closed her fist on the cash. “Nope. You have to take me to her.”
The woman hesitated a moment, then got to her feet. She shuffled forward, waving for them to follow her.
She led them to a far corner of the building. To a grouping of cardboard boxes. She handed the woman the money and focused on the boxes.
A home. Jillian Ricks had built a home for her and her baby.
Emotion choked her. She moved closer. “Peanut,” she called. “Make a sound for us, Sweetheart.”