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I blew it by sending him to talk to you, but I would rather take the flack for that than have a guy with access to intelligence resources not trusting us and more than likely getting in our way.”
    Grady smiled a sardonic smile, “Yeah, I know, I would have probably done the same thing, and you’re right, he probably is going to do some of his own digging. The trick is going to be to keep him informed enough to try to keep him out of our way as much as possible.
    “Let’s not kid ourselves, the guy was in the business at some point and he isn’t just going to sit with his arms crossed, but it will be better to keep him in check by keeping him in the loop than by giving him pat answers he’ll see through anyway.”
    Mullins scratched his head in response, “I get what you’re saying, but do you think it’s a good idea to let a civilian get that involved? I mean, he could leak some info and then we’d really have a shit storm on our hands.”
    Grady came around his desk and plopped down on his chair while he looked out over the city, “No, he strikes me as a pretty cool customer and to be honest with you, this one feels bad to me.
    “I don’t know what it is, but it just feels wrong and maybe having a different perspective, someone to keep us in check, might not be a bad idea on this one.”
    Mark Mullins thought he knew Bob Grady as well as anybody, and in all of his years of working with the man, he would have never expected to hear him say what he just did.
    Mullins didn’t respond to Grady, he just nodded, turned around and walked out of the office. Truth be told, though, this one felt wrong to Mullins, too, and when something felt wrong to seasoned homicide detectives in New York, they tended to take their gut feelings seriously.
     

     
    After taking his wife to the emergency room to get her sedated, Steven Loomis brought his family home. Their SoHo condominium was nothing spectacular, but it was modern, spacious and tastefully decorated. It was a good balance of SoHo modern style and décor more typical in a house from the suburbs. It was full of family photos and mementos from recitals, along with the requisite smattering of toys on the floor that a home with three children would have.
    He had to carry his wife up the steps while the doorman opened the door. After walking in and telling his kids to get ready for bed, he took her straight to bed.
    After getting some food into his and his kids’ stomachs, he put his son and daughter down to sleep, reassuring them that their little sister would be coming home soon while choking back the tears from knowing that it was a lie.
    Steven Loomis had been in the business of killing, of getting intelligence to plan assassinations, of executing operations that required ice water running through his veins, and so as much as he wanted to have the hopeful light in his chest that any father would have that he might get his daughter back, he knew she was gone.
    Seven girls, three weeks, same M.O. No, Tracy Loomis would not be coming back home. Years of dealing in death gave men like Loomis a detached certainty about it that they most often didn’t want but couldn’t help but have and which they knew was almost always true.
    Now Steven Loomis needed to decide what he was going to do about it.
    He had to decide what he was going to say to his wife when she found out what he already knew and he had to figure out how he was going to explain it to his children.
    He knew, no matter what, that his family as they all knew it was shattered forever.
    On his way home, Steven Loomis had tried to assume the role of concerned parent, of someone without the resources to do anything about the situation, but came to the inevitable and quick conclusion that he would not be able to just stand by.
    Now he had to decide what he was going to do to find out what happened to his daughter, but most importantly he also had to figure out what if anything he was going to do to those responsible