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continued. “The water in the flood control was raging. What a rush the way those guys work. Sometimes I think I stood in the wrong line. Those fire guys have all the fun.”
    “I don’t know about all the fun   —” Maggie arched her eyebrows suggestively   —“but they sure have all the cute. I don’t think they make bad-looking firemen.”
    Rick groaned.
    Brinna forced a grin, determined to think positive thoughts about the Hero situation and lighten up about other things. “For once I agree with you, Mags: firemen, paramedics   —they have the corner on the cute market. There’s a new guy at station four who looks like Paul Walker.” They slapped a high five in the booth while Rick rolled his eyes in annoyance.
    He cut into their celebration, tapping Brinna’s arm. “So tell us about the callout. Where’d you go this morning? he asks, desperate to change the subject.”
    “Homicide. They found a dead girl in the flood control.”
    “One of yours?”
    Brinna shook her head. “No ID so far. Not sure how old she is.” It was common knowledge that Brinna kept track of anyand all missing-kid cases from Long Beach and the surrounding areas. A wall in her home office was dubbed the Innocent Wall, where she kept several missing flyers pinned up.
    K-9 Officer Caruso was always ready to pick up a trail and search for missing kids with her search-and-rescue dog, Hero. She worked to ignore the stabbing in her chest.
    “She’s somebody’s kid,” Rick said.
    Releasing a breath, Brinna stared out the window. “True enough. What I wouldn’t give for a world where no one’s baby ended up on our side of a homicide callout.”
    *   *   *
    Ivana paced the small room that had become her jail cell. Though the windows were kept so dark she and the girls sharing the room with her could not tell night from day, she knew that Villie should have been back hours ago. Her sister had disobeyed their captor’s order and been hauled out of the room almost two days ago. Demitri said it was for punishment. He’d done it once before, and she’d been back the next morning.
    Arms folded across her chest, Ivana patted her elbows and studied the other two captives in the room. Ana and Galina sat together on a mattress, heads close, speaking in low tones. Ivana was hesitant to interrupt and ask them what they thought about Villie’s absence.
    “Do what you’re told and nothing bad will happen to you,” Ana, the oldest, had scolded Villie the day she and Ivana had arrived. She’d stood over them shaking an index finger and glowering as if she were their captor and not Demitri.
    Demitri. Ivana could barely think the name without rageboiling inside her. Demitri, all sweetness and light at home in Sofia. The same man who had promised her and Villie a bright future in America . . . but had turned out to be a liar once he’d gotten them to their new home.
    Ivana thought of the beating he’d given Villie the day their ship had arrived and he’d asked for their passports and visas.
    “You’re mine now!” he’d yelled, showing a face they’d never seen before. He’d shoved them into a dark warehouse and ripped the clothes off Villie’s back. There was a leather strap on the wall and he’d grabbed it, screaming about how ungrateful Villie was and how she’d better learn to do as she was told. The strap fell again and again on Villie and then on Ivana when she’d tried to intervene. Her back still bore the marks from the whipping she’d received that day.
    It was then they learned what “job” Demitri had brought them to. Ana, while she lectured about obedience, told them their duties and warned them again that disobedience would be dealt with quickly and harshly. Here in this dark room, with four dirty mattresses on the floor and one bathroom for the four of them to share, Villie and Ivana lost their innocence. They were ordered to give themselves to any man who entered. They’d face Demitri and his whip if they