Blood of Eden by Tami Dane Page B

breakfast?”
    â€œBy now, she must have been reported missing. We’ll begin by looking into new missing persons reports.” Instead of going to his desk, JT turned toward a doorway I hadn’t noticed before.
    Inside. Nirvana! The IT nerd jackpot. The unit’s analyst Brittany had a wall full of monitors, all displaying something different. Being something of a computer geek myself, I was in awe.
    â€œHey, Hough,” JT said. “Can you give me a list of all new missing persons reports in Maryland, Virginia, and DC?”
    â€œSure. On it.” Fingers flew across the keyboard to the sound of snapping gum. Several screens flickered and pictures blinked across the screen. Done with her rapid-fire commands, she spun around and smiled at JT, pushing a pair of hot pink framed glasses up a pert nose. “Couldn’t you give me something a little more challenging?”
    Not as young as I’d first thought she was, Brittany looked to be more my age than a teenager. It was her funky Forever 21 style that had thrown me off. I could take a few hints from her.
    â€œHow about female, ages twenty-five to forty?” JT asked.
    â€œDone.” A couple of taps and the printer behind us whirred as it powered up to print out the report. “You’re in luck. There’s only five.”
    JT glanced over his shoulder at the printer. “Great. Now we just need photographs.”
    â€œLet me see what I can do.” Brittany’s fingers danced over the keyboard. A Facebook page popped up. “Here’s one of them, a Maryanne Levinstein.”
    Standing behind Brittany, I squinted at the screen. The crime scene photograph in the file wasn’t the best, so I had no idea if Maryanne Levinstein was our victim or not. I shook my head. “What do you think, JT?”
    â€œHmm. Not sure yet. Can you check the profile for more pictures, Hough?”
    Brittany clicked the tab, but the photo section was blocked. “You have to be a friend to view them. Let me see what I can do... .” A second later, the folder opened, revealing over twenty images of the woman, smiling in every one of them. In some, she was posing with other women; in a few, with a man; and in a lot, she was with a couple of kids. It really hit home then that this woman, who might be dead now, had once been a mother, a wife, a sister, someone important to somebody. And those somebodies would hurt like I had when my father died.
    If she was our victim.
    This morning, I’d been skeptical and hadn’t taken the case as seriously as I should have. But these pictures made it more real to me.
    Unfortunately, even though I was taking the case much more seriously now, I felt useless. I wasn’t a hotshot FBI agent. My ridiculous IQ, my knowledge of foreign languages, psychology, mathematics, and science wasn’t doing me a damn thing. My head was full of useless facts like the incubation period of the GBV-C virus and how to speak in Ket. While Brittany and JT were actually working, I was standing there like a dork, being useless.
    â€œI don’t think Maryanne Levinstein’s our victim. But I’ll give the name to the lead detective and let him check it out.” JT swiped the printout off the printer’s tray and starred the name. Frowning, he read through the list. “We have Hannah Grant’s address. Hough, can you run these addresses, see if any of them are in the same area as Grant’s?”
    Brittany nodded. “Sure. Give me a minute.” A few more taps, and she had all five addresses plotted on the map, along with Grant’s, whose address was indicated by a little red virtual pushpin.
    JT pointed. “We should start with that one.” He pointed at the little yellow pointer closest to the red one. “Deborah Richardson.” He handed the list to me. “Let’s start by faxing this to the BPD.”
    â€œI’ll do it.” Heading for the door, I