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he reached her, Tara leaned close and whispered, “Chief, there are…” she chewed her lip a second before she said the rest “…
people
in the lobby demanding to see you. I told them you were in a briefing, but they won’t take no for an answer.”
    “People?” Confusion jumped into the mix of frustration and worry churning inside him. “Reporters?”
    Tara shook her head. “Parents of some of the—” she nodded toward the case board “—children.”
    A press briefing was tentatively scheduled for six. Nothing about this investigation was supposed to be released to the public until then. A wave of fury gave his gut a twist. “How many, Tara? How many parents are we talking about?”
    “Four.” She gave him the names.
    “Okay. Show them to my office.” His cell vibrated. Bloody hell. If there was more news like this he could do without it. “I’ll be there as soon as I can,” he assured her.
    To tell them what?
    The cell phone in his pocket started that damned vibrating again. He checked the screen.
Gina.
She’d better have one hell of an excuse for this breach of trust.
    It was one thing to hold a press briefing to inform the public that remains from a cold case had been discovered and to assure the citizens that the BPD was on top of the matter. It was entirely another to inform the parents of victims before remains were properly identified. Gina had given her word that she wouldn’t release a word until he gave her the go-ahead.
    Now he would have to deliver the heartbreaking news that they had nothing… except the promise of more anguish to come.

 
    City Records, 5:30 p.m.
    H ere we go.” Lori rolled the library-style ladder to the row of upper shelves where she’d spotted the boxes marked with the case number corresponding to the Man in the Moon investigation.
    Jess counted off the number of boxes involved.
Holy cow!
“We may need a truck or at least a couple more strong backs.” Since the case was officially hers, she wanted all the background material she could get her hands on.
    Lori lowered the first box to her. “Only twenty more to go.”
    Jess started a stack on the floor. “Do you remember watching these cases play out in the media?” Jess vividly recalled the disappearances that happened while she was in grade school and junior high. She didn’t remember the first one at all. Her parents had just died in a car crash and she and Lil were stuck living with their aunt Wanda. Between grieving for their parents, the men coming andgoing at all hours, and finding Wanda passed out on the floor every morning when they readied for school, it wasn’t exactly a charmed childhood.
    Later Jess had wondered if the little girls who went away with the Man in the Moon were happy. Sometimes, during their stay at one foster home or another, she’d wished she and Lily could just disappear like that. She shuddered. Those little girls needed to be found. A big breath filled her lungs.
We’re all waiting for you to find us.
She could not let them down.
    “I remember my mom being terrified whenever September rolled around,” Lori said, “especially after my dad died. She didn’t let me and my sister out of her sight. The disappearances stopped when I was twelve. Eventually, it seemed everyone forgot about the Man in the Moon.”
    Except the parents of the missing children. Poor Dan was dealing with some of them right now. That was the hardest part of a case like this.
    “Are you worried he’ll try to get close to you? Like Spears?” Lori asked, her voice heavy with concern.
    Jess had thought about that the past couple of hours. “I suppose he already has, in a way. He’s been watching me, apparently.”
    One of the things she tried to do, for her own sanity, was to avoid thinking about how the evil out there looked at her. “He can watch me all he wants and get as close as he dares, as long as he doesn’t start obsessing on little girls again.”
    That was the critical aspect of this new