My Lost Daughter by Nancy Taylor Rosenberg Read Free Book Online

consulted with police agencies in the apprehension and profiling of serial criminals.
    Mary considered the use of acronyms inside the FBI to be unnecessary and excessive. Most police departments had stopped using the ten-code system for better clarification and officer safety. When an officer had been shot, was under fire, or found himself in foot pursuit of an armed suspect, a few seconds could cost him his life. Taking the time to remember the correct code was too dangerous. If the officer made a mistake, he could end up with a tow truck instead of an ambulance.
    The ten-code system was developed in 1937 and expanded in 1974 under the belief that it allowed for brevity and standardization of radio traffic. She suspected the Bureau’s extensive use of acronyms traced back to J. Edgar Hoover’s paranoid need for secrecy. Boys loved their decoder rings.
    She picked up a large file and headed down the corridor leading to Adams’s office, her heels clicking on the linoleum floor. One of her present assignments was to investigative a fairly new phenomenon surfacing in the United States—suicide clubs. Organizations of this nature had existed in Europe and Asia for years, particularly in Japan, where suicide was embedded in the country’s culture. In Japan, the clubs were referred to as suicide circles. One club in Russia had more than twenty thousand members.
    Mary caught a whiff of cologne just as fellow agent, Genna Weir, stepped up beside her. Weir and Mary were the only females in the unit, and had quickly formed a friendship. Weir was forty-two, stood five-seven, and was in peak physical condition. The lines in her face and the shadows under her eyes made her look closer to fifty. Dealing with the most depraved and violent criminals in the world took its toll. A steely-eyed brunette with superb reasoning abilities, Weir was highly respected within the unit and the Bureau.
    â€œWhat’s up with you and Brooks? Are you guys taking the post in California? I’d do anything to get out of this hellhole. I grew up in Florida and anything less than sixty degrees feels like a meat locker.”
    â€œWe haven’t heard back yet,” Mary told her, hedging on the truth. She had requested the transfer months ago but Adams refused to approve it, claiming he couldn’t afford to lose her. “There’s also a problem with Brooks’s mother.”
    Weir tilted her head to one side, a mischievous smile on her face. “Oh, I remember. You guys had some crazy plan to get your mothers to share an apartment. What were you thinking? I knew that would never happen. Old women hate each other.”
    â€œIt’s not an apartment, Genna. They’re going to live in my houseand it’s really nice. Both of our mothers are at the stage in life where they can’t live alone anymore. My mother stopped driving last year, so she gets extremely lonely. Brooks’s mother is in the same condition. Rather than put them in a retirement home, which they would loathe, Brooks and I are going to hire someone to take care of them at home so they can maintain a degree of independence. Of course, this person will be able to drive them places, so they won’t be stuck in the house all the time.”
    â€œI thought your house was rented.”
    â€œThe lease is up and Brooks wants us to buy a new place together in Ventura. Of course, the first thing we have to do is secure the assignment.”
    â€œYou’ll be scratching the paint off the walls.” Weir chuckled. “The most serious crimes you’ll handle will be a few bank robberies. You might get lucky and pick up a kidnapping or a drug deal. Regardless, that’s a far cry from profiling serial killers.”
    Suicide clubs had also popped up on various social networking sites, such as MySpace, Meetup, Facebook, and Twitter. The clubs were cleverly disguised, however, and as soon as law enforcement managed to take down one,