“And how, exactly, is my personal life related to your almost pathological interest in the blood world?”

“Pathological?” Ellie chuckled. “Sir, no matter where you go in the city—in the state—all you see are billboards advertising missing carriers. Abducted carriers. They’re all over the news; they’re all online and clogging social media feeds. I’m drowning in information. I can’t get away from it. I have no idea what’s going on out there, or what’s being done about it, and I want to know.”

Ellie folded her hands on her lap. Kelly said nothing.

“Sir, I don’t know you well—I don’t know you at all, really—but I’m willing to bet that when you received the news about your brother some part of you felt relieved, maybe even grateful, because, when you get right down to it, you knew. Because there is nothing worse, no greater horror in this life, than going through it not knowing.”

Kelly digested this silently as he stared at her from the couch.

Ellie didn’t want this to be a confrontation. She crossed her legs and looked down at her stomach, pinched a strand of hair caught in the fabric of her T-shirt.

“LAPD’s Blood Unit,” Kelly said, “is working with a federal task force. We have a confidential informant—a high-level stickman who finds carriers and sells their names. He claims he doesn’t meet the sellers, doesn’t have any names for us. Yet. We can use him as your entryway into the blood world.”

“You’re talking undercover work?”

Kelly nodded. “How do you feel about that?”

Ellie didn’t want to come across as too eager. She paused, pretending to consider the question, then said, “Sounds like a big commitment.”

“It’s a major commitment. It means giving up your life. No contact with your friends, boyfriend, anyone.”

“For how long?”

“As long as it takes. The task force is after the people behind Pandora.”

“We don’t technically know if that product exists. We’ve never come across it.”

“That’s true. Maybe you’ll find out, bring us back some hard evidence.”

“Undercover,” Ellie said, trying on the word and thinking about her brother. Kelly was giving her an opportunity to possibly find out what had happened to her brother. While she had no direct proof, she believed that the blood barons, as the media called them, had to have records. They had to be organized. There had to be something for her to find—there had to be.

Still, she asked the obvious question: “Why me?”

“You’re young. Ambitious and smart. I need people like that. Think about it.”

Kelly stood, and Ellie was about to when he said, “No, don’t get up. I’ll let myself out. Thanks for your time. Again, I’m sorry about what happened to Danny.”

Kelly had opened the front door when she said, “No.”

“There’s no rush. Take as much time as you need to think it over.”

“I meant no to your CI,” Ellie said, thinking about the photograph of Anton Kuzmich tacked to her corkboard. “I know a better way in.”