Joe took that in stride. “What about the phone Jim found, belonging to Lisa Rowell?”

Houston nodded patiently. “That’s our first stop.”

He sat forward, adjusted his glasses, and slid a printout across his desk for Joe. “That’s the address listed to the phone. Keene, New Hampshire. Judging from the pictures Jim found at the scene, I’d say they were home builds, all involving the same underage girl. They are recent and they have been distributed, for money, according to parallel messaging I also captured.”

“Is she alone in all of them?” Joe asked carefully, not sure he wanted to hear the answer.

“Yes. Right now, I have nothing to suggest anything beyond posing. But someone else is clearly holding the camera, and the victim is not happy, suggesting she’s under duress. That wouldn’t alter the legal violation, but in my experience, it suggests the possibility of other forms of abuse.”

Joe folded the sheet of paper and put it in his pocket. “You don’t have to tell me twice.”

Film noir’s demand for rain-slick, midnight settings notwithstanding, the crack of dawn tends to be a good time to stage police raids. Barring the odd pre-commuter dog walker or earplugged jogger, the streets are empty, the likelihood of unexpected foot traffic reduced, and most people with illegal appetites are sleeping in.

Keene, New Hampshire, some eighteen miles east of Brattleboro, is twice its size. Again named after an absentee Brit, it’s a college town, an ex-railroad junction, a nineteenth-century manufacturing magnet, a tourist crossroads, and Brattleboro’s primary threat to economic survival. It even has a regional airport next door. With its stores, movies, restaurants, and no sales tax, it’s a formidable and chronic source of concern to its rival’s politicians, merchants, and Chamber of Commerce.

It also has some demographics to help keep its police department busy. Not only does a quarter of its population consist of college students, but its being the largest urban area in the county attracts a number of people predisposed to prey on their fellow creatures. Although generally touting modest crimes stats, Keene can be an active place for select nefarious activities.

Joe was therefore not accompanied by amateurs as final details were worked out by an entry and search team, discreetly deployed around a multifamily residential building southeast of downtown.

This was where Fred Houston had pinpointed so-called Lisa Rowell’s location, even though no one from Keene had ever heard of her; nor had a detailed records search revealed her existence.

While not unprecedented, the experience of entering a potentially volatile situation with complete strangers was never comforting for Gunther. It wasn’t a question of competence. He had every reason to believe he was among highly trained and experienced professionals. But as within any tribal-style group—a team that ate together, played together, and were exposed to danger regularly—there existed an additional layer of trust. And Joe, for all the advantages of his new TFO role, was acutely aware of his outsider status. For the first time in recent years, he knew what it was like to be the stranger at the party.