Cold Case

The Missing Girl, Part Four

BAKUGO'S POV

"It was hard for us to keep an eye on Fred. Every time he left somewhere, he did a U-turn," Sero said. We all know never tail someone who does a U-turn. They're specifically doing it to make sure they aren't being followed. If you U-turn right behind someone, they're going to know.

"We were able to find him several times and get a rough estimate about how long he was in certain places, but I guarantee we missed him a few times, and we lost him for at least an hour gap." Well, I guess he's getting tailed again today. Maybe we'll send two teams this time. One parked either way so they could follow without doing a U-turn.

"Kirishima, Ashido?" I turned my attention to the other two. "What did you guys learn?"

Ashido passed around a few papers and waited until everyone had them before explaining what they had discovered. "We found his and his wife's account that has roughly three hundred dollars," she said. "However, we found another account with a fake name that has been sending money to his and his wife's account."

"That account has huge sums of money transferred about every other week. He has almost two million in that account," Kaminari added. Well, if you're trafficking kids, that would be a reason for a dummy bank account with vast sums of money.

"Can you figure out where the money is being transferred from?" Midoriya asked.

"We have a list, but it rarely comes from the same person." We all added their papers to our folders before Midoriya turned to his team.

"Uraraka, Todoroki, what did you find out?" Midoriya asked them.

"That we used to have a lot of crooked cops in the force," Uraraka sighed while passing out papers to everyone. I put mine in my folder. I would rather hear from her now and then piece everything together with Midoriya later and come up with a plan. "Ike Canosa was the main officer on the disappearance. His work was sloppy, and they stopped looking for the girl after the first eight hours. After some digging, we discovered he took an early retirement the next day."

"How old was he?" I asked her.

"He was forty-two. We found his house in the same gated community the suspect lives in. Because of that, we didn't talk to him. We didn't want rumor to spread what we would have been asking about. We pulled his bank account and saw a deposit for half a million dollars only six hours after the girl went missing." We all shared glances with each other. Nobody had to say what that money was out loud.

Hush money.

"We've been interviewing cops that worked closely with him all day. If we can, we plan to interview a few people who weren't available to talk to us tomorrow."

I know Midoriya wanted to know what the cop had done, but his team made the right call by not interviewing him. If Fred knew we were on to him, this entire investigation and plan would go up in flames.

"Iida, Shinso, go," he said with a frown.

Iida stepped forward while Shinso passed around a packet for everyone to look at.

"Fred has been seen in the same area with dozens of kids and teenagers. The bartender and servers there reported that most of the kids or teenagers looked scared. He once asked Fred, and Fred said he was a babysitter. The server at the restaurant then told us that he must have been a terrible babysitter because he never saw the same kid more than once."

Midoriya's eyes locked on mine. We were both thinking the same thing, but neither of us wanted to say it. If he were trafficking and kidnapping kids, they would have been reported missing. Someone would have noticed him parading around with a missing child. We have to figure out how he's getting the kids. Our only goal isn't to take him down. We're shutting down the entire thing.

"Option one, he's not kidnapping or trafficking kids," Midoriya said to me. "If he's trafficking, he might buy the kids from someone else and sell them for a higher rate here." He may not be kidnapping them, but he's been seen with trafficked kids before. We've seen the photos.

"Option two, the kids are being taken from so far away that we don't hear about it in the city," I said.

He let out a heavy sigh. "And option three, the kids are being born in the trafficking ring."

"Did you guys just have half of a conversation in your heads and then finish it out loud?" Kaminari asked with a cocked brow.

"When you only work with one partner for a while, your thought process' tend to combine," Midoriya said. Not only that, but we're starting to know and understand each other on a deeper level, not that I would let the extras know that.

I picked up my file and clutched it under my arm. "My team, you guys are dismissed for the day." We technically still had an hour before they were off, but I wasn't going to give them a new task and only an hour to complete it. Plus, I should talk with Midoriya about what we want to do next.

"If you still have paperwork unfinished, go work on it until it's time to leave. If you're caught up, you can go home early." The only person on his team that didn't sound happy about that was Todoroki. I'm going to guess he still has paperwork to do. "I don't know whether or not we're meeting here or at the office, but I'll text you guys soon to let you know."

Midoriya and I waited until everyone had left to head into my office. "You know, we forgot to tell them what we found out from canvasing their previous neighborhood," Midoriya said as he took a seat on the edge of my desk.

"We'll tell them tomorrow," I replied. "You know, there are two perfectly good chairs right there for you to sit in."

He flashed me an innocent smile while reaching for my waist. "Yeah, but sitting here means we can have a better make-out session because, let's be honest, we both need a distraction." I should have known that's where he was going when he flashed me an innocent smile. The only time he ever smiles like that is when he wants my lips on his. However, he is right. I definitely need a fucking distraction.

He was right about sitting on the edge of the desk for a better make-out session. I fit perfectly between his legs, and he was only a few inches shorter than me this way. He pushed himself up to connect our lips, but I turned to the side and gave him my cheek. He kissed my cheek lightly before pouting. "I'll never get to complain about kissing you, but that's not what I wanted," he said.

"I know," I smirked before pulling him to the very edge of the desk so our bodies were close together. His legs wrapped around my thighs as I bent my head down, attaching my lips to his neck. He relaxed against me and let out a content sigh, followed by a quiet moan when I gently bit his earlobe.

"If this is what you want to do, I don't know if your office is the right place," he said quietly.

I gently bit his Adam's apple, just like I did the first time I made out with him. "I will push everything off of this desk in an instant and take all of your clothes off. Don't think I won't." I've been teasing him about having sex since the beginning of the week, but we haven't yet.

I didn't want to admit it, but I'm scared. Scared of him not wanting me anymore and scared of wanting him too damn much.

It's getting harder to hold out. His soft moans are music to my ears. He's very vocal, and I damn well know he'll scream my name in bed. Just the thought of him under me while moaning my name and digging his nails into my back sends shivers through my body. I want that.

"If you did that, you would regret having to clean everything up."

I stepped back, forcing him to unwrap his legs from my body. After grabbing his hands, I gently pulled him off the desk. His green eyes stayed locked on mine as my hands found the bottom of his shirt and untucked it from his slacks. "I-I guess we're staying here?"

My fingers gripped his waist before spinning him around. I slid my hands up his shirt to explore his abs. My lips were on his neck, and my hard-on was pressed against his ass. It's really tempting to push everything off the desk, especially when he's moaning like this.

"We'll get dinner and grab your car later. For now, you have three minutes to get your shit together and be in my car," I whispered against his neck.

Yeah, I can't hold out anymore.