Born In Death

13

AT CENTRAL, SHE SPLIT OFF FROM ROARKE, asking him to go straight to Homicide and wait for her in her office while she arrowed off to MPU.

“I may need to offer whoever I deal with on this an incentive,” she told him.

He cocked his head and those wonderful lips curved in an easy smile. “You mean a bribe.”

“Bribe’s such a strong word. Yeah, I may need a bribe. Sports or booze, probably. Those are the usual hot tickets. I’ll keep it within reason.”

“Bribing cops not to do work is a time-honored tradition.”

“Hey.”

He laughed. “Do what you need to do, Lieutenant. I’ll be in your office.”

She didn’t know who might have caught weekend duty, or who might be at a desk, but she hoped it was someone she had at least a passing and cordial relationship with.

Otherwise, she’d have to start from scratch with whoever had the weekend command – and if things got sticky, and an incentive didn’t make the cut, she’d go straight to Whitney. But that was something she hoped to avoid.

She figured she lucked out when she spotted Lieutenant Jaye Smith grabbing what looked like an energy bar at Vending.

“Smith.”

“Hey, Dallas. Caught a Saturday tour, too?”

“Not exactly.” Eve dug credits out of her pocket. “Grab me a tube of Pepsi, will you?”

“Sure. It’s on me.”

“Thanks.”

“Great coat. Hell for leather, huh?”

“You could say. Thanks,” Eve repeated when Smith offered the tube. “You got a minute for me?”

“Sure. Want the lounge or the office?”

“Let’s take your office.”

“Business, then.” With a nod, Smith led the way.

She was near fifty, Eve remembered, and had better than a quarter century on the job. Married with a kid, maybe two. She was on the short side, about five-three with a boxer’s kind of build. Tough and muscular. Her hair was many shades of blonde, and worn straight with shaggy ends that swung past her jaw.

She wore her weapon as a sidearm at the hip, low, with a navy sweater over it.

Eve knew her to be a solid cop, so tucked away the idea of waving sports or booze into the mix. With Smith, she could be direct, and put it all straight up.

Lieutenant Smith’s office was bigger than Eve’s – but most were – and boasted what appeared to be two reasonably comfortable visitor chairs as well as a brushed steel desk that looked new.

On it were the standard d-and-c unit, stacks of files, and a framed picture of a couple of teenagers – one of each kind – who Eve took to be Smith’s kids.

From her office AutoChef, Smith got herself a mug of tea so dark it looked like coffee, then gestured to a chair. Instead of taking the desk, Smith settled into the other visitor’s seat.

“So, what’s up? Lose somebody?”

“Somebody looks to be lost. And I need you to do me a solid on it.”

“You want me to shuffle a MP to the top of the pile for you, I can do that.” Rising, she opened a desk drawer. She was reaching for a recorder and a note pad when Eve shook her head.

“That’s not exactly it either. Let me give you the situation.”

Eve ran through it, watched Smith’s face, saw she was taking it in. “You’re thinking a snatch, and could be. But you got a pregnant woman, no partner, no known family, foreign. That’s a big plate heaped with several helpings of emotion. Could have snapped, taken off.”

“Could, yeah. Thing is, nobody who knows her sees that.”

“But you don’t,” Smith pointed out, “know her. Really.”

“No. But I met her myself, twice, and I got a good gauge of her. I wouldn’t peg her to rabbit, or even to take a few days off somewhere. Not without telling anyone, missing an event she was juiced about, leaving all her things behind.”

“You said you checked her ’links. No communication in or out that indicated any plans.” Smith pursed her lips. “An appointment she didn’t keep, a party where she didn’t show – with the gift wrapped and waiting. Okay, looks like you’ve got one to me.”

“Timeline and circumstance point to something going down after she left work, before she got home.”

“I’d agree with that.” Sitting back, Smith sipped her dark, strong tea. “But you don’t want me to open a file and move on this?”

“This friend of mine? The other pregnant one? She’s turned around about this, and she…” Eve blew out a breath. “Okay, she put me on a spot with this. So I’m going to ask you to let me handle the case.

“I’m not looking to elbow you out,” Eve continued, when Smith frowned over her mug. “And I’d welcome any help or direction you could give me, but Mavis is holding one of those emotion-heaped plates, too, and she’s looking to me to take care of it.”

“Knows you, doesn’t know me or anybody in the unit.”

“That’s the big of it, yeah. Mavis and I go back a long time. I don’t want her any more screwed up over this than she has to be.”

“How far along is she?”

“Mavis?” Eve pushed at her hair. “Heading to the final countdown. Couple more weeks, I guess. I told her I’d do this. I’m asking you to let me keep my word.”

“This would be Mavis Freestone, music sensation?”

“It would.”

“I got an eighteen-year-old daughter who’s a major fan.”

Eve felt the tension in her shoulders ease. “She might like backstage passes next time Mavis performs in the city. Or anywhere, for that matter, if you wouldn’t mind her being transported by a private shuttle.”

“I’d be her hero for life, but that sounds suspiciously like a bribe.”

Now Eve grinned. “And a damn good one. I had booze or sports lined up if I needed them. I appreciate this, Smith.”

“I’ve got friends, too, and I don’t like to let them down. Here’s what I’d need. You’d copy me on every report, every statement, every note you make. I’m apprised of every step of your investigation as you make it. I’ll keep my own file on her here, and if I feel at any point I need to step in, or assign someone to step in – to work with you, or to take over – I don’t want to hear the squawk.”

“You won’t. I owe you one.”

“Find them – the woman and the baby – and we’ll call it even.” Smith dug up a card. “I don’t have anything current that mirrors this one, but I’ll do a search, see if there’s anything in the city that reflects a like crime.”

“Appreciate it. All of it.”

“The missing’s who matters, not who runs the show from here. My home ’link, pocket ’link numbers are on the back. Day or night.”

Eve took the card, offered her hand.

Back in her office she found Roarke at her desk working on her comp. He glanced up at her, lifted his brows in question.

“I’m clear. I got lucky.”

“That’s good then. I got started on your background checks. Do you want to work here or at home?”

“Neither, not yet. Right now we’re going to see a man about a bus.”

The bus driver’s name was Braunstein, and he was about two hundred pounds of hard fat in a New York Giants football jersey. He was fifty-two, married, and was spending his Saturday evening watching a post-season game on-screen with his brother-in-law and son while his wife, his sister, and niece took in some – in his words – “girlie vids” at a local theater.

His irritation at having his viewing interrupted was obvious, until Eve mentioned Tandy’s name.

“London Bridge? That’s what I call her. Sure I know her. Rides with me most every night. Always has her fare card ready, lots don’t. Got a nice smile. She sits right behind me. Somebody takes that seat, I make ’em get up, give it to her. Her delicate condition and all.

“She gave me a nice tin of cookies for the holidays. Made them herself. She got trouble?”

“I don’t know that yet. Did she ride with you Thursday evening?”

“Thursday.” He scratched his chin, which badly needed a shave. “Nope. Funny now you mention it, ’cause I remember her saying, ‘See you tomorrow, Mr. B,’ when she got off at her stop on Wednesday. She calls me ‘Mr. B.’ I remember because she was carting this box wrapped in funny paper with a big-ass bow on it.”

He glanced around as both of his companions erupted with rage at a call on the field. “Offside, my rosy red ass,” one of them shouted.

“Goddamn refs,” Braunstien muttered. “’Scuze the language. Anyway, I asked her about it – the box – when she got on, and she said how she had a baby shower on the weekend. Listen, that little girl get hurt or something? I told her she ought to take the maternity leave, close as she was. She okay? She and the baby okay?”

“I hope so. On the bus, you ever notice anyone paying too much attention to her? Hanging too close, keeping an eye? Anything like that?”

“No, and I woulda.” He scratched his prominent belly. “I kinda looked out for her during the run, you know? Got some regulars, and some of them might strike up a conversation with her the way people do when a woman’s carrying a bun. You know, ‘How you feeling?’ ‘When are you due?’ ‘Pick out any names,’ that kind of thing. But nobody bothered her. I wouldn’a let them.”

“How about people who got off at her stop?”

“Sure, there’d be some. Regulars and otherwise. Never noticed anybody looking funny, though. Someone hurt that girl? Come on, I feel like her uncle or something. She hurt?”

“I don’t know. No one’s seen her, as far as we can tell, since Thursday, at around six o’clock.”

“Well, Jesus.” This time Braunstien showed no reaction to the shouts and curses coming from the living room. “Jesus, that’s not right.”

People like her,” Eve said as she drove. “Like people liked Copperfield and Byson.”

“Bad things happen to likable people,” Roarke pointed out.

“Yeah, yeah, they do. I’m going by where she worked. Walk from there to her bus stop. Get a feel.”

Outside the White Stork, Eve watched traffic zing uptown on Madison. It was later than it would have been when Tandy left work, and a Saturday rather than a weekday. But it would’ve been going dark at six, and, as she recalled, that day was gloomy.

Streetlights on, she mused, headlights cutting through the dank light.

“Cold,” she said aloud. “People bundled up, like they are now. Walking brisk, most of them walking brisk. Want to get home, or get where they’re going. Early dinner, after-work drinks, errands to do on the way home. She comes out. Has to walk over to Fifth to catch her bus. Two blocks down, one block over.”

Eve started to walk it with Roarke beside her. “She’s going to move with the lights. If she hits the walk, she’ll go on down the second block, then over. If she doesn’t, she’ll do the cross-town block first. You want to keep moving.”

“No way to know which way she did it.”

“No.” But since they caught the light, Eve continued through the intersection. “Least likely place to snatch her – if it was a snatch – is the corner. More people, closer together. You want to come up behind her.”

She demonstrated when they were near the middle of the block, falling back a few steps, then coming in quick, banding an arm around Roarke’s waist.

“Using a weapon?” he speculated. “Otherwise she’d react – call out, struggle. Even the most jaded would stop when an obviously pregnant woman is in trouble.”

“A weapon,” Eve agreed. “Or it was someone she knew. Hey, Tandy!” Eve shifted her arm, firmed it tight around Roarke. “How’s it going? Boy, you sure are carrying a load there. How about a lift home? Got my car right down there.”

“Possibly.” He turned west as she did to walk to Fifth. “Who does she know?”

“Customers, neighbors, someone through the birthing class or center. Someone from back in England. Baby’s father. Had to be force or familiarity. Maybe both. Had to be quick and quiet, because, yeah, somebody’s going to notice a pregnant woman struggling with someone. We’ll show her picture around this area, in case someone did.”

Once they hit Fifth, she turned north to walk back on the alternate route.

“Probably took her on the cross street,” Eve said. “Always less foot traffic than the avenues. Had to have a vehicle, or possibly…” She scanned up, frowning at the apartments overhead. “Possibly a place close by. But then you’ve got to get her inside without anybody making note of it. I don’t like that one, but it could be.”

“And why wouldn’t she resist once she was in a vehicle?”

“Force? She could have been sedated, or she was afraid. Maybe there was more than one abductor. Familiar, she could have been pleased to see someone she knew, and to be off her feet, catch a ride home.”

She scanned the area as they crossed back to Madison. Most people moving quickly, most with their heads or at least their eyes down. Thinking their thoughts, bubbled inside their own worlds.

“Somebody willing to take a risk, moving quick and smooth. Sure, you could pluck a woman right off the sidewalk. It happens. One of the cross streets,” she repeated. “Makes the most sense, but you can’t be sure which one she’ll use. Wouldn’t park the vehicle, if you’re using one, on the street. Not if you’re doing the snatch alone. And if you were lucky enough to find a spot anyway. Closest parking lot to her work, that’s what you’d use.”

“Logical,” Roarke agreed, and took out his PPC. He tapped a few buttons, nodded. “There’s a lot on Fifty-eighth, between Madison and Fifth.”

“That’d be handy, wouldn’t it? You’d only have to walk her a couple of southbound blocks. Let’s go have a look at it.”

She wanted to walk it, again taking the most logical route. It was an automated lot with no attendant, human or droid, and on this Saturday evening, at capacity.

It boasted a security cam, but even if it worked, she knew the disc would have been dumped every twenty-four hours. She noted down the number posted for contact. “Maybe we’ll get lucky on the security disc,” she told Roarke. “They should have records, in any case, of payments. We’ll want ID on any vehicles leaving the lot between eighteen and nineteen hundred on Thursday.”

She dipped her hands in her pockets. “Or he could’ve had a partner circling the blocks, and we’re screwed on this angle.”

Or they paid in cash, Roarke thought. Used a stolen vehicle. Eve would be considering those possibilities as well, he knew, so didn’t bother to comment. “If she was taken the way you’re theorizing, it was planned out, timed. Do you think she was stalked?”

“I’d say the probability of it being a random snatch is low, but I’m going to run it. Somebody knew her routine, her schedule, her routes. Somebody wanted her and/or the baby she’s carrying specifically.”

“Leans toward the father, then, doesn’t it?”

“High on the list. All I have to do is identify him.”

“I’d like to think that would mean he’d be less likely to hurt her or the child, but that’s probably not true.” He thought of his own mother, and what she’d suffered at the hands of his father, and tried to shake that off. “I’ve seen too much of what happens in these circumstances with the women at Duchas.”

“Primary COD in pregnant women is violence at the hands of the father.”

“That’s a bloody sad state of affairs.” He looked out over the street, over the people who rushed by in the cold, blowing air. But for a moment he saw the alleyways of Dublin, and the hulking figure of Patrick Roarke. “A bloody sad commentary on the human condition.”

Because she thought she understood where his thoughts had gone, she took his hand. “If he took her, we’ll find him. And her.”

“Before he does for her – or them.” He looked at her now, and she saw the past haunting his eyes. “That’s the key, isn’t it.”

“Yeah. That’s the key.” Eve shook her head as they continued to walk. “She told somebody who he was. Maybe not once she moved to New York, but back in England. Somebody knows who he is.”

“She might have moved to New York to get away from him.”

“Yeah, I’m circling that. So, let’s go home and try to arrow in.”

Tandy Willowby, age twenty-eight.”

Eve sat at her desk in her home office, reading the data Roarke had already run. “Born London. Parents Willowby, Annalee and Nigel. No sibs. Mother deceased, 2044. Tandy would’ve been twelve. Father remarried, 2049, to Marrow, Candide – divorced with one offspring from first marriage. Briar Rose, female, born 2035.”

She continued scrolling. “Willowby, Nigel, deceased 2051. Bad luck. But that leaves her with a stepmother and stepsister still alive and kicking. Computer, contact information for Willowby, Candide, or Marrow, Candide, and Marrow, Briar Rose, London. Use birth dates and identification numbers in file already running.”

Working…

“Eve, if you’re thinking of contacting them now, I’ll remind you it’s after one in the morning in England.”

She scowled, glanced at her wrist unit. “That’s such a pisser. Okay, we take that in the morning.”

The computer told her Candide now lived in Sussex while Briar Rose retained a London residence.

“Okay, back to Tandy. See here, she was employed over six years at this dress shop in London. Carnaby Street. Position, manager. Kept the same apartment there – ”

“That would be ‘flat,’” Roarke interrupted.

“Why would it be flat? How can you live – oh.” She rubbed the back of her neck as she cued in. “Right, she’d call it a flat, which makes no sense to me. But she kept it, just like she kept the same employer, for more than six years. She settles in, she roots, she’s habitual. We’ll want to talk to the owner of the shop.”

Now she leaned back, stared up at the ceiling. “If she had a guy, I bet she kept him a good chunk of time, too. She doesn’t bounce around. But she relocates not just to another part of England, even of Europe, but goes three thousand miles. Gives up her longtime home, longtime job. That’s not a whim, not for someone like Tandy. That’s a big step, and one she would have thought about a lot, one she had to have a strong reason for taking.”

“The baby.”

“Yeah, I’d say it comes back to that. She put an ocean between someone or something and the kid. Strong reason, or she’d be nesting in her flat in London.”

“A creature of habit,” Roarke put in. “As were your other two victims.”

“Let’s hope Tandy makes out better than they did. I’m going to set up a board for her, and do a timeline.”

“All right. Unless there’s something specific I can do for you here, you might send me some of those blind accounts on the Copperfield/ Byson case. I’ll start looking at numbers.”

The fact was, he wanted to step away – at least for the time being – from the thought of a woman so completely vulnerable at the mercy of someone who wished her harm. Someone, he thought, she might have loved once.

Eve stopped for a moment, turned to him. “If I’d been in your place on that one, I’d’ve told Whitney to kiss my ass.”

“What?” He pulled himself back, into the now. “Ah, well, all in all, I’d rather have your lips in that vicinity than his.”

“Find me something useful, they might find their way there.”

“And my incentive keeps rising.”

She swiveled away from the screen, looked him in the eyes. “Are you all right on this? The Tandy thing.”

Foolish, he admitted, to believe she didn’t see, didn’t know. More foolish, he supposed, for him to try to block it from her, or from himself. “I’m not, actually, not completely. It resonates a little too deep for me. I don’t know if it’s anger or grief I’m feeling. It must be both.”

“Roarke, we don’t know Tandy’s in the same kind of situation as your mother was.”

“We don’t know she isn’t.” Idly, he picked up the little statue of the goddess Eve kept on her desk. A symbol of the female. “He waited until after I was born to murder her, my mother. But she was trying to protect me, do what she thought best for me. As I expect Tandy is doing, whoever has her now.”

He set the statue down. “I just want my mind off it for a while.”

He so rarely hurt, she thought. So rarely let himself, she corrected. “I can take this one back to Central. Keep it out of here.”

“No.” He moved to her then, taking her face in his hands. “That won’t do, not for either of us. What once was made us who we are, one way or another. But it can’t stop us from doing what we do. They’ll have won then, won’t they?”

She put her hands over his. “They can’t win. They can only screw with us.”

“And so they do.” He leaned down, pressed his lips to the top of her head. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll steep myself in numbers for a while. They always clear my head.”

“God knows how. I’m going to make coffee. All around?”

“If I had some cake to go with it. I got shafted on that end of the deal.”

“Cake?” Her mind circled around. “Oh, right. Mavis. I think there was some left. Those women were like vultures when something had icing on it. Maybe the Dark Shadow stocked some of the leftovers in the AutoChef. I could probably choke down a piece myself.”

And thinking that sugar and caffeine kept the blood moving, she made it a large piece along with strong, black coffee. He’d be all right, she told herself, because he wouldn’t let himself be otherwise. But she’d keep a finger on the pulse, and if she didn’t like the beat, she’d move the Tandy investigation out of the house.

For convenience, she set Tandy’s board next to the one she’d already started on her other case. And on the side with a slick white surface began to handwrite a time line.

She made lists of names. People she’d already spoken with on one side, those she would contact in the morning on the other. She tacked up Tandy’s ID photo.

Her first step was to call the contact number of the parking lot. As she expected, she was transferred to an endless menu of choices, and quickly selected operator before the droning litany could bore her into a coma.

“Courtesy Messaging Service.” The voice was nasal as a trombone and dense with Queens.

“This is Lieutenant Dallas, NYPSD,” Eve began and gave her badge number. “I need information on the Park and Go, Fifty-eighth Street.”

“For information, please call Customer Service between the hours of eight A.M. and – ”

“I need information now, and I don’t want to talk to some hand-patter at Customer Service.”

“Well, jeez. This is a messaging service, you know, for, like, twenty businesses in Manhattan alone. I don’t have information about a parking lot.”

“Put me through to the owner.”

“I’m not supposed to bother the client with – ”

“Maybe you should give me your name and location. I’ll send a couple of uniforms to pick you up, and you can tell me how you’re not supposed to bother the client when you get down to Cop Central.”

“Well, jeez. You gotta wait a minute.”

Eve was put on wait mode while music sweeter than the icing on her cake tinkled in her ear.

During the ten minutes it played – with periodic computer-generated bulletins assuring her that her call was important – she began a series of probability runs.

By the time an actual human came back on, she was drinking her second cup of coffee and studying the results.

“Lieutenant, is it?” The man looked slick and sounded same.

“That’s right. And you are?”

“Matt Goodwin. You’re inquiring about the Park and Go on Fifty-eighth?”

“That’s right. Do you own it?”

“I represent the corporation that does. What seems to be the problem?”

“I’m investigating a possible crime in which this lot may be involved. I need the security discs as well as the logs for Thursday last, between eighteen and nineteen hundred hours.”

“What possible crime?”

“It’s a Missing Persons matter. I need the discs and the logs as soon as possible.”

“I believe those discs are dumped every twenty-four, Lieutenant. As for the logs, I assume you have a warrant?”

“I can get one.”

“Well, when you do – ”

“And when I do, I’ll see it includes logs for an entire week, as well as a search into the lot’s – and the corporation that owns it – standards and practices. I’ll have to bring you and your client into Central for questioning. Or, you can get me the logs for that single hour of that single day.”

“Of course my client would want to cooperate with the authorities.”

“Good for your client.”

“I’ll have to contact my client, and with their permission, arrange to have the logs you specified copied and made available to you.”

“You do that. Relay to me at this number where the logs can be picked up. By nine A.M. tomorrow morning.”

“Lieutenant, it is the weekend.”

“I’ve heard that. Nine A.M., or I get that warrant.”

She clicked off, went back to studying her probability results. Even with the sparse data at her disposal, it was running in the mid-nineties that Tandy Willowby had been target specific.

Tandy had no criminal record on either side of the Atlantic, no known association with criminal elements. She had a small, tidy nest egg that jibed with someone who lived carefully on the salary she’d pulled in since the onset of employment. Her parents were dead, and from the basic data Eve could access without a warrant, her stepmother and stepsister had no wealth. Middle-income salaries.

There were no suspicious deposits or withdrawals in Tandy’s accounts that indicated blackmail on either side.

On the surface it appeared the only thing of true value Tandy owned was what she carried in her womb.

Playing a hunch, she contacted the owner of the White Stork.

“Lieutenant Dallas. You’ve found Tandy.”

“No.”

“I just don’t understand this.” Liane Brosh was a youthful sixty, with a face strained with concern. “She must have just taken a weekend away. Maybe a quick trip to a spa to rev up before the baby comes.”

“Did she talk about doing that?”

“No, not really. I suggested it a couple times, but she always said she was already revved.” Liane smiled weakly. “We had a little shower for her here at the store, and I gave her a gift certificate to a day spa in the city. She said she was saving it until after the baby. But I’m sure she’s fine. Maybe she just wanted to get out of the city for the weekend.”

“Does that strike you as something she’d do?”

“No, it doesn’t.” Liane sighed. “It doesn’t sound like her at all. I’m so worried.”

“Can you tell me if anyone came into the store to see her specifically, to speak with her?”

“Tandy worked with several expectant parents. All the staff is available for personal shopping, for helping with registries, decor, layettes.”

“How about someone she might’ve worked with, or who might have frequented your shop whose expectations weren’t realized. Miscarriage, for instance.”

“It does happen. I can’t think of anyone offhand, but I can certainly check the records, ask the other girls.”

“I appreciate that. Did she ever speak about the baby’s father?”

“In general, and vaguely. No specifics, and since she didn’t want to talk about it, I didn’t press.”

“If you think of anything, even if it doesn’t seem important, I want you to contact me. Twenty-four/seven.”

“I will. We love Tandy. All of us will do anything we can to help.”

Eve tried another hunch and contacted Tandy’s midwife.

“This is Randa.”

“Randa Tillas, Lieutenant Dallas.”

“Tandy.”

“Nothing yet.”

“Well, damn it.” She was a striking black woman with the faintest hint of the islands in her voice. Her rich brown eyes filled with concern. “I contacted members of her birthing circle, in case she was spending a couple of days with one of them. But no one’s heard from her since Wednesday.”

“Any member of that circle have a problem pregnancy?”

“I’ve got one with high blood pressure and another on bed rest, but nothing major, no.”

“Maybe a birthing coach who’s had trouble conceiving, or carrying to full term.”

“I don’t have full medical on coaches, but that sort of thing usually comes up during the class. I’d try to discourage coaching by anyone who might be in a dark place. It wouldn’t be good for them, or the mother.”

“Did she ever talk to you about the baby’s father?”

“Some, yes. It’s important for me to know as much as the mother is comfortable telling me. For a single mother, more so. Especially one, like Tandy, without family support.”

“Can you tell me what she told you about him?”

“I’m treading a line here, but I’m worried enough I’m stepping over it. He was someone she dated for about a year back in London. I think she was very much in love with him. The pregnancy was unplanned, and wasn’t something he wanted or was looking for. She decided it was something she wanted, so she broke things off and moved to the U.S.”

“Long way to go.”

“I thought so, but she said she’d wanted everything fresh, and it seemed reasonable. I’d say she’s very resolved to have this baby and to raise it on her own, with no murky feelings toward the father. She was very spare on the details about him, but she did slip once or twice and call him by name. Aaron.”

“That helps. Thanks. Anything else, contact me.”

“I’m going to go through my file on her, and ask the other members of the team if she spoke to them about anything that seems important. We all want her and the baby back, safe and healthy.”