After the initial round of questions, she would go to the bathroom, remove the SIM card from the burner and flush it down the toilet, then wipe the handset to remove her fingerprints and DNA. She could dump it in the water as well—the older iPhones were not sealed and the motherboard and chips would be ruined—but finding an expensive device submerged would raise red flags and, given the context, point directly to her.
The better move would be to merely hide it somewhere en route to the bathroom or leave it behind in the stall when she returned to her desk. It would take a day or two for them to find it—and it could not be traced back to her.
However, the phone call Amy made to Loren’s cell would be a problem. It only lasted a minute, but she needed to be prepared to explain it.
Loren was about ninety minutes from San Luis Obispo when she exited at Soledad, a four-and-a-half-square-mile farming community off the freeway nestled against the Gabilan Mountains. Known for the Spanish mission, Nuestra Señora de la Soledad that dated to 1791, the town sat in the Salinas Valley, the “salad bowl of the world”—one of the most economically productive agricultural regions on the planet.
She found a secondary road and pulled to the side, then dug around in her go-bag and removed one of the old wigs she had used while undercover. It was in decent condition and transformed her from a brunette short hair style to a strawberry blonde with shoulder-length waves. She looked in the rearview mirror and fluffed the locks, making sure the positioning was correct and that it obscured her darker strands.
Next, Loren removed the colored contact lenses from their case and hoped they were not bathing in bacteria-laden fluid. She had been good about changing the solution periodically but forgot and went longer than was probably smart. They made her hazel eyes a deep sky blue.
She got out, removed the awl from her purse, and drove it into the thinner rubber between the treads of the left rear tire. It took some perseverance, but she penetrated the surface deep enough to hear the rapid release of air. She got back in the vehicle and drove it a half mile until the rear end fishtailed, leaving telltale sway marks in the surface dirt.
Loren shoved her two-way radio and magnetic light cube into her go-bag, then got out and started walking toward the nearest house. After passing numerous orchards, she came upon a residence. She did a quick assessment from the road, then moved on. Three more homes and a mile and a half later, she saw something to her liking. She went up to the front door and knocked.
A Hispanic man in overalls with a dirt rag in his hands appeared behind the screen. “Yeah?”
“I need a car and I noticed the Ford on the side of your house.”
“You need a car? Señora, do I look like Avis? I’m busy.”
“I only need it for a few days.”
He grabbed the wood door to close it. “Go rent one.”
“I’d rather give you the money.” She held up a few hundred-dollar bills. “Cash. Tax-free.”
He stopped, eyed her, then pushed on the screen door and it swung open with a metallic squeak. He stepped out onto the porch.
“And you wanna use one of my cars?”
“I do. The one covered in a thick layer of dust. I figure you don’t drive it much.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yep.”
His gaze rode up and down her body. It made her uncomfortable, but it was not the first time in her life a guy had done that.
“How about a hundred a day?”
“Estas demente. How about two hundred a day?”
“Cash? How about I find another car.” Loren turned and headed off the porch.
“One-fifty.”
Loren turned and faced him. She thought a moment. “How’s it run?”
“Good enough. Engine works. Don’t burn oil. Needs brakes.”
“They work?”
“Señora.” He laughed. “They’ll stop the car, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Fine. One-fifty a day.” She looked down at the bills in her hand and started to count.
“Two-day minimum. And a five-hundred-dollar deposit.”
“The car itself isn’t worth that. How ’bout I just buy it from you?”
“’Cause I got a kid who’ll be driving next year.”
Loren pursed her lips, then nodded. “I’ll give you three days in case I need it longer. And the deposit.” She held out the money and he reached for it. “Get the keys and let’s start the thing up. Then I’ll pay you.”
“Already got ’em in my pocket.”
“What’s your name?”
“Gomez. You?”
“Nancy.”
They walked up to, and around, the vehicle. It was an old navy Ford Crown Victoria, the kind most police departments used. If it was in better condition, it could be mistaken for an unmarked vehicle. That was a big reason for knocking on Gomez’s door.
It had tinted windows—not surprising given the intense central California sun—and started up fine, if a little rough. Sounded like the muffler needed to be replaced, too. But the idea was to have an untraceable set of wheels while she retrieved Amy and Melissa—and this would do.
Then…well, she had not figured that part out yet. But leaving her BuCar on the side of the road in Soledad gave her some cover in not being in the same place Amy was when, or if, the FBI or local law enforcement found her.
Loren handed him the cash and tossed her bag inside.
“You got any ID?”
“Sorry,” Loren said, “Not with me.”
“Didn’t think so.”
“Look, Señor Gomez. This is a trust-based transaction. You trust me?”
Gomez looked her over. Again. “Don’t know why I should, but sí.”
“You look like the kind of guy I can trust. And yeah, you can trust me.” She stuck out her hand and he shook it.
Gomez was counting the cash as Loren got in the car. She adjusted the seat and pulled the ratty restraint across her body. She blew the dust off the instrument panel, then drove away.
63
Amy asked a staff person at the registration desk where the nearest pawnshop was. A quick Google search found one nine miles away. Amy had a sense that the area where it was located was questionable—not as safe as the rest of San Luis Obispo—but that’s generally where such businesses set up shop.
She returned to the room and found Melissa watching WordGirl. Ten minutes later, Dr. West walked in.
He made small talk while he examined Melissa and scribbled some notes in the chart. He flipped the pages, compared test results, and nodded.
“Everything looks stable. You had a good night, young lady.” He turned to Amy. “There’s no progression of neurological signs or indications of an intracranial bleed. At this point, I think you’re clear to take her home. We’ll give you a list of instructions and things to look out for.”
“Thanks, doctor.”
West clasped the chart against his chest and looked at Melissa. “You have any questions for me?”
“Nope.”
“Great. Then you get this.” He reached into his lab coat pocket and pulled out a small stuffed animal: a rabbit with a pink stethoscope around its neck.
“For me?”
“For you.” West handed it to her and shook Amy’s hand. “Call us if you have any questions.”
Fifteen minutes later, they were walking out of the room when Amy heard someone calling after them.
“Hold it! Don’t go anywhere.”
Amy turned to see a middle-aged woman shuffling down the hallway.
“I need to discuss the insurance information with you.”
Amy opened her mouth to speak—but nothing emerged. She stood there, frozen, thinking only that had they left thirty seconds earlier, she would have made it outside without incident.
64
; Hill turned to Minh and leaned back in his chair. “Zero activity on Loren’s cell. No calls, no texts. No outgoing emails.”
Minh finished typing a sentence on his keyboard. “Not a good sign.”
“Definitely not. Makes me think—” Hill stopped and waved a hand. “Gotta stop jumping to conclusions. But things are not trending in the right direction. She hasn’t responded to any of our attempts to contact her. Sure looks like she shut her phone down to keep us from seeing where she is.”
“And there’s no good reason for that.”
Hill sat forward. “How about tracking her two-way? Have we ever done that?”
“Not sure. Check with Timo.”
Timo was Tim Gates, one of the technogeek special agents the Bureau set loose in cyber to hack, crack, and track the devices criminal enterprises employed.
“While I do that, I think it’s time to issue the amber alert.”
“On it,” Minh said.
Hill took the elevator down a floor, tapped his key card, and navigated the hallways to the large cyber room. Desktop PC towers sat at stations along both sides of the room, as well as on a central countertop.
“Timo.” Hill held out his fist. Gates looked at it a second, then touched it with his.
“Got a question you’re probably asked every day.”
Gates pushed a pair of wire-rimmed glasses up his nose. “Okay.”
“Can we track our Bu radios?”
“I’m not asked that question every day.”
Hill scratched his forehead. “No, I realize that. It was a figure of speech.”
Gates looked at him. “Oh. Right.”
“Buddy, sometimes you scare me. You need to get out of here, interact with real people.”
Timo glanced around at the computers. “Why?”
“Never mind. I don’t have time to get into that. Can we track our Bureau radios?”
“Short answer is yes. It’s possible to triangulate any radio device. But there are some things you’ve gotta keep in mind.”
“Like what?”
“Like it depends on the strength of the signal, the area of transmission, and how long the radio has been transmitting. Cell phones are a great example of this—the proximity and number of cell towers around it are key. Not very close, too few towers, and we can’t get a good fix on the location. Another problem is that Bu radio communications are all encrypted. If one is lost or stolen, the encryption codes are all changed.”
“It’s not lost or stolen. But what if she’s turned the radio off?”
“Who’s ‘she’?”
“Loren.”
Gates physically drew back. “Why would you need to find Loren? She okay?”
“Look,” Hill said, “I know you’re fond of her, but we’ve got an abducted child case. She might be AWOL. And she may be involved.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“It’s her sister-in-law. She kidnapped a young girl.”
Gates scrunched his brow. He started moving the fingers of his right hand at his side, as if he were playing the piano. “And Loren’s gone off the grid?”
“Yes.”
“So you want to track her radio to find her.”
“Now you’re getting it, Timo.”
“Well.” Gates picked up a screwdriver and bent over one of the partially disassembled towers. “If she’s turned the device off, no chance. Can’t track it. If it’s not putting out a radio signal, there’s nothing to find and therefore nothing to triangulate. Is the radio off?”
“Don’t know. If she’s trying to go dark, she likely shut it down. But what if she turns the radio back on?”
“If she turns it on and leaves it on—and we see the signal—and if she’s near some towers, then yes. I should be able to locate her. But it’d have to be a pretty important reason to search for it. It’d take a lot of Bureau resources to do it.”
“Kidnapped girl. I’d say that qualifies.”
Gates looked up at him. “All our cases are important.”
“Can’t argue that, but—”
“You’ve worked with Loren for years. You really think she’s capable of aiding and abetting a fugitive?”
Hill worked his jaw. “Family’s very important to her. No idea how she’d react. I mean, not sure what I’d do if it were my sister-in-law. How would you react?”
Gates turned back to the screwdriver. “I don’t have a sister-in-law.”
Hill chuckled—but realized Gates was serious.
Gates pulled his gaze from the tower. “You think Loren’s sister-in-law is dangerous? Is she violent? Is the child in danger?”
Hill bit his lip. “Don’t know. The woman has a history of mental illness, so she’s unstable. Still gathering info to get a better picture of what we’re dealing with. More than that I can’t say. Yet.”
Gates sighed. “Okay then. Get Mountain to sign off. He does, I’ll do my best to locate her radio the second it goes live.”
“On my way to ask him right now.”
“Keep me posted,” Gates yelled after him.
65
Loren stopped by the gas station on Soledad Canyon Road to fill up and get a car wash. The vehicle was so filthy it would attract attention, begging some wise guy to scrape his finger in the dust proclaiming, “Clean me.”
As she headed south on 101, keeping the speedometer needle pinned to 65, she made a mental note to tell Señor Gomez that the sedan needed new shocks, too. At times it felt more like she was navigating a small sailboat across a choppy ocean than driving on a paved road.
As she was leaving the car wash there had been some chatter on the FBI radio about the amber alert and BOLOs for Amy and Melissa, but no indication that law enforcement knew they were in San Luis Obispo—or anywhere in central California, for that matter. She only kept the radio on for two or three minutes, not wanting to take a chance they were tracking it. She knew that was no easy task—and if they had not yet made the connection between her and Amy, she was being needlessly paranoid. But that was far better than guessing wrong.
Multiple times she checked the burner, willing it to ring—and hoping that, because of the spotty reception, she had not missed a call from Amy.
She anticipated reaching the SLO town center in early afternoon. And when she arrived, the question of where she would go—and what she would do when she got there—gnawed at her.
Loren tried, unsuccessfully, to stop thinking about what her colleagues were up to. She felt awful keeping them in the dark. From their perspective, they were only doing their job.
Loren laughed into the dead air of the car. She was now a conspirator, breaking the very laws she had spent her career fighting to uphold. How did that happen?
She felt deeply conflicted, a sense of unease that could not be reduced to words. But she had to remain focused. Family came first, just as she had told Zach. She was closer with Amy than any of her siblings. And Amy was in trouble.
Despite Amy’s emotional and mental health issues these past several years, she was a bright and loving individual. She would never do something spurious and she would never do something that would cause harm to a young girl. If she took the extraordinary step of kidnapping Melissa Ellis from her family, Amy must be convinced that Melissa really was her child.
But did that make what she did right?
And was she truly mentally stable?
Loren clenched her jaw. She had put everything on the line to help Amy. She could not let doubt creep into her thoughts now. She had to see this to the end…and if Amy was not in a healthy state of mind, she would arrest her. After all, Loren was not doing this to aid and abet a criminal. She was helping a family member in need, to ensure that Melissa was being properly cared for, and to assess Amy’s emotional fitness.
That’s what she had to b
elieve.
As the miles melted by, she realized she was gripping the steering wheel so tightly that her knuckles were white. And her speed had inched past seventy-five.
Loren took a deep breath and slowed to sixty-five. She had no registration and did not want to be recorded as being anywhere outside of Soledad in any official database, so the last thing she needed was to get pulled over by California Highway Patrol.
She turned on the car radio to relax and found a station playing ’70s soft rock. She sang along to Billy Joel, Elton John, and James Taylor—until she heard herself say, “The closer you get to the fire the more you get burned…”
66
Amy was holding Melissa’s hand as the woman approached. “I’m sorry, I’ve got to get her home.”
“I understand. If you can just give me your insurance card, I’ll run a copy and send you on your way.”
“I lost my wallet when people started cha—” She leaned in close to the woman’s ear. Her name tag read, Barbara. “When people started chasing the man who’d kidnapped my daughter. Sorry, it was traumatic enough. I don’t want to talk about it in front of her. Nightmares.”
The woman gave Melissa a half smile. “I understand.”
Amy leaned back. “If you give me your contact info, I’ll call or email you with everything you need.”
Barbara curled her mouth into a snarl. “Much as I’d like to accept that, honey, I’ve got a responsibility to the hospital. And if I let every Jane and Alice get a pass who claimed she lost her wallet, we’d have to close our doors.”
“Barbara, you can check with the police officer who was standing guard by our door last night. Officer Nicholson. He’ll verify everything that I’m saying. You send me a copy of the bill and I’ll make sure it gets paid.”
Barbara scrutinized her face. “Can I trust you, dear?”
“Absolutely.” Amy held out her hand. Barbara thought a moment, then shook. “Give me your address and I’ll send you a copy of the bill.”
“Address is on the intake forms. Send it there. I’ll get it.”
The Lost Girl (A Mickey Keller Thriller Book 1) Page 23
