Predator

by Linsey Lanier

  “It might be online, as well,” Oliver said. “I’ll check.”

  And he followed his wife out the door and down the stairs.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Miranda turned around and saw Parker looking intense, sitting on the end of the bed, tapping and swiping on Mackenzie’s phone.

  “I’m in,” he said finally.

  “She had a password on her cell, too?”

  “She did, but I just bypassed it.”

  He was too smart for words and she loved him for it.

  Crossing to the bed, she sat down beside him and peered over his shoulder at the screen of colorful icons. “I’d go for the text messages first,” she said.

  “Exactly my thought.” He tapped the orange dot.

  A list of contacts appeared. The last conversation was with someone named Ambrose.

  “Who’s that? I never heard her say anything about anyone named Ambrose.” But then she hadn’t had much of a meaningful conversation with her daughter for a long time.

  Parker tapped the name, and a lengthy string of messages appeared.

  Miranda squinted at the tiny photo next to the last text.

  It was a guy.

  A kid with thick wavy brown hair falling over his forehead and around his ears. He wore a goofy smile and a sci-fi T-shirt. He was kind of good looking, in a way a young girl might think was cute.

  Miranda stomach quivered as she read the text.

  CU soon.

  “See you soon,” she translated. “Dear Lord, Parker. Did Mackenzie run off with that boy?”

  “Let’s see if we can get the context of that message.”

  Parker scrolled all the way up to the top of the texts, and they read through them from the beginning.

  The first few messages had been sent several months ago, right around the time of Mackenzie’s birthday.

  They were about chess.

  Miranda pointed at the screen. “Mackenzie told me she was learning to play chess on line. That was just after the Bordeaux case. I thought it was a school thing.”

  “We’ll have to check that out.”

  “She was doing it on her laptop.” Miranda glanced over at the desk. Parker’s password cracker was still running.

  Parker scrolled down on the phone. Now the messages turned to other topics. School. Friends. Parents.

  My mother doesn’t get me, Mackenzie had written.

  Miranda didn’t know whether she was talking about her or Colby.

  The chat became more frequent. Mackenzie told the boy about the organization she’d started at school. TAV. Teens Against Vaping. She left off the part where she’d gotten suspended for vaping herself, before she’d done a turnaround.

  Parker scrolled down a little more.

  “Wait. What’s that?” Miranda’s stomach was tight again as she stared at the text.

  There’s something I need to talk to my mother about, but I just don’t know how.

  You know what they say, Ambrose had replied. Just do it.

  Yeah, I know.

  “What does that mean? Is she talking about me or Colby?”

  “It’s easy to read something into these brief statements,” Parker warned.

  He scrolled some more. There were more texts about the Algebra teacher and Chemistry tests. A few more about chess strategies. Ambrose seemed to be coaching Mackenzie.

  Then right in the middle of it, Miranda saw something that made her heart stop.

  “Look at that.”

  Just wondering if you’ve said anything to your mother yet.

  No. I’ve decided not to.

  Hmm. It’s your call, but maybe you should tell her.

  I can’t.

  Are you sure? They say people who don’t take risks never get what they want.

  “She knows, Parker. She knows who her father is and she’s sharing it with a strange kid on the Internet.”

  “We don’t know that for certain. All we know—”

  He stopped as the next message from Ambrose came into view.

  Well, we’ve got a lot of snow here in Boston. Maybe you can come see it before it all melts. I could show you the Paul Revere House or take you to the Old State House Museum.

  “Boston?” she breathed. “This guy’s from Boston?” She couldn’t help it.

  The accented voice from Kiev echoed in her mind. I know him only as the Man in Boston.

  “That could be a coincidence,” Parker said, reading her thoughts.

  It could be. It had to be. She put it out of her mind as Parker scrolled through the rest of the messages.

  Ambrose repeatedly urged Mackenzie to come and see him in Boston. She kept refusing.

  Good for her, Miranda thought.

  And then Parker reached a message from Mackenzie dated yesterday. It had been sent about an hour after Miranda and Parker left the Chatham mansion. After they’d told her about Ella and she’d gotten so upset.

  Something really awful has happened. I need to get away. I’ve decided to come see you.

  Great, Ambrose had replied. I can send you a ticket.

  Okay. I got the phone you told me to.

  Kool beans. Let’s use it from now on.

  Miranda shot to her feet. “That little bastard. He got her to buy that prepaid phone and use it so no one can track her whereabouts. Oh, God, Parker. Did Mackenzie go to Boston to see this boy?”

  “What boy?” Colby’s voice echoed from the hall as she entered the room.

  Oliver was right behind her. “I couldn’t find any charge at a phone store on Mackenzie’s credit card. I went back a month. She must have used cash.”

  “What boy?” Colby demanded. “What did you find?”

  Miranda watched Parker study the couple with a grim expression. He had to tell them what they’d found. “Apparently Mackenzie has been having text conversations with a young man named Ambrose for several months.”

  Worry spilled over Colby’s face. “She never told me about anyone named Ambrose.”

  “Me, either,” Miranda said. “He said he’s from Boston. It seems like he bought her a ticket to visit him there.”

  Oliver reached for the cell. “Let me see that.”

  Together the two adopted parents read the texts, while Miranda watched the horror on their faces intensify.

  Eyes growing wet, Colby handed the phone back to Parker. “Do you think she went to Boston to meet this young man, Wade?”

  “So it appears, but we don’t have anything to confirm it. Or any details.”

  That was the biggest understatement Miranda had ever heard come from Parker’s lips.

  She stared at him. Suddenly a beep from the laptop broke the silence. Parker’s hacking code was finished.

  He strolled over to the desk.

  “Are you in?” she asked. There had to be something more on that laptop.

  Parker’s voice was dark. “No. The program failed.”

  “What?” It had never failed. What was going on? Did that kid, Ambrose, give Mackenzie an uncrackable password? He must have.

  Colby burst into tears. “Oh, Wade. Miranda,” she wailed. “How are we going to find our daughter?”

  That was the question. How?

  They had to get into that computer. They had to find the phone store Mackenzie had used. They had to figure out who Ambrose was.

  They couldn’t do it alone.

  She turned to Parker. “We need the team.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Thirty minutes later they were sitting in a drive thru near the office, and Parker had just ordered an assortment of breakfast biscuits for the members of Parker and Steele Consulting.

  Miranda had called all three of her crew and had gotten a “be there right away” from everyone but Holloway, who said he had a few errands to run first, in his saucy Texas accent.

  When she mentioned breakfast, he’d changed his mind.

  As they waited for the order, Parker turned and touched her cheek. “I wish I could take you in my
arms and make all this go away.”

  She took his hand and pressed her lips to his fingers. “I wish you could, too.”

  He studied her with his gorgeous gray eyes. “Why don’t I take the lead on this one.”

  She shook her head. “I have to do it or I’ll go crazy.”

  He didn’t like that answer. “Very well. But if it gets too much, I’ll take over. Agreed?”

  Too much? How would he define that? It was already more than she could bear.

  But she nodded. “Sure. But I can do it.”

  “Very well.”

  The cashier handed him a huge bag and a tray of cups through the window, and off they went.

  They parked in the lot of the Imperial Building, went up the back way, and met the team in the lab.

  Soon everyone was gathered around a small oval table in the open space near the blue-and-gray canvas cube bank, wolfing down bacon-egg-and-cheese or sausage biscuits and slurping hot coffee.

  Parker had insisted Miranda eat before she addressed them, and while she didn’t feel like it, she forced down a fluffy biscuit with egg and cheese. What she really wanted to do was find a closet somewhere and bawl her eyes out.

  But that would do no good.

  She stuffed the last bite into her mouth, washed it down with a big gulp of black coffee, and got to her feet.

  She surveyed her team.

  Halfway through his third biscuit, the lanky Holloway had come to the office late, looking grumpy and wearing jeans and an olive green sweatshirt with a marine logo on it instead of his usual prim-and-proper suit. These days he was letting his straight brown hair grow a little longer than his customary military buzz cut. Miranda knew he was still visiting his ex-wife at the prison where she was being held, but she was glad he’d agreed to come in on a Sunday morning.

  Next to the ex-marine, Wesson daintily wiped her mouth with a napkin. She had on black skinny jeans and a form-fitting leopard-print tunic. With her thick red hair and gorgeous looks, she could make any man drool. But Miranda knew she was as professional as they came, and a dead accurate shot with a pistol, as well.

  Becker sat on the other side of Holloway, wearing a five o’clock shadow, scruffy looking hair, and a wrinkled blue T-shirt that read, “Dad 2B.” He looked like he’d had a rough night and was on his third cup of coffee. She felt guilty for pulling him away from Fanuzzi when she’d been feeling so bad.

  “So what’s going on, Steele?” Holloway wanted to know.

  Miranda glanced back at Parker. He was in the corner near the back room, setting up equipment. He’d eaten in the car.

  He strode to her side and handed her a remote. His look was a reminder he would take control the moment she needed him to. But she knew he had faith she could handle this.

  She took a deep breath and turned back to her team. “A few hours ago, we learned Mackenzie Chatham has gone missing.”

  Becker nearly spat out a mouthful of coffee. “What?”

  Uncrossing her shapely legs, Wesson sat up with a jolt. “Are you telling us your daughter is missing, Steele?”

  Miranda wasn’t sure Wesson knew who Mackenzie was. Guess she did.

  Holloway gave Miranda a funny look. “I didn’t know you had a daughter.”

  Becker swatted his arm. “Yes, you did. I told you that.”

  Wesson leaned toward Holloway. “You remember the skater Steele rescued from that serial killer in Lake Placid, don’t you? That was her daughter.”

  The story must have gotten around the office over a year ago. Gen probably had helped to spread it. She’d been in Lake Placid and knew everything.

  Holloway slumped in his chair. “Must have forgotten.”

  Miranda ignored the reaction and her mixed feelings about the gossip, and reminded herself of Parker’s classic catchphrase.

  Objectivity.

  They were going to handle this like professionals.

  “What I’m telling you, Holloway, what I’m telling all of you is that a young girl of fifteen left her home at six twenty-one this morning without a word to her parents or her best friends.”

  “Why?” Becker asked.

  “One thing that may have prompted her actions was an incident on the I-20 overpass yesterday.”

  Wesson frowned with concern. “You mean the story that’s been on the news about a girl who tried to commit suicide?”

  Everyone had seen the story by now.

  “That’s the one. Her name is Ella Skinner. She’s a classmate of Mackenzie. Mackenzie was very upset about it.” No need to go further into the personal details. “Parker and I were at the Chathams earlier this morning. We have her laptop over there.” She pointed to the counter along the far wall, where the device sat next to Mackenzie’s phone. “She changed the password, and so far, we haven’t been able to crack it.”

  “Not with the Agency’s app?”

  “No.”

  Becker looked bewildered.

  Holloway folded his arms and sat back in his chair. “You said she left her house at six twenty-one this morning. How do you know that?”

  “That was when the Chatham’s security alarm was turned off. Neither of the parents did that.”

  “Maybe Mackenzie is with one of her friends,” Wesson suggested, sounding strangely maternal.

  “I’ve checked with Wendy Van Aarle and her friend Rachel Alex. Mackenzie wasn’t with either of them, and they don’t know where she is.”

  “Doesn’t she have more friends than that?”

  “We’ll check on that. But we have a pretty good idea who she might be with.”

  “Who?”

  Miranda drew in air for the next part. “The most significant thing we learned at the Chathams was that Mackenzie left her cell phone behind, hidden under her bed.”

  Becker’s mouth flew open. “She what?”

  Wesson’s green eyes went wide with shock. She shook a finger in the air. “A teen without her phone? Now that’s not a good sign.”

  “No, it isn’t,” Miranda was amazed her voice was so calm. “And on the phone we found a conversation with a young man.”

  She clicked the remote and the chat from Mackenzie’s phone appear on the screen.

  “She was talking to a guy named Ambrose?” Wesson said.

  “So it appears. No one knows who this guy is. Not even Mackenzie’s adopted parents. I assume not her friends, though I haven’t checked yet. She never mentioned him to me.” Miranda scrolled through the messages and let them take in the sequence.

  She pointed to the last few texts. “From what we’ve learned, Mackenzie bought a prepaid phone a few weeks ago at the young man’s suggestion. It looks like they switched their conversations to that phone sometime yesterday afternoon.”

  Holloway shook his head. “Not good. Do you know where she got the phone from?”

  “No. That’s another thing we need to track down. Along with the friends, getting into that laptop, and finding out more about this kid named Ambrose.”

  Holloway stretched out his legs and folded his arms across his chest. “He says he’s sending her a ticket. Doesn’t say what kind.”

  “I’m thinking it’s an airline ticket,” Becker said. “But it could be a bus or a train.”

  Wesson shook her head. “If she left the house at six twenty-one, how did she get to the station or the airport?”

  Miranda shrugged. “Her friend Rachel didn’t take her. There’s no bus stop near her home.”

  Becker thought it over. “Taxi? Uber?”

  “Something else to add to the list of things to look into.”

  Wesson’s lips moved as she read over the last two messages.

  Okay. I got the phone you told me to.

  Kool beans. Let’s use it from now on.

  “That switch to the prepaid sounds like it was planned,” she said.

  “By the boy,” Holloway agreed.

  Becker shifted awkwardly in his chair. “I hate to mention this, Steele—”

  “Then do
n’t,” Miranda snapped at him. She knew where he was going.

  He continued anyway. “This Ambrose could be some sexual predator posing as a kid. It happens these days. Joanie and I watch our kids like hawks when they’re online.”

  She knew that was a possibility. She’d thought of it, and rejected the idea. There were no sexual innuendos in any of the texts. There was a lot about chess. The kid knew his stuff. What sexual predator goes to the trouble of learning chess? She assumed Parker agreed.

  “No matter what, first we have to figure out who this kid—or this persona—is. If it turns out to be someone other than a high schooler, we’ll deal with that when we know more.”

  The team stared at her.

  “Right now, no one knows where Mackenzie is, and it’s up to us to find her. Are you in or out?”

  “In,” Becker said, looking surprised at the question.

  Wesson nodded. “In. What else could we be?”

  “Of course,” Holloway smirked.

  “Okay, then. Let’s get to work.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Miranda doled out the assignments.

  Holloway got busy calling phone stores around Phipps Plaza, while Parker and Becker pulled chairs up to the counter to work on the laptop.

  Wesson started calling cab companies, while Miranda found a cube in the back and called Wendy.

  “Did you find Mackenzie?” the girl said breathlessly as soon as she answered.

  “Not yet,” Miranda told her, trying to sound unalarmed. “Did she ever tell you about a guy named Ambrose?”

  “Ambrose? No.”

  “He was good at chess.”

  “Oh, yeah. Mackenzie joined the chess club a while back, but I wasn’t into it.”

  “She never mentioned anyone named Ambrose?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Sure, I’m sure. Is that who she’s with? Ambrose?”

  Wendy didn’t know a thing about Mackenzie’s secret conversations.

  Miranda took a breath. “We don’t know yet. What I need is a list of kids Mackenzie knows. Anybody whose house she might have gone to.”

  Wendy groaned in apprehension. “She knows a lot of people. I’ve been trying to think of all of them, but I don’t know if I have everybody.”