Eleven (Brandon Fisher FBI Series #1)

by Carolyn Arnold

  I closed the lid of the laptop and put it on the dresser. I left it plugged into the wall to charge and turned out the light. I had to trust that Debbie was going to be okay.

  The pictures from Royster’s computer would have to wait. I flicked the TV off and settled into bed.

  CHAPTER 22

  The alarm went off at five. The last time I looked it was four as I spent most of the night tossing and watching the clock worried about Debbie. I checked the cell phone by the bed, almost expecting to see a missed call or notification of a message. The thought it would have rung without me hearing it was unlikely, but I needed visual confirmation.

  I dialed home, and there was still no answer. I repeated with her cell phone and received voicemail there as well.

  Where the hell was she?

  They say that when we wake up in the morning we are more in tune with our true feelings. Something that you didn’t think affected you can have you waking up with a pain in your chest. This morning, I had that pain. It squeezed my chest, limiting the depth of my breaths.

  But I had to focus and be logical. I wouldn’t make a good FBI Special Agent if I flitted around on a whim and followed where my gut and heart drove me. Emotions lead to carelessness, and carelessness in turn to error.

  Waiting it out until six, I headed to the front lobby. None of the team was even up yet including Jack which I found ironic given his speech yesterday about tardiness.

  A woman about my age held a phone to her ear, “Tell Kate to get out of the bathroom…Nick!” The woman rolled her eyes. “You do it. Your sister can’t hog it all day...figure it out.” Her eyes met mine. “I have to go. Mom has work to do.” She set the receiver down. “Can I help you?”

  “Are you Ellen?”

  “Yes?” She said it with the arch of a question. Her hair was cut to the level of her jaw and blonde, although dark roots disclosed it wasn’t her natural color.

  “I’m Special Agent Brandon Fisher.”

  Her eyes read, well good for you.

  “You were given an envelope for me yesterday.”

  “I remember.” She looked past me to the front door, causing me to turn around. Paige, Zachery, and Jack walked in.

  Paige didn’t make eye contact, and Zachery put a hand on my shoulder as the two of them went past headed to the vending machine. Jack stopped beside me.

  I gestured towards Jack. “This is Supervisory Special Agent Jack Harper.”

  Another silent response that I took as, okay, what do I really care?

  “What did the person look like who dropped it off?”

  Her lips pressed downward. “Just an average guy, nothing too noteworthy about him.”

  I brought up a photo of Earl Royster on my cell phone and turned it toward her. “Was this him?”

  Ellen reached for the phone and accidently brushed my hand. She pulled back. “That’s Earl.”

  “So you know him?”

  “Yeah. I just said his name.” She passed a glance to Jack.

  “Why didn’t you say that to start with instead of describing him as an average guy?”

  “Well, he is.” Her arms crossed. “And how would I know you’d even know who the heck Earl was? Is he in trouble?”

  I ignored her inquiry. “Did he say anything when he dropped this off?”

  “Why are you so interested in him?”

  “Did he say anything?”

  “Just to give the envelope to you. He went over to the vending machine, bought a bag of Doritos.” She shifted her weight as if bored by the conversation.

  “You remember the Doritos?”

  “Yeah, I’ve always liked Earl. He liked,” she rolled her hand, but didn’t say what she was thinking.

  “You knew about his sexual preference?”

  “Everybody did. He’s the only one that thought it was a secret. We even know about Quinton. They’ve been lovers for years. I always thought maybe I could turn him around ya know?”

  I didn’t want the conversation to become about Ellen and her attraction to Earl. “Was there anything different about him when he dropped this off?”

  “He was muttering a lot. Earl’s always been a mumbler though. But yesterday I couldn’t make out more than the odd word.”

  “What word?”

  Ellen thought for a few seconds. “None of it really made any sense to me. Something about didn’t mean to hurt anybody and don’t cry.”

  I slapped my palm on the counter, walked to the front door, and took out my cell.

  Ellen asked, “Is he alright?”

  “He’ll be fine.” Jack stepped beside me. “We’ll head back to Louisville after breakfast, drop off the SUV, and fly home.”

  If that was supposed to be a comfort it wasn’t. Hours had already gone by in silence. Debbie could have been hurt by now, maybe already murdered if the unsub changed his MO. I pressed the cell tighter to my ear, listened to the constant ringing, and looked out to the road as I spoke to Jack. “Surprised you just didn’t tell that woman that her dreams of turning Earl straight were over.”

  I tried to reach Debbie several more times both on her cell and at home.

  If she wasn’t captured by the unsub, where the hell was she?

  Coffee steamed from the mug in front of me, but it didn’t hold much appeal. I had one sip and it gnawed on my stomach as if it were acid.

  Paige hugged her mug and watched me. When I looked at her, she adjusted the direction of her gaze. Jack must have filled Zachery and her in on the situation.

  If I put more thought into it than required maybe Paige felt guilty about her night with Jack because she knew I had found out about them. I also wondered if there was more to it. She had broken her own rule and fallen in love with me. If I didn’t have Debbie there, I might have become a victim of the relationship as well, but Paige didn’t have someone else to go home to. She was a beautiful woman and could easily have her choice of men but she was deep and complicated. Some men had issue with that.

  “Now the kid and I are going to head back to Louisville and take a flight back to Quantico. I expect the files from Sarasota should be arriving there today too,” Jack said.

  It seemed more was necessary than for my wife to be unreachable to justify a return flight home.

  “I want you two to visit the members from the church again, this time asking about Royster. Was he close to anyone there or spend an unusual amount of time with anyone besides The Redeemer.”

  “Yes, we can do that.” Zachery stabbed his fork into a slice of bacon and slid his knife through, cutting off about the length of an inch which he then put into his mouth.

  I found the formal nature of the mannerism odd for a guy like him. He struck me as the type who would pick up the slice and stuff the entire thing in there. “What if everything we think we know about the unsub is wrong?”

  “We’ve been doing this a long time, Pending.” Another cut-off piece of bacon went into his mouth.

  “And those cases all turned out as originally expected?”

  Mouth full, he bobbed his head to the side like a rag doll.

  “Exactly. What if Bingham captured his victims, tortures them for a number of days, say eleven, but his followers don’t?”

  “We found the book on the coinherence symbol at Royster’s and the pictures of Sally Windermere’s eleven cuts. I’d say torture and the number eleven plays a factor even for the followers,” Paige said.

  “For who though?”

  “You’re talking in circles, Brandon.”

  “I’m trying to analyze this thing. We know Royster was heavily influenced by Bingham. We also believe that he was the submissive when it comes to this other unsub.”

  “Okay.” Her eyes looked at me now as if to say, where are you going with all this?

  “Maybe the unsub we’re looking for wasn’t as influenced by Bingham as we think. Maybe they were more independent? They didn’t remove the intestines.”

  “Until we know—”

  I
cut off Zachery, “But why not factor this in? Maybe it’s not a straight-line.” I gestured a straight line with a flattened hand on the vertical. “It could be wavy.” I swayed my hand.

  “And you’re factoring your reasoning on what, Kid?”

  I turned to Jack. “Thinking outside of the box.”

  “Hmm.”

  I let out a deep breath. “We’re trained to think like the killer, get inside his head, figure the why and who, but if we’re going to find the who we have to know the why.”

  “Circles again, Brandon.” Paige’s voice was soft, but she didn’t offer eye contact.

  I knew the words coming out were not necessarily coherent but were more like audible brainstorming. “Listen, I’m just thinking out loud.”

  “You’re going through a lot right now.”

  I glared at Paige. “Don’t patronize me.”

  About a solid thirty seconds passed with none of us saying anything. I released the napkin I had bunched up in my hand out of frustration. “I’m ready to go.”

  Surprisingly Jack rose and followed me.

  We loaded our luggage into the SUV. My entire bag reeked of cigarette, and it felt like the smell had set up permanent residence in my sinuses.

  Jack slid behind the wheel, pulled out a cigarette, and lit up. “All that stuff you were saying back there—”

  “Just forget it.”

  “We need to keep an open mind. Investigations often do change directions.”

  I turned to face him. “You’re saying that I’m right?”

  “I’m saying you could be.”

  All I could think about was getting to Debbie. I needed to hold her and know she was alright. The clock on the dash read eight-thirty, and having left at about seven-thirty, we’d be in Louisville by about nine-thirty if everything went according to plan. Hopefully on a flight by ten-thirty and home by one.

  I opened the laptop, logged onto Twitter and went to the private message section. I wished for some sort of message from him, something to taunt me or to let me know if Debbie was safe. I was disappointed by the fact there wasn’t.

  “It’s a good sign if there’s nothing there, Kid.”

  For some reason, I didn’t think it was. My gut, the one that had told me everything was okay, now told me something was seriously wrong. I clicked on The Redeemer’s profile page to see the recent tweets made by him, and there was nothing new since the one from Tuesday.

  My cell chimed. I answered as I shut the laptop. “Hello.”

  “Think that was your message alert.” Jack siphoned a strand of smoke out the window to the passing road.

  My mind blanked for a second. He was right. I was just eager to hear Debbie’s voice. I pulled the phone down and looked at the message.

  “What is it?”

  I read the words in silence; my throat was stitched shut with dryness.

  “Kid?”

  Bile rose in my throat. Seconds passed. “The sins of the family fall upon generation after generation.” My breath drew shallow. “He’s going to hurt Deb.”

  Jack flicked his cigarette out the window, turned on the lights, and floored the accelerator.

  My heart beat so hard, I could barely hear anything. Adrenaline and anger blurred my vision of the road ahead of me and the vehicles around us. All I could think was if he hurt her, I would never forgive myself. She would have been targeted because of me, because of my sins.

  We had to figure out how Bingham was communicating to the outside world, and it had to be more than solely through Twitter.

  “What number did the text come from?”

  I looked over at Jack, delaying, afraid of what I might see on the phone. A few seconds later, I looked. “It came from Debbie’s phone.” I was going to be sick. “How the hell? He’s got to have. Oh shit!” My sentences only came out in fractured syllables.

  Jack depressed the hands-free. “Nadia, I need you to triangulate which towers an incoming text came in on.”

  “Course.”

  I gave her my cell number, the time of the text, the sender.

  A few seconds passed. “Your wife?”

  “Where are we looking?” Jack pressed her.

  “Just a sec.” More keys were tapped, clicking through the speakers of the car almost like a subdued machine gun. “Here. Oh.”

  “Nadia speak to us.”

  “Your wife’s phone, is it a BlackBerry?”

  “Yeah it is. Why?”

  “I show two users for her SIM card.”

  “The text Nadia. Where did it come from?” Jack tapped his pocket but didn’t take out the cigarette pack.

  “Two users?” I turned to catch Jack’s profile. “How is that possible?”

  Nadia answered, “It’s called cell phreaking.”

  “English.”

  “Phreaking? It combines the words phone and freak together. Basically computer hacking, but when it comes to phones.” She tapped more keys as she spoke. “As technology has advanced, most telephone networks are computerized. For example people can buy spare SIM cards and duplicate them. There’s also scanners which allow phreaks to simply brush by a person, and obtain all their information—their SIM info, their banking access, everything. Identities can be stolen.”

  “The unsub came near my wife.” I couldn’t breathe.

  Nadia remained silent for a few seconds. “It’s possible.”

  “Shit!” I looked at the sign. We were still at least twenty minutes out from Louisville. “He has her. I know it. We waited and now she’s probably dead.”

  “Remember the MO,” Jack said.

  “Brandon, before you panic, it’s possible that the unsub is extremely technologically gifted,” Nadia offered.

  Before I panic? “What do you mean?”

  “Well,” she paused. “I could duplicate a SIM card if I knew the person’s basic information, their full name, address, cell phone number. And I could do it online.”

  “So the unsub didn’t need to be near my wife?”

  “Not necessarily. But if that’s the case we’re dealing with a very intelligent unsub.”

  “The text? Where did it come from?”

  “Woodbridge.”

  “He has her.” My pulse rushed while my breathing slowed. “Can you tell the exact location?”

  “Unfortunately that’s the best I can narrow it—”

  “Wait a minute,” Jack said. “Nadia, let’s say the unsub copied the SIM information from online, would this person also be capable of making it appear the text routed from anywhere they wanted to?”

  “Not sure about anywhere, but they could duplicate the original SIM’s location.”

  “Thanks N.”

  “Cour—”

  Jack hung up on Nadia and turned to me. “We’ve got to keep calm. We don’t—”

  “Keep calm? That seems to be your slogan. Keep calm. If it was your wife, how calm would you be?”

  “You know I’m not married.”

  “Fuck Jack—”

  “Watch the language.”

  “Sometimes, I feel like your child. Don’t do this, don’t do that. Don’t take this call, take this one. It’s a joke. I mean if it wasn’t for you at least I would have taken the time to talk to Deb when she called last. I would have asked about her day, listened when she told me. And fuck, Jack, I would have told her I loved her before hanging up.”

  CHAPTER 23

  The front drapes were pulled back as the officer had advised they were last night. I studied the porch, the potted ferns to the side of the front door. Nothing stood out as unusual. Both looked to be in need of water, but that was normal for Debbie to leave her plants begging for a drink. She said God would take care of the outdoor ones but when they died it was still His fault. What she didn’t realize is sometimes even God appreciates a little help.

  I looked inside the front window. Everything seemed mostly the same as it had when I left three days ago. Debbie’s magazines were spread on the square glass coffee t
able and the television remote sat on top of them. Debbie had watched TV at some point since I had left.

  A car door slammed behind me. I jumped and pivoted around.

  “Sorry agent I never meant to scare you.” An officer, who I guessed to be in his mid-forties, came around from the driver side of a cruiser. His hair was crop-cut which told me he was trying to hold onto his youth.

  Another officer, who came from the passenger side stood beside him. He was younger than the driver by at least twenty years, and likely a rookie.

  “It’s Officer Spalding.” The older officer splayed a hand over his chest. “I believe we spoke on the phone last night. And this is Officer Hamilton.”

  “Special Agent Brandon Fisher.”

  Jack came around from the side of my house.

  “And that is Supervisory Special Agent Jack Harper.”

  “Oh, Supervisory Special Agent. We need to get ourselves some fancier titles.” Spalding glanced to the younger officer before speaking to me, “Have you been able to reach your wife yet?”

  I shook my head and looked back at the house. Somehow even though external evidence didn’t make it appear that strangers had violated my home it felt as if they had.

  “It’s hard to control a woman sometimes. They get a mind of their own and off they go.”

  I came down the few stairs of the deck to within a foot of Spalding. I would have pressed my nose against his if it weren’t for Jack’s extended arm. “You have no idea what we’re dealing with here. You take a quick look around. No sign of this, no sign of that, and assume what you want. You have no idea.”