by Robin Mahle
Kate wore uncertainty as she appeared to consider the demand. “I’m the last one to side with the media, but we need her. As long as we get the final say on what gets relayed, then I don’t have a problem with it. When can she be here?”
“She’s on her way now.”
The apartment door opened to a face Nick hadn’t seen in a long while. He peered at the beefy agent who was ten years older but was in damn good shape. “Hugo Bryce. Good to see you, man.”
“Scarborough.” The Boston native offered his hand. “I gotta be honest with you, I didn’t think I’d see your pretty-boy face again.” He laughed. “Come on in.”
“Appreciate it. I know it’s late. I got the last flight out because I had to do this in person.” Nick walked inside. “First of all, I have to say how sorry I am about what happened to Agent Murphy during the Charles River case. I know that hit you guys hard back in Boston. I didn’t get a chance to say that to you at the time.”
“Yeah, he’s been missed, I can promise you. Damn Southie son of a bitch was just a kid, you know?” Bryce walked toward the kitchen. “Hey, you want a beer or something?”
“No, thanks. I’m good.”
“Suit yourself.” Bryce pulled open the tab of a Pabst Blue Ribbon and tossed it back. “Sounds like you got some serious shit to discuss, what with you coming all this way. Take a load off. Sorry I wasn’t expecting company. Place is a mess.”
“Don’t worry about that.” Nick cleared a spot on the sofa. “I have a situation and I need to know if I can trust you to take a look at something for me.”
“Hell yeah, you know you can. What’s going on?” He sat down on the nearby recliner, resting his arms on the side of the chair. They were as big as Nick’s leg.
“About 3 months ago, we worked on a case that spanned most of the New England area. Boston field office got involved with it at the end. The son of a bitch was killing couples who were out hiking in the woods.”
“Yeah, yeah, man, I remember it. Holy shit, you guys were in on that?” Bryce asked. “You should’ve called me. I would’ve been all over that.”
“To be honest, we had a lot of agents and local cops in on that one. It was chaotic. The thing is, the reason I’m here is that I wanted to know if you could look into something for me.”
“You name it.”
“Your office handled some aspects of the case, particularly, it handled evidence relating to and the body of one of the killers.”
“Okay,” Bryce replied. “I can find out who was running that if that’s what you need.”
“It’ll give me a leg up for sure, but this has to stay quiet.” Nick leaned in with his elbows on his thighs. “I need to know who had access to the deceased man’s belongings. I made a couple calls in the last week or so, just checking around and at the time, records showed no one in your office signed in to view anything. But I know more now, and I think I came up empty-handed earlier because the people involved in this made sure of it.”
“I see. You want me to get into the weeds a little bit. I can handle that.”
“But like I said, no one can know. I mean, no one,” Nick added.
Bryce regarded him. “I hear you, but you gotta tell me why. What’s going on? Why the covert ops?”
Nick took in a long deep breath. “You remember Agent Kate Reid?”
“Yeah, course I do.”
“She’s my wife now and…”
“Wow, congrats, man. I didn’t know. That’s friggin’ awesome.”
“Appreciate that. This last case we worked... this is going back several months now…some things happened, and I think there are operatives inside the Bureau looking to bring her down.”
“What?” Bryce pulled back. “What did she do?”
“Defended herself, but I’m not sure everyone sees it that way or they know something I don’t. Look, Bryce, this is serious. Deadly serious. You know I wouldn’t be here otherwise. Word gets out that I came to see you…”
“It won’t. Like I said, you can count on me. You want me to see who was snooping around that case, fine, I can do that. I can keep it on the down low. Wouldn’t be the first time, you know what I’m saying?”
“Just a name. That’s all I need,” Nick replied.
“You got it.”
Jennifer Allen from Action News Four appeared from behind Agent Tillis as he showed her to the ops room. At 5 feet 9, and wearing 3-inch heels, she looked like she’d just stepped off the catwalk. A stunning woman with bronzed skin and black hair, she looked every bit the news anchor. However, she wasn’t one yet and Kate suspected that was her reason for wanting to be involved in the ploy they were about to carry out against a serial bomber. She’d done her own research into the woman while they waited for her arrival.
“Everyone, this is Ms. Jennifer Allen. She’ll be working with us.” Tillis turned to her. “Jennifer, these guys are FBI Quantico. Serial killers are what they specialize in.”
“Nice to meet you all. Sounds like you’ve got an interesting take on the person responsible for these car bombs.”
“We appear to be on the right track.” Kate stood and offered her hand. “I’m Agent Reid. These two here are with me. Agents Surrey and Duncan.”
“We should get started.” Tillis continued inside. “I brought Jennifer up to speed and it’s getting late. We need to make this happen now.” He showed her to the table. “Take a seat.”
“We’ll feed you the questions and see if he bites,” Kate said. “Are you ready?”
“I think so,” Jennifer replied. “And you’re sure this is the guy you’re after?”
“That’s what you’re here to find out.” Kate moved in next to her. “Let’s start by putting him at ease. As soon as he sees a message from that number, he’ll turn suspicious. So, you’ll tell him that an anonymous source fed you information about the cloned phones and that you got the number from your own detective work.”
“I can do that.” Jennifer retrieved her cell phone. “What’s the number?”
Tillis relayed it to her. “Fingers crossed he’s desperate to get out his message.”
“I think he has a lot to say,” Surrey replied.
Kate nodded. “Go head, Jennifer. Whenever you’re ready.”
“Got it.” She typed in the message, going back and forth a few times on the precise wording, eventually settling on short and to the point. “How does this look?”
Kate peered at it and turned to Surrey and Duncan. “What do you guys think?”
Duncan nodded. “Good start. I say go for it.”
“Same here,” Surrey replied.
“Tillis?” Kate turned to him. “You good with this?”
He nodded. “I’m good. Let’s do some fishing.”
Kate looked at Jennifer again. “Press send.”
Jennifer, who had walked in appearing confident, looked much less so now. She appeared to swallow down her nerves and pressed the button. “Now we just wait, I guess.”
“Now we wait,” Tillis replied.
Kate felt the tension rise in the room. Everyone seemed to fear that whoever Danny was might see through the ploy. What would happen if he had was obvious; he would simply vanish. The risk was Kate’s to shoulder, and she accepted that. Danny was a man who already straddled the line between right and wrong and probably had for some time. He perceived that society had kept him down and there was only one way to level the playing field. Danny was desperate to be seen and desperation made people dangerous.
The Late Show was on TV and the screen was the only source of light inside the living room. Danny propped up his feet on the coffee table and slouched down on the sofa. A beer in his hand and a bag of chips lying next to him, he stared at the TV, but his head swam with thoughts of how to get Mel home. Without a job, he’d just screwed himself. And having killed four people might put a damper on the judge’s review.
One of the phones on the kitchen table sounded and drew his attention. He only had three active clone
s at the moment, and one was from a dead man. Danny walked into the kitchen to see what had been sent and his expression dropped. “What the hell?” He picked up Jeff’s cloned phone. As he read the message, his heart jumped into his throat. “What the…” He shot around as if someone had entered his home. His pulse quickened and his throat turned dry. Someone had found him, but that was impossible. He’d taken every precaution.
“A goddam reporter? Seriously?” Sweat formed on his brow and his hands turned clammy. “They know. How do they know?” It seemed that Danny King hadn’t realized that law enforcement could figure out that he’d cloned the phones. He hadn’t given them enough credit and now cursed himself for it.
He held the phone in his hands, staring at the message. How could he trust some reporter he didn’t even know? No way, this was some kind of trap. It had to be. He brought the phone with him into the living room and returned to the sofa.
Several minutes passed as he stared at the television, then the phone, and then back to the television. “If they knew where I was, they’d be here already.” Danny jumped up again and peeked through his front room window out onto the darkened streets of his neighborhood. No suspicious cars. No one walking by. It was almost midnight and the streets were deadly quiet.
The phone buzzed again in his hand and he jumped. “Shit. What do I do?” He looked at the message, re-reading it several times. With the back of his hand, he wiped the sweat from his forehead.
“You don’t have to give me your name. I just want you to tell me your side of the story,” the message read.
“She doesn’t know my name. Okay. Okay, so maybe she’s not lying. Maybe the cops said something to her.” He’d seen Jennifer Allen on the news before, but how could he be sure this wasn’t a trap? That the cops weren’t with her right now waiting for him to reveal his location? That’s what this was, he knew it. They’d figured out he had cloned the phones, but how? “How the hell did you know that?” He had to ignore the message. There was no other choice. He didn’t know if it really was the reporter, but that didn’t matter. Revealing anything would lead to the cops pounding down his door.
“But she doesn’t know my name,” he insisted as if trying to convince himself. Maybe this was his chance to tell his side of the story. Why weren’t the cops busting down his door? “Because they don’t know it’s me. No way this phone will track back to me. It can’t.” Danny was good at a lot of things, but he’d become especially proficient at hiding his location. “Do they think I’m an idiot?” He considered the message again, vacillating on a response. “Okay, bitch. You want to hear my side? I’ll tell you.”
The reporter’s phone rested on the table and it finally lit up with a reply. Jennifer shot a glance to Kate. “That’s him. He responded.”
“Let’s see if he feels like talking.” Kate took the phone and pressed the screen. “You mind entering your passcode?”
“Oh, right.” Jennifer used her thumbprint to open the phone and was the first to view the message. Her face fell.
Kate noticed her expression and took the phone. She eyed the message and smirked before handing the phone to Surrey. “It’s safe to say he’s our guy.”
Surrey nodded. “No denial of that.”
Tillis leaned in toward him. “What’s it say? Oh.” He placed his hands on his hips and dipped his head. “I was hoping for more than ‘go fuck yourself’.”
“Weren’t we all,” Surrey replied. “Do we have a response to that, Reid?”
“You can’t argue that we got to him,” Kate began. “I can only imagine what’s running through his head right now.”
“But the question now is, what will he do? Stay put or figure we’re too close and take off?” Tillis’s attention was drawn to the phone again.
All eyes were on the reporter as she swiped open the screen. Her eyes darted among them. “It’s him.” She turned the screen to them after reading it. He says, “You have no idea what I’m capable of.”
19
It had been Kate’s call as to whether to follow up on the bomber’s final comment. It hadn’t gone exactly to plan, and she had underestimated him. This kid might’ve wanted to make a statement, but he made it clear it would be on his own terms.
Kate gazed through the passenger window while Surrey drove them back to the hotel. In the black of the night, she had no idea whether the plan had worked or whether they’d only prompted the bomber to take further action. She suspected the latter, given his response. “I’m not sure I stand by my risk/reward assessment.”
Duncan placed her hand on Kate’s shoulder from the backseat. “We were working with limited options. We had to take the shot.”
“It was a good move.” Surrey glanced at her from behind the wheel. “I think it was the only move, like Duncan said.” He pulled into the parking lot. “We should get some rest. We’ll have the new subpoena first thing in the morning. And who knows? Maybe Tillis’s guys will have pinned down a match on the car registration. That’s probably our best shot at tying this whole thing together now.”
Kate opened her door and started ahead. The night was hazy and warm. Peaceful. The glow of the city lights in the distance looked haunting in the heavy air. She opened the door to the hotel and waited for the others to catch up. Maybe she hadn’t been ready for this. She’d been so reliant on others. Quinn, Nick, Fisher. And Fisher was the one to give her the shot she thought she’d always wanted. Now she stood in the shoes of someone whose job it was to stop killers. It seemed those shoes were feeling pretty big right about now.
When they stepped off the elevator, Surrey started down the hall. “Good night, ladies. See you in a few hours.”
Kate secured the hotel room door after Duncan followed her inside. “Now that we’re alone. You want to tell me what you really think about how things went tonight?”
Duncan slipped off her shoes and dropped to the bed. “It was my idea, Kate. You backed me up, so whatever happens, it’s on me.”
“Did we provoke him?” Kate sat down next to her.
“I don’t know. I can’t say if he believed he was talking to a reporter or not. We all assume this young blonde kid is our suspect. I agree with that. There’s too much evidence that points to him. Even if we may not know his real name. Thing is, he’s young, he’s desperate. We might’ve made him feel as though his time was up and that he was running out of options. Honestly, Kate, I can’t get a clear read on this.”
“We’ll know more in the morning, whether we want to or not.” Kate climbed into her bed and switched off the lamp between them. She stared at the ceiling in the pitch black. The curtains in the room shut out the light, except for a sliver that seeped under the door into the hall.
Everyone was concerned about whether PivoTech would hold the answers they sought. Now that the name of the unsub was in question, the end of this felt miles away. Kate’s nerves were impossible to hide, and she knew the team saw that. If only she could talk to Nick. He would comfort her; reassure her. Insecurity had a death grip around her neck. To fail at this, her first lead assignment, would shake her confidence, which was already in tatters as she dealt with the aftermath of George and Richard Lehmann. It would undermine the confidence the team had placed in her. Surrey gave up this job so that she could take her supposed rightful place.
Her phone lit up on the nightstand and Kate peered at the incoming message. She glanced at Eva, who appeared to be asleep, so Kate slipped out of bed and pulled on her shorts. Quietly, she opened the door and padded into the bright hallway toward Surrey’s room.
A quiet knock and he opened the door. “Hey. You weren’t asleep, were you?”
“Not yet. Eva’s asleep, though. I saw your message. What’s going on?”
“Come in.” He stepped aside. “I couldn’t sleep. There’s been something nagging at me about this guy.” Surrey wore a pair of gym shorts and a t-shirt. He pushed his hand through his black hair and paced the small room. “His last words to us.”
Kate sat down on one of the beds. “About us not knowing what he was capable of.”
“Right. So, I’m starting to think that the closer we get, the more dangerous he’ll become.”
Kate sighed. “That was on the table when I made the decision to reach out to him. Look, all we can do is work to find him through PivoTech. They’ll be able to tell us who exactly the victims called. We have the dates and times. It was one of their employees, and that person is the only connection we have to three of the victims.”
“I agree that should be the break we’ve been waiting for.” He sat down next to her. “There’s something we don’t know about him. Something important that could change our tactics.”
Kate furrowed her brow. “I think I know what you mean, which was why I was so hot to get to PivoTech tonight.”
“I know. And I’m sorry I didn’t back you up on that. I really am.” Surrey took in a breath. “I just can’t operate that way. I can’t. It’s too slippery a slope.”
“I understand and I’m glad I have you and Eva to stop me from taking leaps like that with no safety net beneath me. I’ve done that too many times and I’ve gotten lucky. But my luck will run out.” She considered him a moment. “I think I know what you’re getting at with Danny’s intentions. Why the crusade? Who wronged him to such a degree to livestream his attacks? Who does it…” Kate shot up onto her feet. “Hang on. We need to see that surveillance footage again.”
“Which one?” Surrey asked.
“Outside the bar. He was wearing something. It was on his shirt.”
“Well, what was it?” Surrey insisted.
“I don’t know. But that’s what we’re missing. Something’s been tickling the back of my mind.” She turned to him. “I think this is it. Do you have the video on your laptop?”
Surrey reached for his bag. “I don’t know, but I have the temporary log in Tillis gave us to view the files.” He opened his laptop. “Okay. Let me see if I can find the footage.”
