by Elle Gray
“Should I go and grab my tin foil hat?”
“Shut up. Listen to this and then try to apply it to any other case we work. Use the same processes of logic. Can you do that?”
“Of course.”
“All right. So, if you were presented a case in which there are eleven employees of a company, and nine of those employees were killed—”
“But we don’t know if they were killed. Sorry.”
“It’s all right. Just bear with me. Two killed, then seven more within a year,” I go on. “And then let’s say you were going out to meet one of the two survivors of the entire group, who said he had critical information for you—and you find that he has been murdered. More than that, you take fire from some unknown assailant. Would you still scoff at the idea of a conspiracy?”
Astra looks away and seems to be thinking about it. She finally turns back to me. “No. With that set of circumstances, put that way, probably not.”
“All right, then. We’ve got some common ground to work from.”
“And what’s the next step?” she asks.
“First, I’ll task Rick with looking into the deaths of the seven,” I tell her. “I want to know if it was natural causes or something else. Second, I’m going to keep trying to reach Gina Aoki. I left a message earlier, but haven’t heard back yet. She’s the key. She’s going to know what happened. Or will at least, have some idea or perhaps a clue for me to follow.”
“Blake, I don’t want to sound like I’m paranoid or trying to get you to walk away from learning your truth. But have you stopped to consider that maybe if there is a conspiracy, that the people behind said conspiracy—maybe the very same people who murdered your parents—don’t want you looking into their business?”
I nod. “I’ve considered it. And I reject it.”
“They killed your folks, Blake. What’s to stop them from killing you too?”
“I don’t know. Nothing, I guess.”
“Is this really worth risking your life over?”
“You’re sounding like Mark now.”
She shrugs. “That’s not necessarily a bad thing right now. If this conspiracy exists, I don’t know how smart it is to kick the hornet’s nest.”
“It’s wise if you want to see who comes crawling out of it.”
“Or it’s exceptionally stupid.”
“It’s a fine line.”
“There’s no way I’m talking you out of this madness, am I?” she sighs.
I shake my head. “I need to know. I need to put this festering hole that’s been torn inside me to rest once and for all.”
“I understand you wanting answers, Blake. I’m just worried that you’re going to get yourself killed.”
“Well, right now, that’s all cart before the horse. I need to hear what this Gina Aoki has to say before I’ll know anything one way or the other,” I say.
We sit in silence for a moment, marinating in all that has just been said. I won’t lie, the idea of stirring up the folks who killed my parents does scare the hell out of me. But this is a lifelong quest. I’m not going to stop just because I’m scared. I’ll handle whatever comes my way. I owe my mom and dad this. I owe this to Kit. And I’m going to make good on it.
“Hey, you were right about distracting my mind by thinking of something else,” I announce. “I just had an idea about our unsub.”
“See? I’m always right. I told you that you would,” she replies.
“You do have your moments,” I say. “Let’s get out of here and see if we can’t solve the case.”
“Somebody’s feeling ambitious all of a sudden.”
“Yeah. I guess I am. So, let’s ride this wave before it dissipates.”
We get to our feet and laugh together as we head out of the office. There are things to do, people to see, and murderers to catch.
Twenty-Five
The Yellow Brick Road Tavern, Capitol Hill District; Seattle, WA
We walk into the bar and are immediately met with a wall of ice from the staff. The bartender glares at us, as do the waitresses on duty. Other than the same older man sitting at the far end of the bar we saw the last time we were here, the place is empty. We timed our arrival to coincide with the end of the lunch rush so we’d have everybody’s undivided attention.
“I’m going to go out on a limb and say they heard we hauled Dylan in,” Astra comments.
“I’d say you’re probably right.”
We walk over to the bar and the bartender on duty, a lanky man with dark eyes and long dark hair that’s tied up into a man-bun looks us up and down, a sneer on his lips.
“Going to accuse me of killing her now too?” he asks.
“Not at the moment, but never say never,” Astra chirps.
He scoffs and folds his long arms over his narrow chest. “What do you want?”
“We need to know if you have internal and/or external surveillance cameras.”
“None that work,” he says. “They’re there for show.”
“Well, that sort of defeats the purpose of security cameras, doesn’t it?” Astra asks.
“That’s above my pay grade,” he says. “You’d have to talk to the owner.”
“All right, can we talk to the owner?” I ask.
“No. She’s not here.”
“When will she be in?” I press.
He shrugs. “No idea. She doesn’t keep a schedule.”
I sigh. “All right. Can we leave a message?”
“If you want.”
“Better question,” Astra says. “If we leave a message, will you make sure she gets it?”
“We’ll do our best.”
That’s encouraging. I’m fairly certain if we leave a message, it’ll be torn up and in the trash can before we ever walk out the door, so there seems to be no point. It doesn’t matter, though. If the cameras are there for show and aren’t recording anything, it’d be a waste of time anyway.
“Why are you guys hammerin’ on Dylan so hard?” he asks. “He just lost his girlfriend. Do you even know what it’s like for him to have you idiots accuse him of being the one who killed her?”
“Would that be the girlfriend he was cheating on?” I ask.
“I never said he was perfect,” he says. “He’s a good guy, though. He doesn’t deserve you guys hassling him like you are. His other girlfriend even broke up with him because of what you did.”
Astra looks at him. “Are you even hearing yourself right now?”
“Look, the bottom line is that we’re trying to solve a murder, and he lied to us. Multiple times,” I say. “The odds are good that if you lie to the authorities, you’re going to be a suspect. Or at the very least, somebody we’re going to want to talk to. So, take what happened to Dylan as a cautionary tale.”
“Yeah, whatever.”
He turns and walks off, huddling with the pair of waitresses who are standing in the sidewell, casting dirty looks our way. I turn to Astra and we both head for the door. I glance up at the corner and see a camera mounted there. But there’s no indication it’s on. The guy was telling the truth. Some wonders never cease.
We push through the doors and step into the bright afternoon. The sidewalk is busy with people taking advantage of a nice day by getting out and about. Fat, fluffy clouds lazily drift by overhead, and there’s a slight warmth in the air. It is a beautiful day, that’s for sure.
“So, what now, boss?” she asks.
I look around, frowning and trying to figure out what our next step is going to be. And that’s when I see it.
“That’s it. That might help,” I say.
“What?”
I point to the four ATMs set into the wall of the bank across the street. ATMs all have front-mounted, forward-facing cameras. Astra spots what I’m looking at then turns to me and smiles.
“You’re a genius,” she says.
“Yes, I am,” I reply. “Or at least, I will be if those cameras picked anything up.”
We have t
o wait for a break in the traffic before we scamper across the street. Nobody is anywhere close to us, but that doesn’t stop a couple of people honking and shouting obscenities at us as they rolled by.
“I feel like we just played a real-life version of that old school video game, Frogger,” Astra says.
“Except out here, you don’t get to hit the reset button if you get squished.”
“Yeah, that’s the downside.”
We reach the door of the bank and go inside. The air inside the bank is quiet, calm, and as hushed as a library. A lean man in a gray suit with a vibrant pink tie makes his way over to us. He’s got a wide smile on his face that looks as fake as the Rolex on his wrist.
“May I help you, ladies?”
We flash our badges, which immediately brings a frown to his lips. He looks around and acts like he’s guilty of something.
“We’d like to speak with the manager, please,” I say.
“Right away.”
The man walks away and goes to an office at the far end of the building. I can see him pointing in our direction. The man behind the desk gets up and heads our way. He’s a small, bookish man, dressed in a dark suit and tie. He looks more like a funeral director than a bank manager to me. But what do I know?
“Good afternoon, Agents,” he says. “How may I help you?”
“The ATMs out front,” I say. “Do you store the footage from the cameras?”
“Yes, of course. It’s stored digitally for a year.”
I feel a surge of excitement in my belly and look over at Astra, who looks like she’s feeling the same way. This could be our next lead. And it could be the break we need to crack this case wide open. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it is, anyway.
“That’s great,” I say. “We’re going to need to see some of that footage.”
“Of course,” he replies.
We follow him into a medium-sized, windowless back room. It contains nothing but a desk and a video monitor separated into different grids that show different sections of the bank. A second computer sits on the desk as well, and I can see by looking at the pictures on a screen that’s divided into four squares that it’s the footage from the ATMs up front.
“Excellent,” I say, feeling a surge of hope.
The manager gives us a quick lesson on how to use the computer before he leaves us to it. We scroll back in time to the day Serena was abducted. We know from her friends that she arrived at the YBR with her boyfriend at about eight that evening. Once inside, she and her friend partied for a while. At some point, she and her boyfriend had a blowout, because she learned he was cheating on her. She threw a drink in his face, slapped him, then stormed out. The trouble was, she was pretty inebriated herself and was calling a ride-share to take her home. That’s when I imagine our unsub struck. Unfortunately, her impaired state made her the perfect target for the predators out there looking to take advantage of women.
“Okay, I have them going in,” Astra announces.
I lean down and look at the monitor. The footage from the ATM cameras is grainy and choppy. It’s not a clean image in the least. We can barely make out the scene across the street unless we squint and look really close at it. But I remind myself it’s better than nothing.
“There,” she points. “She’s coming out alone and it’s eleven pm.”
We watch her standing at the edge of the sidewalk. She’s swaying and unsteady on her feet. She walks away from the front door of the bar and down the sidewalk with an awkward ad uneasy gait. It’s then I see she’s holding something in her hand—one of her heels. She’s near the edge of the camera’s field of vision. I’m afraid we’re about to lose her, but she stops and leans against a streetlight. It looks to me like she’s on her phone. Maybe she’s sending a text to her boyfriend telling him what a pig he is.
A couple of minutes later, a dark sedan comes into view. It pulls to a stop next to her and though I can’t see what’s happening, I’m sure the driver is leaning over and speaking to her through the passenger’s side window. A moment later, he gets out of the car. He pulls the brim of his ballcap low to cover his face. Smart. Very smart.
He is as I thought he would be, though. From what I can see of him, he’s got broad shoulders, though it’s hard to see them under his thick hoodie. We watch as he talks to Serena. I would kill to know what he’s saying to her. Whatever it is, though, it works. He opens the back door of the sedan and she gets in. I can’t see what’s going on but a moment later, he closes the door and dashes around to the driver’s side, climbs in, and is gone. All without ever having revealed his face.
“Damn,” Astra mutters. “The guy is good.”
I nod. “Scarily so. It’s like he’s had some practice at that.”
“I’d say so.”
“Roll it back a bit for me,” I tell her.
Astra does and I watch it again. This time, I’m looking at the car, looking for any identifying marks. Unfortunately, the picture is too grainy for me to see the license plate, which seems unusually dark anyway. He might have mudded out the plate—literally smeared mud over it—to keep it from being identified.
“Wait, stop. Pause the tape,” I say.
Astra does and I lean closer to the screen. In the lower left-hand corner of the rear window.
“What is that?” I ask.
Astra blows up that section of the screen, but it’s too grainy and pixelated to make out what it is.
“I don’t know,” she frowns. “Some sort of ID sticker? School sticker, maybe?”
“Possibly, yeah. If it’s one we can track, that would be fantastic.”
Astra snickers. “Look at you being all optimistic, thinking we’d catch a lucky break. It’s adorable.”
I sigh. She’s right. If it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all. Even still, knowing that, I’m still crossing my fingers anyway.
“Do we have what we need?” Astra asks.
“I think so. Can you make a copy of that tape?”
“Sure thing.”
After getting what we came for, we thank the manager and leave. I want to get this back to the shop and let Rick start working his magic on it as soon as possible. I don’t know why I feel like I do, since our luck is usually horrible. But I have a good feeling about this.
Twenty-Six
SSA Wilder’s Office, Criminal Data Analysis Unit; Seattle Field Office
After setting Rick to the task of cleaning up the picture to see if we can ID that sticker in the sedan’s window, I walk back into my office and drop into my chair, feeling wrung out and exhausted. I just want to go home, crawl into bed, pull the covers over my head, and sleep for the next twelve hours. At least. But there’s still work to be done.
“You can sleep when you’re dead,” I mutter to myself.
I sort through all my emails, returning those that need it and deleting those that don’t. After that, I look through the small pile of phone messages that have accumulated over the last few days and discard most of them. With that done, I turn my attention to the ever so tedious paperwork that comes with the job. This is the only real drawback to being promoted and running my own team—there seems to be a never-ending pile of paperwork to be done and reports that need to be filed. There’s always so much, I feel like I’m never going to be caught up on it. Ever. Like Rosie said, the brass loves their paperwork.
As I’m shuffling the piles of paper about on my desk, I see the card for Detective Moore. He’s the one handling Mr. Corden’s murder investigation. It’s been a while since I’ve heard from him and I’ve had no update in a long time. Moore had promised to keep me apprised of the case but has apparently fallen down on that count. I know that things get busy. There are always cases that needed to be worked, and you don’t always have time to follow up with people. But I was adamant about how important this case was to me and he swore he’d keep on top of it.
I pick up my office phone and punch in the number, then press the receiver to my ear. I
t’s picked up on the third ring.
“Moore,” he answers, sounding grumpy and on edge.
“Detective Moore, this is SSA Blake Wilder,” I greet him. “I spoke to you the night Mr. Corden was murdered out at the Cascades RV Park. Do you remember me?”
“Of course. How could I forget?” he replies. “Not many people are as persistent as you.”
“Well, that’s why I’m calling. I haven’t heard from you in a while, and I wanted to get an update on Mr. Corden’s case.”
“The update is that we don’t really have an update,” he responds. “There unfortunately hasn’t been any movement. We don’t have a suspect as of right now, and given the lack of evidence, witnesses, or anything, I have a feeling we’re not going to. I’m sorry.”
“So, you’re just going to drop the case in the circular file?”
“No, it’ll remain open. But barring any new evidence or witnesses, we don’t have anything to go on. You know how these things go, I’m sure,” he says.
I gripped the phone receiver so hard I thought it might break. The thing is, I do know how these things go. Without an eyewitness or any sort of physical evidence, the case is dead in the water. Whoever murdered Mr. Corden and shot at us knew what he was doing. He left no trace of himself at the crime scene, despite having torn through all of Mr. Corden’s stuff to find whatever information that was supposed to come to me. All of that tells me that we’re dealing with a professional hitter. What it doesn’t tell me is whether the hitter was there for Mr. Corden or us.
Knowing what I know about him now, the fact that Mr. Corden was a CIA spook, makes me wonder if the killer was indeed there for him. Over his long career, he very likely made some very powerful enemies. No doubt, so have I, but I run down killers, bank robbers, and child abductors. The sorts of enemies I make are on a completely different level than those Mr. Corden would have made playing his spy games.
“Agent Wilder, are you there?”
The Detective’s voice brings me back to the present; I ease the death grip with which I’m holding the phone.
“Yeah. Yes. I’m here, sorry,” I say.
