He skimmed her music. Allie had eclectic taste—everything from Imagine Dragons to Adele to the Beatles. He scanned her photo files. She liked animals, apparently; she took shots of dogs, puppies, kittens—none of them her own. She’d created an album of her mom. She had a smattering of photos with friends. One showed her in a set—a strip of four shots, taken at someplace like Six Flags, where she and a friend had posed with bunny ears. She was grinning, happy in the moment.
He felt no closer to uncovering her secrets, so he turned back to her most personal device: her phone.
He no longer needed the passcode the commissioner had given him; Allie’s kidnapper had altered the phone’s lock screen and deleted the security code. It was certainly possible—even likely—that he had tampered with more. So Haddox implemented his own check-and-balance system; he cross-checked all data on the phone against that collected and preserved by her carrier.
He found her cellphone records easily enough. Checked her pattern of calls. There wasn’t much; only a handful of calls home. Allie was part of the generation that texted. Her thumbs could probably move at lightning speed, but her fingers rarely dialed.
There were three friends she texted often. All standard stuff. Homework. Running late to school. Planning a Friday night movie.
How did the kidnapper target you so easily, Allie? Nothing Haddox saw could explain it.
He knew instinctively that something had to be missing.
He delved deeper into her cell records. Because what most people thought of as solely a communication device was also a sophisticated GPS unit, tracking and storing its travels—with a precise location marker—for months on end. He mined the easy data first, going into Allie’s privacy settings and checking her location services. She hadn’t disabled the tracker, so he learned that within the past week, she’d left home to:
Go to school.
See a movie at the Eighty-fourth Street multiplex.
Get take-out at Shake Shack.
Buy winter shoes at Harry’s.
Visit the Museum of Natural History block.
His computer hummed in front of him as he downloaded the data to a special program he had fine-tuned over the years. Manipulated it according to certain variables. Crafted a flexible algorithm to decipher his subject’s movements.
Between built-in GPS technology and a proliferation of smartphone apps, Allie’s phone had captured a hoard of data beyond who she texted and called. It offered a record of what she ate and where she ate it, how many miles she walked, which routes she preferred to take. When Haddox was tracing a mark, he used this data—and could easily figure out whether his target was a church worshipper or a yoga practicer, a drug addict or a philanderer. Companies angling for marketing strategies called it “predictive modeling”—and shamelessly used the data to forecast a person’s habits. Haddox called it “finding his mark.”
But he’d just learned something new. Data modeling wasn’t as useful when the subject was a teenager. Specifically, one who apparently lived most of her life online. Because she’d used a staggering amount of data in the past month.
But what had she been doing with all that data? Assuming Allie Donovan was a typical teenager, then she’d be active on social media. But there was no Facebook. No Twitter. No Snapchat or ASKfm.
He kept trolling through the apps on her phone. Came up with Instagram—where she was logged in as AnimalLover856. It was a public account with 2,318 followers and more than six hundred photos posted: Dogs out walking in the city. Close-ups of squirrels, birds, and chipmunks in Central Park. The occasional stray cat.
Who did she follow?
Again, nothing but animals. Specifically, twenty-six puppy accounts, fourteen breeders, and five animal-rescue organizations.
Nothing personal. Not much there.
Keep out. You wouldn’t understand, anyway.
Allie’s screensaver had delivered a message, predicting that Haddox wouldn’t understand. So far, she had been exactly right.
Chapter 41
Just Outside the American Museum of Natural History
Nine hours, forty-one minutes until the parade began.
Six hours, forty-one minutes until the crowds assembled.
Only forty-one minutes until the ransom drop.
Video footage had been combed through. Suspicious individuals had been isolated. The resulting photos—however grainy—were being circulated throughout the NYPD, FDNY, Homeland Security, Counterterrorism, and Tactical Response Units all the same.
Donovan dialed the leader of Gamma Team on his secure line. “So every rooftop along the parade route is now covered?”
“I’m sending my units in groups of two—Team Alpha through Team Omega.”
“And there’s coverage on the blocks surrounding the museum?”
“Affirmative. No one’s making trouble on our watch.”
“I’m about to head down to the corner of West Seventy-seventh and Central Park West. I need you to cover me. But if you see a specific threat, you do not shoot to kill. We need any suspect alive and kicking.”
“Acknowledged.” Donovan heard the team leader take a deep breath. “I remember what you did for me two years ago, when I was shot in the line of duty. I won’t let you down, sir.”
Chapter 42
350 Riverside Drive, Vidocq Headquarters
Thirty-one minutes to deadline.
When his phone began vibrating, Eli picked it up right away.
“Guess what, Einstein? You can get your panties out of a wad. I got the money,” Mace gloated on the other end of the line.
Eli closed his eyes and groaned. “What money?”
“I knew you were an awkward, no-fashion homebody, but since when did you get stupid?” Mace demanded. “The ransom money.”
Eli was sure he couldn’t be hearing things right. “You’re telling me that you got two million dollars—cash—to use for Allie’s ransom?”
“Right here in my favorite extra-large New York Knicks duffel bag. I’m almost at the museum now.”
“Damn, Mace. How the hell did you pull this off?”
Over the line, Eli heard police bullhorns and the thrum of helicopters. Mace was inside the Frozen Zone.
“Anyone follow you?”
“Nah, I’m still Joe Public. Our surveillance set up yet?”
“I’ll let García know you’re en route. Don’t show yourself. Not ’til you get the all-clear.”
“Nobody’s gonna make me. If I can do the impossible—namely, getting my hands on a huge chunk of cash the night before National Turkey Day—then I can stay hidden from some lowlife.”
“I’ll tell Haddox and Eve to head on over,” Eli said.
“Guess you can thank me later,” Mace replied. “Twenty-nine minutes ’til showtime.”
—
García walked briskly past the garbage cans on West Seventy-seventh and Central Park West. Keeping a close check on the scene.
He stopped. Jumped the low fence. Quickly looked inside each one.
Thirty-seven cans, he counted. Each one empty.
It all looks okay.
But he could’ve sworn: Last time he came through this way, he hadn’t noticed a yellow smiley face painted on that one in the back.
Chapter 43
The Donovan Brownstone
You wouldn’t UNDERSTAND, Allie’s laptop had taunted.
Haddox was up for that challenge. In fact, he almost grinned with anticipation. This was a girl who averaged nearly eight gigabytes of data usage in a given month. Nobody did that unless they were glued to their Web browser. He just hoped that the avalanche of content didn’t obscure the nuggets of information that would lead him to Allie’s kidnapper. With her iPhone now connected to his own computer, he started digging, sifting, analyzing.
He took the Instagram account that he knew to be Allie’s as his starting point. Ran a series of algorithms. Cross-referenced the data that resulted. And saw something key: Allie didn’t run and m
anage just AnimalLover856. She had one other account where she posted her art: doodles and emoticons, punctuated by drawings, all decorated with loops and swirls. Maybe Instagram was for photos—but between image capture and the comments feature, Allie had found a useful medium for language. She used her second account to post the virtual equivalent of essays and diary entries.
Her username listed a fanciful alias: Monique Morgan.
Where have I heard that name before? A memory hovered briefly at the edge of his mind before flitting away.
He kept going. Hoping he’d learn something. Understand more.
For the next sixteen minutes, he read Allie’s stories and poems and posts. He felt a pang of guilt, like he was eavesdropping on a life he shouldn’t. Sure, she’d posted this material online—but under the belief that her username offered her a blanket of anonymity.
The entries began shortly before her mom’s death. April 18—which he noted was around the time Jill received news of her cancer’s recurrence. The entries were brief. They had to be, with Instagram as a medium. It offered a photo-sized text opportunity—with a limited opportunity to post text in the comments section.
They also grew progressively more secretive. Even with an online alias, she had preferred using code words and nicknames he didn’t always fully understand.
One of her teachers was so boring he was Mr. Snooze—represented by a picture of a person’s gaping yawn. A classmate was Gollum, someone who’d have been better off living under a rock.
She wrote letters to herself and to the world.
She felt she had no true friends.
Sometimes she found relief when she made herself bleed. She claimed it made her feel something, instead of just numb.
He could feel her sadness, her misery, her anger—even more intensely, sitting in her room, among her possessions.
Still, she wasn’t all doom and gloom. Reading more, Haddox discovered Allie’s likes and dislikes. She loved fantasy books and movies. She debated what music was coolest. Imagined what career would suit her most. She listed the top ten reasons she despised math. A boy code-named Burrito Boy had made fun of her in gym class; he ought to be drawn and quartered, if not boiled in hot oil. There were five reasons why Gwen Allensen was a grown-up mean girl. Her dad’s haircut made him look like a dork. A teacher at a middle school concert had burped like an erupting volcano.
That last observation made Haddox laugh out loud.
The worst was the one she wrote the day after Jill died. Underneath the picture of a tombstone, he read:
Mom is gone, and Dad’s to blame. Our priest read a poem about life’s seasons, saying “childhood is the sweetest one.”
Seriously?? Someone believes that crap?? I think I’m going to puke.
Haddox fought the urge to feel self-satisfied. To rush down to Eve and tell her I told you so. Your commissioner is not a good guy. After all, he was reading a teenager’s grief-stricken ramblings.
He was absolutely going to find out the details, but first he checked the identities of those who entered a dialogue with Allie. Who was MojoMan? Soccer856? The_Crusader? ForgottenHero?
He never finished the job.
The ringing from Allie’s phone pulled Haddox out of the depths of Allie’s online world—and into the urgent problem at hand.
Chapter 44
Parade Staging Zone
García tailed a man in a hooded sweatshirt who emerged from under the parade bleachers on Central Park West, just a block south and east of the museum.
Had he been sleeping there, or had he come from the park?
He had a slow walk—like a guy who was trying to be too careful. Suddenly, he broke into a run. Heading straight for the collection of garbage cans north and west across the avenue.
García stayed right behind him.
The guy stopped in front of the first garbage can in his path. Not the one with the smiley face. He paused, grabbing either side of the top in both hands. Then proceeded to vomit into it.
Afterward, he stayed in place for a minute, panting like an overheated dog.
Not our guy.
“Move along, move along!” Sweatshirt guy finally attracted the attention of one of the cops.
García continued to watch as the cop hustled the man away. His heart rate returned to normal in precisely twenty-one seconds.
Not our guy, he repeated to himself. But he was out there.
Somewhere.
And García was going to find him and make him pay.
Chapter 45
Enough watching Blondie and Rambo.
I’m back to her letter—and I even take a moment to admire her script. The beautifully proportioned loops, the elegance of her T’s. I read again:
Page Three.
Guess I shouldn’t have been surprised by those cops. Did I ever tell you my earliest memory?
It’s of my father shouting.
“This place is a pigsty. You think I want to come home to this?”
From where I was cowering behind the living room curtains, I could tell he was in the garage. Things must’ve been in his way, so he started throwing them. From the window, I saw a flash of yellow and orange as my plastic Big Wheel tricycle slammed into the concrete. Mangled, it slid down the driveway toward the curb.
Tears burned my eyes, but I never made a sound.
In the kitchen, I heard my mother putting dinner on the table. The dishes rattled because her hands were shaking.
His dinner, because I didn’t eat with them. Not anymore. I was always spilling my drink, and that made him mad.
I remember hoping the chicken wouldn’t be too dry or too cold. Maybe the salad would have the right amount of dressing—and the potato would be the right degree of soft. Maybe she’d read his mind and knew whether he was in the mood for a cold beer or a Coke. Maybe she’d even put it in the right sort of glass.
She tried—and my five-year-old self kept hoping that, just once, she’d get it right.
Except she never did. Everything was always wrong—and there was no pleasing him, ever.
That’s how I knew, years later, that there would be no pleasing the cops by the museum.
“PUT YOUR FEET IN FRONT OF YOU.” Penguin was still harassing the homeless guy.
“Hey—he’s got a driver’s license in here that says his name is Ronald Case. Does he look like a Ronald Case to you?” His partner, Logan, held it up to the light.
Penguin circled the homeless guy. “PUT YOUR FEET OUT IN FRONT OF YOU. PUT YOUR HANDS ON THOSE KNEES NOW.”
“What?” The homeless man’s hands were shaking. Maybe he was on something. Or maybe he was just nervous.
“PUT YOUR FEET IN FRONT OF YOU AND KEEP YOUR HANDS ON YOUR KNEES.”
“I can’t do both at once.” He definitely had a case of the shakes.
“Next thing you know, Dumbass here’s gonna say he can’t walk and chew gum at the same time,” Logan said.
“You better wise up real quick.” Penguin pulled a pair of latex gloves out of his pocket. “You see my fists? They’re getting ready to mess you up if you don’t start listening. SO PUT YOUR DAMN HANDS ON YOUR KNEES RIGHT NOW!”
“All right, all right.” The homeless man stretched his shaking arms in front of him.
Watching, I already knew that it wouldn’t matter.
First came the fists. Then the batons cracked down.
Soon he was bruised and bloody, lying on the sidewalk, in need of medical attention that he was never going to get.
I was the only one who wondered, “Why?” Who wanted answers.
Because the victim himself? He was well past the point of caring.
Chapter 46
The Donovan Brownstone
Eve found a plain laminate table tucked into a small room off the kitchen. She pulled out the stool underneath—it was the ergonomic kind. She sat on it, pushing aside a memo pad and pencil placed next to a corded landline.
Dentist appointment—Allie—12/2 at 3:45 p.m. was w
ritten on the first page.
Eve wanted neither the paper nor the house phone. She dialed out from her own secure line.
Donovan’s driver picked up on the second ring and said, “Yes?”
“Mr. Heath? This is Special Agent Eve Rossi.”
“Call me Sam. The commissioner filled me in, told me to expect to hear from you. Any progress finding Allie?”
His voice was quiet but warm. A little bit husky with concern and worry.
“Not yet. But maybe you can help with that.”
“I told the commissioner I’d do anything I could. I volunteered to join the search party, man the phone lines, whatever he needed. But he wouldn’t hear of it. My mother’s in a home on Long Island, her health’s pretty bad. He worried that if I disappoint her this year, I might not get another chance to make it up to her.” There was resignation in his voice. The kind of tone that said I’ve fought battles with Logan Donovan before—and lost.
“Just telling me about the Donovans will help,” Eve reminded him.
So he did. He detailed Allie’s daily routine, listing her favorite shops and naming her friends. He talked about Jill Donovan, too— how he’d driven her to chemo appointments, how worried she’d been about Allie. He didn’t sugarcoat the problems that complications like Gwen sometimes caused. But he painted a picture of a family who stuck together despite it all. He also talked about his history with Donovan, starting when they were in the Academy together and then later in the same precinct before Sam retired from active duty. And he detailed the typical sort of threats Logan—and his family—received.
Eve listened not just to his words but to the thoughts and images behind his answers. The Donovans were complicated—but so were a lot of families.
“Your primary job was to provide security for Mrs. Donovan and Allie. Were there any threats that stood out—or that recurred?”
“There’s lots of lone nuts in this city, Agent Rossi. But I don’t recall a single incident involving Donovan’s family where the perpetrator wasn’t caught. The commissioner made it a priority, you see. He always looks out for his own.”
Whistleblower Page 18
