BATON ROUGE
Page 6
Since it was Sunday, Alex had given Nicholas, Matt and Jeff the day off. The rest of the team continued to work as if it were any other day of the week.
Georgina had spent the morning gathering information from traditional sources, checking out police records, news articles and whatever else she could find. Her cell phone sat on the table in front of her. Thankfully it had remained silent.
After a quick lunch, Alexander had left to go speak to the director, and Tim had gone on some mission of his own, leaving his partner, Jeff, to keep working on potential locations.
Georgina had finally moved on to social media sites, her eyes starting to glaze over as she read posts and looked at photos.
“I can’t believe what people post on these public sites,” she said as she found a photo of Jax half-naked and with a half-crazy look in his eyes. The caption read: The Exterminator, Got a Problem? I Can Handle It. And then it went on to say that he was a professional bodyguard/bouncer.
Frank, who was seated next to her, leaned over and looked at her computer screen, then shook his head. “I keep telling my daughters that what they put out there is out there forever,” he said. “But in a house full of females, my voice is rarely heard,” he said jokingly.
Georgina smiled. Frank not only had a beautiful, strong wife, but he also had four girls between the ages of eleven and seventeen. Her smile faded, she looked pointedly at Nicholas’s empty chair and leaned closer so that only Frank would hear her. “It seems like your partner isn’t listening to your voice very well, either.”
Frank gave her a look of disgust. “He’s a showboat. I keep telling myself he’s young and trying to make his mark, but a task force isn’t the time or place to play by your own rules. I’m glad he’s off today. It’s bad enough I’ll have to deal with him again tomorrow.”
He kept his voice low as well and Georgina knew he would say nothing to anyone else. As a team player, Frank wouldn’t want to bring dissension among the group.
As Frank got back to work, Georgina rubbed her eyes and got up to get herself a cup of coffee. All the members of the task force had been told about the phone call she’d received the night before.
Tim was at this moment working with her cell phone company in an effort to get the record of the call, and then triangulate pings off cell phone towers to get a location from where the call had come. He would also work with them in an effort to identify the specific phone number of the caller and then would begin to search for serial numbers and stores where the phone might have been bought.
She didn’t expect him to have any real information for a week or two. He might know a general area where the call had come from any time, but it would take much longer to learn more facts about the phone used to make the call to her.
With her coffee cup in hand, she returned to her seat at the table. She knew when Alex returned to the room he’d expect updates from the agents working.
She had a ton of information about Michelle Davison and her brute boyfriend. What she didn’t have was any evidence that might point to them as persons of interest other than the book Michelle had written.
Tim had returned to the room and he and Terry had their heads together working off a single computer screen that had Google Earth up to focus on the Baton Rouge area.
They were all looking for a needle in a haystack...a location where seven people could be held, a man or men who had managed to kidnap those people without being seen, without leaving behind a single clue.
She stared at her phone, almost willing it to ring, almost wanting to get another call. While the idea of having any kind of personal interaction with a self-pronounced potential serial killer chilled her, she also knew that if he connected with her, he might make a mistake.
He could unconsciously give her a piece of information that might make it easier to identify him. There might be background noises on the call that could be magnified by tech workers to focus a search on a particular area of town.
She’d just gotten back to work when Alex came into the room. She glanced at her watch, surprised to realize it was after four. Surfing the internet had made the hours of the day melt away.
“I don’t sense much excitement in here,” he said as he went to the head of the table.
Frank shrugged. “Not much exciting to relate.
“I just finished speaking to Director Miller and Lieutenant Craig Burnett from the police department. He’s agreed to have ten officers be our feet on the ground in checking out abandoned warehouses and factories and whatever building might be a potential hiding place for a kidnapper with seven hostages.”
Alex turned to look at the two agents at the opposite end of the table from Georgina. “Any addresses you two get together on a list, give them to Lieutenant Burnett. He’ll be checking in here every morning and working as a liaison between us and the police.”
He moved his gaze to Frank. “I want you to get photos of all the victims made into posters and distributed all around town.”
“We’re officially taking this public?” Frank asked.
Alex nodded. “Miller is holding a news conference first thing in the morning. We’re all to be press-ready by nine. We’re setting up a TIPS line and hoping that by blanketing the city with posters, somebody saw something that might break the investigation wide open.”
He turned to face Georgina and at that moment her cell phone rang. She immediately knew it was him. She didn’t need to see the unknown number that her caller identification displayed.
The war room was completely silent and all the men stared at her as she picked up the phone and hit Speaker and Record as she answered. “Agent Beaumont,” she said, aware of Alex moving closer.
“Such formality. May I call you Georgina?” It was the same deep voice, obviously computer-altered. “I thought we were going to be friends.”
“You can call me Georgina.” Her mouth was achingly dry. “And what should I call you?”
Before there could be a reply Alex grabbed the phone from her. “This is Special Agent Alexander Harkins. I’m the lead investigator on this case. I think I’m the one you want to talk to.”
“If I’d wanted to talk to you, I would have called your phone, Agent Alexander Harkins.” There was an audible click, letting everyone in the room know that the caller had hung up.
Georgina snatched her phone away from Alex, angry that he’d interfered and screwed up what might have been a call that contained a clue, concerned that he’d done so in an effort to protect her.
Before she could voice her outrage over his action, her phone rang again. She glared at Alex, daring him to pull another stunt, and then once again hit Speaker and Record and answered the call.
“Don’t let that happen again.” It was obvious the man on the phone had been angered.
“It won’t,” Georgina replied with another glare at Alex. Even though her heart was beating way too fast, despite the fact that the cold chill of evil had crept from the cell phone to take over every part of her body, she knew this connection was their best chance to catch the man.
“You never told me what I should call you,” she said.
“FBI-trained serial killer is a mouthful, isn’t it? Why don’t you call me Bob?”
“Okay, Bob.” It didn’t seem right that evil should go by the name of Bob, but she was playing his game. “Is there a reason you want to talk to me, Bob?” She kept her gaze focused on the phone that was on the table in front of her and refused to look at any of the men in the room.
“I know you and your team are working very hard to try to find me, but in the meantime I’ve done a little research of my own...some research on you.”
Georgina couldn’t imagine that her blood could get any colder, but his words shot a new icy chill through her veins. “You must have been bored to death,” she replied, glad that her voice
didn’t betray any of the emotions roaring through her.
“On the contrary, I think you and I have a lot of things in common.”
Revulsion rose at his words. She couldn’t imagine what she could possibly have in common with this man. “How do I know that you’re really the person who kidnapped the FBI agents and their loved ones?” she asked, deciding to ignore his previous words.
“If you’d like me to I could send you Sam Connelly’s ear in the mail. Or perhaps you would prefer a finger from Amberly Caldwell.”
Georgina flinched. “That isn’t necessary. Just let me speak to one of them.”
“I might be able to arrange that, but first I want to talk to you about your childhood.”
Georgina’s throat closed off as a flash of old memories torched through her brain. She was grateful the phone was on the table for she would have probably dropped it as her hands began to tremble uncontrollably.
She quickly clenched them together and moved them to her lap beneath the table where nobody would be able to see them. “What about my childhood?”
“Was it good or bad?”
She thought about lying, she considered not allowing him to get any real piece of her, but she was also afraid that if he already knew the answer and she lied, she’d break trust with him and he’d stop calling and this chance for clues would be lost forever.
She was more than aware that building trust with him through the phone calls might be the only way they’d get any clues as to his identity. She desperately needed to build some mutual trust with him.
“It was bad,” she finally replied. She looked up and found herself staring into the blue depths of Alex’s eyes. How many times had he asked her about her childhood and she’d always deflected the conversation, had refused to give him any hint of the hell she’d endured.
It was a time of her life she refused to revisit except in the form of torturous nightmares and she would do it only now to hopefully save the lives of the people he held captive.
“Your mother and father, did you ever dream of killing them?”
“I already answered one of your questions. Now you need to let me talk to one of your captives before I answer any more.” She broke eye contact with Alex and held her breath, hoping for honor from a creep.
“Who do you want to hear from?”
“Jackson,” Alex whispered.
“Macy,” Georgina replied.
There was a long moment of silence. Georgina held her breath, knowing it was possible she would face Alex’s wrath once the call eventually ended.
“Hello?”
The childish voice squeezed Georgina’s heart painfully tight. “Macy? My name is Georgina.”
“Are you going to come and get us?”
“Who is with you?”
“There’s Daddy Sam and my mom and Ms. Amberly and Mr. Caldwell and Mr. Revannaugh and Ms. Clinton. We’re all waiting for you to come and find us. We all just want to go home.” A small sob choked from her.
“Where are you, honey?”
“We’re in cages,” she replied.
Georgina frowned. “Cages?”
“You talked to the little girl, now it’s my turn again,” Bob said. “Now, answer my question. Did you ever dream of killing your mother and father?”
“Never,” she replied and then couldn’t help but add, “I sometimes wished them dead, but I never entertained the idea of actually killing them myself.”
Pressure filled her chest, making it difficult for her to breathe as emotions untapped for nearly a lifetime rushed in. She hated Bob for making her remember, for making her feel those emotions she’d tried so hard to put behind her.
“For years I dreamed of killing my mother and father, and then one day when I was twenty-five years old, I went back to the old homestead and I did it. I killed them. They were my first victims,” he said. The line went dead.
* * *
THE SILENCE IN the room was deafening. Thoughts thundered through Alexander’s head as he stared at the woman he’d once been married to, a woman who had just given more information about her past to a killer than she’d ever shared with him.
She raised her head to meet his gaze, her green eyes hard and impossible to read. “I’m sorry. I probably should have asked to speak to one of the men, but in my mind Macy was...is the most expendable and I needed to make sure she was still alive.”
“It’s fine,” Alexander replied. He tried to ignore the paleness of her cheeks, the obvious toll the phone call had taken on her.
“So, if Bob is to be believed, he murdered his parents,” Frank said. “Even though he’d altered his voice, he didn’t sound that old...maybe early-to mid-thirties.”
“Then the murder of his parents would have happened within the past ten years or so,” Terry said.
“And if he killed his parents, then why isn’t he in prison?” Tim asked.
Alexander’s attention was split between the conversation going on among the team and Georgina, who seemed to have disappeared into herself. Her shoulders were slumped and her gaze remained focused on the cell phone on the table in front of her.
He told himself it wasn’t just because he’d been her husband and that it wasn’t because on some deep level he still loved her that he was concerned. He would be concerned about any of the team members who had shared a rather intimate conversation with a self-professed killer.
Tim took her phone and downloaded the message into his computer. As a techie, he could work on the recording to see if there were any background noises that could be amplified. He’d also try to chase down the number the call had come from.
Georgina remained quiet until they called it a day. As the men left the room, Alexander caught hold of her arm so he could talk to her alone.
“Are you all right?” he asked softly.
“I’m fine.” Her shoulders stiffened in a familiar posture of defensiveness. Her eyes were a dark green that he’d never seen before, filled with shadows he could never breach, he would never fully understand.
“Want to grab coffee at Cup of Joe’s before heading home?” He kept his tone light, knowing that if she sensed any concern for her in his voice she’d decline.
“Okay,” she surprised him by saying.
Together they left the room and headed to the elevator. “At least we got a little more information,” she said as they rode down to the first floor. “We know that right now they are all alive.”
“And I’m adding to Terry and Matt’s workload by having them check every case of any couple murdered in their homes or under suspicious circumstances in the past fifteen years in the state,” he replied.
“That could take months of work,” she said as they left the elevator and headed for the front door of the building.
Cup of Joe’s was a small hole-in-the-wall coffee shop three buildings down from the FBI building. It was a popular place for tired agents to fuel up or wind down.
Joe’s menu offered no fancy froufrou drinks, nothing but coffee and a variety of muffins, cookies and little cakes. As Georgina took a seat at one of the narrow booths against the wall, Alexander ordered two cups of coffee, one black and one with cream and sugar.
When he joined her with the drinks, she was curled into the corner between the back of the booth and the wall. She looked more fragile than he’d ever seen her. As he sat down, she quickly straightened, her eyes overly bright as if she were working too hard to keep it together.
He slid her coffee halfway across the table, but when she went to reach for it, he grabbed her hand in his. He held tight even as she tried to pull away.
“Just sit for a minute and let me hold your hand,” he said softly.
“I don’t need hand-holding,” she protested, but she didn’t attempt to pull her hand away again.
“It didn’t feel amazing. It was terrifying,” she admitted. “I was so afraid that if I said something wrong there would be terrible consequences.”
This time when she pulled her hand back, he released it and watched as she wrapped both her slightly trembling hands around the hot foam cup of coffee.
Alexander picked up his own cup and leaned back against the booth. “For some reason or another it’s obvious that he’s decided he wants a relationship with you.”
Her eyes widened but quickly resumed their normal shape. “If that’s what it takes to solve this, then I’ll be his best phone buddy.”
Protests rose to his throat, but he swallowed them. The need to protect her from having any contact with this man was overwhelming, but he had to think of what was in the best interest of solving the crime. She was a member of the task force. It was her job to do whatever she could to help catch the creep.
He couldn’t think like a man who needed to protect his woman. She hadn’t been his woman in a very long time. When he looked back on their marriage, he sometimes wondered if she’d ever really been his woman.
They sat in silence, sipping their hot coffee. The silence wasn’t uncomfortable. He was accustomed to her being a woman of few words.
It was finally she who broke the silence. “If what he said about his parents is true, then he’s already killed and won’t hesitate to kill again.” She took another sip of her drink and then continued. “You know he won’t let them live. Once he’s gotten whatever he thinks he needs from them, he’ll kill them all.”
Her eyes held a hollowness, as if she were already grieving for their loss. He didn’t try to tell her differently. He knew what she said was true. “All the more reason we’ve got to work every angle to find him before that can happen.”
“He’ll keep calling me.” She said it as a statement, not as a question.