Psychobyte

by Cat Connor

  So it was her. The mystery lady. She was a minimum of fifteen years younger than dad. Aidan hadn’t moved but leaned forward on his elbows, watching.

  My phone rang and this time, I knew I had to answer it.

  “Conway,” I said into the phone.

  “Are you done?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m picking you up,” Kurt replied.

  “Something happened?”

  “Easier if we talk in person. Wait for me out front?” I pressed the end call icon and sat my phone on the table.

  Mitch slipped his arm around my shoulders. “Work?”

  “Yep. Kurt is picking me up. Can we have a few moments?”

  He nodded. “Come on.”

  Mitch passed Lucy to his mom then took my hand. We excused ourselves. Mitch led the way to the conservatory.

  “You’re going to be gone a while, aren’t you?” he said, pulling me into his arms.

  “Could be. This case is not going well … we need to get a profile and some solid leads.”

  “Roz?”

  “See what you can find out? Find out if she has a son and what his name is and if he has a job.”

  “That’s a pretty specific list, El.”

  Yeah, it is.

  “See what you can find out during the rest of the evening, please?”

  He kissed the top of my head. “I’ll take notes.” Mitch’s voice ruffled my hair. “You think it’s a coincidence that he’s seeing her?”

  “No. But I hope it is. I really do.”

  I stood wrapped in Mitch’s arms for a few minutes, enjoying the scent of his skin and his beating heart.

  Fourteen

  Bed Of Roses

  I moved my car out onto the road so I didn’t block Mitch and noticed a piece of paper under the wiper blade. I took the paper and unfolded it as I pressed the button on my keychain and locked my car. Expecting a flyer of some sort, the handwritten contents gave me pause.

  I read and re-read the note in my hand in the vague light from the street lamp overhead. Bone-chilling cold trickled into my being. Leaning on my car, I read the joke again.

  An old blind guy wanders into an all-girl biker bar by mistake. He finds his way to a bar stool and orders a shot of Jack Daniels.

  After sitting there for a while, he yells to the bartender, “Hey, you wanna hear a blonde joke?”

  The whole bar immediately falls absolutely silent. In a very deep, husky voice, the woman next to him says,

  “Before you tell that joke, Cowboy, I think it is only fair, given that you are blind, that you should know five things.

  1. The bartender is a blonde girl with a baseball bat.

  2. The bouncer is a blonde girl with a ‘Billy Club’.

  3. I’m a six-foot tall, 175-pound blonde woman with a black belt in karate.

  4. The woman sitting next to me is blonde and a professional weightlifter.

  5. The lady to your right is blonde and a professional wrestler.

  Now, think about it seriously, Cowboy ... Do you still wanna tell that blonde joke?”

  The old guy thinks for a second, shakes his head and mutters, “No, not if I’m gonna have to explain it five times.”

  Five blonde women. I really don’t believe in coincidence. We had five blonde victims. I pulled up a picture of one of the crime scene notes on my phone. A sigh of relief escaped when I realized the handwriting didn’t match. The relief was short-lived.

  If one of the Unsubs didn’t place the note on my windscreen, then who did? And why? Who came into the house after me?

  I stuffed the piece of paper into my bag.

  Rosanne Lette.

  Who knew where to find me?

  Delta A and apparently Rosanne Lette.

  Shutting down that thought process, I walked past Aidan’s car in the rapidly dimming light and saw his my family stickers in the back window. I muttered unflattering comments to myself. Those stickers were stupid, right up there with having your kids’ school on a bumper sticker or stickers on the car that indicated where you parked or worked. People make it too easy for stalkers. What did Aidan’s car tell me? I checked it out while I waited for Kurt.

  Adding up all the stickers I came up with a profile. Married, to a woman who liked to read; they had a female baby and a cat. No guard dog to worry about there. He worked in the insurance industry and parked at Vienna Metro. He liked to visit one particular bookstore or maybe his wife worked there and they were affiliated with The Butterfly Foundation. All that from a few stickers.

  Stickers.

  Why not announce everything about ourselves on our vehicles and let criminals come knock on the door?

  I felt an urge to add an NRA sticker to his bumper. Maybe that would tip the odds in his favor.

  Stickers. My mind circled the word several times. Our victims had to have something in common, something we hadn’t found yet. The Unsub wasn’t killing them randomly.

  Make that Unsubs. There was something else behind this. What?

  Kurt pulled up and wound down the window. “You want to take your car?”

  “Nah. I moved it out of everyone’s way. I’ll pick it up when I get back.” I climbed into Kurt’s car and fastened my seatbelt. I should’ve taken my car so I could escape as required but something a bit out of whack told me driving wasn’t smart. “You decided to pick me up why?”

  “Good dinner?”

  “Yep.”

  Small talk?

  “Kurt, what’s up?”

  “The notes. There’s a chance they’re placed to engage Delta.”

  “Yeah?” There had to be more to it than that, surely. “I’ve already gone there.”

  “They could also be directed at you.”

  “Is this a team collaborative thought?”

  “Yes.”

  Great.

  “I can take care of myself. Notes at crime scenes aren’t entirely foreign to me.”

  “Just be a bit careful, Conway. This could escalate.”

  I thought about mentioning Rosanne and changed my mind.

  “What?” Kurt asked.

  “What, what?” I replied settling in for the drive.

  “You’re thinking about something. Share, Conway. Many minds lighten the load and all that …”

  “I don’t think that’s a saying,” I replied, feeling a frown form and trying to turn it into a smile.

  “You know what I mean … spill it.” Kurt’s hands gripped the steering wheel a little tighter.

  “Stickers,” I said.

  Not what he expected at all. I smiled as Kurt tried to wrap his head around my answer. He certainly didn’t relax his grip. I heard Mitch in my head telling me to stop playing with Kurt. My laughter hit the windshield and slid down to melt on the dash.

  “Something funny, Conway?” Kurt glanced at me, his hands still tight.

  “Yeah,” I replied and didn’t elaborate. Mitch told me off again. More laughter hit the windshield then pooled on the dash.

  “Stickers are amusing?”

  “No stickers are dangerous.”

  Without anything else being said he pulled over and stopped. Kurt twisted in his seat and looked at me. Mitch, still in my head, told me to stop before Kurt sent me for another MRI.

  “What’s with the stickers?” To his credit, he managed to contain himself and use his reserved-for-patients voice.

  He’s a doctor, shouldn’t be hard. I knew I often made it hard.

  Yeah, I can stop anytime.

  “I saw the back of Aidan’s car. He has those ridiculous family stickers … and some other stickers. From the stickers, I could create a profile and use that to find him, Holly and baby Lucy.”

  “Okay. People depicted as stick figures are dangerous?”

  “Precisely.”

  “Where’s this going?”

  “To our victims.” Questions rattled off my tongue. “Have we seen their cars? Do they have stickers? Are any of the sticker’s things they do or have in
common?”

  “Got it. I think. We’ll revisit every scene in the morning and check out their cars.”

  “Now, Kurt.”

  “Morning, Conway.”

  “Mornings tend to bring fresh crime scenes.”

  He couldn’t argue with that. Made sense to check cars now before the pressure of the morning hit.

  “Office first?”

  “No need.”

  Happy, I smiled. Mitch growled a little in my head, pretty happy too. Silence enveloped the car shutting out the world.

  Kurt glanced in the rearview mirror a few more times than usual. Twice he adjusted the angle of the mirror and complained about the car behind trying to blind him with high beams.

  “This person is either a total jerk or he’s oblivious to the fact he’s driving with his headlights on full,” Kurt said, pulling over and letting the idiot pass.

  I wrote the tag number down because that’s what I do. Kurt pulled back into the stream of traffic while I made a call. “Comms. QV. Virginia plates. YHD six five four seven. Yankee Hotel Delta six five four seven.”

  “Wait one, Agent.”

  Headlights filled the car. Kurt adjusted the rearview mirror again.

  “Another one. What is it with people tonight?” he said.

  Comms came back to me. “Yankee Hotel Delta six five four seven, black Ford Taurus, reported stolen by the owner, Todd Black, two weeks ago from Richmond.”

  “Thank you.” I hung up. “The first car, Kurt. Wasn’t a black Taurus, was it?”

  “Nope. It was an SUV of some sort.”

  Headlights lit the interior again.

  “Fucking idiot,” Kurt said. “Get off my ass.”

  Whoa. Uncharacteristic use of foul language from Kurt.

  He took the next left. The car stayed with us. Another left. Followed by a sharp right. My hand grasped the radio from the cradle on the dash ready to call comms. Our car lurched around another left corner. Headlights followed.

  “What is the idiot’s problem?”

  “No idea but he’s playing with fire.”

  I would’ve been tempted to slam on the brakes and let the little jerk freak out. Kurt wasn’t so reckless.

  “Can you see the license plate?”

  “No, they’re too close. All I can see is lights.”

  “I think they know we’re feds and the driver wants to be stopped.” Wouldn’t be the first time. Could be someone needing help. “Our black Suburbans and federal plates aren’t exactly incognito.”

  “Just in case …” I depressed the button on the side of the radio in my hand. “Comms, this is SSA Conway. Request intercept. We are …” I searched the dark for something that gave our location. Nothing.

  “About to be westbound on Arlington Boulevard from Sleepy Hollow.” Kurt paused. “Beechwood Lane.”

  I relayed the information to comms and they told me they’d tap into our GPS and send local police to intercept the car following us.

  We hit Arlington Boulevard with the car still up our tailpipe. Half a mile later, sirens wailed and flashing lights pulled over the car behind us. We pulled off the road ahead of them and waited. Time ticked by. We waited. A cop approached our car. Kurt zapped his window down and showed his badge.

  “Did the driver say why he was following us?”

  “No, sir, but he’s driving a stolen car.”

  “I believe there was another car involved,” I said, giving the officer the information on the other car.

  “That puts a dark spin on things, Agent,” the officer said, writing the information down. “We’ve arrested the driver … he’s calling himself Danny Wills.”

  “Calling himself Danny Wills or he is Danny Wills?” Kurt asked.

  “We got a white male in his early twenties saying he’s Danny Wills. The only Danny Wills I’ve found in the system is an elderly black male.”

  “Fascinating,” I said. “I think I want to have a chat with Danny.” I flung my door open and joined the police officer. “Lead the way.”

  Kurt stepped up beside me. Didn’t think he’d want to sit this out.

  Another police officer swung open the back passenger door to the squad car, revealing a young man in handcuffs.

  “Hi, you are?” I said as he looked up at me.

  “Danny Wills.”

  “Do you know who I am?”

  He averted his eyes. I took that as a maybe.

  “No.”

  “Try again, Mr. Wills, we’re not growing mushrooms so don’t require manure.”

  He fixed his gaze on the back of the seat in front of him. Tiresome.

  “Your buddy, who passed us earlier, will be picked up. Maybe he’ll be chatty.”

  “I was going home, on my own,” Wills replied.

  “In a stolen car,” I said. “Pretty unfortunate that two stolen cars drew our attention and that you tailgated a federal car, wouldn’t you say?”

  The corner of his mouth lifted almost imperceptibly.

  A radio crackled. The police officer who’d been standing nearby turned to us. “We have the first car, the driver is in custody.”

  “Awesome.”

  Sudden movement across the roof of the squad car diverted my attention. Christopher Chance leaned over the car from the other side.

  “Fancy meeting you out here,” he said with a lopsided grin.

  “Chance … what do you know?”

  “Don’t let this guy go. He’s part of something and he wants out of it. You were right, El, he knows you’re feds.”

  “Is he involved in the case I’m working on?”

  “Yes and no. He knows something but he doesn’t know he knows.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Never easy, Chance, is it?”

  Chance laughed and shrugged. “He saw something, Ellie, something that will help you. Don’t let him go.”

  “Thanks, Chance,” I said.

  He winked and walked away.

  Kurt motioned me to follow him out of earshot. “What do you see?”

  “What makes you think I saw something?”

  Kurt sighed. “If you didn’t see something then we’re going to talk about what the hell that was back there …”

  This wasn’t the first time I wondered what happened outwardly when I had my little chats with Chance. “What’d it look like?”

  “It looked like it always does. Like you’ve zoned out. And that’s not what happened, is it?”

  I shook my head. “Chance happened. He said Wills knows something about our case but he doesn’t know he knows. He said not to let him go.”

  Kurt’s head shook. “We can hold him – stolen cars.”

  “I know.” I just didn’t know what questions to ask to get the information we needed from him, yet.

  “I’ll talk to the cop, let’s have both drivers escorted to our office. They can wait for us there,” Kurt said.

  Fifteen

  Everybody’s Broken

  Sandra had left a file on my desk. I opened it to find everything the newspaper had on the person who placed the memorial. Credit card details included.

  I read all the papers in the file twice. Including the warrant.

  The credit card belonged to Serena Sorenson. That was a nice touch. The ad was phoned in ten minutes before the cut-off time on Tuesday evening and Serena was already dead.

  I was pretty sure it was still Wednesday. I checked the clock on the wall. So the ad was placed last night. The person who took the call said the caller was female. I guessed a male using Serena’s card would’ve raised some suspicion.

  That spun out my brain a bit. Confirmation of a woman’s involvement in one aspect of this case did not thrill me. No good muttering at Kurt about keeping an open mind if mine is closed to the possibility.

  The night felt long. The two car thieves were in interview rooms and I wasn’t in a hurry to talk to either of them. I needed something. An idea of how to proceed with the interviews. Direction. Nothing surfaced. Collating all the inform
ation I’d taken from the stickers on the victims’ cars seemed the best thing for me to do. I’d worry about the car thieves later. They’d keep, for a bit.

  I reached for the phone and called Kurt. “How long can we hold those guys from tonight?” I said without bothering to announce myself.

  “Twenty-four hours then we have to charge them with something.”

  Grand larceny was a no brainer. Motor vehicle theft laws in Virginia meant we could charge them both with grand larceny. If they were stealing to order, there could be bigger fish to fry.

  “Okay. We hold them as long as we can and then charge them with grand larceny, might be worth getting police to investigate. Might be a car theft ring ‒ if it turns out it crosses state lines, then we’ll pass it on to another team here.”

  “Good idea. I’ll get hold of Fairfax Police Department.”

  “Thanks. I’ll be in touch.”

  “You need to go home, Conway. This can wait until morning. Lee, Sam, and I can handle the car theft.”

  I felt pretty sure they could, except Chance told me Wills knew something about our case. That meant I needed to ask the questions.

  “Hey, did you see the information from Sandra?”

  “Yeah. The person who took the call thought it was a female placing the ad.”

  “Sounds like wriggly things falling out of a can …”

  “Maybe we should bait a hook with those worms and go fishing.”

  “Not a bad idea.”

  “Conway, go home. This can all wait until morning.”

  I imagined Kurt’s mouth set into a grim line. Yeah … I really don’t think it can.

  “You should be home too.” Two can play at that game.

  “Don’t be late,” Kurt replied, resignation heavy in his voice. “You have a fiancé waiting for you.”

  “And you have a partner and child at home …”

  He hung up.

  Already late, I had a feeling it would be early morning before I saw Mitch.

  The cars had netted an array of stickers and much information. I sat at my desk and sorted everything into lists. It didn’t help. I got up and walked to the far wall. Time to use my whiteboard wall. What a brilliant invention. Magnets and pens at the ready, I positioned photos of the victims in a timeline. Under each picture, I added the information from each car. Why was I so sure there was a link?