The Cipher

by Maldonado, Isabella

  Bianca tilted her head in thought, jet-black ponytail falling to one side. “You’re also betting your guys can ping him somehow, aren’t you?”

  The girl was wicked smart. Emphasis on wicked. Nina jabbed a finger at her. “You and your friends leave this to us. Don’t interfere with a federal investigation.”

  Bianca rested a hand on her hip. “News flash, Agent Guerrera, the whole country is interfering. Isn’t that what you literally just told me you guys were talking about yesterday?”

  Nina ignored the attitude. “I can’t protect the whole country. But I can damn well protect one seventeen-year-old girl who is messing with something she doesn’t understand.” She grew serious. “Something . . . evil.”

  “Oh, I understand evil,” Bianca said quietly. “I understand it just fine.”

  She’d met Bianca four years ago when she was a Fairfax County police officer, and Bianca was a troubled thirteen-year-old serial runaway. When Bianca had disappeared for the umpteenth time, Nina set out to find her, scouring every known teen hangout on her beat until she located the girl. Over burgers, Nina got Bianca to open up by sharing her own past. After learning why Bianca had run, she arrested the couple who had been her foster parents at the time, arranging for Bianca to stay with her for a few days until CPS could find an appropriate new situation for her. The instant Mrs. Gomez had spotted Bianca, she found new purpose. The Gomez children were all grown, and Mrs. G quickly convinced her husband to fill their empty nest with foster kids. Starting with a precocious adolescent with the intellect of an adult. A loving home environment had softened Bianca’s hard edges.

  Nina didn’t want her to play the Cipher’s game and backslide into a dark place after coming so far. She strode over to grasp the girl’s slender shoulders. “Don’t underestimate him, mi’ja. I’ve looked into his eyes.” She suppressed a shudder. “He has no soul.”

  Apparently conceding the point, Bianca tried another approach. “Maybe you guys should post on some of his social media accounts.”

  “Because we want to encourage him?”

  “If you want him to give himself away, then get him talking,” Bianca said.

  Nina’s mind raced through different possible outcomes. “That’s not a bad idea.” She paced across the room, thinking. “I’d have to convince Buxton first. He’s bound to think direct interaction will introduce another variable we can’t control.”

  She considered enlisting Wade’s support and dismissed the idea. He seemed to be recalibrating his opinion of her during their after-hours discussion, but she sensed he was withholding final judgment.

  “I say better you than the randos online,” Bianca said. “They’re making fun of him, calling him a freak or a moron. He gets pissed and snipes back at them.” She shook her head. “Stupid on all sides.”

  Breck had mentioned the trolls. They must be getting to him. She considered what would happen if he got a direct message from the FBI. Would he engage? Would he repost for the world to see? A loud gasp drew her attention back to Bianca, who was looking down at her cell phone.

  “They cracked the code.” Her eyes glinted as she glanced at Nina. “The MIT team. They figured out the message and posted the answer.”

  Nina rushed to her side. “What does it say? How did they solve it?”

  Bianca scrolled down with her finger. “They divided the numbers thirty-two, eighteen, ten, and thirty-six by two to get sixteen, nine, five, and eighteen. Swapping those numbers for letters of the alphabet, that spells P-I-E-R. The numbers were followed by the letters F and R. They figured the letters represented six and eighteen. Using the same logic, they divided those numbers by two, coming up with C and I. If you do the reverse of the first part of the message and exchange the letters for numbers, that makes three and nine. Put it all together, you get Pier Thirty-Nine.”

  Nina crossed the room to retrieve her phone from the coffee table. “I wonder if the analysts solved it too. Where did those MIT students post the answer?”

  “They put it on the Cipher’s Twitter feed in response to one of his tweets.” Bianca’s hand flew to her mouth. “Oh no, oh no, no, no.”

  “What?” Nina backtracked to peer over Bianca’s trembling shoulder.

  “The Cipher posted a picture after their message,” Bianca said between her fingers.

  Nina reached forward to tap the image, expanding it. The tiny screen showed a girl’s body floating facedown in murky water, blonde hair rippling out like a golden fan. A caption below the picture read TOO LATE, WARRIOR GIRL.

  Nina’s phone buzzed in her hand. In a state of shock, she reflexively lifted it to her ear. “Agent Guerrera.”

  Wade’s words came out in a terse baritone. “Pack a bag. We’re heading to San Francisco.”

  Chapter 13

  Nina turned her back to the crowd clustered behind the yellow tape. She felt the unsub watching her, his presence almost palpable through the heavy air redolent with the musk of nearby sea lions basking in the sun.

  “We should be at the morgue where the body is,” Wade said. “I can get a lot more insight from observing what he did with the victim than I can getting gawked at by a gaggle of tourists.”

  She felt raw and exposed after recounting her story with Wade in front of the team yesterday. A six-hour commercial flight crammed together in the back of the plane hadn’t helped. There had been no time alone with her new partner to establish the parameters of their working relationship in the field, and now a vague sense of tension permeated their interactions.

  She was supposed to be there to offer her insight into the Cipher’s actions. Instead, she felt like one of many tools at Wade’s disposal. A useful resource. But she was more than that. She was a federal agent. He had his way of investigating and she had hers. He had clearly taken in everything he needed to see at the scene, but she hadn’t finished her assessment yet.

  “I’m sure one of the San Francisco field office agents would be happy to take you to the ME’s office,” she said to him. “I’ll catch up with you later.”

  His mouth flattened into a thin line. “All I’m saying is we’ve spent enough time here.”

  “I’m a field agent.” Without the slightest concern that anyone might overhear, she planted herself directly in front of him and swept her arm out in a wide arc that encompassed the bay and the pier. “As in, out in the damn field.”

  “You know that’s bullshit, Guerrera. BAU agents go out on cases too. I went to the scene in DC if you recall. We’re done here. If something else comes up, we can get info about it from the SFPD without continuing to make a spectacle of ourselves and feed the unsub’s ego.”

  He might be the senior agent, but he could make mistakes like anyone else. “You missed the necklace and the spray paint on the dumpster in Georgetown. I don’t want to overlook anything here.” Point made, she turned away and strode to the edge of the pier where the blue-green water gently lapped against the sun-bleached planks.

  The girl’s body had been tied to one of the chains holding the cluster of floating platforms loosely together. Nina surveyed the thick guano-strewn boards that formed an island in the San Francisco Bay. She couldn’t see an easy way to get to the pier itself, which was detached from the slips holding boats nearby to preserve a haven for the massive sunbathing sea lions. How had the Cipher done it?

  She pivoted and walked back past Wade to the SFPD lieutenant who’d briefed her when she arrived twenty minutes earlier. “Lieutenant Spangler, what time did you say the victim was found?”

  “About five this morning.”

  “None of the tourist shops or restaurants were open then?”

  He shook his balding head. “The only people in the area were boaters preparing to go out later and some of the folks who sell food in the open-air market on Fisherman’s Wharf. They set up their stands early.” He shooed a persistent seagull away with a wave of his hand. “We’re canvassing, but I doubt we’ll come up with anything. Our best bet is the boaters.”

>   “Is that how he would have had to get to the floating docks?” she asked. “There’s no direct access from the pier.”

  “This is the most photographed pier in the country. It’s on a constant video feed. He must have known that.” Spangler jerked his chin at a row of yachts docked at a nearby wharf. “We figure he must’ve taken a dinghy from a slip and ferried that poor girl over here while it was still dark.” He hooked a thumb over his duty belt. “He’d have to be nuts to swim her over, what with the current and the sea lions and all.”

  She followed his gaze. “Is the water always this choppy?”

  “Pretty much.”

  She thanked the lieutenant and strolled slowly back, scanning the docks, the crowd lining the pier, and the slip. What had he been thinking? Why had he chosen such a public place? Risked exposure? Unfortunately, the man who probably had the best chance of reading the Cipher’s intentions was standing a few yards away with his hands on his hips, glowering at her.

  Undeterred by the resentment evident in his tense posture, she approached Wade with her next question. “In the photograph the unsub posted, the victim looked blonde. The report has her at about five eight. Way taller than me.”

  Wade looked down at her. “From what we’ve been told, she’s nothing like you physically. That’s why I want to get a look at her in person and hear what they’ve dug up about her background. She must have something else in common with you. Whatever that point of convergence is will tell us a lot about him.”

  She signaled Lieutenant Spangler. “Could you take us back to the wharf? I’d like to see the . . .” She stopped herself before saying body. Every victim deserved to be called by name. “Do we have an ID yet?”

  “The girl was nude,” he said. “No ID. A few families of missing teens came forward to see if it was their daughter, but so far, no luck. Some of the guys who work the area think she might be homeless.” He motioned toward the downtown area. “We get a lot of that here. They’re called ‘urban campers.’”

  She glanced at Wade. “Anything else?”

  “The geographical profiling on this guy just got a hell of a lot harder.”

  They climbed aboard the SFPD watercraft tied to the thick wooden pylon and sat on the white vinyl cushions in back. Within five minutes, they were on the wharf, where an FBI agent from the San Francisco field office stood next to an SFPD sergeant, impatient expressions on their faces.

  Wade reached them first. “What’s up?”

  The agent gestured toward the patrol sergeant, who held up a plastic evidence bag.

  “One of my officers working the perimeter recovered this from a couple of people in the crowd,” the sergeant said. “We’ve got them in two separate squad cars, ready for interview.”

  Bright blue ink caught Nina’s eye, and she motioned for the bag from the sergeant. Turning it over, she saw an envelope with the words WARRIOR GIRL printed in the center.

  A hot, prickly sensation crawled up her spine. “Where did this come from?”

  “The people who found it said it was taped to a dumpster. They already opened it. Said there was a message written in some sort of code.” He shrugged. “They couldn’t understand it.”

  She and Wade exchanged glances. Another body. Another dumpster. Another coded message.

  For her.

  Chapter 14

  Laramie Municipal Park

  Sweetwater County, Wyoming

  The Cipher plopped the fast food burger on the dashboard, rolled down the window, and spat a chunk of gristle onto the ground. Disgusting.

  He wiped the grease from his fingers and rotated the mobile phone in the bracket attached to the car’s vent, turning it sideways. Much wider picture. He googled clue found in trash and tapped the first link that came up. The YouTube video began with a shot of a crowd at Fisherman’s Wharf. He smiled. This would be fun. Worth pulling off the freeway to enjoy the scene he’d heard about on the radio. At least he had XM, so he didn’t have to fumble through news channels as he drove from one state to the next, making his way back east.

  His pulse quickened when he saw the black Suburban pull into the frame. He licked a spot of ketchup from the corner of his mouth and leaned forward to increase the volume.

  “I don’t get why they still won’t let us near the pier.” A shrill female voice spoke in the background as the scene played out. She seemed to be narrating as she shot the footage, as opposed to speaking to a companion. “They took the body away hours ago,” she continued.

  He detected anger and fear in her voice. His smile widened.

  “Oh, wait. The FBI’s here,” she said in the background.

  A bit of jostling, as if she had elbowed her way through the throng to get a better view. “Hey, there’s the agent from that video. Nina something . . . the Warrior Girl.”

  He’d already spotted her, the oversize FBI raid jacket swallowing her petite frame. Her dark sunglasses hid much of her reaction. Damn. He’d wanted to watch those big brown eyes fill with dread. Instead, he caught her body momentarily stiffening. In that moment, he was certain she was thinking of him. They were connected.

  Arousal strained his jeans, making him shift in his seat as he recalled his time with her. He’d suppressed his darkest impulses throughout his adolescence and young adulthood, denying himself. All of that changed the moment he laid eyes on Nina for the first time. She was the one.

  He’d gathered the equipment and set up the shed that very night, but by the time he was ready, Nina had disappeared. He spent three days hunting her. He had been furious with her at the time, but the chase had added to the thrill. And given him a reason to punish her. He had bestowed one mark upon her for each day she made him wait. Then he had taken her three times, completing the triangle of retribution.

  He would have her again. And he would punish her so much more for escaping. He would take everything she had, including her life. As his excitement mounted, he was grateful he’d pulled into a deserted community park. A lone man sitting in his car at a busy rest stop off the freeway could have attracted unwanted attention.

  He willed his heated blood to cool as the unseen narrator in the video continued her commentary. “I hope she catches that Cipher guy.”

  He liked his new name. The Cipher. He was an enigma. He would continue to leave clues and invite the world to play his game. Under his rules. In his arena.

  The picture wobbled. “Quit pushing!”

  The Cipher dragged a finger across the bottom of the video, fast forwarding to the crucial part.

  “. . . says Warrior Girl on the envelope,” the female voice was saying. “This has got to be for that FBI lady.”

  The view screen angled down as a nicotine-stained female hand pulled the envelope from the side of the dumpster, taking the thick silver duct tape off with it.

  He fast forwarded again as the woman fumbled with the seal, taking a maddening amount of time to open it one-handed for the camera. No one seemed to be paying any attention to her when she slid the index card out and held it up.

  She read the message out loud. “Not understanding will make you sob. You have forty-eight hours to solve this.” She was jostled again and stopped reading but kept the card in front of her phone.

  He studied the series of numbers on the card: 75, 73, 3, 9, 101, 8, 75.

  Let the MIT eggheads chew on that.

  As the video continued, someone seemed to have finally noticed what the woman was doing. A tall skinny guy who looked to be in his twenties elbowed her. “Hey, what you got there?”

  “It was taped to the side of that trash bin.” She pulled the note away, possessive. “I think it’s a clue from the Cipher.”

  “Yeah, right.” The man’s tone was pure derision. “Does it say Professor Plum did it in the study with a lead pipe?”

  “Listen, asshole, it looks just like the other message he left.”

  “Let me see.” The guy’s hand shot out toward her.

  “I found it.” She yanked the card
away. “It’s mine.”

  “Give it here.” He moved in close, red T-shirt momentarily blocking the screen.

  A lot of jostling, swearing, and grunting followed.

  “Score.” The man stepped back, waving the tattered card.

  “I’m telling the police.” The woman followed this pronouncement with a string of expletives that questioned his intelligence, his manhood, and his parentage.

  “If this is a legit clue, the FBI will be looking at you for messing with it anyway.”

  “And what about you, Einstein? Now your prints are all over it too.”

  The man straightened. “I was just making sure it got turned over to the proper authorities.”

  “What’s going on over here?” A cop came into view.

  Adjusting his phone to eliminate glare from the sun setting behind him, the Cipher chuckled as each of the two morons rushed to explain to the cop how the other had tampered with important evidence. This was better than he’d hoped for.

  A sharp rap on the windshield jolted him upright in his seat. He snapped his head to the side to squint up at a police officer shining his flashlight into the car.

  He buzzed the window down.

  “Park closes at dark, pal.”

  Should he point out that it was still dusk? Claim a medical condition? Shoot the policeman where he stood? So many options.

  The officer’s gruff voice brought him up short. That sharp accusatory tone—along with the man’s barrel chest, five o’clock shadow, and shock of dark hair—brought back a memory from twenty-five years ago. He had been eleven years old when his father had barged into his bedroom and caught him with that magazine.

  “It’s a good thing your pants are already down, boy,” the old man said, unbuckling his belt. “Because I’m going to tan your backside.”

  He never had a bedroom door after that. He had also learned to be a lot sneakier. His father’s mood swings took unpredictable and often violent turns. Adjusting to them became instinctive. He learned to read people’s expressions and adapt on the fly.