by Ty Patterson
‘No clue.’ Beth curbed her irritation at the cop’s staccato questioning.
It’s the first break we have. All of us are buzzing. Cut him some slack.
‘The sim card was bought at a Best Buy in New York, two days ago.’ Meghan called out and ratcheted the buzz further.
‘Who bought it?’
‘Werner’s got the where. For the who, it’ll have to hack their system.’
Chang burst into a coughing fit and when he had finished, he sat straight, wiped his face and wheezed. ‘No hacking. We’re New York’s finest. We can get the details.’
He spoke softly in his cell phone, and when he had finished, Meghan had a further update.
‘There’s an Amtrak train, the Crescent, that arrives Toccoa at six fifteen a.m. Every day service. It originates from Penn Station. New Orleans is last stop.’
‘Check –’
‘On to it.’
Chang spoke in his phone again, giving further instructions. A team of cops would check out ticket purchases, would look up CCTV images at Penn.
Beth looked up a number, dialed it, and put the phone on speaker.
It rang several times and then a voice came on. ‘This is Toccoa Police Department. If you have an emergency –’
Beth hung up.
‘We do have an emergency.’ Meghan raised her head from her screen.
Something in her voice made them look at her.
She turned the screen toward them, highlighted a section of the photograph, and enlarged it.
It was a newspaper on a bench behind Maddie, a local one.
She enlarged the newspaper. ‘Today. The photograph was taken today.’
‘No other trains to or from Toccoa, other than the Crescent.’
Beth was rising even before she had finished. She grabbed her jacket, tossed Meghan’s to her, and by the time they reached the elevator, the cops were behind them.
No other trains meant the chances were high that Maddie was either in or near Toccoa.
Fifteen minutes later they were speeding toward JFK where their Gulfstream was, Chang and Pizaka busy on their phones.
Beth waited for the cops to finish and then asked a question which stumped them all.
‘Why send it to us?’
Chapter Twenty-One
It was eleven a.m. on the seventh day of Maddie’s kidnapping when their Gulfstream parted company with earth.
Pizaka and Chang had been on their phones constantly on the drive to the airport, talking to their team, calling the Toccoa PD, and the Sheriff’s office in Stephens County.
Progress had been made when the aircraft reached cruising height.
The Toccoa Police Chief would put up police tape around the signboard, to prevent tampering of any evidence.
The name board would be dusted for fingerprints and checked for DNA, as would the immediate surrounding area.
‘We don’t have John Doe’s prints on record,’ Chang objected to Pizaka’s report.
Pizaka brushed that off by lifting a shoulder. They would cross that bridge when they came to it. Finding prints was the first priority.
Chang leaned back in his leather seat took an appreciative sip of the juice Beth had handed out from the on-board kitchen.
He took in the luxurious appointment of the aircraft, turned to his partner and tried again. ‘I could get used to this. Why don’t we get seconded to Beth and Meghan?’
Pizaka’s baleful stare brought him back to business.
‘Good news is that we traced the phone’s purchase. Bought at another Best Buy on the same day as the sim card.’
He mentioned two stores in Queens. ‘Nowhere near the law firm or Amy Kittrell’s house.’
‘Who –’ Meghan burst out.
‘Who is unknown. Buyer paid in cash. No store cameras captured him.’
Three pairs of eyes sharpened when he continued. ‘I have better news.’
‘We triangulated the location of the phone when the message was sent.’
‘The phone was in the vicinity of Toccoa.’
He let the suspense build and ducked when Beth threw a cushion at him.
‘This morning. It came online at six a.m.’
‘Where is it now?’
Chang shook his head regretfully. ‘It’s disappeared again.’
Silence fell, broken by a sound, a sharply drawn breath, by Meghan. She turned her screen around to her sister and the cops.
On it was an image of a man and a girl, their backs to the camera. They were heading to a train, to their left.
‘Werner got this from the cameras in Penn Station. Heights match those of John Doe and Maddie.’
The time stamp on the image, one forty-five p.m. on the previous day, prompted the cops to pull their phones and make another round of calls.
Meghan held up three fingers. ‘Ticket counter staff. Train personnel. Station staff.’
Chang got what she meant. All those people needed to be interviewed and instructed by his detectives. He nodded without breaking off from the messages he was relaying.
More time passed. Sunlight streamed through the Gulfstream’s windows and turned Pizaka’s shades to gold.
His phone rang. He listened, thanked the caller and hung up.
His sunglasses turned toward Meghan and Beth. ‘No man and daughter on the Crescent. A Viewliner bedroom is empty. It had a man and a young girl. No one saw the man well enough to describe him. Girl resembles Madison Kittrell.’
Meghan turned back to her screen, electrified. No sighting on the train meant the pair could still be in the town.
Or they could have rented a getaway vehicle.
She commanded Werner to talk to various databases and check rental vehicles. To her left she heard Chang whisper into his phone. He was relaying near identical instructions to the Toccoa PD.
The Gulfstream was scything through air, sky, and cloud when she finished typing. Far below, she could see the browns and greens of the planet as it rotated, as it had for billions of years.
Hang on Maddie. We’re close.
It was two p.m. when they landed on the sole runway at Toccoa Airport. Bright sunshine and heat fueled their urgency as they taxied, disembarked, and headed out of the small building that made up the terminal.
A man with limp hair was lounging against a black Tahoe. He straightened when he spotted Meghan, and strode swiftly to her.
He handed her the Tahoe’s keys and walked away without a single word to a waiting Toyota.
Meghan felt the cops’ bemused eyes on her. She didn’t explain. She climbed into the driver’s seat, fired up the vehicle and rolled out when the rest of them had been seated.
Zeb had similar vehicles in major cities across the country, as well as in several international cities. The vehicles were stored and maintained in auto garages that were owned by ex-military men, all of them vetted by Zeb and Broker.
Each vehicle was reinforced with Kevlar, had armor glass windows, run flat tires, and had several other defense and offense capabilities.
A driver from the nearest auto garage delivered an SUV to the point of use, and collected it after a mission. The garage serviced the vehicle, repaired any wear and tear, and kept it ready for the next mission.
Meghan lit her turn signal, and turned right on East Tugalo Street and seven minutes later, drew up in front of Toccoa station.
She hopped out and opened the doors for Pizaka and Chang.
No need for them to know there is an arsenal under their feet, beneath the floorboards.
A uniformed police officer stepped out from the station and walked towards them.
Roy Pickett, his name plate read, Police Chief.
He was short, stocky, and sweating. His eyes were sharp as they took in Meghan. They lingered for a second on Beth and then glanced over to the cops.
Pickett shook their hands and drew a finger across his forehead. It gleamed with sweat.
‘They aren’t here. They have disappeared.’
Pickett’s officers had searched the station and the surroundings thoroughly. There was no trace of John Doe or Maddie.
They had interviewed all the car rental agencies in Toccoa. No one matched John Doe’s description.
They had even spoken to several store owners on Main Street. Madison Kittrell hadn’t been seen in town.
His officers had finished dusting the signboard and the bench where the newspaper had been lying. They would analyze it for results and inform the NYPD.
The newspaper was in his custody and it too would be dusted.
No one had boarded the train that day. His men were still working on who else had disembarked.
He waited after he had finished briefing them, the sun beating down on them relentlessly as if mocking their wasted flight.
The train depot, its yellow and red structure immediately recognizable from the photo, looked empty and forlorn. No other person was visible but for Pickett and a few of his officers.
Two police cruisers and the Tahoe were the only vehicles in the lot in front of the station.
‘There’s a ticket agent in the station. He didn’t see any man or a girl.’
He wiped his forehead with the palm of a hand and dried it against a trouser leg.
‘The station doesn’t get much traffic. It has one service in a day and it’s not as if Toccoa is a large commercial hub,’ he said with a small smile.
‘They were here.’ His smile grew larger when the twins looked at him in sudden interest.
‘The station is also home to the Currahee Military Museum. It’s usually closed that time of the morning; however, a caretaker had arrived early today.’
He broke off when Beth ran to the building, Meghan close behind her.
The caretaker was in his late fifties, and had moon faced spectacles on his face. His eyes were bright behind them and regarded the twins in wonder.
‘You both are genuine twins?’
Identical, not genuine, Meghan corrected him mentally.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Call me Bob,’ the caretaker flashed a gap-toothed grin, visibly pleased at the attention he was receiving.
Yes, he had seen a girl. She was peering through a window when he had approached from the side of the building.
‘I’m waiting for my mommy,’ she replied when Bob had questioned her, concerned that she seemed to be alone.
No she wasn’t alone. Daddy had gone to make a phone call.
Bob hung around for a few minutes waiting for Daddy to turn up, however, he had things to do, stuff to be put away.
The girl was nowhere to be seen when he returned half an hour later. Neither was anyone who looked like a daddy. The ticket agent hadn’t seen her when Bob asked him.
Bob shrugged his shoulders and went back to work, figuring Mommy had collected Daddy and the little girl and had driven away.
Meghan looked at the roof of the station, excused herself and ran around the building.
‘No security cameras?’ she asked when she returned.
‘No cameras, ma’am.’
She looked over to Pizaka and Chang; the NYPD cops were with Pickett who was showing them the likely spot where Maddie had been photographed.
Chang felt her gaze and shook his head imperceptibly.
Nothing more to be seen.
She and Beth went inside the cool interior of the station and spoke to the ticket agent.
He was as old as Bob, his brown eyes smiling at their approach
‘It’s the most excitement I have had in many years,’ he greeted them and introduced himself.
He kept shaking his head, the smile fading from his face as Meghan peppered him with questions.
‘I’m sorry, ma’am. I wish I could help, but I didn’t see anything. I told Roy the same.’
Meghan stood in the station’s shade and watched her sister join the cops.
She forced despair away, breathed deeply, and looked at the blue sky in the distance.
Where are you, Maddie?
The man and Maddie were still in Toccoa. The man knew his message would trigger a man hunt and the local police would be roped in.
He also knew the cops would question car rental agencies and hotels. He had given thought to their escape from the station and had hit upon a plan.
It needed a stroke of luck.
He got lucky.
He had hung around the station when the train had departed, his phone to his ear, when he saw the old lady emerge from a restroom.
She made her way slowly to a pickup truck in the station’s yard.
He approached her, smiled ruefully and spun a story about his cell phone dying on him. That his wife was waiting for them at the elementary school, to check it out for their daughter.
They were from Atlanta and would be moving to Toccoa because of his job. His wife had driven a day earlier, and if his phone hadn’t died, she would be waiting for them at the station.
The old lady was happy to drive them to the school and it was there that he and the girl spent the day.
While the cops search for us everywhere else.
‘He’s mocking us. He’s taking us on a wild goose chase,’ Beth said quietly.
Meghan, following Pickett as he reversed and rolled out of the station, didn’t reply, though she agreed with her sister.
Pizaka or Chang didn’t refute Beth’s comment. There was no other reason for the message to be sent.
Meghan cut her eyes to her sister. Beth was stony faced, her eyes expressionless.
We still don’t know how he got our numbers, but that’s part of his taunt.
They had traveled less than a hundred yards when Meghan slammed the brakes suddenly.
‘Jeez, sis,’ Beth yelled and braced herself with a hand. ‘What happened?’
‘The signboard. The graffiti on it.’
Chapter Twenty-Three
Meghan reversed her Tahoe and drove back to the station’s yard. She looked up once in the mirror and saw Pickett’s tail lights flare, and simultaneously Beth’s phone buzzed.
She hopped out, heard her twin say, ‘some harebrained idea,’ and then she was away, running to the signboard.
She stopped when she was a few feet away and stared at it.
The graffiti was still there.
A crunch of tires on gravel announced the police chief’s arrival. Doors slammed, voices murmured, and the rest of them joined her.
‘You found Maddie?’ Chang smirked when he followed her gaze and saw nothing but the signboard.
‘What do you see?’ Meghan challenged him.
Chang frowned. ‘Nothing. A signboard. We’ve have been looking at it all day.’
A door opened and closed and more footsteps came their way.
The ticket agent.
‘What’s up, Chief?’
Meghan turned to him. ‘Sir, how old is this graffiti?’
The clerk squinted at the board, scratched his head and shook his head in disbelief.
‘Who the heck did that?’
He raised his hands helplessly and turned to them. ‘I never saw that before. It wasn’t there yesterday.’
Meghan smiled triumphantly. ‘That’s John Doe’s work.’
The graffiti was meaningless. A red squiggle on each corner of the board, on top of the lettering. A red slash next to an O.
The board now read TO/CCOA.
‘That makes no sense,’ Pickett frowned.
‘Why didn’t we notice it before?’ Pizaka glared at Chang and the twins, as if they were responsible for his not spotting the red markings.
‘We are inured to graffiti,’ Meghan replied. ‘We are so used to seeing it around us, that we just turn a blind eye.’
‘What made you return?’
‘Something that Chief Pickett said. That this is a small town. You don’t see much street art or disfiguring in such places.’
‘You’re right,’ the chief agreed with her. ‘I still don’t k
now what that marking means, though.’
They all turned to the sign and studied it in silence.
No clues came to them.
‘Those squiggles could be anything. That slash…’ Beth shrugged in resignation.
‘I bet the paint comes from a spray can that you can buy in any hardware or paint store,’ Chang grumped sourly.
‘How do we know John Doe did that?’ Pizaka demanded, mopping sweat from his face. Sweat wasn’t good. It spoiled his profile.
‘Buddy, we live in New York. A street artist wouldn’t stop at a few lines. Our mystery man did that.’
‘It must mean something.’
‘It does. To him. Meghan’s right. He’s mocking us.’
They flew back to New York in the evening after spending more time with Pickett in his office.
His officers had spoken to hardware stores in the town. None of them had reported recent sales of spray cans.
There were very few people in town who were known troublemakers. All of them had iron clad alibis. None of them had been in the station’s vicinity. They didn’t disfigure the signboard.
Zeb was waiting for them at JFK. His shades clashed with Pizaka’s. Neither of them greeted the other.
‘Anything?’ Zeb asked Meghan.
She pulled out her phone and showed the marking to him.
‘That means something?’
‘Not at the moment.’
He drove them back silently, and when he was nearing One PP, Chang’s phone buzzed.
His listened, grunting and uh-uhing now and then. His lips were tight, his face was pale, when he hung up.
‘Amy Kittrell is in critical care.’
The man left the school with several leaflets, the girl gripping his free hand tightly.
She had asked for Mommy several times; he had to spin another story, that Mommy was selling a big house and had to cancel her trip.
The girl asked if they were moving to Toccoa. She liked the school, but didn’t want to leave New York. She didn’t want to leave Peaches and Lizzie.
