Authors: Andrew Grant
Wednesday. Morning
.
Nicole missing for nineteen hours
It's a fraction over ninety-eight miles from the Space and Rocket Center to the UAB Hospital parking lot.
Devereaux covered the ground in sixty-nine minutes, dumped his car in a space reserved for emergency vehicles, and practically ran the rest of the way to Loflin's room.
“Did you find her?” Loflin was sitting up in bed and looking as though the night's sleep had done her a world of good.
“Not yet.” Devereaux moved the visitor's chair nearer to the bed. “We went to the place Alex thought Nicole would pick for her treat. We took enough Feds to invade a small country. And so far, zip.”
“That's awful. Maybe Alex was wrong?”
“Maybe. But I doubt it. I think I was wrong. Because of how I pictured your mom. I saw her as a criminal. I tried to anticipate what a criminal would do. But she's not just a criminal, is she, Jan? You said so yourself. She believes she's saving these kids. She's on a mission. That's a different kind of motivation altogether. I need to understand her better if I'm going to stop her from harming Nicole. And to do that, I need your help.”
“OK.” Loflin sat up straighter in the bed. “I'll try. What do you need?”
“This is the $64,000 question, Jan. And before you answer, remember I'm not looking to hurt your mom. Or get even with her. I just want my daughter back.”
“I get that, Cooper. And, hey, I held a gun on her. I shot her. So I'm totally on board with stopping her from hurting another kid. Especially yours. Just tell me what I can do.”
“I need to know how to contact her.”
“I'm sorry, Cooper.” Loflin sagged back against her pillow. “I can't help you with that.”
“Please. It's vital. For Nicole's sake.”
“I'm not saying I won't. I'm saying I can't. I don't know how.”
“You're her daughter. You must have a way. Even if it's just for emergencies.”
“I don't, Cooper.” Loflin leaned forward and lowered her voice. “I'll be honest. I know this could make me look bad, but I tried to get in touch with her myself. Today. To find out what her state of mind's like. I've been driving myself nuts with worry in case she comes here to punish me for turning on her. But it was no good. She wouldn't pick up.”
“You have a number? Can I try it?”
“Feel free. It won't help. The number's out of service. This used to happen all the time. She was always getting new phones. She said she kept losing them. Looking back, I guess she ditched them whenever she thought they were too hot to use.”
“Let me give it a shot. Just in case.”
Devereaux dialed the number Loflin gave him, but had no more luck than she'd had.
“When your mom would get a new phone, how did you find out the number?” Devereaux pushed the chair back so that he could straighten his legs.
“I had to wait for her to call me.”
“How about texting?”
“I'd text her all the time. She never replied, though. She said she didn't like doing it. And there's no point trying now. She's not blanking us. That number's history. The phone's either in pieces, or at the bottom of a lake.”
“OK. What else is there? Email?”
“No. She didn't use it. She said she was techno-illiterate.”
“Really?”
“It's true. She hated computers. I never saw her go near one.”
“Thanks, Jan. You're a genius.” Devereaux stood up, shoved the chair against the wall, and left the room on the double.
Wednesday. Morning
.
Nicole missing for twenty and a quarter hours
The IT technicians had moved twelve months previously to a spacious glass and steel addition at the back of the Support Services Bureau on Fourth Avenue. This had caused a lot of bad feelingâwhy should the geeks get a new “clubhouse” while other police department buildings were closing all over the city?âbut the people who worked there didn't care. They felt they deserved it, after years of plying their trade in a dingy, airless basement. And no one complained to their faces, anyway. Not unless they wanted their work to end up at the bottom of the pile.
Spencer Page was unusual in that he'd started his police department career in the field. He'd moved into technical support five years later, after recovering from a serious leg break he'd suffered in a fall while chasing a burglar down a fifteen-story fire escape. Some detectives didn't like working with him after that, as if he were a bad luck charm. Or lacking in character, for choosing not to get right back on the horse. But whenever he had the option, Devereaux always picked Page. He thought it was smart, the way he'd come back to a role that better suited his talents. And the experience he'd had on the street made him a little more accommodating than some of the career techies.
He understood how important it can be to get information fast, regardless of overtime restrictions. How sometimes the material you're asked for doesn't have to be genuine, as long as it looks realâlike a well-photoshopped picture or a fake phone billâif that's what it takes to loosen a stubborn criminal's tongue. And that sometimes it's better not to ask why the request is being made in the first place.
Page was tall and skinny, and he was wearing his trademark plain black T-shirt and skinny jeans with his ID clipped to a studded leather belt. He met Devereaux in the IT department's small refreshment area, which was known as The Custard Bowl because of its luminous yellow walls. The two men shook hands, Devereaux declined Page's offer of a drink, then they perched opposite each other on high stools at a round metal table in the corner of the room.
“Spencer, I need your help.” Devereaux flicked away a curled-up remnant of lettuce that had fallen out of someone's sandwich.
“Name it, buddy.” Page grinned. “If it's legal, it's yours. And if it isn't legal, it's yours, anyway. Just don't tell anyone.”
“Thanks. I appreciate it. Now here's the thing. I need to find someone, like yesterday. She's snatched a kid, and now she's in the wind. She's got eleven dead bodies in her wake already, and I want to stop her making it twelve. The problem is, we've got nothing on her. Nothing at all. We've tried all the normal ways, and come up with zip. The only angle I can think of is something that's up your alley.”
“OK. Shoot.”
“This woman, she painted a picture of herself as being techno-illiterate. However, I know for a fact she was using a bunch of webcams, and must have been dialing into them from all over creation. Which doesn't sound so illiterate to me. And knowing how everything she does is deliberate, and designed to mislead and misdirect, I'm thinking this means she doesn't want people to know about how up-to-date she is with how these webcams work. There must be something about it she wants to hide. Which means I want to find it. And I'm praying it's something that'll help me figure out where she is.”
“I'll be straight with you, Cooper.” Page ran his fingers through his straggly, straw-colored hair. “That's longer than a long shot. Unless
I catch her actually trying to access the cameras, there's almost no chance. And even then there are all kinds of tricks she could play to disguise where she truly is.”
“Does she have to be able to access the cameras? Because she can't get to them. They aren't online anymore. They're in the evidence locker.”
“Then, honestly, a snowball has a better chance of raising a family on Beelzebub's front porch than we do of tracing where she is.”
Devereaux slammed the palm of his hand on the table in frustration.
“Hey, buddy.” Page looked around, hoping Devereaux hadn't drawn too much attention to them. “Listen. Don't despair. These webcams. What were they hooked up to? Was any other equipment recovered along with them?”
“There could have been. Maybe. I don't know. All I saw were the cameras.”
“Well, you never know till you try, right? Give me the case number. I'll dig those suckers out, and if there's anything to be found that'll help, I'll find it. You have my personal guarantee.”
Wednesday. Morning
.
Nicole missing for twenty and a half hours
Devereaux stayed at the table after Page returned to his desk.
Another bright hope had dimmed, and seemed certain to fizzle out altogether. Devereaux felt trapped, as if each blind alley he'd run down had combined into an impenetrable warren he couldn't find his way out of. He closed his eyes, pushing back against the darkness, searching for another option, when he felt his phone begin to buzz in his pocket.
“Devereaux, where are you?” It was Agent Bruckner.
“At the Support Services Bureau. Back in Birmingham.”
“In Birmingham? Excellent. Hold the line. I'm patching in Grandison.”
There were a couple of electronic squawks in his ear, then Devereaux heard Grandison call out his name.
“OK.” Bruckner was exuberant. “We have a breakthrough. And Devereaux, you're about to be one proud dad. Listen to this. Alexandra Cunningham just got a call. From Nicole. She'd found Loflin's mother's phone, sneaked away with it while the woman was taking some kind of medicine, and raised the alarm.”
“Where are they?” Cooper jumped down from the stool and started toward the exit.
“Nicole didn't know, exactly. Only that they were in a hotel. It sounds like the woman doped her while she checked in, like she did with Ethan, so Nicole didn't see any signage. They did go out to get a bunch of swimsuits and stuff this morning, but they came back in through a side entrance, so it was the same problem.”
“They went shopping for swimsuits?”
“Right. Nicole said they were on their way to a water park, which is what she picked for her treat. Your ex was a little off the money on that one. Anyway, the officer who was with Alexandra told Nicole to hang up the phone and keep it with her as long as she could, so we could trace it via GPS.”
“I guess.” Devereaux would have preferred an old school solution. “Why didn't they tell her to run screaming to the lobby?”
“Too dangerous for Nicole, and any other civilians who might be nearby. The woman's armed, dangerous, and unstable. Correct procedure is to locate her, secure the premises, and send in Hostage Rescue.”
Devereaux didn't reply.
“Are you still there, Devereaux?”
“I am. Give me the address of the hotel.”
“Wait. I'm being told that the phone's on the move. It's on I-20, heading south. That's consistent with the direction to the water park. Devereaux, listen. Birmingham PD has units en route to intercept. They also have an eye in the sky. They have it covered. And to be sure, we're coming, too.”
“That's good.” Devereaux had just made the turn onto 18th Street, running hard as he zigzagged his way to the City Federal building. “But I'm closer. I'm heading down there myself. Just do me one favor. Have someone call Traffic. Tell them to expect me. I'll be in a blue Porsche.”
“Roger that.”
“Devereaux, wait. This is Grandison. Don't do that. Stay where you are. In a situation like this, where the subject is driven by ideology, the last thing you want to do is make her feel cornered. If that happens, and she feels there's no way out, she
will
kill her hostage. That's not speculation. That's a one hundred percent certainty.”
The woman pulled out onto the highway and straightaway checked her speed.
She didn't want to draw attention to herself. She'd switched the license plates again, but even so a zealous traffic cop might note the color and model of the car she was driving and decide to take a closer look. The level of risk was higher than she was happy with, but there was no alternative open to her.
At least the girl was behaving better now. She'd still been a little feisty that morning, when they went out to buy the swimming supplies. Making sure she didn't bolt down one of the long, cluttered aisles in the three stores they visited had been exhausting. And the girl hadn't been happy about returning to the hotel, either, when the woman needed to change the bandage on her arm for a waterproof one and take her second batch of meds. But since then, the girl had been an angel. A miracle transformation had occurred. It was wonderful.
The only other frustration was having lost her phone.
The woman had switched to that one before they reached the hotel, and it was the last of her disposables.
If only she'd known what was going to happen, she could have bought another at the store.
Wednesday. Late Morning
.
Nicole missing for twenty and three-quarter hours
Devereaux was burning through the miles that separated him from his daughter.
He was halfway to the turnoff for the water park, thinking ahead, planning how he'd handle every conceivable trick the woman could throw at him, when his phone rang.
“Devereaux?” Bruckner sounded concerned. “I have new information. The phone is still moving. The woman didn't leave the highway at the water park. She's continuing southbound.”
“Roger that. I'll keep on the highway myself. What about her vehicle? Is she still in the black Mercedes? I don't want to accidently pass her.”
“Let me check. I'll get right back to you.”
Devereaux hung up and eased back slightly on the gas, and right away his phone rang again.
“Hey, buddy.” It was a male voice, slightly distorted, and it took Devereaux a second to place it as Page's.
“Hey. What have you got for me?”
“I just finished with your girl's webcamsâand the server they were hooked up toâand the news is, we were both right. Like I thought, there's no way to figure out where she could be right now. I
could tell you where she was the last ten times she accessed them, though, if that would help.”
“It might. Can you email me the details? I'm driving right now.”
“Can do. No problem. And that leads me to the part
you
were right about. There's no way this lady is a Luddite. I'll give you an example. I traced the location of the last place she accessed the cameras from. Then I looked at what other activity there was from the same IP address at the same time. And guess what I found? She logged on to seven email accounts, each from a different provider. And on top of those, two other sets of webcams.”
“Spencer, this could be the mother lode. What do the emails say?”
“I couldn't possibly hack her accounts without a warrant. That would be illegal.”
“So what do they say?”
“They're mainly to do with deliveries. A weird combination of things. For example, chemicals. Kids' toys. Decorating supplies. That's all I've found so far.”
“What was the delivery address?”
“There were a couple. One is right here in Alabama, a little way outside Birmingham. The other is in Missouri. St. Louis, actually.”
“Has anything been delivered to the St. Louis address recently?”
“Not in the last couple of weeks. But plenty in the last year. I haven't checked all the emails yet, though.”
“OK. Can you send me those addresses as well?”
“Sure. No problem.”
“What about the other sets of webcams? Can you tell where they are?”
“That would be beyond the power of a regular mortal. So, yes. One set's here in Birmingham.”
Page read out an address, and Devereaux's foot instinctively pressed harder on the gas. The cameras were at Alexandra Cunningham's house.
“And the others?”
“In St. Louis. At the same place the deliveries were being sent to.”
“This is great information, Spencer. It could make all the difference. Thank you.”
“You're welcome. I hope it helps you catch this asshole. In the meantime, I'll keep digging andâ”
“Spencer, thanks again.” Devereaux's call waiting was beeping. “Got to go⦔
Agent Bruckner was back on the other line.
“Devereaux, you need to slow down. The helicopter can see you. You're only a quarter of a mile behind the woman. She's ditched the Mercedes, and she's driving a silver Nissan Armada now. There are four unmarked units ahead of her, and two behind. The ones in front are going to start slowing the traffic. There are people up ahead preparing a fake census point. So hang back, but be ready to move. We don't know if Nicole will be under any kind of sedation. And remember what Grandison said. If the woman feels her situation is hopeless⦔
Devereaux didn't need Bruckner to finish the thought. He was well aware of the difficulty of extracting a hostage from a vehicle. Especially a child who might be drugged. He just had to hope the guys posing as census-takers were good at their jobs. His daughter was four hundred yards away from him. She was in mortal danger. And all he could do was ease off the gas and trust in a bunch of strangers to save her life.