False Positive (28 page)

Wednesday. Late Morning
.

Nicole missing for twenty-one hours

The traffic stowed dramatically.

It continued to dawdle for another five miles. Then the highway straightened, and they reached a section where the shoulder was wider than usual following the construction of a new section of road. Devereaux passed a temporary sign saying
Traffic Census. Pull Over If Directed. Federal Mandate
. He sped up, weaving his way past the other vehicles, watching closely for the Armada.

Devereaux spotted the silver leviathan a hundred yards ahead. It was approaching a pair of officers who were standing at the side of the carriageway, in high-visibility vests. They were holding orange-and-white-striped batons and as Devereaux watched, one of the men stepped forward and directed a car, seemingly picked at random, into one of four pens that had been laid out on the shoulder, using tall fluorescent traffic cones.

The officer selected another car and waved it across to the shoulder, then stepped toward the Armada. He gestured with his baton. The Armada's turning-light came on. And its brake lights. It started to move to the right. Devereaux's foot was poised above his gas pedal, waiting for the woman to swing back onto the highway and surge forward. But she didn't. She rolled into the rear, right-hand pen. Her
way forward was blocked by the first car that had been pulled over. Devereaux stopped behind her, cutting off her only other escape route.

Devereaux jumped out of the Porsche as one of the officers pulled open the Armada driver's door. The officer dragged a blond woman in jeans and a jade green tank top out from behind the wheel. He shoved her down on the ground. Started to cuff her. But it wasn't Loflin's mother. On the far side of the SUV, the other officer was grappling with a broad, shaven-headed man he'd pulled from the passenger seat. Devereaux registered surprise as he ran forward. He wrenched open the rear door. And saw a small figure curled up on the back seat, hugging a stuffed toy dog.

It was a little girl.

But not Nicole.

The woman had to gauge the distance very carefully.

She had to stop the car close enough to the pay phone so that she could grab the girl if she twigged something had gone wrong with her scheme and tried to run. But the car also had to be far enough away so that the girl wouldn't overhear the conversation. Then she'd
know
her scheme had failed. And given her previous behavior, that would be asking for trouble. It was a delicate balance.

The woman smiled as she waited for her call to be answered. This was one situation where age was on her side. She was old enough to remember life before everyone was dependent on cell phones.

Losing her last one certainly had its disadvantages.

But overall it was worth the inconvenience, to have gotten the police off her back. And she was grateful to the girl for that, if nothing else.

Wednesday. Late Morning
.

Nicole missing for twenty-one and a quarter hours

Devereaux left the census officials to straighten out the mess with the family from the Armada and pulled back onto the highway.

He had no definite destination in mind but figured that if the woman had sent her phone south for them to follow like obedient puppies, he'd be better off heading north. The next exit was three miles farther on, and with every yard he traveled in the wrong direction Devereaux beat himself up a little more for having let the woman slip through his fingers at the mansion. The negative thoughts were still gnawing at him as he raced down the off-ramp, ready to loop under the highway and rejoin on the opposite side, so he was glad of the distraction when his phone rang again.

“I know, Cooper. It was a debacle.” It was Lieutenant Hale's voice this time. “Loflin's mom won that round. But I don't want to hear about it. Because it doesn't matter. We've finally caught a break. An eyewitness reported seeing the woman at a hotel, and the location matches with the phone call Nicole made. She said she saw two incidents in the parking lot. First, the woman was hovering around the trunk of a silver Nissan SUV. The witness thought she was trying to steal something, but think about it, Cooper. Where was the woman's cell phone found? Where exactly?”

“In the Armada's trunk.”

“Right. And the second thing. A few minutes later, the woman got into a screaming row with a kid. A girl, aged around seven or eight. The kid wanted to go to some water park, but the woman was insisting they go with their original plan, and head to an airplane museum.”

“The Space and Rocket Museum?”

“No. Some place in Robins, Georgia, called the Museum of Aviation. It's a fair drive. Two-thirty, two-fifty-ish miles from Birmingham, depending which route you take.”

“I've never heard of the place.”

“Me neither. But airplane museums have never been my thing.”

“What about Alex? Does she know if it was a place Nicole had ever wanted to visit?”

“I haven't asked her. There are a lot of other calls I need to make, Cooper.”

“How come it took so long for us to hear about this?”

“The witness didn't call right away. She said the thing with the trunk she wasn't sure about, so she wouldn't have mentioned it on its own. It was the way the woman and the girl acted around each other that spooked her. There was nothing tangible. Just the way they were yelling. The distance between them. And at the end of the argument, the woman grabbed the girl and almost threw her into their car. A black Mercedes, by the way. There was nothing conclusive on its own, but enough to nag away until the witness found a pay phone and made the call.”

“She didn't have a cell phone?”

“She was an older lady. She said she doesn't hold with cell phones. She doesn't own one.”

“Did you speak to her yourself?”

“I did. Dispatch routed her through.”

“What did your gut tell you, Lieutenant? Was she on the level?”

“I think so. It was noisy and the line was bad but I pressed her hard about the woman, and she gave me a decent description. Take away the hair color, and it tallies pretty close to what the clerk at the Roadside Rendezvous said. And when she got off the phone, I called the hotel she claimed these things happened at. The clerk there confirmed
that someone sounding just like her description had checked in late last night. And had been driving a black M-Class Mercedes.”

Devereaux took a moment to think through what Hale had told him.

“All right. So what's the plan? Converge on this Museum of Aviation?”

“You got it.”

“OK, Lieutenant. See you there.”

Wednesday. Late Morning
.

Nicole missing for twenty-one and a half hours

Devereaux entered Robins, Georgia, into the Porsche's GPS system but after a couple of seconds, when it came back with a choice of two possible routes, he pulled over to the side of the road.

He was suddenly overcome with the same feeling of discomfort that had hit him at the mansion when he'd spotted the webcam. He felt out of control, like an unwitting participant in an unknown game. The more he tried to shake it, the more he felt the presence of an invisible hand above him, jerking his strings.

Both of the bold red lines on the GPS screen were pointing more or less southeast from Birmingham. Which was the opposite direction from St. Louis. Where the woman's second set of webcams was located. And where she'd arranged for chemicals and other odd things to be delivered.

A coincidence? Or another attempt at sending the police and the FBI to the wrong place?

Devereaux didn't know.

Wednesday. Afternoon
.

Nicole missing for twenty-one and three-quarter hours

Devereaux hadn't traveled out of state very often.

The few places he had visited, he'd liked. Such as Virginia, with its acres of trees and rolling green countryside. And Chicago, where the insanely cold winter had blown through his thickest coat like it was a vest. Or Arizona, where the crazy cacti that grew wild everywhere made him think he'd been dropped onto a surreal movie set.

He'd always wanted to see more of the country. A road trip was always near the top of his list of things to do—next year. But as he stared out of the Porsche's windshield—first as he powered north, past Huntsville again and onward to the outskirts of Nashville, then northwest through the rest of Tennessee, into Kentucky, and finally Missouri, robotically following the instructions barked out by the GPS—Devereaux observed next to nothing.

The journey took five hours forty-one minutes. He stopped twice for gas. The rest of the time he kept the needle high up on the speedometer. It was north of a hundred for considerable distances, and the portable beacon Devereaux had placed on the dashboard was the only thing standing between him and the dozen traffic cops he'd left floundering in his wake.

Devereaux was shell-shocked when he arrived at the address Page had given him, reeling from the sustained assault the road noise and vibration had made on his senses. And when he'd recovered enough to properly take stock of his surroundings, he registered surprise, as well. In the past, when he'd thought about St. Louis, he'd pictured Busch Stadium or the Gateway Arch. But now he found himself in an ordinary residential neighborhood. The street was long and slightly curved with wide sidewalks and neat family house after neat family house. Each one was elegantly set back from its broad, landscaped front yard. Some had kids' bikes and scooters propped up against fences or lying on the grass. The area couldn't have been further removed from the gothic wilderness where he'd found the woman's ruined mansion if it had been on another planet.

Devereaux called Page. He asked him to double-check the address to make sure it matched the location of the woman's webcams. As far as Page could tell, it did. Still dubious, Devereaux hung up and saw he'd missed half a dozen calls from Lieutenant Hale on the drive from Birmingham. He debated calling her back. She might have an update about Nicole. It could be good news. Or bad. But she'd also yell at him for not going to Georgia, as he'd agreed to. He didn't have time for that, so he called headquarters instead and spoke to Hale's civilian aide. She told him Hale was still at the airplane museum, but there was nothing else to report.

Devereaux decided to trust his instincts. He wasn't being completely irresponsible. If the report of the exchange in the hotel parking lot was true, then Hale, the FBI agents, and the Georgia police would be more than equal to handling things on their end. But something told him he was likely to be closer to the action where he was.

It was tempting to find a place to stake the house out and wait for the woman to show her cards. The problem was, Devereaux didn't know for sure if she'd come. Or even if it was her house. She could have been using one of the tricks Page had mentioned to disguise the location of the webcams. Given the shortage of time, Devereaux decided he needed to force the issue. To find out if he was on the right
path. Or if he'd talked himself into the longest wild-goose chase of his life.

And the most disastrous.

Particularly for the daughter he'd never even seen.

Wednesday. Evening
.

Nicole missing for twenty-seven and a half hours

Devereaux parked the Porsche two streets away, in the opposite direction from the route in from the highway, and walked back to the house.

No lights were on, and there was no sign of movement. The plot was open, so he walked around the side of the garage and inspected the rear of the property. From the patio he could see into the kitchen and the living room. Both were furnished, but with bland basic items that expressed no personality at all. The drapes were closed in the upstairs windows. There was no sound of voices or TVs or music to suggest that anyone was home.

A large red alarm klaxon was prominently mounted just below the roofline at the front of the house, and another was visible high up at the back. Devereaux looked through the kitchen window. There were alarm sensors on the window and door frames, but no sign of a PIR device. It was the same story in the living room. Devereaux returned to the front of the house and knocked on the door as a cover for checking the security. Again, he saw no PIRs. Only a generous smattering of perimeter sensors.

This setup made sense if the house really did belong to the woman.
Passive Infra-Red sensors are invaluable when they're working properly, but they're notoriously unreliable. Over ninety percent of false alarm activations are down to PIR malfunctions. The woman would want her property to be secure, but she couldn't afford the risk of annoying her neighbors—or alerting the police.

Devereaux hurried back to the Porsche and squeezed into the tiny area that passed as a rear seat. He pulled out the razor-sharp switchblade he'd carried since his teens and plunged it through the carpet-covered hardboard parcel shelf. He hacked around in a rough circle. Then he tore out one of the enhanced-bass premium-audio speakers he'd paid an arm and a leg for when he'd ordered the car, four months earlier.

Back at the rear of the house, Devereaux held the speaker against the kitchen door so that its magnet was as close as possible to the sensor. He used the blade of his knife as a lever to enlarge the gap in the frame. Then he slammed into the wood with his shoulder, splitting the frame and opening the door without shattering the glass or triggering the alarm.

The first floor had the feel of a model home. All the walls were painted pale yellow. Several reed diffusers gave off a strong scent of jasmine. Each room had one piece of furniture too few: a living room with no coffee table, a dining room without chairs. Up close, the quality of the materials was nowhere near what it promised from a distance. Devereaux glanced into each one on his way to the staircase. He paused at the bottom, settled himself, then ran up two steps at a time.

At the top of the stairs the landing forked to the left and the right. Devereaux went to the right. Four doors were laid out ahead of him. The first led to a bathroom. The second, a bedroom. The scene inside came as less of a shock than when Devereaux had discovered Miranda Gonzalez, the day before, but his mind still rebelled against the reality of what he saw. The room was illuminated by two giant chrome-plated floodlights on adjustable metal tripods. The walls were covered with stylized murals of 1920s cars and buildings in black and silver. In the center of the room was a raised podium, and lying on it was the body of a tiny boy kitted out in a miniature tuxedo, complete with silk scarf and bow tie. On the floor a silver champagne
bucket was filled with imitation ice cubes and a real, unopened bottle of vintage Cristal.

Devereaux came out of the room, took a breath, and checked behind the third door from that half of the landing. It led to another bathroom. The fourth door led to another bedroom, but this one was empty.

Devereaux moved back along the landing and started down the other branch. The layout was the same: two bedrooms and two bathrooms. The first bedroom he tried was empty. That meant something unpleasant was most likely waiting for him behind the last door. He paused. Steeled himself. And went inside.

This room was set up as a NASCAR circuit. One wall was painted like a row of garages, with the crews brandishing their tools for a fuel stop and tire change. The other walls made up the grandstands, teeming with ecstatic, cheering spectators. But the real action was straight ahead: two cars—actually beds with elaborate wooden bodywork bolted onto them, one blue, one red—were neck and neck, the missing twins behind the wheels, locked for eternity in fraternal rivalry.

Devereaux pulled out his phone, ready to call Hale, but he hesitated before hitting the Call key. It was clear that the woman had been at work here. But he had no proof she was planning on coming back. She may have some other property they were yet to discover, and he didn't want to divert any resources that might be needed to find Nicole by prematurely calling it a result. He went back downstairs, intending to look for a door to a basement in case that contained any clues as to the woman's intentions, but then it occurred to him that there was a much more obvious place to try.

The inside door to the garage opened off the family room. Devereaux used the Porsche speaker's magnet to circumvent its alarm sensor, picked its lock, and stepped through into a space that would originally have been large enough to hold three cars until a wall had been built all the way across it, halving its depth. A giant washer and drier had been installed against it, and there was a door set into the center, secured with three hefty bolts.

Devereaux slid the bolts back and opened the door, revealing a kind of air lock between the other side of the wall and the main door to the driveway. He guessed it was to enable deliveries to be made safely while the woman was away. She could give the parcel guys a remote opener for the outer door, so they could leave their goods securely and out of sight, but without having access to the rest of the house.

Devereaux switched on the light and saw that a large cardboard box had been left there. He checked the paperwork stuck to the outside. It had been an express delivery, scheduled for earlier that day. He opened it. Scooped out a generous layer of Styrofoam peanuts. And froze when he saw the contents.

There were two dozen Barbie dolls. A pair of Barbie drapes. A Barbie light shade. And a Barbie comforter cover.

Everything you'd need to make a Barbie-loving girl feel right at home.