Angel Fire

Chapter Twenty-Seven

“How did you find all this?”

Rowan shrugged. “It took me most of the night,” he said. “He’s been very careful.”

“Have you emailed this to everyone?”

“No. Only you and Reynolds,” he said.

“Okay. I’ll forward it to my team,” Cameron said. “I want Sam to read it.” She smiled at him. “Good job, Rowan.”

He blushed and shoved his glasses up higher on his nose.

“Come on back here,” she said, leading him through the RV to the small computer room that housed four monitors and two different computers. “Nothing has changed since you were in here last.” She glanced over her shoulder, looking for Reynolds. She could hear him talking to Andrea. “Actually, I don’t use them as much as I should.”

“Easier to call Jason?”

She laughed. “Yeah. Don’t get me wrong. I can use most of the algorithms that he’s written,” she said. “But I don’t always trust myself.”

“That you’re feeding the correct data, you mean?”

“Yeah. And that’s the major problem here. We don’t have much data to use. Not like in Barstow,” she said. “You used the algorithms perfectly there. But with serial killers, we’ve got a lot of data to use. Patterns and whatnot.”

Rowan had already pushed her out of the way and sat down. She smiled as he rubbed his hands together in anticipation. “If we need him, I’ve got Jason on speed dial,” Rowan said.

“Good. Glad I’m not the only one.”

“And I think I can use some of the principles that I applied in Barstow,” he said. “Once we knew who Baskin was, then we had to find him. And we did. Probability and elimination.”

“Yeah, but we don’t have the luxury of time. Once Angel gets his money, he’ll disappear. Game over. The only thing going for us is that we’ve got three agencies with personnel crawling all over the place. I’m hoping he lays low for a few days.”

“I’ll find him. What kind of a radius do you want?”

“You decide,” she said. “He left Santa Fe and went north on 84. Then he took 285 to the east. Then 64 to Taos. I assume the money made it here to Taos. That’s where we found the getaway car and the first two bodies of his team.”

“Could he have backtracked to Santa Fe after that?”

“Doubtful. At least not very far. From Taos, he continued on 64 to where the accident was. You’ve got all that info though, right? The accident, the killing of that family. And then Sam getting abducted.”

“Yep, I’ve got it,” he said, already tapping away on the keyboard.

“Okay. So I’ll leave you to it,” she said. “We’re going to go over what you found on his background check.”

He only nodded, already in a zone as his fingers flew across the keyboard. Cameron backed out of the room quietly, leaving him to it.

“Where’s Eric?” she asked as she went back out front, stopping to fill her coffee cup.

“I hope you don’t mind, but I instructed him to get a rundown from Samantha Kennedy. Fresh eye, so to speak,” Reynolds said.

“We never really finished debriefing her,” Cameron admitted as she took a sip of coffee. “Angel had been captured and Murdock all but took us off the case. Since then, there hasn’t been time.”

“I hope she’ll be forthcoming,” he said.

“Actually, I think Andi should talk to her.”

Andrea flicked her eyes at her and nodded. They’d talked a little about it last night. Sam was very clinical in her answers, not emotional at all. Cameron had suggested that maybe the trauma was more than Sam let on. Maybe she needed to speak with someone. A professional. But Andrea didn’t think so. Andrea thought there was tension between Sam and Tori, tension brought on by Angel. She thought that Sam did want to talk but that Tori was too close.

“You think she can get more out of her than Eric can?” Reynolds asked.

“It would be more girl talk and not quite an interrogation,” Andrea said.

“I know last night you thought I was being too hard on her. Certainly Agent Hunter did. But we don’t really know much about Angel,” he said. “Kennedy spent more time with him than anyone else has in years. Anyone that we know of anyway.”

“I agree,” Cameron said. “But keep in mind she’s on our team. You came across as accusing last night.”

Reynolds stared at her. “Do you really think it’s wise to have her and Agent Hunter still involved in this? Talk about personal,” he said.

“Murdock wants Hunter to stay on. He said to cut Sam loose when we get everything we need out of her.”

Andrea laughed lightly. “You cut Sam loose, Hunter’s going with her. No way Tori stays here without her.”

“Orders are orders,” Reynolds said.

At that, Cameron also laughed. “Yeah, well, Hunter is kinda like me when it comes to orders,” she said.

“She’d risk being reprimanded and possibly losing her job?”

“In a heartbeat.”

Reynolds shook his head. “There’s no discipline anymore.”

Cameron smiled. “At least you’re not in a damn suit today.” She put her coffee cup down. “Come on. Let’s get back to the hotel. We should go over this information that Rowan put together.” She turned to Andrea. “And maybe you can slip away with Sam for a bit.”

“Yes. If you can keep Tori occupied.”