Freezing

THIRTY

Half-empty pizza boxes sat in the middle of the conference table in the FBI briefing room. Agent Mark Wilson chewed anti-gas pills as he watched the CCTV tape of King’s van pulling away from the airport with Eleanor Patterson in the passenger seat at 5.08 p.m. He had lost track of how many times he’d examined the footage but he kept doing it in the hope that he would glean some clue as to where King was now.

Agent Angela Nicks watched Mark from her seat at the head of the table as she tapped a pencil against the papers in front of her. She had drawn circles around King’s name and the names of the missing women and what they knew about each. She was looking for ways the circles might overlap and give them a lead on where King could be hiding now. So far, it wasn’t working too well. The modus operandi that King had displayed at the airport with Eleanor Patterson appeared to be the only time he had used it. They didn’t know how he might have adjusted the MO when he wasn’t at the airport but he had got the women back to his house somehow. Angie switched to tapping the eraser end of the pencil against the tip of her nose. She knew that sometimes worked.

Agent Scott Houston was temporarily not thinking about King as he used the computer to connect to the Internet and check on the status of the return flight Jayne was due to board that evening with Steelie. The Internet connection was slow and he waited, emptying his brain as he stared at the screen. He was about to ask Angie and Mark if the connection was always this slow these days and then he realized something.

‘Did anyone check the Agency Thirty-two One email account for the messages from King?’

He was met with silence, which was enough to get him to bail out from the airline website and switch to the Web-based 32/1 account. Mark came over with the password that Jayne had left with them and Scott typed it in. After a pause, the inbox appeared.

‘Jesus.’ Scott sat up straighter.

‘What time zone is that stamp?’ Mark pulled up a chair.

Angie and Eric immediately came over.

Mark explained, ‘King sent them a message today. Depending on what time zone the account’s set to, he might have sent it just a few hours ago.’

Scott had clicked on the message, whose subject line was, ‘Hi from SF.’ They read the message on screen.

Jayne: bk yr way nxt wk. Dinner? GK

Angie leaned in closer to the screen. ‘That’s not an email; it’s a text message.’

Scott gestured at the screen. ‘It’s an email. It came on email.’

‘But it came from a cell phone,’ she persisted. ‘Look, hit Reply. See what happens.’

Scott followed her instructions and the ‘To’ field was filled with an email address made up of letters and enough numbers to resemble a telephone number.

‘Angie, can you—’ Scott turned but she had already put her cell phone to her ear.

‘Tech Unit? I need a check on a cell number. This is Priority One.’

Standing at the dressing table in the motel room, Jayne placed the candle in her briefcase and thought about the woman who’d stopped her in the street by Gene’s house. She hadn’t looked very old but her skin had made Jayne think of parchment. She’d been holding a photograph, its subject obscured by her fingertips, and she’d smiled at Jayne but kept a hold on her arm until another woman joined them.

The second woman was the color of chocolate and held an unlit candle, which she offered to Jayne. She’d accepted it with a nod. Then the two smiled and turned away as though their work was done and in that moment, Jayne had no longer felt confused about what year it was or where she was. It was where she always was and where she always would be: halfway between the living and the dead, helping to work a link that transcended time and space because the need for it was timeless and crossed all borders. It existed wherever the living searched for the missing and wherever people died deprived of their names. Jayne had held the candle on the ride to the motel and now she would carry it home to Los Angeles.

She heard the knock at the door that she and Steelie had been expecting. Agent Carter had arrived to drive them to the airport. She glanced at Steelie, who was zipping up her own bag, and crossed to open the door.

The man standing there was dressed in motorcycle leathers and helmet, which was unexpected. He raised the visor and said, ‘Hello, again.’ Even before she heard his voice, she recognized Gene’s eyes.

She abruptly and belatedly shoved the door closed but it bounced back at her fast and she was pushed off balance. As she stumbled backwards, she was aware of Steelie charging Gene with a cry that sounded far away and of him coming across the threshold, and then her vision went gray at the edges, closing down further and further, until there was nothing.

Scott had ceded his seat in front of the computer to Mark, who’d navigated into the Settings page of the Agency 32/1 email account.

‘There.’ Mark pointed to the screen. ‘The account is on Pacific time. But incoming messages could still be stamped with the time at the sender’s location.’ He looked up at Scott. ‘Do we believe this? That King’s in San Francisco?’

Scott was standing with his arms crossed, watching Angie on the phone with the Technical Support Unit. ‘No. No way. I don’t know what game he’s playing but he’s here in Atlanta. We tracked him here in Wayne Spicer’s car.’

Eric said quietly, ‘We don’t have a firm ID from the EMT’s or anyone else who saw the driver of the Spicer car.’

Scott gave his partner a withering look and Eric put his hands up in surrender. Just then, Angie turned toward them, a hand raised with a finger in the air as she listened to her phone. They turned toward her expectantly.

‘OK, OK,’ she said, then covered the mouthpiece of the phone as she addressed the three men. ‘The text message was sent from a cell phone today at one-oh-seven p.m.’

Scott walked up to her. ‘Is it turned on right now? Can they track it?’ He all but took the phone from her hand.

‘It doesn’t need to be turned on – hang on.’ She listened to her phone, thanked the person on the other end and then cut the call. ‘OK, the cell doesn’t need to be turned on for the phone company to ping it and get a location within one hundred feet. But first we gotta get a warrant out to the phone company.’

‘This is bullshit!’ Scott fumed. ‘This is high priority, did you tell them that?’

‘We might have another way.’ She exchanged a glance with Mark. ‘Look, the D’s in Missings at Atlanta PD have the technology to ping cells.’

Scott looked at each of the agents in turn. ‘Missing Persons? You know any of those detectives?’

Angie’s mouth was set. ‘I’ve got a couple of favors I can call in. It might not be enough.’

‘If they’re like other detectives I know, they’ll scratch you this time if you’re ready to scratch them next time. What’s it gonna take, Ange?’ Scott implored.

‘Let me make some calls.’ She turned to leave the room.

Eric was hard on her heels. ‘I’ll start the warrant process in case we need it.’ The door slammed behind them.

Scott gave Mark a questioning look.

Mark responded, ‘She’s got some history with the head of that unit.’

‘Personal or on the job?’

‘Both, but that’s not where the favors are. She helped them out on a case so she’s going to be calling that favor in. But because there’s some personal stuff, she’s not going to like doing it. You know Angie.’

‘She left him, then?’

‘Hey, I didn’t say anything.’ Mark gestured at his own chest as he got up. ‘Did you hear me say something?’

‘She’s not going to forget it was me that had her call in the favor, is she?’ Scott grimaced to himself as he followed Mark out of the briefing room.