Блейк Пирс - A Trace of Crime

“Yes, Frank, seems to be. I don’t pretend to know anything for sure. But all that talk of freeing her from her own evil spirit, of the machinery of the Lord, it’s pretty detailed, like he’s developed some kind of personal liturgy to reflect his own warped religion – one where he’s in control, like he’s the Pope of his own demented faith. And if that’s true, we’ve got a much bigger problem.”

“How so?” Edgerton asked.

“Because if this is all truly about cleansing spirits and pleasing his deity, then he doesn’t really care about the money. It might just be a way to justify the abduction to himself in societal terms. He tells himself it’s about the money so he can function in some kind of normal way. But deep down, he knows that’s just an excuse, that the real reason he took her is much deeper and darker.”

“So Locke,” Hillman said, “you’re suggesting this guy is having some internal struggle and that the money is just a way for him to hide what he really wants to do to the girl from himself?”

“Maybe.”

“That seems like a stretch,” he said. “Other than the language he used, what do you have to support the theory?”

“It’s not just the language, Lieutenant. The very fact that he offered to return her, to let her own father purify her, suggests that he might be trying to fight this thing, that he’s trying to find an ‘out,’ some way to not free her from the demon by killing her.”

She stopped talking and looked around at the faces of her co-workers, which were a mix of skepticism and genuine intrigue. Even Hillman seemed to be reconsidering.

“Or he could just be after the money and your mumbo-jumbo is as full of BS as he is,” Brody said derisively. His comment seemed to drain the room of goodwill and Keri felt everyone retreating to their safe corners.

“You’re a Neanderthal!” Castillo said, disgusted.

“Yeah?” he spat back. “I think you could use a good hair dragging.”

“You want to go right now, old man?” Castillo said, taking a step toward him. “I’ll knock your beached whale ass back in the ocean.”

“Enough!” Hillman shouted. “We’ve got a twelve-year-old girl to save and we don’t have time for this crap. And Brody, another sexist comment like that and I’ll dock your pay for the rest of your frickin’ career, even if that’s only a month, you got me?”

Brody reluctantly shut his mouth. Castillo looked like she wasn’t done yet so Keri put her hand on her shoulder and led her away.

“Let it go, Jamie,” she muttered under her breath. “The guy’s one more burrito away from a heart attack. You don’t want to get blamed when he keels over.”

Castillo chuckled despite her anger. She was about to reply when Detective Manny Suarez walked into the room. Manny wasn’t much to look at, with his longish stubble, his love handles, and his heavy-lidded eyes that reminded Keri of Sleepy the dwarf. But he was a tough, able detective. And most importantly right now, he was returning from the FedEx office where the ransom note had been dropped off. Keri hoped he had good news.

“Give me something good,” Hillman said.

Suarez shook his head as he sat down at the conference room table and pulled out one lonely receipt from the manila envelope he was holding. He slammed it on the table.

This is it,” he said. “This is the one piece of meaningful evidence I was able to retrieve from the FedEx store. It has the time and date of the purchase, which was made with cash. That’s it.”

“Wasn’t there any security footage you could match to the time of purchase?” Hillman asked.

“There is, but it’s mostly useless. The exterior footage from the place shows someone walking in. But that person is wearing a bulky sweatshirt with a hoodie and sunglasses. I’m having it circulated but it won’t be much help. It’s hard to even tell whether it’s a male or female.”

“What about inside the FedEx store?” Castillo asked.

Suarez pulled out a second sheet of paper from the envelope and put it on the desk too. It looked like a photo but it was basically white with black around the edges.

“This is a still image from the interior camera,” he said. “It looks like he was using a pair of laser refraction sunglasses that blow out anything onscreen. This is what the footage looks like the whole time the person is in there.”

“That’s hardcore tech,” Edgerton noted, impressed. “Usually that sort of thing is only used in high-end robberies.”

“What about other cameras?” Ray asked. “Ones he didn’t look at directly.”

“They were unaffected. But the suspect stood conveniently out of frame of each of them. It’s like he knew exactly where every camera would be and steered clear of all but the one he couldn’t avoid, right behind the register. And that’s the one that’s blown out.”

“I’m assuming he avoided any other exterior cameras on the way out too?” Keri guessed. “No chance he walked to his car and we can get a make or license plate?”

“No chance,” Suarez confirmed. “We have him walking around the corner. But the direction he went leads to an industrial block where none of the businesses have cameras. He could have gone anywhere from there.”

“I hate to pile on,” Edgerton added, studying the laptop in front of him. “But I’ve got more bad news. Jessica’s backpack and phone were busts. CSU just emailed me that they didn’t find any unexpected prints.”

Lieutenant Hillman’s cell phone rang but he indicated for Edgerton to continue as he stepped out of the room to take the call. Kevin picked up where he’d left off.

“And I’ve been running a program using her SIM card to look for suspicious activity. It just finished. But there’s nothing out of the ordinary. Every single call she made or received in the last three months is from either her family or friends.”

Keri and Ray exchanged a silent glance. Even the tension between them couldn’t undermine their shared concern that this case was going downhill fast.

Before anyone could respond to Edgerton, Hillman walked back in. Keri could tell from his expression that there was more bad news coming.

“That was Dr. Feeney,” he said. “He buys the con man theory too. He thinks this guy’s faking the crazy stuff and just wants the money.”

Great. Every lead we have has gone nowhere and now the unit consensus is that this guy is just a run of the mill kidnapper.

Keri couldn’t explain it, even to herself. But her instincts were telling her that the consensus was dangerously wrong; that this kidnapper was something else entirely. And she feared that if they didn’t get on the right track soon, Jessica Rainey would pay the price.

As the minutes leading up to the drop passed, Keri tried to ignore the pit of anxiety growing in her stomach. Time was running short and Keri felt like they were losing options fast. She actively told herself not to lose hope, to remember that Jessica was out there somewhere, desperately waiting for someone to find her.

Since the FedEx office and Jessica’s backpack and phone were dead ends, the team began pursuing less case-specific, and therefore less promising, options.

Edgerton put the case parameters into a federal database to see if there was any record of similar kidnappings. The results would come in soon but culling through them would be time-consuming.

He also input the ransom note in the system on the off chance that the language checked the boxes of any previous letters. That was a long shot. If a letter this strange had been sent to someone before, they felt confident they would have heard about it.

Suarez was looking at a list of registered sex offenders who lived in the area to see if any of them had a record of this kind of crime. Castillo had gone to the park to prep for surveillance. Brody had left the station, claiming he was going to talk to some of his street informants. Keri suspected he’d just gone out to get something else to eat.