Chris Mooney - The Secret Friend

Saturday morning. Darby stood at her kitchen window, sipping coffee and watching a snowplough trudging its way down Cambridge Street under a bright, clear sky. According to the news, yesterday's storm dumped two and a half feet of snow along eastern and northern Massachusetts. New Hampshire got the worst of it – as much as three feet in some areas.

Coop was still in the shower. Darby checked her watch. It was almost noon. She was itching to get to the lab to see if AFIS, the FBI's Automated Fingerprint Indexing System, had found a match on the single latent print lifted from Emma Hale's jewellery box.

They had spent last night and a good part of the early morning hours examining every inch of Emma's home, paying close attention to the walk-in closet and the spare bedroom where the intruder had escaped. The only evidence the man had left was a wet shoeprint which Darby had lifted from the floor in front of the window.

How had the intruder gained access to the penthouse? Darby wondered if Bryson had discovered anything on the building's security tapes. Finding the man on one of the tapes would answer the question of how he had accessed the penthouse but it wouldn't explain what he was doing there or what he was looking for.

The serial number for the Beretta was traced back to Joshua Stein from Chicago. His home was broken into in 1998. The thief stole crystal and a lockbox holding cash and a Beretta. It was possible that last night's intruder was a thief – finding a way to slip inside Emma's home undetected was by no means an easy task – but the more likely scenario was that the man with the strange eyes had purchased the handgun from a pawn shop. Some pawn shop owners dealt stolen handguns as a side-business, based on referrals. It was also possible the intruder had bought the Beretta second-hand on the street or through a private dealer. The list of possibilities was endless. The handgun was a dead end.

With the exception of the missing locket, every item listed in the CSU inventory was found inside the penthouse. Emma Hale's abductor had come back for the necklace but he apparently hadn't taken anything else. Did he wear gloves to hide his fingerprints? Had he touched any of the other jewellery? Coop was planning on spending the rest of today fuming each piece of jewellery inside a superglue chamber to see if Emma's abductor had left behind any partial latent prints. With luck, they would find one and a matching print in AFIS.

Pouring herself another cup of coffee, her mind turned to the question that stood above the others: Why would Emma's abductor risk breaking into her home and risk being caught to retrieve a locket?

Darby didn't have a definitive answer, but she had several theories, all of which pointed back to her original assumption that the man who had abducted these two women and kept them alive for months had, in fact, cared deeply for them.

Darby carried her coffee mug through the living room, on her way to her office. Coop was no longer in the bathroom. Her bedroom door was cracked open a few inches. She moved down the hallway in her socks, about to knock on the door to tell him that the coffee was ready, when she saw Coop, shirtless, slipping into his jeans.

She told herself to look away but kept staring. The hard, knotted muscles in his chest and stomach rippled under his smooth, pale skin as he buttoned his jeans in the bright sunlight pouring through her windows. It was easy to see why so many women took notice of him – the hard body and perfect outline of his jaw; blond hair and blue eyes. But she had seen his other side, the one he kept buried under the charisma and constant joking. She had spent many weekend afternoons with Coop, just the two of them, drinking beer and watching football.

They were friends, she reminded herself and, feeling embarrassed for gawking, quickly ducked into her office.

Emma Hale and Judith Chen hung on the wall, the two young women happy, smiling, eyes bright with hope. Darby was staring at the pictures when her cell phone rang. She removed it from the charger and answered the call.

'I've finished reviewing last night's security tapes,' Tim Bryson said. 'Your friend slipped in through the garage at eight thirty-three and took the delivery elevator to the penthouse.'

'There was no sign of forced entry on the door or the deadbolt.'

'Either he had a key or he picked the lock. There are devices on the market that you can use to slip inside the keyhole and rake the locks. If you know what you're doing, you can open them in a matter of seconds. Or maybe he bumped the lock.'

'Bumped it?'

'You take a key, place it inside the lock then slam it with a hammer, rock, shoe, whatever, and break the lock drum. It's called lock bumping. I'll have someone from burglary take a look. Where are you?'

'I'm at home. I'll be at the lab in about half an hour.'

'Do you have internet access? I want to email you a picture.'

Darby told him to send it to her lab's email address. She could access her account from home.

Her laptop had broadband access. In less than a minute, she was logged on to her Outlook account. She saw Bryson's email with a jpeg attachment and downloaded the picture.

On the screen was a colour headshot of a man with short black hair and pale skin. He had the same black, cadaverous eyes as the man she had met last night.

'Where did you get this?' Darby asked.

'Is this your man?'

'It's him, no question. Who is he? Do you know?'

'His name is Malcolm Fletcher. Does the name ring any bells?'

'No. Should it?'

'Fletcher is a former profiler from back when the Investigative Support Unit called itself Behavioral Sciences,' Bryson said. 'He's also the FBI's number four man on their Most Wanted List.'

'What did he do?'

'According to what I've read on the internet, Fletcher attacked three federal agents in eighty-four. One is brain dead. The other two disappeared. Their bodies were never recovered. The interesting thing is the Feds didn't place Fletcher on their Most Wanted List until 2003.'

'What's the reason for the delay?'

'Good question. If I had to guess, I'd say the Feds wanted to handle the matter internally.'

What a surprise, Darby thought. 'How did you find him?'

'My first job out of the academy was as a beat cop for Saugus. There was this case back in eighty-two where the bodies of two strangled women were dumped along Route One. The detective in charge of the case, this guy named Larry Foley, called the Behavioral Sciences Unit, and BSU sent a profiler to study the cases. I never met Fletcher personally, but his name was tossed around a lot – everyone kept commenting on his strange, black eyes. I was on my way into the station when I remembered his name and thanks to the power of Google, there he was on the Most Wanted List.'

'What's the deal with his eyes? Is it some sort of hereditary condition?'

'I have no idea. Like I said, I never met the man. I have a federal friend in the Boston office. I'm going to call him and see what I can find. Maybe he can give us some idea as to what the hell Fletcher is doing here.'

'Do you trust this person?'

'You're worried the Feds might decide to get involved?'

'The thought crossed my mind.'

'Mine, too,' Bryson said. 'Let's talk to the commissioner and see how she wants to play it.'

'I'd like to review the Saugus cases you mentioned.'

'Hold on, I've got another call.'

Coop stepped into her office wearing a T-shirt that said 'I Like Boobies'.

'How old are you again?' Darby asked.

'My mother gave me this for my birthday.' Coop rubbed a hand over his wet hair and looked at the pictures hanging on the wall. 'I'm glad to see you're not taking your work home with you.'