Karen Rose - Silent Scream

“During one of my training classes, we had speakers from the FBI and ATF. One of the FBI guys had been chasing Preston Moss for years. Kind of his great white whale, if you know what I mean. Seemed a little too intense for my liking, but he may have more information that isn’t in the files. His name is Special Agent Angus Crawford, and then he was with the Minneapolis field office.”

“I’ll give him a call,” Abbott said. “Barlow, do you have enough resources? Should we call the Feds in for support?”

“I’m good for now. We’ve got MFD fire investigators on the scene, and I got some help from one of the firefighters.” Barlow slid a look at Olivia. “The one who found the girl-David Hunter. He’s got a good eye.”

Olivia felt her cheeks heat. David’s eyes weren’t the only things that were good, she thought as Paige’s words came back to taunt her. Focus. She looked Barlow in the eye. “What did you find?” she asked, relieved her voice was professionally brisk.

“Hunter and Zell found a backpack in the debris on the first floor, just before I left to come here,” Barlow said. “The backpack was mostly burned. It may have been on the fourth floor when it collapsed and fell through, landing on the first floor before the fire was completely out. Some of the contents had fallen out and melted.” He produced a camera, turned it on, and passed it to Olivia so that she could view the digital display. “Haven’t had time to print my photos. We found this a few feet away.”

In the screen was a black case that looked like it should have held eyeglasses, but it didn’t. What it did hold, she couldn’t tell, as the contents were misshapen. “What is it?”

“A hearing aid,” Barlow said. “Hunter ID’d it. That pink part is the earpiece. I’m assuming it belonged to the girl.”

“If it does, it narrows the search for her a good bit.” Olivia put the photo of the dead girl on the table. “She had gel on her hands, and Hunter said he found the ball near where he found her. She’d held the ball. Maybe she planted it there. Maybe she was with the arsonists and the fire got out of their control and she got trapped.”

“We can’t ignore the possibility,” Abbott said. “And if she was part of their cell, identifying her could lead us to them.”

“Or she could have been forced to be one of them.” Kane pointed to the girl’s arm. “Her injuries were real. She’d been slapped around by somebody.”

“Or she could have been an innocent bystander who found the ball and picked it up,” Olivia finished. “In which case, we’re back to square one.”

“Did you find any ID in the backpack?” Micki asked.

Barlow shook his head. “No. The contents were too burned. I told your CSU tech to bag it. We got some charred papers, books. The paper took a lot of water damage, but the lab might be able to piece together the scraps for a name or a lead.”

“Can we get in the building now?” Kane asked, but Barlow shook his head.

“Not yet. We’re still checking the fifth and sixth floors, but the damage that made the fourth floor collapse under Hunter goes all the way down. If he hadn’t caught himself, he would have gone all the way down to the basement. The tower truck’s still at the scene, though. Captain Casey said Hunter or Zell could take you up in the bucket, let you look through the windows. I also shot video as we went through the debris. I’ll transfer the files to my PC and e-mail them to you when we’re finished here.”

Olivia couldn’t stifle the icy shiver that cut through her at the thought of David plunging four stories. She did, however, manage to stifle the mixed dread and anticipation at sharing the close quarters of a bucket with him. She’d do her job, as would he. “We’ll take the videos if that’s all we can get right now, but I want to see the scene. I guess going up in the bucket is our best option at the moment. We should get out there before they leave. They’ve been there for about eight hours now.”

“They’ve probably got another two hours ahead of them,” Barlow said, “so you don’t have to rush.” He pulled a sooty envelope from his front pocket and handed it to Kane. “You asked for the Rankin and Sons personnel list. I had them run an extra copy for you.”

“Thanks. We’ll start background checks. Anyone we should be looking at?”

“As in anyone who’d have access to the guard’s schedule and their camera feeds?” Micki asked sarcastically. “Try anyone on that list and just about any entry-level hacker.”

Olivia winced. “You snuck into the system that easily, huh?”

Micki rolled her eyes. “We didn’t have to sneak. Rankin’s IT guy left their server wide open. I’d check the IT guy. If he’s not on the take, he’s the most inept we’ve ever come across.”

“So anyone could have cut the camera feed,” Kane said glumly.

“Sorry,” Micki said. “I wish I could give you better news. We are trying to trace where the command to disable the cameras came from. That’ll take a little while. Like Barlow said, that aspect of this job was done very well.”

Dr. Donahue sat back in her chair. “Sergeant Barlow, could this fire have been set by one individual?”

Barlow hesitated. “Maybe. But if this really was SPOT, then they probably were a cell of two to four people. If it was arson for hire or some other reason, it could have been one. The job itself could have been accomplished solo, with adequate planning.”

“So we have one to four people, educated in computer networks but who didn’t do their homework on actually setting the fire,” Donahue said. “At least one of them was capable of shooting a guard in cold blood. They brought at least one gun with them, so they were prepared for violence of some nature-even if it was to protect themselves. Were any warning shots fired that you could see?”

“No,” Micki said. “We found the slug that killed Weems. Hollow-point,.38. We didn’t see evidence of other shots fired. We’ll keep looking now that it’s daylight.”

Donahue nodded. “So for now we’ll assume they did not fire warning shots, just the one shot that hit Mr. Weems… where?”

“Right through the heart,” Kane said grimly and Donahue’s brows rose.

“Interesting. A more surefire target would have been his head. I mean, Weems could have been wearing a vest. Through the heart is very personal.”

“Weems represented authority, even if they didn’t know he’d been a cop,” Olivia said. “Most of these groups are anarchists. That they’d despise Weems isn’t unusual.”

“But apparently to shoot him, is.” Donahue scribbled in a small notebook. “I’ll do some research on SPOT. See if anyone developed profiles back in the nineties.”

“We’ll keep on the girl’s ID,” Olivia said. “Ian’s supposed to call when he’s done with the girl’s autopsy. For now we’ll start checking into Rankin’s personnel.”

“And I’ll call Special Agent Crawford at the Bureau’s field office,” Abbott said. “We keep the details of the glass globe from the press for as long as we can. Can this firefighter be trusted not to talk to reporters?”

“Yes,” Olivia said quickly. Too quickly, she thought when everyone looked at her. She shrugged. “He’s an old family friend with no love for reporters. He won’t talk.”

Abbott nodded. “Good. Barlow, let me know if you need support. I have a few detectives I can pull in from other cases if we need them. Everyone back here at five.”

Monday, September 20, 8:55 a.m.

Eric could recite the thirty-minute newscast from memory. What am I going to do?

You’re going to sit here and wait, just like he told you to. Just as he had for the past five hours. The news wasn’t new since disclosing the second victim had died of gunshot wounds. So he’d sat, listening to the same report again and again and watching his cell phone. Waiting for it to buzz, waiting for the next text from his “master.” Sonofabitch.