Michael Connelly - The Scarecrow

Rachel was typing on my laptop while she responded.

“There is still no direct connection, Jack. This could just as easily be someone setting up Carver as it is-I just got another hit. I Googled the name Freddy Stone. Take a look at this.”

She turned the laptop around so I could see the screen. On it was a Wikipedia biography of an early twentieth-century actor named Fred Stone. The bio said Stone was best known for first establishing the character of the Scarecrow in the 1902 Broadway version of The Wizard of Oz .

“See, it’s got to be Carver. All the spokes in the wheel come to him in the center. He’s making scarecrows out of the victims. It’s his secret signature.”

Rachel shook her head once.

“Look, we checked him out! He was clean. He’s some sort of genius out of MIT.”

“Clean how? You mean no arrest record? It wouldn’t be the first time one of these guys operated completely beneath law enforcement radar. Ted Bundy worked at some sort of crisis hotline when he wasn’t out killing women. It put him in constant contact with the police. Besides that, the geniuses are the ones you gotta watch out for, you ask me.”

“But I have a vibe for these guys and I didn’t pick up a thing. I had lunch with him today. He took me to McGinnis’s favorite barbecue joint.”

I could see self-doubt in her eyes. She hadn’t seen this coming.

“Let’s go get him,” I said. “We confront him and make him talk. Most of these serials are proud of their work. My bet is he’ll talk.”

She looked up from the screen at me.

“Go get him? Jack, you’re not an agent and you’re not a cop. You’re a reporter.”

“Not anymore. I got walked out by security today with a cardboard box. I’m done as a reporter.”

“What? Why?”

“It’s a long story that I’ll tell you later. What are we going to do about Carver?”

“I don’t know, Jack.”

“Well, you can’t just go back there and bring him his latte.”

I noticed one of the customers sitting a few tables behind Rachel turn from the screen of his laptop and look up toward the open-beamed ceiling and smile. He then raised a fist and offered up his middle finger. I followed his gaze to one of the crossbeams. There was a small black camera mounted on the beam, its lens trained on the sitting area of the coffee shop. The kid turned back and started typing on his computer.

I jumped up, leaving Rachel and moving toward him.

“Hey,” I said, pointing up at the camera. “What is that? Where’s it go?”

The kid crinkled his nose at my stupidity and shrugged.

“It’s a live cam, man. It goes everywhere. I just got a shout from a buddy in Amsterdam who saw me.”

It suddenly dawned on me. The receipt. Free WiFi with every purchase. Check us out on the net. I turned and looked at Rachel. The laptop, with a full-screen photo of a Scarecrow on it, was facing the camera. I turned back and looked up at the lens. Call it a premonition or call it certain knowledge, but I knew I was looking back at Carver.

“Rachel?” I said, not looking away. “Did you tell him where you were going to get coffee?”

“Yes,” she said from behind me. “I said I was just going down the street.”

That confirmed it. I turned and walked back to the table. I picked up the laptop and closed it.

“He’s been watching us,” I said. “We gotta go.”

I headed out of the coffee shop and she came out right behind me.

“I’ll drive,” she said.

Rachel turned her rental car through the main gate and went charging up to the front door of Western Data. She was driving one-handed, working her phone with the other. She threw the car into park and we got out.

“Something’s wrong,” she said. “Neither of them is answering.”

Rachel used a Western Data key card to unlock and enter the front door. The reception desk was empty and we quickly moved to the next door. As we entered the internal hallway, she pulled her gun out of a holster that was on her belt under her jacket.

“I don’t know what’s going on but he’s still here,” she said.

“Carver?” I asked. “How do you know that?”

“I rode with him to lunch. His car is still out there. The silver Lexus.”

We took the stairs down to the octagon room and approached the mantrap leading to the bunker. Rachel hesitated before opening the door.

“What?” I whispered.

“He’ll know we’re coming in. Stay behind me.”

She raised the gun and we squeezed in together, then quickly moved to the second door. When we came through the other side, the control room was empty.

“This isn’t right,” Rachel said. “Where is everybody? And that’s supposed to be open.”

She pointed to the glass door that led to the server room. It was closed. I scanned the control room and saw the door to Carver’s private office was ajar. I moved toward it and pushed it all the way open.

The room was empty. I stepped in and went to Carver’s worktable. I put one finger down on the touch pad and the two screens came alive. On the main screen I was looking at an overhead view of the coffee shop where I had just made a case to Rachel that Carver was the Unsub.

“Rachel?”

She came in and I pointed at the screen.

“He was watching us.”

She hurried back into the control room and I followed her. She moved to the center workstation, put her gun down on the desk and started working the keyboard and touch pad. The two monitors came alive and soon she had pulled up multiplex screens divided into thirty-two interior camera views of the facility. But all of the squares were black. She started flipping through several screens and found the same thing each time. All cameras were dark.

“He’s killed all of the cameras,” Rachel said. “What is-”

“Wait. There!”

I pointed to one camera angle surrounded by several black squares. Rachel manipulated the touch pad and brought the image up to full screen.

The camera view captured a passageway between two rows of server towers in the farm. Lying facedown on the floor were two bodies, their wrists cuffed behind their backs and their ankles bound with cable ties.

Rachel grabbed the stem microphone attached to the desk, depressed the button and almost shrieked into it.

“George! Sarah! Can you hear me?”

At the sound of Rachel’s voice the figures on the screen stirred and the male raised his head. It looked like there was blood on his white shirt.

“Rachel?” he said, his voice sounding weak over an overhead speaker. “I can hear you.”

“Where is he? Where’s Carver, George?”

“I don’t know. He was just here. He just brought us in here.”

“What happened?”

“After you left he went into his office. He was in there for a little bit and when he came out, he got the drop on us. He grabbed my gun out of my briefcase. He herded us in here and put us on the floor. I tried to talk to him but he wouldn’t talk.”

“Sarah, where’s your weapon?”

“He got that, too,” Mowry called out. “I’m sorry, Rachel. We didn’t see it coming.”

“Not your fault. It’s mine. We’re going to get you out of there.”

Rachel released the microphone and quickly came around the workstation, bringing her weapon with her. She went to the biometric reader and put her hand on the scanner.

“He could be in there, waiting,” I warned.

“I know, but what am I going to do, leave them lying in there?”

The device completed the scan and she grabbed the handle to slide the door open. It didn’t move. Her hand scan had been rejected.

Rachel looked back at the scanner.

“That makes no sense. My profile was put in yesterday.”