Rick Mofina - Full Tilt

Every detective on the case was going flat out, but after Minneapolis they’d made little progress in picking up Zurrn’s trail.

I know I’m missing something that twigged with me earlier.

Whatever it was, it was gone.

Brennan left his desk to freshen his coffee. It had been four days since the Minneapolis break. He’d gotten home late last night and was up before dawn this morning to get back at it. The weight of the case was enormous. The task force was now having case status calls twice a day and had grown to include investigators from Chicago, Minnesota, Colorado and more from Canada. It had gained more profile-most network newscasts had led with it for the past few days and the press calls were nonstop.

Returning to his desk, Brennan reviewed the major points again. They’d found no trace of Ashley’s phone. Zurrn must’ve removed the battery and tossed it. The FBI worked with the family’s service provider and had gotten Ashley’s exchange of texts from the phone and her tablet, hoping to get a lead to Milwaukee, if that was in fact where Zurrn had been operating. But that line of investigation soon dead-ended.

He was good at covering his tracks, but we’ve got him on the run and as we get closer he makes mistakes.

Forensic teams were still processing Zurrn’s complex in Hennepin County, and everyone was optimistic it would yield something to tell them where he was headed. In the garage they’d found twelve vehicles, including the SUV used to abduct Ashley and the Chevy van linked to Rampart and the Lost River State Forest. They’d also found an array of commercial and service vehicles, like an ambulance, an armored car and a utility truck. Trouble was, they didn’t know which vehicle was missing or if he had others stashed elsewhere in the country.

Zurrn was a brilliant planner.

No one who knew the area and the auto-wrecking yard would have been suspicious if they saw a trailer hauling vehicles to the property.

Investigators got lucky when they managed to lift some latents at the property. They’d capitalized on Kate Page’s journalistic digging. Her work into Zurrn’s past had impressed most of the investigators. The FBI and Chicago PD made a full-court press executing warrants on Zurrn. They’d learned that he had done a stint with the Illinois National Guard, which enabled the FBI to confirm his fingerprints with those found at the property.

Here in Rampart, forensic teams were still working at the scene. Everyone was grateful that they hadn’t found more victims as they continued their efforts to identify those whose remains had been unearthed.

Brennan looked at the files on his desk, which obstructed the framed photographs of his wife and son. He looked at the case board at the end of the room. He knew what Zurrn had done. He knew where he’d been.

We need to know where he’s going to be.

There had to be something he’d missed. Something he’d overlooked. There had to be a pattern, a puzzle piece.

Brennan looked at the map with its pins flagging locations, events, victims and time lines before he sat at his computer and scrolled through the folders and databases.

Wait.

He glanced at the map, then the computer folders, concentrating on the one holding interviews with Zurrn/Nelson’s coworkers at the data center.

Who was that guy? Rupp. Mark Rupp.

Brennan clicked on the interview they’d conducted, reading fast, searching for the section where Rupp had recalled seeing Carl Nelson sitting at a coworker’s terminal.

What was it Rupp saw?

…Carl was looking at a real estate page and making notes. Looked like he was interested in some property…seriously interested…he thought that no one saw him, but I saw him and I saw what he was looking at.

Brennan kept reading while shooting glances at the map, feeling his heart beat faster.

It was a coworker’s terminal! That’s why we missed it! This could be it! I think I know where Zurrn’s going!

New York City

Kate stared at her screen in the newsroom struggling to forge a clear thought on what she should do next.

Since returning yesterday from Minnesota, she’d been pulled in a thousand directions. Reeka and Chuck wanted her to break more stories-Newslead needed to stay out front. Other news organizations wanted interviews. Grace was feeling the stress, too. She’d seen the TV reports, and kids at school talked about the case. She hugged Kate more often, tighter and for longer stretches.

Eclipsing everything was Kate’s agony over Vanessa.

She had been alive and free only to be recaptured by Zurrn. Where is she? Each passing minute increases the odds that he’ll kill her, if he hasn’t already.

Kate’s phone rang, the display showing an area code she didn’t immediately recognize.

“Kate Page, Newslead.”

“Hi, Kate, this is Sheri Young in Tilley, Alberta. We talked when you were here.”

“Yes, hi, Sheri.”

“You said to call if anything came up on Tara’s, well, your sister’s, case?”

“Yes.”

“This will sound strange, but a raccoon burrowed into one of the upstairs rooms at Eileen and Norbert’s place. It used to be a sewing room.”

“Okay…”

“When they started to make repairs, they found something in the wall, a short journal that Fiona Mae had kept in the days after Barton died. We think you should see it before we pass it to the RCMP.”

Within an hour Sheri had scanned some two dozen pages and sent them to Kate. Fiona’s entries were neatly written in blue ink.

We were camping near the Kicking Horse River in BC. The beauty of the place always helped us deal with the pain of losing our baby. Incredulously, during a moment of sublime peace, Barton spotted a child struggling in the river-a little girl. He got in the water and pulled her clear.

She was alive, terrified and didn’t speak. We put her in our trailer, and kept her warm and safe until she slept. All through the night we gazed at the stars, and this little angel, thinking this was a heavenly sign.

Fiona detailed how in the morning they’d learned about the horrible crash, the deaths, and the search, miles upstream.

God forgive me, I know we should have informed the authorities that we’d found the child, but our hearts were conflicted. We’d learned on the radio news that her parents were dead. We were convinced she needed a family and we were forever aching for a child. Barton and I believed that this was ordained by God. Suddenly, we felt whole again at having a child with us to love. We decided to keep her and name her Tara Dawn. In the early days, she’d told what she could of her turbulent, tragic history. Over time she stopped asking questions about her new situation, as she was accustomed to moving from home to home. But I confess, it tore me to pieces when she cried for her sister.

Instinctively, in the core of our souls, we knew what we did was wrong. We found comfort at church where we were bathed in God’s blessing and compassion, for He knew and He understood , that we did what we did with profound love in our hearts. We had rescued an angel who rescued us.

Fiona wrote how she and Barton had devised the idea to portray Tara Dawn as being a child they’d adopted from a distant relative in the US. Fiona went on to say how happy Tara Dawn had become living a healthy life in a loving home.

Then came the day she disappeared. When it was clear she was truly gone I was struck with a lightning bolt of horror. We were being punished for what we did. It was too late to tell the truth. The burden of our guilt added to our loss. We felt shame in God’s eyes. Our second child was gone, leaving us to live in agony and the pain of our sin. I fear it is too much to bear.