Cody McFadyen - The Face of Death

"North Dakota," Alan says. "In what used to be a missile silo. Ten thousand square feet, all of it underground, and the ground it's under is in the middle of nowhere. The government cleaned out a number of silos and underground bases over the years. They sold them, most often to real estate companies who fixed them up and resold the properties to individuals."

"And that's legal?" I ask, dumbfounded.

Alan shrugs. "Sure."

As Cabrera had promised, we'd found the location where Theresa and Jessica were being held on the personal computer in the den, along with grainy photos of what I assumed to be the girls themselves. They were nude and they looked drawn and unhappy, but otherwise unharmed.

"Get in touch with the field office up there. Let's get the girls out and bring them here. Do we know how to enter the place?"

"An electronic combination lock with a thirty-digit code. I'll make sure they have it."

He heads toward the front door of the house. The air outside is filled with the sound of TV news helicopters. Just them, so far; it was one of the nice things about the home being on land behind gates and walls. Brady has men guarding the entrance to the estate until the local cops take over. No one in, period. Boone and one other member of the SWAT team are in a coroner's wagon, escorting Cabrera's "body,"

ostensibly to the morgue. In reality, Cabrera will never make it to the morgue. He'll be held under guard at a safe house. I take a moment to look around.

He came here, but he didn't live here.

I hit a number on my speed dial and put the phone to my ear.

"What?" James asks, preamble-less as usual.

"Where are you?"

"Signing myself out. These morons want me to stay here. I'm going home."

"Not nice, James. The 'morons' you're speaking about patched you up."

"That part wasn't stupid. Keeping me here is."

I let it go. "I need another viewpoint."

"Go ahead," he says without hesitation.

This is what keeps the rest of us from strangling James. He is always ready to work. Always. I fill him in on everything that's occurred.

"Cabrera says he knows the identity of The Stranger. He's not going to reveal it."

James is silent, thinking.

"I'm not coming up with anything."

"Me neither. Listen, I know you said you were going home, but I need you to get back to Michael Kingsley's computer. He wouldn't have made it unsolvable. He wants us to crack it."

"Dakota is on it," Alan says, startling me from my thoughts. "They're sending agents and a SWAT team. Local bomb squad too, just in case The Stranger decided to be cute."

"Where's Kirby?"

"Gone. She said she was going back to the safe house."

"We have a problem, Alan. We have no evidence. Not a shred of forensic data that we can hold up. Even if we knew who he was, everything is circumstantial. At best."

He spreads his hands. "Only one thing to do, then."

"What's that?"

"Work the scene. Get Callie and Gene and whoever over here and let them go to town. I've been through this before. So have you. Sometimes there's no substitute for down and dirty police work."

"I know that. The problem I have with it is conceptual. When I look at this case, do you know what I see? That none of the breaks have been forensic. They've all been about outthinking him. About understanding him. He doesn't leave things behind."

"But he does leave things out. Like with Theresa. He couldn't control that, and he missed the fact that Sarah omitted it." Alan shrugs.

"He's smart. He's not superhuman."

I know that Alan is right. I know it in all the deep-down places inside of me. It still chafes me. To feel so close and realize that, really, we're no closer than we were before.

"Fine," I say, giving in to the truth. "Let's get Callie and Gene here."

"You got it."

I wander into the den, trying to walk off my frustration, as Alan alerts Callie to her coming task. Like the rest of the home, the den is all about dark wood, dark carpet, brown walls. Old-fashioned and trying for sumptuous; to me it's just ugly. The desk, I notice, is immaculate and ordered. Too ordered. I move closer and nod to myself. Cabrera has some obsessive-compulsive going on. There are three fountain pens on the left side of the desk. Each one is aligned perfectly straight in relation to the other and with the right angles of the desktop itself. Three more pens are on the right side of the desk and a cursory glance confirms that they align not just with each other but with the pens on the left. A letter opener lies horizontally at the top of the desk near the computer screen. Its placement is equidistant between the two arrangements of fountain pens. Curious, I open the middle desk drawer. I see exact arrangements of tacks, paper clips, and rubber bands. I'm not going to count them, but I'm guessing the quantity of each matches the other. Interesting, but unhelpful. I grimace, still frustrated. I stare at the computer screen. One of the icons catches my eyes: Address Book .

I bend over and use the mouse to double-click it. A list of phone numbers and addresses opens up. There aren't many of them, and they are a mix of business and personal. I scroll through. Something flickers in my head. I frown.

I scroll through the names again. Another flicker. Omissions . . .

Something is missing. What?

I scroll through the list five times before I see it.

"Son of a bitch," I say, standing up straight, shocked. I cover my eyes with my hand, dismayed at my own stupidity. "You moron," I mutter, chastising myself.

It's not the evidence that points to him, but the lack of it.

"Alan!" I bark.

He ambles in, eyebrow raised in question.

"I know who The Stranger is."

59

"THEY GOT THE GIRLS OUT," ALAN SAYS TO ME. HE'S JUST FINISHEDa conversation on his cell phone. "Jessica and Theresa. They're physically healthy, but we're not sure of anything else yet." He grimaces.

"Jessica's been inside that place for the last ten plus years. Theresa for five. He gave them ten thousand square feet of room, he fed them--hell, he even gave them satellite TV and music. But they were never allowed outside. And they weren't allowed to wear any clothes. He told them . . ."

Alan pauses, sighs. "He told them if they tried anything--like escape or suicide--that he'd kill someone they loved. They're both pretty withdrawn and uncommunicative. He might have beaten them."

"He probably did," I say. I'm glad the girls are alive, but the thought of their ordeal, like everything else about this case, makes me feel tired and angry.

We'd been in the car, waiting for Callie, when the call came in. A thought occurs to me.

"Call them back," I tell him. "Have the agent in charge ask the girls if they ever saw his face."

Alan dials, waits. "Johnson?" he asks. "It's Alan Washington. Need you to ask the girls something for me."

We wait.

"Yeah?" Alan shakes his head at me. They hadn't seen his face. Damn.

Alan frowns. "Sorry--can you repeat that?" His expression sobers.

"Oh. Tell her Sarah's fine. And, Johnson? I need you to break some news to Jessica Nicholson." He explains, then hangs up. "Theresa asked about Sarah."

I don't reply. What am I supposed to say?

Callie and Gene are here. Callie hops out and strides over, smiling. She's cleaned herself up and looks perfect again, of course. She nods toward the front of the house, taking in the broken windows, the burnt, bullet-chewed lawn.

"I like what you've done with the place."

"Hey, Smoky," Gene says. He doesn't look perfect. He looks tired.

"Hi, Gene."

I'm about to fill them in when I see another car coming toward the house. Brady appears from nowhere as it approaches.

"AD Jones," he says.