“One mobile phone, also Marcus’s. The fourth is another mobile phone registered to Taylor Armstrong.”
“So Taylor did try to call. Interesting.”
“Why?”
“If she was trying to reach Alexa, that may indicate she was actually worried about her friend. Which indicates she might not have known what happened to her.”
“Or that she was feeling guilty about what she’d done and wanted to make sure Alexa was okay.”
“Right,” I said. For a long time we didn’t talk. There was no quick way to Leominster. No shortcut. I had to take the Mass Turnpike to 95 North and then onto Route 2. Leominster is on Route 2, an east-west highway that winds through Lincoln and Concord and then keeps going west to New York State.
But I wasn’t too concerned about the speed limit. I had a federal law-enforcement officer in the front seat next to me. If ever I had a chance of beating a speeding ticket, this was it.
It had started to rain. I switched on the wipers. The only vehicles on the road at this time of night were trucks. An old tractor-trailer was just ahead of me, rubber mudguards flapping, sheeting water onto my windshield. I clicked the wipers faster and changed lanes.
I began to sense her looking at me.
“What?” I said.
“Why is there blood on your collar? And please don’t tell me you cut yourself shaving.”
I explained about the breakin at my loft. Gave her my theory that Gordon Snyder was behind it. As I talked, she shook her head slowly, and when I was done, she said, “That’s not FBI. That’s not how we work. We don’t do that kind of stuff.”
“Not officially.”
“If Snyder wanted to monitor your e-mail, he’d do it remotely. He wouldn’t send a couple of guys in to do a black-bag job.”
I thought for a moment. “You may have a point.”
We went quiet again. I was about to ask her about what had happened between us-or almost happened between us-earlier in the day, when she said abruptly, “Why is her phone still on?”
“Good question. They should have turned it off. Taken out the battery. Better yet, destroyed it. Anyone who watches crime shows on TV knows a cell phone can give up your location.”
“Maybe they didn’t find it on her.”
“Doubt it. She had it in the front pocket of her jacket.”
“Then maybe she hid it somewhere. Like in the vehicle she was abducted in.”
“Maybe.”
A black Silverado was weaving between lanes without signaling.
“I’m glad we reconnected,” I said. It came out a little stiff, a little formal.
She didn’t say anything.
I tried again. “Funny to think we’ve both been in Boston all these months.”
“I meant to call.”
“Nah, where’s the fun in that? Keep the guy guessing. That’s way more fun.” I wondered if that sounded resentful. I hoped not.
She was silent for a long moment. “Did I ever tell you about my dad?”
“A bit.” I knew he’d been killed while tracking down a fugitive, but I waited to see what she’d say.
“You know he was a U.S. Marshal, right? I remember how my mom always lived with that knot in her stomach, you know-when he left for work in the morning, would he come home safe?”
“Yet you risk your own safety every day,” I said gently, not sure what she was getting at.
“Well, that’s the life I signed up for. But always having to worry about someone else? That’s more than I can stand, Nico.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying we had an understanding, and I knew I wasn’t abiding by it.”
“An understanding?”
“We were supposed to be casual, no strings, no pressure, no commitment, right? But I was starting to get in a little too deep, and I knew that wasn’t going to be good for either one of us.”
“Is that what you told yourself?”
“Do we really have to do this?”
I couldn’t help thinking about all that had been left unsaid between us, but all I managed was “You never said a word about it.”
She shrugged, went quiet.
We were driving along an endless, monotonous flat stretch of three-lane highway somewhere west of Chelmsford, through miles and miles of scraggly evergreen forest, steeply banked on either side. The broken white lane markers were worn. The only sound was the highway hum, a faint rhythmic thrumming.
“They didn’t ask me to go to Seattle,” she said softly. “I put in for a transfer.”
“Okay,” I said. It could have been a cool breeze from the window that was numbing my face.
“I had to pull myself out. I thought I saw my future and it scared me. Because I saw what my mom went through. I should probably marry a CPA, you know?”
For a long time no one spoke.
Now we were zooming along Route 12 North, which seemed to be the main commercial thoroughfare. On the other side of the street was a Staples and a Marshalls. A Bickford’s restaurant that advertised “breakfast any time,” except apparently at two in the morning. A Friendly’s restaurant, closed and dark too. I pulled over to the shoulder and put on the flashers.
She looked up from the GPS. “This is it,” she said. “We’re within a thousand feet of her phone right now.”
35.
“Right there.” Diana pointed. “That’s 482 North Main Street.”
Behind the Friendly’s was a four-story motel built of stucco and brick in the classic American architectural style best described as Motel Ugly. A tall pole-mounted road sign out front with a yellow-and-red Motel 12 logo brightly illuminated. It looked like the local kids had been using it for target practice, because there were a couple of holes and cracks in it where white light shone through. Mounted below that was a marquee sign board that said in black plastic letters COMPLEMENTARY HI SPED.
I pulled into the motel parking lot. There were maybe a dozen cars parked here. None of them was the Jaguar I’d seen on the surveillance video, not that I expected to see it here. On the other side of the motel loomed a tall self-storage building.
“Dammit,” I said, “we need more precise coordinates. Can you call AT &T back and ask them to ping the phone again? I want the GPS coordinates in decimal format.”
While she called, I walked back toward the road. A few cars passed. A sign across the street said SHERATON FOUR POINTS. No construction lots that I could see, no fields or private homes.
“Got it,” Diana called out, running toward me. She held the Garmin out, and I took it. She’d already programmed the new coordinates in. A flashing arrow represented us. A dot indicated Alexa’s iPhone, and it was quite near. I walked closer to the road and the flashing arrow moved with me.
Closer to Alexa’s iPhone.
I crossed the street, glancing at the GPS screen as I did, to a scrubby shoulder beside a guardrail. Now the arrow and the dot were almost aligned. Her phone had to be right around here.
I stepped over the guardrail and onto a steep downward grade that rolled into a drainage ditch, then rose sharply. I scrambled down the hill, lost my footing, and slid part of the way.
As I got to my feet at the bottom, I looked again at the GPS. The arrow was precisely on top of the dot. I looked up, then to my right, and to my left.
And there, in the yellow light of the streetlamp, I saw it. Lying in the ditch, a few feet away. An iPhone in a pink rubber case.
Alexa’s iPhone.
Discarded by the side of the road.
36.
“Alexa?”
The Owl’s voice startled her.
She’d been trying to remember the lyrics to “Lose Yourself” by Eminem. She’d been singing songs dredged up from memory, jingles from TV commercials, anything she could think of. Anything to keep her mind off where she was. She’d managed to recall all of the words to “American Pie.” That took a long time. She didn’t know how long, since she’d lost all sense of time.
“You deviated from the script, Alexa.”