Scott thought he read excitement, concern, and then duty on Jayne’s face before she said, ‘I’ll need to confirm with Steelie but, yes.’
‘Good,’ Eric replied. ‘Because Steelie’s already on her way over here with your overnight bag. Scott, see you at LAX as soon as you two can get there. We’re all booked on the red-eye.’
DAY TEN
Thursday
TWENTY-TWO
FBI office, Atlanta. 9.45 a.m. Scott rolled his shirtsleeves above his elbows and leaned on the briefing room’s long conference table. The lights were dimmed to allow a screen at the end of the room to take center stage.
Eric contemplated the blurry portrait of a man projected on the screen, while Agents Mark Wilson and Angela Nicks looked at Scott from the other side of the table. Scott looked at his watch. ‘OK, Jayne Hall and Steelie Lander will be here in fifteen and I want to make sure we’re all on the same page before they arrive.’
He pointed to the portrait on the screen. ‘Starting with descriptors on our suspect, King: white male, forty-five years old, six-foot-four, blond and blue. Holds the title to Thirteen twenty Mead Street and witness statements suggest he is also resident there. Eric and I put him on our list of suspects for the prostitute abductions about a year ago because he was alleged to have associated with some of the missing women. We never had any hard evidence on him, thanks in part to a lack of surveillance. So we never got a search warrant for his property.’
Eric pointed at the screen. ‘This image is the most recent photograph we have of him. It’s the one on file at his work. The facilities contractor at Atlanta Airport employs him part-time, primarily cleaning floors and he alternates between employee areas and the arrivals transport section. Right now, they have him down as on vacation. He’s had the job for a year and a half. No previous employment record.’
Scott used the remote to bring up the next image.
‘This is the photo of King on file at the Department of Motor Vehicles. It’s five years old.’
The man in the portrait hadn’t smiled for the shot. His narrow face was pale in a manner that made him appear older than his age.
Scott continued. ‘His appearance is a good fit for the man local police had contact with last night and it was his Georgia plate on the car we were tracking from Arizona. The address for the license plate is the Mead Street one. What’s the latest from your house-to-house?’ He directed the question to Angie.
She was pulling her thin braids into a ponytail, exposing a neck that was slender despite a well-known penchant for daily workouts. ‘Usual story from the neighbors,’ she replied. ‘He’s quiet, don’t see him that much, puts his trash out on time. Can’t track down any friends or social set and no one at his work has socialized with him or been to his house.’
Mark added, ‘He doesn’t own a cell phone – in his name, at least – so we can’t track him that way.’
Eric nodded. ‘He has used the Internet, however. We’ve been following info we had from this website, off-the-grid-dot-net, where we believe King was operating under the screen name Tripper. And if he is Tripper, he successfully masked his identity while online. The IT guys are monitoring the site but there’s been no recent activity under that screen name. There are no leads there right now. Catch is, if King is Tripper and he’s gone to ground, he probably knows how to stay there.’ Eric looked to his partner.
Scott forwarded the image on the screen and a map came up. He used a laser pointer to point out a street on the map. ‘Here’s where police recovered the vehicle that was wearing King’s license plate. The man driving the vehicle matches King’s description on the basic levels and we are working on the assumption that the man, who was wounded and wearing a police uniform or replica, was indeed King.’
He pointed to another location on the map on the screen. ‘Here’s Chesterton General, where King escaped on foot. And here –’ he pointed at another location two miles away – ‘is King’s residence. At about the time he was escaping from the ambulance at the hospital . . .’ Scott paused to consult his notes.
Mark finished his sentence. ‘We were breaking down his front door on the search warrant. If he’s tried to come home, then he knows we’re crawling all over it.’
Angie’s cell phone rang but she addressed the room as she pulled it from her pocket. ‘We’ve got surveillance at both ends of the street in case he does turn up. Nicks.’ This last was said into her phone. ‘Thanks.’ She stood up. ‘The scientists are here. I’ll escort them.’
Jayne and Steelie still had damp hair from the quick wake-up showers they’d taken at the motel after the overnight flight from Los Angeles. But hot water could do only so much and they’d maintained a fatigue-induced silence during the ride in a government vehicle to FBI Headquarters. The woman who met them in Reception introduced herself as Agent Angela Nicks and they hurried to follow her to the security station. Her swift pace befitted her short but compact stature and she led the way as soon as they had their Visitor badges.
She glanced back at them as she walked. ‘Motel OK? You need anything?’
Steelie pulled her glasses from the pocket of her shirt and began cleaning them. ‘Weirdly, I think I’m ready for breakfast.’
‘We’ve got stuff in the briefing room. Muffins, bagels, coffee. Sound OK?’
‘Sounds like I should come ’round here more often.’
They were passing offices that came off both sides of the hall and open doors revealed agents at work. Jayne half expected to find their way barred by the infamous Supervisory Special Agent Franks about whom Eric had told infuriating stories last night at the airport. She was still smarting over the fact that SSA Franks had acted on an anonymous tip about impropriety between Scott and Agency 32/1 without vetting anyone who called in with such specific information.
‘This is the office Mark and I share.’ Angie pointed into a room as they walked past. Two desks pushed up against each other, both relatively neat, with a potted plant right on the dividing line.
‘And here’s the briefing room.’ Angie swung open the door that anchored the end of the hallway.
Jayne saw Eric bent over a projector while Scott was at a table to the side. Both men greeted them and Angie introduced them to Special Agent Mark Wilson, sitting at a computer. As soon as he stood up, she saw how tall and trim he was, the brush cut he wore contributing to his air of neatness. He came over with a friendly smile and shook hands with a strong grip.
‘Good to meet you. Welcome to Atlanta. How you guys feeling?’
Jayne replied, ‘Been more awake before but we’re ready to help out on this.’
‘Great. Help yourselves to coffee.’
They put their bags on chairs and joined Scott, who was spreading cream cheese across a bagel sitting in halves on a paper plate. He winked at Jayne and she surreptitiously grinned back, noticing that he’d traded his blue suit for a black one, though he wasn’t wearing the jacket.
She relished seeing his left side after using the waking hours on the flight to study his right side, which was all she could see of him from one row back and across the aisle, as she continually turned over how he’d behaved after his meltdown on the freeway. He wasn’t ashamed of the impact Kate Alston had had on him and he hadn’t apologized for almost running them off the road while having a flashback. He’d even told Eric what had happened. He seemed to accept that there could be fallout from his work. Could she follow his lead? And if that kiss was just a prelude to what could happen between them, could he accept in her something she hadn’t yet accepted in herself?