A Trace of Crime

“This is a still image from the interior camera,” he said. “It looks like he was using a pair of laser refraction sunglasses that blow out anything onscreen. This is what the footage looks like the whole time the person is in there.”

“That’s hardcore tech,” Edgerton noted, impressed. “Usually that sort of thing is only used in high-end robberies.”

“What about other cameras?” Ray asked. “Ones he didn’t look at directly.”

“They were unaffected. But the suspect stood conveniently out of frame of each of them. It’s like he knew exactly where every camera would be and steered clear of all but the one he couldn’t avoid, right behind the register. And that’s the one that’s blown out.”

“I’m assuming he avoided any other exterior cameras on the way out too?” Keri guessed. “No chance he walked to his car and we can get a make or license plate?”

“No chance,” Suarez confirmed. “We have him walking around the corner. But the direction he went leads to an industrial block where none of the businesses have cameras. He could have gone anywhere from there.”

“I hate to pile on,” Edgerton added, studying the laptop in front of him. “But I’ve got more bad news. Jessica’s backpack and phone were busts. CSU just emailed me that they didn’t find any unexpected prints.”

Lieutenant Hillman’s cell phone rang but he indicated for Edgerton to continue as he stepped out of the room to take the call. Kevin picked up where he’d left off.

“And I’ve been running a program using her SIM card to look for suspicious activity. It just finished. But there’s nothing out of the ordinary. Every single call she made or received in the last three months is from either her family or friends.”

Keri and Ray exchanged a silent glance. Even the tension between them couldn’t undermine their shared concern that this case was going downhill fast.

Before anyone could respond to Edgerton, Hillman walked back in. Keri could tell from his expression that there was more bad news coming.

“That was Dr. Feeney,” he said. “He buys the con man theory too. He thinks this guy’s faking the crazy stuff and just wants the money.”

Great. Every lead we have has gone nowhere and now the unit consensus is that this guy is just a run of the mill kidnapper.

Keri couldn’t explain it, even to herself. But her instincts were telling her that the consensus was dangerously wrong; that this kidnapper was something else entirely. And she feared that if they didn’t get on the right track soon, Jessica Rainey would pay the price.

CHAPTER SIX

As the minutes leading up to the drop passed, Keri tried to ignore the pit of anxiety growing in her stomach. Time was running short and Keri felt like they were losing options fast. She actively told herself not to lose hope, to remember that Jessica was out there somewhere, desperately waiting for someone to find her.

Since the FedEx office and Jessica’s backpack and phone were dead ends, the team began pursuing less case-specific, and therefore less promising, options.

Edgerton put the case parameters into a federal database to see if there was any record of similar kidnappings. The results would come in soon but culling through them would be time-consuming.

He also input the ransom note in the system on the off chance that the language checked the boxes of any previous letters. That was a long shot. If a letter this strange had been sent to someone before, they felt confident they would have heard about it.

Suarez was looking at a list of registered sex offenders who lived in the area to see if any of them had a record of this kind of crime. Castillo had gone to the park to prep for surveillance. Brody had left the station, claiming he was going to talk to some of his street informants. Keri suspected he’d just gone out to get something else to eat.

She and Ray pored through old case files, looking for any old or unsolved cases that matched Jessica’s. It was possible that this was the work of someone back out on the streets after a long prison stretch. If that was the situation, it would predate either of their time on the force and they wouldn’t remember the particulars. Neither of them thought the exercise would bear fruit but they weren’t sure what else to do.

After over an hour without success they headed out. It was almost 10 p.m. and she and Ray were returning to the Rainey house. It was the same route they’d taken that morning, when everything had been normal, right up until the moment he’d asked her out. Both of them were aware of that fact, but they were too busy to allow that to get in their way at the moment.

As they drove, Ray was on the phone with Detective Garrett Patterson, who was still at the station coordinating the surveillance for the drop location, Chace Park.

Patterson, a quiet, bookish guy in his thirties, was a tech geek like Edgerton. But unlike his younger colleague, Patterson seemed content to focus on the minutiae of cases. He loved activities like poring over phone records and comparing IP addresses, so much so that it had gotten him the nickname Grunt Work, which he didn’t mind at all.

Patterson wasn’t the kind of detective who was going to make instinctive leaps of deduction. But he could be counted on to set up a thorough perimeter of video and electronic surveillance that would be both effective and undetectable.

“They’re prepped,” Ray told her as he hung up. “The surveillance team is in place. Manny is headed over to Rainey’s boss’s place now to accompany him and the money to the remote headquarters in the van at the Waterside shopping center.”

“Great,” Keri said. “While you were talking, I had an idea. I have a friend I know from when I used to live on the houseboat in the marina. He has a sailboat and I bet he’d take us out so we could observe the drop area from the water. What do you think?”

“I say reach out,” Ray said. “The more eyes we can get on the drop area without being noticed, the better.”

Keri texted her friend, a crusty old sailor named Butch. He was actually less of a friend than a sometime drinking companion who liked scotch as much as she did. After she lost Evie, her marriage, and her job in quick succession, she’d bought a decrepit old houseboat in the marina and lived there for several years.

Butch was a friendly, retired Navy man who liked to call her “Copper,” didn’t ask about her past, and was happy to swap professional war stories with her. At the time, that was exactly the kind of companionship she was looking for. But since she’d moved from the marina to her apartment and significantly reduced her alcohol consumption, they hadn’t hung out much recently.

Apparently he wasn’t holding a grudge as she heard back almost immediately with a text that read: “no problem – see you soon, Copper.”

“We’re good,” she told Ray, then let her mind drift to something that had been eating at her. She didn’t realize how long she’d been quiet until Ray broke into her thoughts.

“What is it, Keri?” Ray asked expectantly. “I can tell you’re turning some clue over in your head.”

Once again Keri marveled at how he seemed capable of reading her mind.

“It’s just the drop. Something about it bugs me. Why would this guy, assuming it’s a guy, give us the location so early? He must know that if the Raineys contacted us, we’d have hours to do exactly what we’re doing – establish a perimeter, install surveillance, gather manpower. Why give us a head start? I understand demanding the money early to give them time to gather it. But if it was me, I’d call at eleven forty-five p.m. to reveal the drop location and say the meet was at midnight.”

“Fair question,” he agreed. “And it fits with your suspicion that he doesn’t really care about the money.”

“I don’t want to belabor it, but I really don’t think he does,” she said.

“So what do you think he cares about?” Ray asked.

Keri had been mulling this over in her head and was happy for the opportunity to share it out loud.

“Whoever this guy is, I think he’s fixated on Jessica. I feel like he knows her or has at least met her. He’s been watching her.”

“That fits. Everything suggests he’s been planning this for a while.”

“Exactly. Those special sunglasses he used at FedEx, knowing where the cameras were there, abducting her at the perfect time when she was out of sight of the school but not yet to her mother, in a part of the neighborhood where no neighbors had exterior security cameras. These are all signs of someone who has been working on this for a long time.”

“That makes sense. But the security officer at the school came up empty with staff. I checked again at the station. No teachers had records of anything more than parking tickets.”

“What about school janitors or bus drivers?”

“They’re employed through outside companies. But everyone who comes in contact with the school has to pass a background check. We can go through the list again. But the guy was pretty thorough.”

“Okay then, what about employees at businesses along her bike route or construction workers on a house being built nearby – people who would see her every day and be familiar with her routine and who have a record?”

“Those are good leads we can pursue in the morning. But I’m hoping we nab this guy tonight and none of that is necessary.”

They pulled up to the Rainey house and noticed a police car parked far down the block. It had been instructed not to park too close to the house in case the abductor drove by. They walked to the door and knocked. An officer opened it immediately and they stepped inside.

“How are they doing?” Ray asked him quietly.

“The mom has spent most of her time upstairs with the little boy, trying to keep him busy,” the officer replied.