Chapter Forty-eight
In her car in front of Acme, Jane pulled her cell phone out of her pocketbook. Her heart thumped, banging with adrenaline, and her hands shook a little. The call that had come in while she was talking to Agnes was from an unknown 617 number. Whoever it was had called twice and then left a voice mail. Jane played the recording.
“Jane! It’s Tonya. I was about to leave for the day when my friend Leah came on shift. She’s had more than her share of encounters with weird Howard, so I asked if she knew where his cabin was. She remembered! She has friends who vacation in the same town, so the name was familiar. Anyway, she’s pretty sure Howard’s cabin is in Madison, New Hampshire.”
Saying a silent thank-you to Tonya, Jane called Detective Alvarez. He picked up right away.
“Where are you?” Jane asked.
“At my desk talking to you.”
“Anything from Larsen yet?”
Alvarez exhaled noisily. “The guy is saying nothing, except begging us over and over to look for his daughter. His lawyer is a pain in my rear. Our hope is that if Larsen has her somewhere and was taking her food and water, he’ll realize she’s in danger of dying of thirst or starvation and tell us where she is.”
“Is that likely? You said he was a psychopath.”
“We’ve charged him on the financial crimes, and we’ll see if we can hold him long enough to make him panic. It will be tricky. He’ll certainly make bail, but maybe we can slow-walk this into the weekend. Megan is his daughter. He does seem to care about her.”
“He cares more about her as a prize in a custody fight or an accomplished Harvard lawyer he can brag about than he does as a human being.”
“True, but he’s our best hope.”
“Maybe not. I’m calling to offer you an alternative.”
“Jane, we’ve been over this.”
“Hear me out.” Jane paused to gather her thoughts. She was confident in her powers of persuasion with Alvarez, but success depended on approaching him the right way. “I’m still bothered by the idea that Larsen wouldn’t have had the skills to erase all traces of his entry into the house and Megan’s exit on the night she was taken.”
“We’ve talked about this.”
“We have, but when you talked to him, did Howard Borg tell you he has a contract with Acme Security to test the systems they install? He gets paid to hack into Acme systems.” Jane stopped talking, hoping the import of her message was sinking in.
Alvarez responded after a moment. “No. I wouldn’t, honestly, have thought to ask him about Acme directly. At the time I was interviewing him about a bad coffee date he had with Megan.”
“That’s what I thought too,” Jane said. “But there’s more. I spoke to one of the baristas at Peet’s, which is where Howard met up with Megan and with many other women, several a week. The barista told me that all the women who work there are wary of him. He comes on strong and repeatedly. One thing he’s offered many of them? A weekend alone with him in his cabin in the woods in Madison, New Hampshire.”
Alvarez swore and then went quiet, no doubt thinking through the case, thinking about what he had to do next. “We have to check that cabin out. Did she give you an address?”
“Just the town.”
“We’ll ask the New Hampshire State Police for assistance.”
“Keep in touch.”
“You’ll be the first person I call if anything happens. Or the second. Or third.” He made a half-grunt, half-laugh. “You’ll definitely be in my first half dozen calls. I’ve got to go. I want to get on this while we still have daylight.”