32

We sit in one of the project rooms, exhausted but ready to break up the leads. Around the desk are Stone, Darren, Jonathan, Gerard and myself. We’re involving Jonathan in the meeting, hoping he’ll provide some insight.

“So, we’ve got three days.” I stand up and move to the whiteboard, needing the visual representation to help me divvy up the leads. “Let’s start with the victims.”

Stone pushes her glasses further up onto the bridge of her nose. “The guys managed to track down Danny Jensen’s mother and inform her that her son is missing, believed dead. They have also contacted the Australian embassy and told them that we believe one of their citizens has been abducted.”

The Australian girl… “I’ll call some friends back home. Get them to pay her parents a personal visit. And I’ll contact the embassy. Who did the guys speak to there?”

Stone goes through the notes that had been passed on to her. “George Keen.”

I walk over to my own notepad and jot down the two tasks. Back at the whiteboard I write up Danny’s and Ling’s names with a little tick next to each one.

Stone continues. “Malcolm and Cindy are covered. Then we’ve got Brigitte Raine. Her mother lives in France and I’ve spoken to the French embassy here too.”

I write up Brigitte’s name and put a tick next to it, too.

Stone moves down her list. “Okay. Then we’ve got those still in the bunker. For the two women left, we’ve told their relatives that they’re missing and that we’re investigating their disappearances. So, we tracked down Susie Dean’s parents—”

“Shit, I should have told them.” Jonathan puts his head in his hands. “I didn’t even think about that.”

I put the lid on the whiteboard marker. “Jonathan, you’ve had other things on your mind. And sometimes it’s better to hear these things from someone you don’t know. It makes it…easier somehow.” In my experience, people’s reaction to news like this varies greatly—from total denial, to speechless shock, to violent anger. A loved one passing on the news can interfere with the person’s emotional release. “Besides,” I add, “if they knew what was going on, I’m sure they’d prefer you were helping us find Susie.”

Jonathan nods.

I take the lid off the marker and write down Susie’s name with a little tick next to it. I look up at Stone, ready for her to continue.

“Clair Kelly’s parents live in San Diego, and we’ve informed them. They’re going to be a tough one.”

“Clair’s father,” Jonathan says, instantly realizing what the problem is.

Stone nods, but the rest of us are still in the dark.

“Fill us in, Stone,” Darren says.

“Her father’s a retired cop.”

“Damn!” Darren releases his pen, which falls onto his pad with a small thud. “He’s going to be on our case.”

“He’s older, seventy, but yeah, apparently he’s already called a few times and was talking about flying over,” Stone says.

“We’ll deal with that when it happens.” After adding Clair’s name to the board, I place a little tick next to it. “Okay, the house,” I say, moving along to the next part of the whiteboard and starting a new column. Again I look at Stone.

She picks up her own notebook. “The real-estate agent rented it out over the phone and received a cash payment for two months’ rental. The person who rented it sent cash in the post. The agent no longer has the envelope and didn’t notice the postmark.”

On the board I write down Phone, Cash and Two months. “What about an ID on the caller?”

“The caller said his name was Bob Jones and supplied a fax copy of his birth certificate and a Nevada driver’s license.” Stone hands out photocopies of the documents. “I’ve checked with Nevada and both the birth certificate and driver’s license are fakes.”

I roll my eyes. “Great.”

“The real-estate agent also remembered his voice. She said it was real deep.”

“Chester,” Jonathan says. probably American Psycho “Looks that way.” I write Chester on the board underneath The house and then again as a new column. “Let’s talk about Chester in a moment. What about forensics?”

“They’re still processing, but they haven’t found much, other than Brooke’s and Jonathan’s prints. Whoever was in the house before them—”

“Brigitte and NeverCaught,” I say. “And probably American Psycho and Cindy.”

Stone shakes her head. “The place is clean. Someone’s been through it with a fine-tooth comb.”

“They’ve been very careful in every other area, so it wouldn’t surprise me.” I hide my disappointment. “Then again, the president was also setting the others up. He could have left their prints or DNA but he didn’t.”

“Why?” Stone asks.

I think about it. “He wanted to test us. He wanted it subtle. Another dimension to the game, to the bunker.”

“He’s setting them up?” Jonathan is confused.

“Yes.” I fill him in. “Malcolm had a tattoo of a rose on his wrist and Brooke leaves a rose next to her victims. Cindy didn’t have anything.” I look at Darren. “I don’t think we missed it. The president killed Cindy, so he didn’t need to leave a clue pointing to one of his members and he sure as hell wasn’t going to leave us a clue to his past crimes.” I turn back to Jonathan. “And with Brigitte she was posed differently and there was plastic at the scene. Both elements have been linked to another killer active in North and South Dakota. The president was playing you, the contestants, and playing the members. He gets off on the duplicity, the control.”

“Can’t wait to haul his ass into jail,” Stone says.

I nod my agreement. I’m also looking forward to drafting a profile. Some elements are already obvious in my mind, but I’ll need to get into his head and draft the complete profile. He’s going to be one tough SOB to crack. To come up with a scheme like this, his IQ must be through the roof.

Silence for a while before Stone continues. “Forensics did find a small piece of the bedside locker missing from the middle room.” Stone smiles, she’s got something. “The missing piece matches the fragment the ME found in Malcolm’s skull.”

“That positively places Malcolm at that house,” Darren says.

“What fragment?” Jonathan asks me.

How much do I reveal? So far we’ve been pretty straight up with Jonathan and I think it’s a good strategy. “A small piece of wood was embedded in Malcolm’s scalp. Now it’s obvious that he hit his head on that bedside table.”

“Oh.” Jonathan’s voice is hesitant as he puts the pieces together. It was most probably an injury that happened during sex but before death.

I move along to Chester. “How did it go with Chester and the sketch artist?” I ask Jonathan. We’d managed to track down Powers and call him in for the emergency sketches.

“Great. Looks just like him.”

“I’ve scanned it in and we’re running it at the moment against the computer database,” Darren says. “See what we get.”

“Good. And DialM? The one who’s got Ling?”

Jonathan shakes his head. “We’d just started on him when Detective Carter came and got me.”

“Okay, we need to get you back on that as soon as possible.” Underneath Chester I write Sketch completed and then Database search. I start a new column titled DialM and write Sketch to be done underneath it, with JC next to that.

I turn to Gerard. “Computers?”

“I want to concentrate on getting the location of the Web server and the cameras.”

“They’re mostly IP Webcams,” Jonathan comments.

“Yup, I know.”

I sigh. “And what does that mean?”

Gerard explains. “IP Webcams aren’t physically attached to a specific computer, rather they have their own IP address and generate their own URL. The Web site at murderers-club.com simply includes code that calls the Web feed from the camera.”

In a new column titled Computers, I write up Web server location, Camera location—Ling and Camera locations—bunker. “What am I missing?”

Darren answers. “The ads. Maybe we can find something out about who placed them.”

I nod and write it up. “And the limo.” I add that to our list too. “I know Hamill drew a blank in Vegas, but you never know your luck.” I go back to Chester’s column and add Helicopter pilot. “I don’t think it’s worth chasing registered helicopter pilots, but we should bear it in mind.”

I study the list. “Anything else?”

Everyone’s looking at the whiteboard. Hopefully we’ve got everything.

“What about—” Jonathan hesitates“—Brooke? We need her user habits.”

“And we need to check out her house,” Darren says.

Our background check on Brooke found she was currently living in Phoenix. We also discovered how she got her money—the stock market. She still works, but our BlackWidow is worth over a million.

“The laptop we’ve got belongs to the house, so her laptop must be at her place,” Gerard says. “I could get her user habits from that. There might be other computer evidence too.”

“Those Webcam locations have gotta be our priority. Your priority,” I say. “Someone will have to check out Brooke’s house firsthand, but you need to stay on the locations.”

“Yeah, you’re right.”

I write Brooke’s house on the board.

“Okay,” I say. “So we’ve got Jonathan on the DialM sketch and Gerard on the Web stuff. Jonathan, you can help out Gerard when you’re done.”

“Cool.” Jonathan’s excitement is obvious, even for him.

“Stone, do you want to stay on the house and forensics? See if there’s anything more we can get out of it?”

Stone nods at me.

“Carter, we can take the ads and the L.A. limo. See what we can’t turn up.”

“What about Brooke’s place?” Darren says.

“I can follow up the ads and limo if you like,” Stone speaks up. “I’ll just be waiting to hear back from forensics on the house anyway.”

I nod. “Done.”

I mark in initials next to each task. Some of these will have to wait until morning, until business hours.

I feel a little strange barking out orders, but it’s what Rivers wants. This is a federal case, which means it’s the Bureau’s baby. And Rivers just happened to nominate me babysitter.

“And we should all try to get some sleep tonight,” I say, even though the thought of Ling in that basement at the hands of DialM makes me want to work everyone 24/7. But that’s not realistic, even for us.

Stone, Jonathan and Gerard nod and file out of the room to their respective tasks.

With the others gone, Darren speaks his mind. “You’re forgetting one thing.”

“What?” I ready my pen, mortified that I’ve forgotten something but also relieved that Darren didn’t call me up on it in front of everyone.

Darren smiles. “Your premonitions.”

I lean on the table with both hands and take a deep breath. “I really don’t know if I can see another person’s murder and not be able to stop it.” The last time I tried it was okay—even though I felt Jonathan’s fear, I only saw him running through the tunnels and looking at the cameras. But what if the next one’s another murder? I thought I’d gotten past this, but the prospect of what I might see and feel still frightens me.

“And you can live with the other alternative?” Darren’s voice is metered and he’s choosing his words carefully. But even so, I can read between the lines. The other alternative is that someone else dies and I wonder if I could have stopped it by opening myself up to the visions.

I sink into the chair. “No.” Why is it that sometimes your only two options are both so unappealing?

Darren lets the silence hang heavily in the room before he finally pushes his point, and pushes me. “You have to try again, Sophie. You know that.”

Even just talking about it brings on a few flashes of Brigitte’s death, of Cindy in the desert…of their fear. I’m not experiencing the visions again, but the memory is so strong that I may as well be. I shudder and change the topic. “Let’s get moving on Brooke and Phoenix.”

Darren shakes his head and takes several breaths to speak, but each time he aborts his attempts. “I’ll book the flight.” His voice has that controlled edge to it again and I can tell he’s annoyed with me.

“Fine,” I say, happy he’s moved onto the flight.

He opens the project-room door to leave. “Make your calls about the Australian girl. But then, Sophie, you need to see if you can induce another vision. You know that.” He keeps his eyes on the floor, not me, and while he doesn’t exactly storm out of the room, the flurry of movement and the forceful ways he closes the door make it all too obvious that he’s pissed. Pissed with me. I guess even Darren has his limits. Shit.

I sit with my head in my hands. I wish Darren was wrong. I wish I could walk away from these visions and dreams, but I can’t. Like he said, it’s a calling and I’ve repressed it for way too many years. But knowing he’s right doesn’t make it any easier. It doesn’t make me want to feel what a victim feels just before he or she is killed. It’s a horrific cocktail of overwhelming panic, that sense of being trapped, and regret as they mourn what they’re about to lose and what they haven’t done. But the violence overshadows all of that. Most people want to die peacefully in their sleep with their family in the next room; no one wants to be raped, tortured, and then murdered. We don’t want the last face we see to be that of a serial killer. Who would? And experiencing that sensation, over and over again with each vision and nightmare comes close to my idea of hell.

I wipe away a few tears that have trickled down my face, but I no longer know who I’m crying for—them or me. Maybe the tears are for everyone. I think of Ling and her parents. I have a duty to them and with Ling it’s not just my duty as an FBI agent. I feel a stronger link with Ling because she’s Australian. I’ve chosen to live and work in the U.S., but that doesn’t change who I am. I love Australia and I don’t want a fellow Australian to die at the hands of DialM. Darren’s right, I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t do everything I could to stop that. I sit back up and force myself out of my puddle of self-pity. I will try to induce another vision, but first I’ll make the calls.

Five minutes later I’ve spoken directly to Ling’s parents, catching them just before they left for Sydney airport and the first flight to the U.S. I was going to call an old colleague, get them to contact Ling’s parents, but in the end I decided I owed them a direct call. No hiding anymore. They had lots of questions, of course, and I told them everything I could. The knowledge that their daughter is being held captive in an unknown location by a killer was far from comforting, but they deserved the truth.

I look at my watch and am surprised to see it’s one o’clock in the morning. No wonder I’m so tired. I bite my lip, aware that the tiredness will make me emotionally vulnerable, more affected by what I might see. But I have to do it, and it has to be now. Before I lose my nerve.

Ling is my priority, so I think about her and what we know about DialM—which isn’t much. Ling is his first victim from the club, and we’ve got nothing to put into VICAP to even try to get a match for him. I visualize Ling’s face, not from any photos but from the video stream.

I slow my breathing and take deep breaths, in and out. I try not to think about her parents on a plane, Darren and the others or what they’re doing. I just think about relaxing my body and clearing my mind. I don’t know how much time has passed, but it’s a sound I notice first.

A heart beats, and it’s not mine. It’s Ling’s. Her heartbeat is slow. She’s not afraid, she’s past fear and has moved onto acceptance. Acceptance that she’s going to die. I hear footsteps and I look up. A man comes down the stairs, ducking on the top steps to avoid hitting his head. He smiles at me, but it’s not a pleasant smile. My heart beats a little faster and fear rises in me. The man’s in his fifties, with salt-and-pepper hair cut short. He’s got soft, dark-brown eyes that are covered by round-framed glasses, but his other features are harsh. His nose is big and angular, his brow well-defined, his jaw square and wide and his lips are thin slits. He wears good clothes, like he’s dressed up to go somewhere, but his shoes are boots, and covered in dust.

He moves closer to me, his thin lips still smiling at me. He sits down on the end of the bed and I ball myself up tighter and move closer to the bedhead. But I’ve got nowhere to go, nowhere to run to. I bury my head in my lap. He reaches out and touches my foot. His hand is cold and clammy and his touch is enough to send a disgusted shudder down my body.

“Sophie.”

I look up as the door opens fully and Darren leans on the door handle, his body half in the room and half out.

“DialM’s with Ling now. He’s touching her.” Darren’s hand grips the door handle tighter.

I nod, small fast nods. “I know.”