“Trace it.”
“Will do.” Brand searched a CD-ROM containing millions of known Internet Protocol addresses. He reported that it was a dynamic IP address assigned by a major Internet service provider.
Most providers maintained huge blocks of IP addresses and assigned a new address to the user whenever he dialed in. The addresses were doled out at random, and the same user would have a different address every time he established a new connection.
Even so, the specific user could be traced, if the date and time of the connection were known.
“We’ve got the date stamp and the time stamp on the e-mail directory search,” Brand said in response to Rawls’s unvoiced question. “If the ISP will open up their logs, we’re golden.”
Brand phoned the provider and got through to the sysop. Rawls waited, wondering if they would encounter resistance. The big providers were sensitive to protecting customer privacy. Sometimes they demanded a warrant.
Then Brand covered the phone’s mouthpiece and said, “They’re cooperating.”
“Hallelujah,” Rawls breathed, and for a moment he was back inside the hot, overcrowded church in East St. Louis where his mother had dragged him every Sunday, wearing his only suit, a threadbare hand-me-down from his cousin Theo.
Praise be to God, the congregation would announce. Hallelujah, oh, hallelujah!
He asked himself if God was watching over him now-and over C.J. Osborn.
46
C.J. found Adam’s black BMW a few yards from the parking garage, near a pile of lumber blocking the entry ramp. For the first time that night, she actually felt lucky-because the door on the driver’s side had been left open. It hung ajar, inviting her inside.
A trap? More likely, Adam had been in too much of a hurry to close the door. That meant the antitheft system had never been activated.
If the key was in the ignition, she might start to believe in miracles. She slipped inside and checked.
No key. Well, she could get the car started anyway. She’d picked up a long steel screw from the roadside while doubling back to the garage. It would make an adequate prying tool. She set to work digging the screw into the ignition cylinder, trying to find purchase on the slippery metal ring.
The thought occurred to her that Adam would kill her if he knew she was scratching up his car.
Ha ha, very funny.
He really was embarrassingly proud of this set of wheels, his first tangible proof of success. She remembered how he’d dropped by her house, shortly after signing on with Brigham amp; Garner, just to say hello, of course. And he’d been driving his shiny new Beemer-the 325 coupe, he’d informed her-184 horsepower, audio console upgrade, sand leather interior. She had wondered why he still wanted to impress her, why it mattered to him.
She still hadn’t pried loose the cylinder. If she had a knife or a screwdriver Wait.
Footsteps on asphalt.
Adam was coming.
No time to get the car started. She had to take cover, hope he didn’t notice the scratch marks on the steering column.
She slipped out of the car, easing the door shut without making a sound, and scrambled behind the pile of lumber. Huddled there, breathing hard, as Adam came into view.
He was limping badly now. She’d struck him pretty hard with the plank. The muscles of his leg must have stiffened up. She hoped it hurt like hell.
He stopped by the black coupe and opened the door, sliding in. The dome light illuminated the car’s interior. She could see him clearly. His face was drawn and pale, his pretense of composure long gone.
Was he leaving? No chance. He couldn’t run away now-unless he meant to run all the way to Mexico.
Go, Adam, she urged voicelessly. You can cross the border before I find a way out of here.
She didn’t even care if he was caught. She just wanted him gone, out of her life forever.
The BMW’s engine turned over with a dull grumble.
Adam started to close the driver’s door, then hesitated, looking down at something in the car.
The scratches she’d made? No, his gaze seemed fixed on the seat. Adam ran a hand over the seat cushion, then raised his hand to the glow of the dome light.
There was something dark on his fingers.
She looked down at her own hand, invisible in the shadows, and remembered smashing the vial of tattoo ink. Her hand had been stained a bloody maroon hue. Though she’d wiped off the worst of the spill, her fingers and palm remained dark with ink.
She’d left a handprint on the BMW’s seat-a print that would show up plainly against the sand leather.
Glare.
The coupe’s headlights came on, then the high beams, flooding the whole area with light.
She scrunched down lower, hoping the lumber would hide her from the halogen beams.
The car began to turn in a slow semicircle, high beams sweeping over the lumber pile.
The fans of light swept past the spot where she lay prone in the weeds… stopped… then swung back.
She was pinned in the glare.
He’d seen her.
The car’s motor revved.
Run.
The BMW screamed forward, plowing into the lumber, scattering it like kindling, but she was already up and sprinting along the side of the garage.
The coupe reversed, then swerved toward her in pursuit. She picked up her speed. Brightness flared behind her.
She reached the corner of the garage. Looking back. she flung the screw at his windshield. It cracked the glass, leaving a starburst of fractures.
Running again, legs pumping hard. Childishly she felt better. He was so proud of that stupid car.
She ran faster, and behind her the coupe turned the corner, its high beams closing in.
47
“Get a load of this,” Cellini said. She’d been thumbing through Gavin Treat’s journal with gloved hands while she and Walsh sat together in the mobile command post.
“A lead?” Walsh asked. He’d told her to skim the book in the hope that Treat had jotted down a reference to a hideout. So far the patrol units combing the neighborhood had found no sign of him.
“No. It’s just… weird. His connection with C.J. Osborn. Remember how we couldn’t account for it in terms of the computer-repair scenario? Well, it turns out he didn’t make contact with her that way. He tracked her down.”
“Why? They have a prior relationship?”
“You could say that. Take a look.”
She held the journal open before Walsh. His hands weren’t gloved, and no prints had yet been lifted from the book. Ninhydrin would be used to pull any recoverable latents off the pages. Cellini, knowing this, was careful to handle the journal only by the edges.
Gavin Treat’s handwriting, every t crossed and every i dotted, slanted in graceful cursive down the page.
December 21.
Today I found her, she who had been lost, the prodigal. She thought she could hide from me, did Caitlin, or perhaps she thought I had forgotten her after all these years. Or is it that she assumed my tastes ran exclusively to children? But we who are connoisseurs and esthetes in matters of Thanatos must continue to mature and to acquire more sophisticated tastes. Stagnation is the death of soul. As for me, I have put away childish things.
Still, it is true that I had forgotten her, or to put it more precisely, I had not made her the focus of my thoughts for a considerable time. I have been otherwise engaged. One must not dwell on the past.
It was by mere chance that I rediscovered her. Today there was a television report on a local shooting, and one of the patrol officers interviewed was a young brunette who looked so hauntingly familiar. Only after the newscast had ended did I make the connection to my past. Still, I wasn’t sure. I waited for the replay of the report on the late local news, and this time I video-recorded it. Though the officer was unidentified on screen, when I freeze-framed the tape I could read the nametag on her uniform.