Within a week, over a thousand men were cleared. At the end of two weeks, the number was three thousand. And by week three, every single male in Hanover who wasn’t in a nursing home, lying in a hospital bed, or in jail had been tested and cleared. If the killers were locals, they had done a good job of rendering themselves invisible.
And that was how the book ended, with a giant question mark hanging over the town and its people, the case unsolved, the killers never brought to justice. In the epilogue, the author had speculated as to who the killers might be. He’d also interviewed Beth Daniels, who was a senior at Dartmouth at the time of the book’s writing. Her life had gone back to normal, except for one thing. She no longer wished to be a research scientist, and had decided to study criminology and enter into law enforcement.
He’d found Special Agent Beth Daniels.
He placed his Kindle on the coffee table and stared into space. The pieces of the puzzle were swirling around, and he was having a hard time fitting them together. Daniels looked like Nicki, just older, and she also looked like Cassandra on the lewd videos he’d watched. He’d come to the conclusion that Nicki hadn’t created the videos because there was no time in her young life to have slipped away from her parents and done so. Someone else had created and posted them on the internet sites visited by perverts.
It felt like a cleverly constructed sting. Put tantalizing videos of a pretty teenager on the internet and draw the scum out from beneath their rocks. The FBI was masterful at setting up stings, and he could see them orchestrating this. If that was true, then Beth Daniels was certainly behind it, since this was her turf. But why had she gone and used her niece as bait? Daniels was in the business of catching sexual predators, and would have surely known the danger she was putting Nicki in.
He didn’t know the answer and decided to find out. Soon he was on his laptop searching the internet for a phone number for the FBI’s offices at Quantico. The FBI was massive, and Quantico housed several divisions — including the Violent Crimes Against Children/Online Predators unit. He called a general information number, and an automated voice answered. He listened to the directory and punched the number that would allow him to dial by name. There were a lot of agents, and he was happy that Daniels was at the beginning of the alphabet. Her extension was #167. He punched it into his cell phone’s keypad and heard the call go through.
“This is Special Agent Elizabeth Daniels. I’m in the field and can’t take your call. Leave a message, date, time, and I’ll return your call at my first opportunity.”
A short buzz filled his ear. He wrestled with how much to say, and decided to keep his message short and sweet.
“Good evening. My name is Jon Lancaster, and I’m a private investigator living in Fort Lauderdale. I would like to speak to you about the Cassandra videos. We can do this over the phone or in person. Please call me when you get this message. I’ll be up.”
He left his cell phone number and ended the call. Then he got an iced tea and went onto his balcony and sat in a chair and watched the day come to an end. Beth Daniels had become an FBI agent because of her past. She was on a mission, and probably the kind of agent who worked all hours on cases and regularly checked her voice mail.
His eyelids had grown heavy. He hadn’t gotten much sleep in the last few days and was exhausted. His bed was calling him, only he didn’t want to be asleep when Daniels rang him back. He didn’t expect her to be forthcoming with information and would have to word his questions carefully and draw her out. He needed to be sharp to do that.
Sipping his drink, he wondered how long it would be before he got a call back.
Chapter 26
Daniels
The blare of a car horn snapped him awake.
It took him a moment to get his bearings. He was still in a chair on the balcony, and it was pitch black outside. The lack of city lights suggested early morning. His empty glass sat by his feet; beside it, his cell phone. By glancing at the screen, he could tell if he’d gotten any calls while asleep. There were none.
Special Agent Daniels hadn’t called him back. He would have bet money that she was going to. His batting average was poor when predicting women’s behavior, and he guessed that was why he was still single.
He heard the horn again. His unit faced the front of the building, and he went to the railing and looked down. A car was parked by the guardhouse, trying to get in. The apartment had twenty-four-hour security, but at night the guard often went inside to drink coffee with the cleaning people.
The guard came out of the building and trotted toward the guardhouse. Instead of going inside, he walked around the security gate and greeted the visitor. It was a woman, and she hung out of the open driver’s window and flashed her credentials. They had a brief conversation, then the guard punched a code into a keypad and the gate rose. The visitor pulled in and found a parking space and got out. The guard met her at the entrance to the building, and used a key card to gain entry. She went in and the guard started to follow, only to be rebuffed. She didn’t want his help. The guard looked uncomfortable with this, but said nothing. The visitor entered, and the front door closed behind her.
The building had two hundred residents, and the visitor could have been here to visit anyone, but his gut told him it was Daniels, come to pay him a visit. He’d worked with the FBI doing jobs for Team Adam, and he knew that they kept a fleet of private jets at an airport in DC that agents could hop on when a case broke wide open.
He went inside and brushed his teeth and ran a washcloth over his face. Then he unlocked the front door to his apartment and went to the kitchen and brewed a pot of coffee. He pulled a carton of half-and-half out of the fridge and saw that it had expired. As he poured it down the drain he heard the front door open.
“Hello. I’m in the kitchen making coffee. Come on back.”
No response. He cleared his throat.
“I’d offer you something to eat, but I’m afraid all I’ve got is cheese and crackers and a couple of slices of cold pizza.”
Still no answer. Daniels was definitely not the friendly type. He took a pair of mugs out of the cabinet and set them on the counter.
“How do you like your coffee? I’ve got sugar and sweetener.”
Daniels stepped into the kitchen. She was slight of build and maybe five six in her bare feet. Her resemblance to Nicki was uncanny, right down to the center part in her jet-black hair. She wore a dark-green pantsuit and had a badge pinned to the jacket lapel. Clutched in her hands was a .40-caliber Glock that was pointed at his chest.
“FBI. Put your arms in the air.”
“Is that a no on the coffee?”
“Do it!”
He played cool and stuck his arms in the air. She made him walk into the dining room and had him sit in a chair. He’d bought a dining room set to fill out the apartment and didn’t think he’d used it once, preferring to eat on the balcony or while watching TV in the living room. The chair creaked under his weight.
“Put your hands behind the chair,” she ordered him.
“Is this necessary? I called you, remember? And I unlocked the door.”
“It could be a trap.”
“If you thought it was a trap, you would have brought backup.”
“Stop arguing with me.”
She was on edge, her voice high-pitched. Squeezing a trigger was easier when the shooter was under duress. Not wanting to get shot, he stuck his arms behind his back. She handcuffed his wrists and used a plastic tie to secure the cuffs to a rung in the back of the chair. Then she came around the chair and stood in front of him. The Glock was returned to its jacket holster. She crossed her arms and gave him a stern look.