“The computer’s running slow tonight. That happens when a lot of agents are running checks at once. Wait, I’ve got a response. Negative. Who’s next?”
“Wayne Heinrich.”
He spelled the name, and she entered it into the search engine.
“What did we do before computers?” she asked.
“We guessed more,” he said.
Heinrich also came up negative. The next twenty names on the list produced the same result. She raised a hand to her mouth and smothered a yawn.
“I need more coffee,” she said. “I’m starting to crash from all the sugar in those doughnuts.”
“Coming right up.”
He fixed another pot in the kitchen. He made it extra strong and filled two mugs. Searching the NCIC database one name at a time was a painstaking process, but he was convinced it would pay off. The Hanover killers had to be nurses for the simple reason that every other suspect had been eliminated. Daniels’s willingness to start over was assurance that she believed he was right. He returned to the living room with the mugs.
“Any luck?” he asked.
She did not reply. Her head was tilted back, and she was snoring. He cleared his throat but did not rouse her. He put the mugs on the coffee table, then gently removed the laptop and also put it on the coffee table. With her eyes still closed, she mumbled thanks, then lay sideways on the couch and slipped into dreamland.
He got a blanket and covered her. It was time to take a break. Before he did, he glanced at the laptop’s screen to see if they’d gotten a hit. Her latest entry had come up negative. He grabbed a mug and went outside. He needed to check in with the troops.
Sometimes late at night when the city was asleep, the light pollution dimmed and the stars came out. Tonight was such an event, and he stood at the railing and beheld the flickering dots in the night sky with his cell phone pressed to his ear, talking to Carlo.
“How are things at the Pearls’?” he asked.
“About the same,” Carlo said.
“You still seeing a lot of strange cars?”
“Yeah. Too much traffic for a residential street. That was some scene at the beach. In the old days, you would have torn that lifeguard’s arm off.”
“I guess I’m getting soft in my old age. How are the Pearls holding up?”
“They’re hunkered down inside watching a movie. I wouldn’t be surprised if they never came outside again.”
“I should probably call and calm them down.”
“Not a bad idea. Later, brother.”
The building had a visitor. Down below, the security gate rose, and a yellow taxi entered the property. It parked by the entrance, and the driver hopped out and removed a suitcase from the trunk and gave it to his female passenger, who paid him. The driver was familiar, having brought many residents home from the nearby airport.
The driver started to leave. The area around the entrance was having new pavers installed, and the driver had to back out in order not to hit any of the equipment. It was a struggle, and he finally got clear and left. Lancaster watched the taillights disappear and realized his skin was tingling. The driver knew how to handle the wheel, yet when it came to driving in reverse, he had struggled, much in the same way most people who drove a car would struggle. Driving in reverse was difficult, unless you were trained to do it.
Daniels had been trained to drive in reverse at the FBI’s training facility in Quantico. She was so skillful that he wanted to learn himself. He’d never seen anyone else drive in reverse that well — with one exception.
Two days ago, two of Nicki’s stalkers had been parked in front of the Pearls’ house in a white van, casing it. When Lancaster had chased them, the van’s driver had gone in reverse down the street and escaped. There were several vehicles parked on either side, yet the van hadn’t scraped a single one.
Based upon their use of a wheelchair at the Galleria mall, he felt certain they were the same pair of monsters who’d terrorized Dartmouth College twenty years ago. And now he knew something else about them. One of the stalkers knew how to expertly drive in reverse. Which could only mean one thing.
He’d been trained.
Chapter 38
Bad Eye
Lancaster went inside and shut the slider. Daniels was sprawled on the couch and mumbling in her sleep. He stifled the urge to awaken her so he could explain what he’d discovered. It was just a theory, and he needed to write it all down and make sure it held water before he rousted her.
He went to his study and shut the door. Sitting at his desk, he found a legal pad and a pencil in a drawer and wrote the words MISSED CLUES at the top of the page in bold letters. Before he could write any more, his cell phone vibrated and he removed it from his pocket. Karissa had texted him. She’d encountered a problem during her drive to Marathon and had just arrived at his friends’ motel and was getting settled in. He felt like a jerk for not reaching out to her to make sure she was okay, so he called her.
“Hey, there,” she said. “I didn’t know if you were still up.”
“Burning the midnight oil,” he said. “Tell me what happened.”
“I blew a tire on the Florida Turnpike just north of Miami and had to pull off on the shoulder. When I went to replace it, I found the spare was flat, so I called Triple A. Luckily, a highway patrolman came by and babysat me until a repair truck showed up.”
“I’m sorry. I hope you’re not too stressed out.”
“I’ll live. Look, Jon, I need to ask you a question. You told me that you have an FBI friend who could arrest Zack. What if your FBI friend doesn’t come through? What then? It wouldn’t be the first time the law has let me down.”
He leaned back in his chair and considered how best to respond. He knew from his years as a policeman that victims of sexual crimes rarely felt protected by the law and did not trust the police to follow through when it came to protecting them from their attackers. He’d promised Karissa that he’d have Zack put away so he couldn’t harm her, but until he actually did something, she was going to fear every shadow and strange noise.
“If that happens, then I’ll deal with Zack,” he said.
“Deal with him how?” she said.
“You don’t want to know.”
“Yes, I do. Deal with him how?”
“I’ll put a bullet in him if I have to. You have my word.”
The line went quiet. He’d never made a promise like that before. But the fact was, he’d screwed up when he’d confronted Zack and let Karissa’s name slip. He was responsible for the mess she was in, and he needed to fix it.
“I hope it doesn’t come to that,” she said.
“Neither do I. But if it does, I’ll deal with him. He won’t hurt you again.”
“Thank you. You have no idea how much that means to me. Good night.”
He said goodbye and ended the connection. He could only deal with one problem at a time, and he shoved Karissa out of his mind and went back to his legal pad.
Writing down all the clues they’d missed took twenty minutes. The reality of most criminal investigations was that the truth was hidden in the facts, and if the investigator looked hard enough, the truth would reveal itself. The truth was beginning to reveal itself with the Hanover killers, and he booted up his computer and continued his search.
Three hours later he was done. He’d found the bastards and now understood how they’d managed to evade Daniels for such a long time. He also felt certain that they were about to claim their next victim, and that he and Daniels needed to act quickly.
He found Daniels in the living room still talking in her sleep. Her words were anguished, and her body twisted uncomfortably on the couch. She led a tortured life. During the day she chased the men who’d tried to abduct and kill her, and at night, they chased her. Putting down his legal pad, he knelt next to the couch, wanting to wake her as gently as possible.