It rang for a time and then went to his voicemail. For a second she thought about leaving a message but then thought better of it. Worry crept in again. During Delgado’s funeral would be just the kind of time Spalding would choose to launch something. Had he paid a visit to Tyler? Was Tyler still alive? Panic gripped her then and she set the car in motion. Fear drove her at speed to the rural hideaway that was Tyler’s house, a place she had come to love visiting even for itself.
Her phone vibrated, and she looked down at it on the passenger seat. Message from an unknown number. She shuddered but moved her hand down to swipe at the screen.
‘Sorry, couldn’t make it. Will explain later. Tyler.’
The message was clipped but the panic ebbed almost at once. Had it been a forced message it would have been more erudite to try hide something behind a veneer of normalcy. This message meant Tyler was doing something and the fact he ‘d missed Delgado’s funeral for it meant it was really important. But what could it be?
As she thought about this, the phone began to ring and it was Megan calling. Sarah pulled over to the side of the road to answer it. She wasn’t going anywhere in particular now, so she didn’t need to keep driving as they spoke.
“Megan, are you alright?” Sarah asked.
“I’m fine,” Megan replied, “I just wanted to check in and see if there had been any news about Ellie since she phoned?” Sarah didn’t understand why Megan did things like this, why anyone did things like this. If there was something to tell, Sarah would have already told Megan. She knew how fragile the girl was and would be delighted to give even the slightest hint at good news.
“No, not yet Megan, but remember that’s a good thing,” Sarah said.
“I just feel so guilty,” Megan went on. She’d been crying and by the sound of her was on the verge of it again.
“Don't think like that Megan, you know this is not your fault. This is the work of one very evil and very fucked up man!” Her voice had been a little more forceful than she intended, and she sighed as she cooled her temper.
“You have to save her,” Megan said softly like a reprimanded child. Sarah bit her lip; what did she think they were doing?
“We’re doing all we can,” she replied. Sarah knew how badly Megan was hurting and she didn’t want to make it any worse. “You did a fantastic job making that recording of the conversation, our tech team is going through every second of it and I’m sure they’ll find something.”
“I’m sorry to call,” Megan said. “I just get so panicked about it sometimes.”
“That’s perfectly natural,” Sarah replied realising Megan was completely oblivious to the funeral taking place today. Did she even know Delgado had been killed? It was very possible she didn’t. “You can call me anytime and I’ll always answer if I can.”
“Thanks Sarah.”
“Go sit with you mother,” Sarah advised. “Try to do something relaxing together.”
When the call was over Sarah looked out onto the road. She was at a loss as to where to go. She wasn’t allowed back in the office for a few days, but she had files at home, perhaps she should go and look at them now.
Chapter 35
Freeman spent the funeral of Pedro Delgado people watching. He didn’t know the man well, but they had worked together very recently on the current Mansion Murders and Freeman thought he was a good man. He saw genuine upset from a lot of people, and it was nice to see victims of crimes coming to show their respects and gratitude to the slain lawman.
What stood out most of all to Freeman, however, was Sarah Brightwater. She spent the funeral mass and graveside ceremonies constantly looking around for someone. He didn’t know who that someone was, but it seemed clear that up to the time Freeman left, he had not shown his face there. He wondered was she on the lookout for the killer? People who committed murders were often known to visit the graves of the people they killed. It would be very unusual for them to show up at the funeral itself though. He discounted this idea.
Who else could it have been that was so important to her? Sarah didn’t wear a wedding band, but he supposed it could have been a boyfriend she wanted to be there to comfort her. But that didn’t feel right either. He couldn't tell what she was thinking or feeling when this person didn’t show up, but he knew it had been important to her.
Freeman’s chief suspicion was that Sarah knew something more about what had happened to agent Delgado than she was letting on. He didn’t know in what capacity, but he felt it was something she shared with someone else, the missing person from the funeral. Freeman did his best to note down all who were there, but not being from the FBI there were an awful lot of people he didn’t know.
He waited around for a while after the graveside service, but Sarah seemed to be constantly in the middle of a group of people. Every time one left, one or two more would come over to join the group to talk. It had been a long drive here for Freeman and he knew Sarah had seen him and noted his attendance. He didn’t have any more time to spend here, he had to get back to work.
On the way back to Baltimore, Freeman forced his mind away from anything Sarah might be up to and back to his own case. He was still working on the premise that Spalding had nothing to do with the case, but he had come up with a new idea just this morning. If the three suspects had done this, it had been with a level of sophistication that made him think they had done this before.
It would probably have been on a smaller scale and perhaps invitations to the place had been in person only. They also probably didn’t stick around the last time in case they had made some mistake to trip them up. As he thought this, Freeman began to think there was going to be more than one of these events previous to now. This was probably their third or fourth time doing it. Only this time the scale was much larger, and they would have to go to some serious lengths to top themselves this time without getting caught. Identity changes, carrying out the next set of murders in a different country, that was about all that was left to them now.
When he arrived back at his desk it was late in the afternoon. He got a sandwich and coffee from a vending machine and sat down to start researching his new idea.
“Where would they have started?” Freeman asked himself. “How would they have started?”
He ran a search on single victim murders first, unsolved of course. Surely that was how they would have begun. This way they could play their roles and take a life and see if it was something they could continue to do.
There was no shortage of unsolved murders with a single victim in Maryland, let alone the rest of the eastern United States. He narrowed his search parameters to the last two years. It was likely they started around then if he was reading them right. Of course, he wasn’t going to know if he was reading them right until he solved the case against them.
There were still a lot of results. It would take time to go through them, especially as he didn't really have anything in mind to look for. He sat back in his chair and exhaled and then stretched out his back and neck.
“What would you have done next?” he wondered out loud. Perhaps that would be easier to track. He searched the same date range but this time double murders. This list was much smaller, only fifteen hits. He started to look through these files.
Some of them he was able to discount as family matters or murder suicides but then he came across one file that intrigued him. There had been a man and woman with seemingly no relationship murdered in an old rickety house in the suburbs. There were pictures of the place and Freeman thought at once he was onto something. It looked for all the world like a haunted house on a hill. The kind everyone can easily imagine. Is that what they did- a haunted house theme night and then the murders?
No suspects were ever brought in, but what had happened and was probably not known by the killers was that there had been a witness that night. Someone who wasn’t part of the party of five people he saw go up to the house.
The man was called Charley Brunswick and he’d given descri
ptions of the people he’d seen. Four men and two women. One of the men and one woman were identified as the victims but no one else had ever been questioned about the murders. The people seemed to vanish into thin air.
Freeman searched the file for an address or phone number for this Charley Brunswick and he was delighted to see they had both. He looked at his own file on his desk and saw the three mugshots of the victims. If they were the same people hopefully Brunswick would be able to point them out. This could be the break in the case.
Chapter 36
Night fell in Tacoma, Washington and Tyler lay on his hotel bed looking out over the city. A new laptop lay open beside him and he had downloaded his maps information from the cloud to make more notes and study Spalding’s limited movement data he had. He’d checked into the hotel under the assumed name Gary Richards and used the fake driver’s license bearing that name as ID. It was second nature to Tyler to play a role as up to now no one had ever seen who he really was and lived to tell about it. Gary or Tyler, what difference did it make to him in the end?
As he looked at the read out, he knew how much the FBI would love this information and it would have been the easiest thing in the world to send it on to Sarah, but Tyler knew he couldn’t do that. It was much more important that he get to Spalding himself first. The FBI could pick up the pieces once Tyler was done. He lay back and looked at the ceiling, catching himself in a lie. What difference did it make if he took down Spalding now? It wouldn’t erase that Tyler had been outed as ‘The Birdwatcher.’. It wouldn’t make Sarah any less hurt by what she was about to find out. He could still never see her again no matter what fate awaited Spalding.
Revenge, pure and simple. That is all it would be- and at considerable risk to both his own life and freedom. He knew he was going to go through with this, but why? That he didn’t know. Was it to save her? If so, why? Why did it matter so much? In no time at all she would be seeing Tyler as no different to Spalding. She would be looking for him to arrest him and have him put in jail for the rest of his life if not worse. And yet, he felt something, felt something if not for her then for her future. He wanted her to see an end to the horrors that had plagued her life since she was eighteen.
Could he do that? Was it within his power? He could bring Spalding down, but that would only halt one evil in her mind. She would then have the new one of Tyler himself in there to replace it. How could he make her nightmare end without starting one for himself? There was no way, they were diametrically opposed. There was no way.
Tyler sat up and looked at his screen again. The map was bright, and the blue dots stood out like beacons in the dark, the largest one being the place he knew Ellie to be held. Assuming of course she was still alive. Was it worth saving her? Even if Spalding was killed, Ellie would spend the rest of her life looking over her shoulder as though he had the life rejuvenating powers of Michael Myers. In her mind Spalding, dead or alive, would always be coming for her. She wouldn't sleep one good night and would die young from the problems that would sow. Perhaps it would be better if she were already dead and at peace.
Clicking out of the map for now, Tyler opened up some of his other cloud files. He saw the manuscript of his book and the files relating to his research. It would never see the light of day in light of the revelations once he managed to stay free. He felt it was something he would continue to work on all the same, even if he didn’t get the access to convicted felons he once did as the respected journalist Tyler Ford. It was about him really in the end. He saw all the things that made him like the ones who had been locked up or put to death. In their fates he supposed he saw his own one day. Which fate would it be, though, that was the only question. All he knew was that none of them were appealing.
Tyler shook his head to dispel these thoughts, there was still work to be done. It was time to start working his way back to Virginia by road and that was going to take time.
He expected the news to break any hour now about his real identity and the things he’d done. After that travelling would be riskier and more stealth and disguise was going to be required. He didn’t mind being tracked to Washington and had made little disguise of himself upon arriving at this hotel this evening and even that was only a fake moustache to match the one on the driver’s licence. He was going to leave again right away, and they wouldn't expect him to come all the way back to where he’d just left.
Some of his old contacts from the underworld might still be willing to help him out in some small way but it wasn’t worth the risk to ask them. Luckily for Tyler he’d been blessed with good looks and had kept his body in good shape and muscular. Using these things to his advantage, Tyler had posed online as a fourteen-year-old girl and set up a fan page which had many followers now. There were also two other rival pages with fewer followers but still sizable. It was the one his young female person administered that he hoped to leverage for anything he needed.
He posted a message to each member's private messenger accounts saying Tyler Ford had been in contact and that he was now on the run. That the FBI was trying to frame him because of a story he was writing about them. He wanted to know if he could count on their support while he was in hiding around the country.
Tyler smiled at his own cunning. There was no more fanatical and loyal a person as a teenage girl with a crush. Once he worded everything right and sent snippets to keep them satisfied and feel appreciated the most diehard would be his ticket home. Now he waited, watching the news, and doing his best to keep Sarah out of his thoughts.
Chapter 37
Sarah was so tired when she got home the night of the funeral that she felt like crawling straight into bed. She laid out the files on her table and went for a shower in the hope it would bring some life back into her body. Something had to make her feel differently than she did now.
The hot water blasted her face and she stood in its stream with her eyes closed thinking if only she could stay here like this forever. Thoughts were edged out by the pressure of the water and the gasping breaths her body forced her to take every few seconds and everything was a simple struggle to survive in one place at one time.
She did feel better, physically, after the shower. Sarah got dressed in some sweatpants and made some microwaveable mac and cheese while a pot of coffee brewed. She glanced at her watch and was shocked to see that it was only just gone seven in the evening. How long was this day going to go on for?
With her food and coffee, she sat down on her couch and looked at the files on the table. Taking up one at random she emptied it out and it was the one filled with Tyler’s articles. It came back to her of a sudden that Tyler had not been the one who sent them to her and now she looked more closely at them. What was it all about, and who had sent them?
Again, Sarah noted that the articles were on a diverse range of topics, from corporate fraud, illegal land usage, environmental practices, missing people, mob activity, death row reports and even a very old one from an agricultural fair Tyler had covered once.
She read through each article looking for common names or turns of phrase that might somehow link them but came up with nothing. The only thing that linked them all was the fact Tyler had written them.
Without realising it, her methodical FBI mind began to collate the States the stories were from and though this didn’t give her the insight she wanted, she could feel there was something there. She was on the right track but the right track to what?
Next came the dates of the stories and this is where the discomfort began to set in. All of the dates rang a bell with her but why? It was certainly nothing to do with any of these stories before her. What was it then, what were those dates?
It had to be something recent, or else they wouldn’t be so clear in her mind. Sarah closed her eyes, trying not to let anger at her mental block come to the fore. She recited the dates in her head, those she could recall at least. Then an image came to her mind, grainy blurred and not formed but she knew at once what it was. It was a missing per
son poster image. Then another, and suddenly another.
Sarah sat up rigidly and leaned over the papers to double check the dates. They were all right and then she drew up a map and looked at the locations of all the stories and it hit her so hard it was almost painful. She stood up and walked around the room, her hands trembling.
“No,” she said simply, this can’t be right. She was jumping at shadows. She sat back down and drew up the locations on her computer and then ran the distances to the missing people who were freshest in her head. They all matched. On each of three occasions, Tyler was within a few hours’ drive of a person who had gone missing, and not just missing, these people were the victims of the ‘Birdwatcher’!
Sarah could feel her heart pounding and her breaths were growing more shallow by the second. She opened the Birdwatcher case file and looked at all the missing persons dates and it became clear this was what the message had been. The dates all matched up. Tyler was nearby on a story, every time one of these murders took place!
Sarah slumped down and slid from the couch to the floor as she wailed uncontrollably. All this time, these last couple of years she’d been side by side and in bed even with a serial killer.
She didn’t want to believe it, but her mind wouldn’t allow her that luxury or way out. She knew it was true, she could feel it and feel the nausea it rose within her. How could this have happened? How could he have done this?
Lying there on her floor, Sarah had not cried like this since her mother was murdered all those years ago. Then it had been grief pure and uncaged but now this was different. There was grief in it, but it was the hate and anger that drew out the worst of the feelings within. She felt worthless, unfit to be a living person let alone one whose job it was to catch these people and put them away where they couldn't hurt anyone anymore. Now Tyler was gone, sure to get away. He was too smart to get caught now that he knew he’d been exposed. How stupid she had been to tell him about the articles, to give him the warning to leave while she was at Delgado’s funeral. It almost felt as though she had colluded in his escape in some way.
A Clamour of Rooks (The Birdwatcher Series Book 4) Page 14