The agent may need to die to let Mel forget him, but other than that, I don’t see much reason to bother with him. His sister was on the list just to give my apprentice candidates more targets.
Nobility only goes so far as a motivator.
The stakes must matter.
The only thing that matters to me is Mel.
I stare at that statement and know it’s true.
It means she alone can give my life meaning now. I must test her luck. If she wins, then she’ll come with me and we’ll leave as planned. If she loses and dies, then I’ll know fickle Fate had turned its back on me.
I need to feel again.
I don’t want to hurt Mel, but if her time has come, who am I to argue with Fate?
I don’t matter. Only the work matters. It must continue. If I am no longer the one chosen to carry it on, then I too must cease.
I haven’t time to get an apprentice to do this work. The FBI agent will realize his sister is missing by tomorrow. That will get things rolling much faster. It will probably take them a while to track down her car, but once they do, he will know I have her. By that time, I may reach out.
I needed to break the agent and Mel up today so he’s not thinking about her and she’s not thinking about him. I left her a message to meet me at nine tomorrow morning. I think she’ll do it. I also put a filter on their phones so their messages come through me. I don’t want them communicating without my permission.
Getting Mel to come alone might be trickier. Josie was her shadow in the old days. She has the kids to worry about now, but she’ll want to see me too if she knows Mel plans to meet me.
I know Mel’s been following the case in the papers. I see her come back from work with stacks of newspapers, sit at the kitchen table, and clip out articles. I don’t think she suspects me, but her interest isn’t healthy. Would she turn me in if she knew? If I denied it to her face, would she believe me? I’d like to think so, but I hardly know her anymore.
The only way I get answers is to ask her. To do that, I must bring her here. She probably remembers this place better than I did. The three of us spent carefree childhood days wandering the woods around here. I think even Josie came a time or two. Guess sentimentality runs in the family. What Mel and I have is stronger than blood. She was always my rock as a child. I need to know if I can still count on her for inspiration and hope.
The work I do is difficult. The physical aspects were predictable, but the emotional strain is far worse. Self-doubt and uncertainty are the biggest enemies.
Am I supposed to punish the guilty or free the innocent? Dedicating myself to doing both is taking a toll.
I am at a crossroads. Two paths lie before me.
It becomes clear to me that Jennifer Kerman must participate when I test Mel. She will be a substitute for her brother. Maybe the good agent will be decent enough to join us too. If he does, I might be tempted to participate as well. Having my life as a stake would also heighten the excitement.
Do I bring Sam here? He would come if he thought I held his sister here, but agents don’t often come alone. They bring SWAT guys and their gear along. Would he come alone if I asked nicely? He never answered my question about how much he values his sister’s life.
It’s late, and I have plans to finalize. Jennifer, Sam, Mel, and I are going to discover a lot about ourselves tomorrow. The anticipation’s still not what it used to be, but it’s an improvement over the last couple of days.
Chapter 39:
Slightly Illegal
FBI Field Office
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Samuel Kerman officially filed the weekend under the category “worst days ever.” The bulk of Saturday went into warning his team to watch their backs and updating his boss. As he started to believe everything would work out, he’d received the call about Adana being shot in broad daylight at her kid’s birthday party. Understandably, the kid was a wreck and the husband had looked like he wanted to punch Sam. Many more hours were spent pacing the Chestnut Hill Hospital waiting room and making more phone calls.
At least Adana wasn’t dead. Either the shooter was a horrible shot, or he hadn’t intended the wound to be fatal. Sam wasn’t sure which option would be worse: a competent nutcase or an incompetent one. The doctors seemed decent, but the flow of information had some serious kinks in the system. Sam despised feeling helpless, but he couldn’t do much besides arrange for local police officers to guard the hospital room to prevent a second incident.
Sam’s throat hurt from being on the phone so long. Adana would have done a much better job of coordinating the moving pieces, but since she was temporarily out of commission, the task fell to Sam. He checked in with Newhouse who once again assured him he was fine. The other agent’s daughter was less than pleased about having her Saturday plans royally interrupted, but they were in a safe house being guarded by agents from the New York field office. Sam wasn’t pleased about having Agent Fuller or Agent Hill watching his back constantly, but he could endure a day or two. He decided to work Sunday so he wouldn’t need babysitters.
When his phone rang at 9:00 a.m. Sunday morning, Sam didn’t bother checking for the caller’s ID. About a dozen people were slated to call him back for one reason or another.
“Agent Kerman speaking,” he answered.
“Sam, it’s Josie. You’d better call Mel.” The woman sounded both worried and furious.
“I’m a little busy here—”
“Don’t give me that!” Josie snapped. “You owe her an explanation after the cowardly way you broke her heart yesterday, you slimy, poisonous toad!”
“Wait. Back up. What’d I do?” Sam had been ignoring Mel’s calls to deal with the other crises popping up, but that wouldn’t put such anger into Josie’s voice.
“You not only had the nerve to break up with her, you did it in the most impersonal, callous, stupid way possible!”
“I didn’t break up with Mel,” Sam said. “I canceled lunch with her yesterday. That’s it. Something came up at work. Why does she think I broke up with her?”
Stunned silence fell across the line.
“You didn’t send her a message from Matchmaker Miracles?”
“No, I haven’t been on that site in months,” said Sam.
Josie squealed like an excited child.
“This is great!” Sobering immediately, she gasped. “Oh, no! If you didn’t send that message, who did? If somebody’s pretending to be you, then they could also be pretending to be Andy. Mel could be in trouble.”
“Slow down, Josie,” Sam said, affecting his lion-taming tone. “Who’s Andy? Where’s Mel? Why do you think she’s in trouble?”
“You need to call her,” Josie said, repeating her earlier order. “Andy’s her brother, but she hasn’t seen him in years. She’s meeting him now at their grandparents’ old farm in Florence.”
“Where’s that?”
“South Jersey somewhere. I don’t know the exact address. Maybe my husband remembers. I’ll give him a call. Get back to me after you’ve smoothed things over with Mel. And Sam?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t wait.” Josie ended the call before Sam could respond.
He stared at his phone and tried to make sense of the odd conversation. If his Matchmaker Miracles account had been compromised, he needed to know what else had been broken into. The timing was too convenient to be a separate incident.
A call to Mel went immediately to voicemail. Sam left a rambling message and said he’d try again later. As he moved to put the phone down, it rang and showed him his mother was calling.
“I can’t talk long, Mom. What do you need?”
“I’m sorry to bother you, sweetie. I know you’re working hard,” said his mother. “Have you heard from your sister?”
“No, last I talked to her was Friday. She said she had a lunch meeting with Chris and Dana Saturday, but I’ve been busy with work stuff.”
“She missed a hair appointment this
morning. You didn’t notice if she came in or not?” his mother sounded incredulous. “She’s living with you!”
“Yes, but she occasionally stays out too late and crashes with a friend,” Sam said defensively. “Did you call her?”
He silently admitted that Jenn was typically good about telling him when her plans changed drastically.
“Of course, but it just keeps ringing. You know she never empties her messages. I don’t think I could leave one if I wanted to.”
Sam wasn’t sure what gave his mother the impression he could get through to Jenn any better than she could, but he promised to look into the matter when he had a chance. As he wound the conversation with his mother to a close, Sam mentally added “call Jenn” to his list of things to do.
No time like the present time.
He dialed his sister’s cell phone as he headed for the computer lab where he hoped to find Jordan Berkowitz and Rob Gillman. Finding Gill working alone, Sam realized this was better than finding Jordan.
“Where is everybody?” Sam inquired, pausing just inside the door.
“Late breakfast,” replied the young man.
Locking the door and pulling down the shade, Sam crossed the room and sat down beside Gill.
“I know we just met, but I need you to do something that might be slightly illegal.”
The young man looked intrigued.
“What’s that?” His hands kept typing even though his attention moved to Sam.
“Can you track a phone’s GPS from the number?” Sam wasn’t sure why his mind went there, but once formed, the idea wouldn’t leave him alone.
“Sometimes. Is the GPS active or do I need to activate it remotely?”
“I’m not sure,” Sam admitted.
Reaching down next to him, Gill picked up a sleek black laptop.
“Can’t do it from these clunkers,” Gill explained, logging into the new machine. “What do you need this for?”
“A hunch,” Sam said, not wanting to go into the whole Melissa saga. Telling the kid he was tracking down his girlfriend made Sam feel like a creep. “And my sister’s missing.” He meant it half in jest, but the idea wasn’t completely bad.
Gill gave him an odd look and finished his typing.
“You’re gonna break the law to check on your sister?”
“I need to know if it can be done,” said Sam. “Can you do it without being caught?”
“Give me the number.”
Sam gave him Jenn’s phone number, and Gill opened a new window and entered more commands. Trying the easy way one more time, Sam placed calls to both Mel and Jenn. As expected, Mel’s reached voicemail and Jenn’s did not. He waited through the whole “leave a message” spiel on Jenn’s phone before hearing the mechanical voice tell him the mailbox was full.
“That’s weird,” said Gill. “You sure the number’s right, man?”
Squinting at Gill’s screen, Sam compared the number to the one from his phone.
“That’s the one. What’s wrong?”
In answer, Gill tapped out some more instructions and pulled up a satellite image of the phone’s location.
“This isn’t a live image, but it was taken within the week,” said Gill.
The picture showed tall grass, scattered trees, an overgrown parking lot, and nothing else.
“Can you pull up a live image?” Sam wondered.
“Can and will are two different things. The only reliable satellite images are owned by the military and billion-dollar companies. Their security is a lot tighter than phone companies, and the penalties are way more than fines.”
“Okay. Give me everything you can on that location, and I’ll call the locals to look into it further.”
In seconds, Sam held a glossy photo of the abandoned lot with the coordinates and county information printed on the back. After thanking Gill for the first information, Sam pressed his luck and gave the young man Mel’s number.
“Who are we stalking this time?” Gill asked.
“My girlfriend,” Sam admitted.
Gill’s hands stopped typing.
“Should I be worried?”
“Somebody hacked into one of my accounts and sent Mel a message supposedly from me,” Sam explained. “Her friend told me she’s meeting her estranged brother at a farm that’s been in her family. If somebody’s been impersonating me, I’ve no doubt they could do the same for her brother. I need to know where she’s going so the locals can look in on her.”
The explanation satisfied Gill enough to get him working again.
While he waited, Sam contacted the Chester County sheriff’s office. After explaining his story about ten times to various parties, he received a promise that somebody would check on the abandoned lot in question. Sam considered updating his mother, but the scant information he had would only worry her more.
“Got it,” Gill announced. He handed Sam another printout. “You sure know how to pick places in the middle of nowhere. This place is massive, but I don’t think it’s an active farm. The ownership’s a mess. If my workload stays light, I’ll look into it later.”
Sam agreed with the assumption of abandonment upon seeing the overgrown grass and patches of woods.
“How far away is the farm?” he asked.
“Address is on the back,” said Gill. “Should take you about an hour to get there if you leave now. Are you going?”
Hatcher had told Sam to lay low. He couldn’t get much farther off the grid than an unscheduled trip to farm country in New Jersey. He should tell his minders, but they probably wouldn’t even miss him. He could be there and back within three hours.
“Yeah, I’m going,” said Sam. Since they seemed to be losing track of people this weekend, he added, “I’ll have my phone on. Do me a favor and keep an eye on it. I’ll check in when I get there. If you don’t hear from me in two hours, text me. If I don’t answer in a reasonable time, send backup.”
“What’s a reasonable time?” asked Gill.
Sam had no idea what to tell the kid.
“Seconds? Minutes? Use your best judgment.”
Chapter 40:
End of the Line
The Killer’s Lair
Florence, New Jersey
Jennifer Kerman awoke the next morning feeling very alone. Hunger pains told her a lot of time must have passed. Her arm ached from whatever he’d drugged her with. While she’d slept, a new figure appeared chained to the wall over by the scary chair, but she wouldn’t be much of a conversationalist since she was unconscious. The young woman sleeping in the cell to Jenn’s left might have some answers, but she didn’t want to wake her. Even in sleep, the woman looked haunted. Having absolutely nothing else to do, Jenn watched the woman and tried to place where she’d seen her face before. Despite long black hair obscuring part of her face, the sense of familiarity was overwhelming.
Sometime later, the answer sailed into Jenn’s mind along with a memory. She thought hard, trying to remember the relevant details. Three friends went missing after visiting New York City. One body had been found outside of Sam’s apartment. Recalling that hectic day brought random images flashing into her mind.
The cop!
The thought caused Jenn’s heart to skip. She gasped. The man who kidnapped her had been one of the cops helping at the scene outside Sam’s apartment. Try as she might, no names came to mind, though Jenn clearly remembered his uniform and the notebook he’d been scribbling in as he talked to Sam.
Is he a real cop? Why would a cop kidnap me?
After letting those questions spin on the hamster wheel in her head, Jenn gave up on them and studied the woman next to her with renewed interest. She tried to remember how long ago that kidnapping had taken place. It had been before Dana and Chris’s baby arrived, so at least two and a half weeks ago. If she’d been down here the whole time, that would explain the disheveled state. Not having a watch suddenly bothered Jenn. Seeing the seconds slowly tick by would probably be awful, but not knowing was
even worse.
Her stomach growled, but since she had nothing to fix the problem, Jenn tried to ignore it. The poor woman looked like she hadn’t combed her hair since her kidnapping even though a brush lay next to the tiny sink built into the wall beside the toilet. The cells weren’t much to look at but they would keep somebody alive indefinitely as long as food was delivered regularly. Jenn wasn’t desperate enough to try the water yet, but she assumed it would be passable.
The toilet occupied a good amount of the cell’s back left corner if one were standing outside looking in. The back right corner where Jenn currently sat held two dirty blankets. The front half of each cell was blank. Each floor sloped inward at an angle leading to a drain set into the floor. If she could pry it up, she’d have a hefty chunk of metal to use as a weapon, but an experimental tug on the drain ruled that out.
The prison held three cells like the one she was in and a slightly larger area that featured wall chains and a dental chair. Jenn tried very hard not to think of what the crazy guy used those for. The drains made more sense when she spotted the giant hose hooked near the wall chains. Her lodgings consisted of the second of three cells. The first was empty and her slumbering neighbor currently occupied the last cell in line.
He holds ’em, he kills ’em, and he cleans up. How efficient.
The lumpy blankets didn’t provide much comfort, so Jenn stood up and paced the cell for a while. The movement felt good. It reminded her she still lived. To pass the time, she counted her steps, the woman’s breaths, the tiles along the back wall, the number of bars making up the cells, and anything else she could think of.
As she started on the number of spokes in the drain, her captor arrived bearing a tray. The impulse to spring at him and shrink back into the cell canceled each other, leaving her stranded over the drain. She watched his approach with the suspicion of a rabbit eyeing an approaching fox. The tray held several sandwiches on paper plates and two water bottles.
“Are you allergic to peanut butter?” he asked, pausing outside her cell.
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