Alone in the Dark

by Karen Rose

  Demetrius’s dark skin grew impossibly darker. ‘Anyone? As in everyone? As in me? And Ken and Joel?’

  Burton chanced a nervous glance around the table. ‘Yes, sir.’

  Ken’s fury nearly geysered to the surface. He was barely holding on to his self-control. I monitor the leadership of this company. Only me. Reuben could track the employees all he wanted, but the leadership team . . . That had never been included in his job description. ‘He dared to do that? To invade our privacy? Who actually put these trackers on? Was it you?’

  Burton shook his head hard. ‘No, sir. Not on your vehicles. The leadership team’s vehicles are maintained by Reuben. I take care of everyone else. But please understand that he put a tracker on his own cars too. He did it so that he would be able to find us in the event of just such a disappearance. He is the head of security, sir. He takes your safety very seriously. And he wasn’t spying on you. He would have only used the tracking software if one of you went missing. I didn’t have the passwords to see the leadership team’s tracker history. I had to find them. That’s why it took me so long to locate his car.’

  Ken swallowed his rage, mollified only slightly by Burton’s explanation. It did make sense for someone to be able to find them should they be attacked or arrested. But that someone is me. He had specifically told Reuben that the cars for the leadership team were off limits. His head of security had defied him behind his back.

  If they found Reuben alive, Ken was going to fire his ass. After he beat the ever-living shit out of him. ‘How did you find the passwords?’ he asked Burton.

  ‘Reuben has a safe where he keeps a notebook with passwords and other confidential data. I knew that he keeps the safe combination written on a sheet of paper taped to the underside of his nightstand drawer. He told me about the combination in the event he went missing. The combinations and passwords were all encrypted, of course.’

  ‘Of course,’ Demetrius said, looking very much like a bull ready to charge. ‘Since you were obviously able to de-encrypt them, you’ve had access to our whereabouts too.’

  To Burton’s credit, he didn’t flinch. ‘Today was the first time that I accessed the tracking software.’

  Demetrius shook his head. ‘So you say. Even if we believe you, what was to stop you or anyone else from selling the passwords to the highest bidder?’

  Which, Ken thought reluctantly, Reuben might have done. He was at the airport, after all. At least his car was. If they believed Burton. But so far the younger man had given them no reason to disbelieve him.

  Ken took out his phone and, making sure that no one could see his screen, sent a text to Alice. Go to the hotel at the airport. See if Reuben’s car is there. ASAP. Keep this to yourself. A few seconds later, he got Alice’s reply. Give me a moment to shut down my workstation. It would take her forty-five minutes to get to the airport, but at least Ken would know then whether Burton spoke truth. And if Reuben’s car was at the airport hotel? Then they’d have to figure out why.

  Meanwhile, he’d been monitoring the brewing confrontation between Demetrius and Burton, who was now shaking his head vehemently.

  ‘No, sir, I have not had access,’ he insisted, ‘and even if I did look at the passwords, it wouldn’t matter. The software has an auto-change feature that resets them. There is no set schedule. It happens every time the program is accessed or at some random frequency if the software goes unchecked. If I had the passwords and sold them, they’d only be good for a short time and then they’d reset. An email goes to Reuben when that happens.’

  ‘So he knows we’re looking for him,’ Demetrius murmured.

  ‘If he’s alive,’ Joel added quietly. ‘He wouldn’t have just run. Not Reuben. He’s got as much at stake in this company as any of the rest of us.’

  That would have been true of the man Ken thought he’d known, but Reuben’s defying him, even allegedly for their own safety, was too startling to ignore.

  Burton cleared his throat. ‘Assuming he is still alive and can access his email, yes, he will know we are searching for him. But that was the point – that if any of you went mysteriously missing, we would know where to locate you so we could bring you home. One way or the other.’

  Ken let out a breath. ‘All right,’ he said to Burton. ‘I want you and Sean to find out where the hell he went. If he left his car at the hotel airport and he’s not checked in, then he went somewhere. I know you’ve checked flights and rental car companies at the airport under his own name, but he could be using an alias, so make sure you check any of the names he’s used in the past. Also check the used car dealers in the area, hospitals and the morgue. How are your forensic investigative skills?’

  ‘Like riding a bike,’ Burton said grimly. He’d been a cop once. A very long time ago, he’d reported to Reuben when both were with the Knoxville PD. ‘It’ll come back to me. I’ll collect Reuben’s car from the airport and we’ll go over it with a fine-toothed comb.’

  Ken shook his head. ‘I’ll send a flatbed truck for it. You can go over it when it arrives.’

  Burton’s eyes narrowed. ‘You don’t trust me?’

  ‘No. But don’t take it personally. I don’t trust anyone.’ He glanced at Demetrius. ‘Do you have anything more?’ he asked.

  Demetrius shook his head. ‘No. Except I want that damn tracker off my damn car right this damn second.’

  ‘That goes double for me,’ Joel added.

  ‘Unanimous,’ Ken said. ‘Sean, can you test our vehicles and make sure they are tracker-free? Good,’ he said when Sean nodded. ‘Burton, tell the men you have watching Anders’s house to bring him in.’

  Burton grimaced. ‘They aren’t very experienced. They don’t have finesse. I can’t guarantee they’ll bring him in without rousing suspicion from the neighbors.’

  Demetrius rolled his eyes. ‘What the hell kind of ship is Reuben running anyway?’

  ‘We’re a bodyguard short with Decker working in Accounting while he’s on medical leave,’ Burton said tightly. ‘And we lost two team members last month. Reuben hasn’t found anyone to replace them yet.’

  The man and woman who’d been lost had been transporting a shipment from Miami when one of the cargo had charged them with a knife. Both of Reuben’s people had been stabbed, the bus they’d been driving smashing into a median strip. Luckily they’d been almost home, which allowed Reuben to reach the wreckage before it had been reported to 911, narrowly averting a major crisis.

  Their cargo had been severely dealt with. They’d have punished the bodyguard who had been tasked with searching for weapons in the first place, but he was already dead.

  ‘Fine,’ Ken said. ‘You go. Take Decker with you. He can’t run as fast as he once did, but he can subdue any of the chicken-shit in that family. I want Anders, his wife and daughter delivered to me unharmed. I want to know how his property got free of him and why he didn’t think it important enough to inform me.’

  ‘And if he doesn’t tell you?’ Demetrius asked, a predatory gleam in his dark eyes.

  Ken ignored Joel’s slight grimace. Their white-collar friend didn’t have a taste for wet work. Luckily for Joel, both Ken and Demetrius did.

  ‘He’ll tell me,’ Ken told him. ‘We’ll see how badly he wants his wife and daughter to remain unharmed.’

  ‘What about the two women that are still alive and in Anders’s house?’ Burton asked.

  ‘Bring them back here too. They may have been in on the dead woman’s escape.’ Ken shot Demetrius an amused look. ‘We might have to work overtime.’

  ‘Such a shame,’ Demetrius drawled.

  Under other circumstances Ken might have smiled. But not today. ‘What I want to know is where the hell are Reuben and Jackson? Who was the man in the alley with the dead girl? And how did she escape? I want that damn tracker back. Do whatever you need to do to make that happen. Any questions? Good. Then go.’

  Cincinnati, Ohio

  Tuesday 4 August, 9.00 A.M.

  CSU S
pecialist Vince Tanaka glanced up when Scarlett and Deacon entered the lab, the magnifying goggles that covered his face making him look like something between a mad scientist and a borg. ‘Oh. I was about to call you two.’ He flipped one of the magnifying lenses up and glanced at the big clock on the wall, then winced. ‘Oh. I was about to call . . . a few hours ago. I got wrapped up in this. Sorry.’

  On the worktable before him was the tracking device they’d cut off of Tala’s ankle. It was black, sleek and almost . . . petite. Nothing like the clunky models they were used to seeing on parolees and prisoners on house arrest. Then again, most of them weren’t built like a seventeen-year-old Filipino girl – only four foot eleven and ninety-two pounds, according to her chart in the morgue. The normal-sized monitors might not have stayed on her leg.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Scarlett told him. ‘It just would have been nice to know sooner. We’d only theorized that Tala was being held as a slave. This takes away all doubt. What can you tell us?’

  Deacon had pulled on a pair of gloves and passed a pair to Scarlett. He picked up the device, his mouth bending into a thoughtful frown. ‘It’s really light.’

  ‘State of the art,’ Vince said. ‘Weighs less than four ounces. Most courts and correction agencies don’t have the budget to buy these new ankle monitors. This particular model isn’t supposed to be sold to private individuals, but obviously the victim’s captor had access.’

  Scarlett studied the device in Deacon’s hands. ‘Can you trace it back to the manufacturer using the serial number?’

  ‘Already did,’ Vince said. ‘Kind of, anyway. The manufacturer is Constant Global Surveillance and their head office is in Chicago. This unit was reported to have been damaged during quality control testing. It was supposedly destroyed. CGS was “extremely surprised and upset” to hear I was holding it in my hands. Apparently there will be an internal investigation.’

  ‘I should hope so,’ Deacon said as he handed the device to Scarlett. ‘Did the manufacturer say how many other units were “damaged during quality control testing”?’

  Vince shook his head. ‘I asked, but I was told they wouldn’t know until they’d conducted their investigation. I’m just glad I didn’t call the main office first. If I had, I probably wouldn’t even know there was an issue at all.’

  ‘Who did you call first?’ Deacon asked.

  ‘The customer service number listed on their website. When I told them I wanted to trace one of their units, I was immediately transferred to the shipping department. I got lucky because the person who picked up the phone wasn’t the manager – it was a young man who informed me that I was mistaken, that I couldn’t have that serial number because it had been destroyed by the quality control lab. I asked to speak to his manager, who immediately asked me to hold. Fifteen minutes later, the company’s attorney picked up.’

  Scarlett sighed. ‘I take it the lawyer denied everything.’

  Vince shrugged. ‘Well, as much as he could. I was holding the device in question, so unless he wanted to claim it was a counterfeit, he had to tell me something, so he fell back on the whole tried-and-true internal investigation to shut me up.’

  ‘They may be more cooperative once they’ve had a chance to get their ducks in a row,’ Deacon said thoughtfully. ‘If they’ve got someone stealing trackers for black-market resale, they’ll want to plug that hole.’

  Vince shrugged. ‘Or they might insist on a search warrant to give themselves time to cover things up, especially if the scam goes up to the head honchos. Either way, I’ve already given them a warning by asking my questions. By the time we get there, all the evidence could be shredded.’

  ‘Maybe not,’ Deacon said. ‘Give me a few minutes.’ He walked toward the window, his cell phone to his ear.

  ‘What else about the tracker?’ Scarlett asked Vince. ‘Is it a positioning device only, or could it detect temperature and pulse?’

  ‘Just a positioning device. Why?’

  ‘Because when you cut it off Tala’s body, you probably sent a tamper alert to her captors. They’ll know she’s in the morgue.’

  Tanaka frowned behind the goggles. ‘Didn’t they put her there? Whoever “they” are.’

  ‘Maybe, maybe not. I think she knew the shooter, but it might not have been her captor. Deacon and I were wondering why she’d chance leaving the house to go to the alley to begin with if she knew she was being tracked. She must have known her captors weren’t monitoring her signal, at least for a period of time. By sending the tamper alarm, we informed them she was gone – and dead. And now they know their device is in police custody. Tala was worried that her family would be harmed.’ Scarlett sighed. ‘We may have pushed that into happening.’

  Vince flinched. ‘Oh my God.’ He looked away for a moment, then looked back, his jaw clenched resolutely. ‘Then I’d better help you find them quickly. I can tell you that while her captors could see that she was at least in the vicinity of the morgue, they don’t know the device is here at CPD now. The tracker was still sending a weak signal when I took it off, but by the time I got it here, it’d stopped transmitting.’

  ‘Stopped? Why? Did you remove the battery?’

  ‘I didn’t have to. It was drained to almost nothing.’

  ‘So her captors would have gotten an alert anyway,’ Scarlett murmured.

  ‘Probably within ten minutes of my taking it off her. Half an hour tops. I tested the battery strength before I cut the strap. If it had still been transmitting a strong signal, I would have called you. If I’d known about her family, I would have waited to cut the strap until the battery was completely dead.’

  ‘They’ve probably figured out we have the tracker, but like you said, if her captors are the ones who shot her, they knew her body would end up in our custody. I suppose it’s too much to ask that the tracker had any prints?’

  ‘Just the girl’s own fingerprints and a few partials. She didn’t pop up on AFIS, but the partials might. Latent will send the partials through the database and get back to us.’

  Scarlett bit her lower lip, thinking about the foreign accent in Tala’s flawless English. And her last spoken word – malaya. Tagalog for freedom. ‘It’s highly possible that she came into the US from somewhere else.’

  ‘Smuggled in?’

  ‘Maybe – and if that’s the case, there won’t be any immigration record. But it’s also possible she came here legally and was coerced into servitude.’

  Vince nodded briskly. ‘Then her prints will be on file with Customs and Immigration. I’ll check it out ASAP.’

  Malaya. ‘If they need to narrow the search parameters, have them check immigration records from the Philippines.’ Scarlett forced her mind to stop seeing Tala and to remember the crime scene as a whole. ‘What about the bullet casing I found in the alley?’

  ‘Latent got a single print, but it’s a clear one. It’s being processed too, along with this.’ Vince stripped the goggles from his face, then brought up a plastic evidence bin from the shelf below his worktable. He was about to pull the lid off when Deacon rejoined them. ‘Well?’ Vince asked him. ‘Can the Feds get the records from the tracker manufacturer without tipping them off?’

  ‘They’re planning an unannounced visit as we speak. The Bureau doesn’t source from Constant Global Surveillance, but the federal correctional system does. Their contract stipulates that CGS’s lab facilities are “open to quality audits conducted by the customer”. There’s no requirement for advance notice. The Chicago Field Office has agents en route. Hopefully they’ll get there before the lab shreds their records.’

  ‘So what are we thinking?’ Scarlett asked. ‘That someone inside CGS is smuggling working devices out of the factory and selling them on the black market? It doesn’t seem like it would be financially worth the risk. These trackers only sell for a few hundred bucks apiece.’

  ‘To legitimate buyers,’ Deacon said. ‘I imagine that anyone who’s purchased a human being through traffickers will pay a
good bit more than a few hundred bucks to protect their investment. You can’t buy trackers like this on eBay.’

  Scarlett shook her head. ‘Maybe. It still doesn’t seem worth the risk for the guy in the lab to steal them at a rate that would make him any money. If he “destroys” too many during testing, somebody’s going to notice. To keep from being caught, it would have to be an every-now-and-then thing. Unless he’s not stealing these units for the money. What if he’s being forced to provide them?’

  Deacon nodded. ‘Extortion is a definite possibility. I’ll get backgrounds on anyone who had access to the units made around the same time as this one. We’ll see if anyone pops, then start with that person and follow the trail. Hopefully to whoever bought this unit.’

  ‘Which was about to give up the ghost when Vince cut it off Tala’s leg,’ Scarlett said.

  ‘Yeah, I heard. I was on hold when you two were discussing that part, so I listened in. Before we go on to the rest of the evidence,’ Deacon said, pointing at the bin Vince held on the worktable, ‘I have another question about the tracker. Does it transmit sound or just GPS signal?’

  ‘Well, it depends on who you ask. Constant Global Surveillance’s website claims it can be used to buzz the wearer – like a phone in vibrate mode. The buzz is used to remind the wearer of appointments with his parole officer, things like that. But some models can record or transmit live conversations without the wearer knowing it.’

  ‘Holy Big Brother, Batman,’ Scarlett muttered. ‘Defense attorneys must’ve had a field day with that.’ And of course the mere mention of defense attorneys had her remembering what Bryan had said just hours before. Trent Bracken, a goddamn killer, was going to defend actual people in an actual court. Not now, Scarlett. Pay attention. For Tala. ‘Can this tracker do that? I mean, could someone have overheard Marcus talking to Tala in the park?’

  ‘Quite possibly,’ Vince said. ‘I was getting ready to take this one apart to find out what other goodies it’s got when you two came in. I’ll let you know as soon as I do.’