by George Fong
Jack slipped on a pair of latex gloves and knelt next to Colfax. Wedged under the table was a small booklet. A notebook. Jack reached for it, careful to avoid the blood still dripping from Homer’s neck.
Jack flipped through the pages, then looked up at Colfax. “It’s one of Cooper’s journals.”
42
Thursday – 7:18 a.m.
It took seven minutes for the ambulance to arrive but another five before the medics approached the apartment. The fire department’s protocol was to wait until the area was cleared of any danger. Colfax told them that the attacker had left but the shift captain insisted on waiting until a patrol unit met with Jack and gave the all clear. The medics started Sizemore on a large bore IV but he refused any meds for the pain. Marquez suffered several lacerations and a hard blow to the head. The medics suggested the ER for a PET scan. She refused. Homer didn’t have an option. He was placed in a body bag and transported to the county morgue. Hoskin and nine ERT agents arrived to conduct a crime scene examination, briefed by Marquez while the medics examined her.
Although physically sound, it was visible to Jack that Marquez was mentally shaken. She kept on repeating she should have listened to her gut instincts, knowing something wasn’t right. Periodically, Marquez would slam her fist against the bench, exploding in anger before shifting into a well of grief and tears. Her anxiousness to track down Cooper almost got her and Sizemore killed.
A medic knelt beside her, stethoscope hanging loosely around his neck. He rubbed her arm softly. “You’re going to be all right and so is your partner,” he said. But she refused to look up, tears falling to her lap.
Squeaky wheels and rattling metal drew Jack’s attention back to the apartment, where EMTs maneuvered a gurney down the narrow pathway, Sizemore lying on top, his upper torso covered in a white blanket. Jack tried to catch Marquez’s eyes. They were closed, her head resting in her palms.
“I’m going to go check on Ray,” Jack told her.
She nodded.
Jack made a b-line to Sizemore, who was strapped down on the gurney, his eyes closed. Cables from a portable three lead ECG were taped in place and a liter bag of saline was held high by an attending medic. A nasal cannula crowded under his nose, the clear fluoropolymer tubing hissing from an O2 tank cranked high up. Jack trailed as the medics wheeled him to a waiting ambulance.
Jack tapped the gurney railing, and his wedding ring clanged against the chrome bar. “Doc says you’ll be okay.”
Sizemore opened an eye, rolled his head toward Jack. “I know he’s hurt.”
“You think you hit him?”
Sizemore nodded. “Got off several rounds. I think so, but I can’t be sure.”
“Any idea what happened?”
“We got here before he had a chance to leave.”
Cooper was probably waylaid looking for his lost notebook. Somehow Homer must have gotten it from him and wedged it under the table to hide it. Good plan. Bad timing.
If Sizemore was right, Cooper would be bleeding heavily and in need of medical attention. Cooper would never go to an emergency room; all gunshot wounds were reported to the police. He thought for a moment before placing a call to Frank Porter, asking him to have the surrounding drug and liquor stores canvassed for anyone matching Cooper’s description. If they got lucky, Cooper would need a lot of alcohol to numb the pain and supplies to bandage his wounds. Patrol officers were instructed to keep a close eye out for any abandoned vehicles, as well.
Back at Jack’s car, Youngblood was leaning out the rear passenger window, his right wrist still secured to the metal bar. He blew out a cloud of cigarette smoke before flicking the butt to the ground. Youngblood gave a nod as Jack approached.
Jack glanced at the parking lot filled with lights glowing bright red on their windshields. The morning sun had risen above the horizon and the heat was already pushing the mercury far above comfortable. He was starting to wonder if the summer heat would ever break.
A handful of agents shuffled through the maze of bodies and vehicles, sweating in their all-white Tyvek coveralls. Another group in dark blue windbreakers, FBI – Evidence Response Team in bold yellow lettering, stood talking and pointing in every direction. The scene bordered on chaos.
“He knows you’re on to him,” Youngblood said. “You know what he’s going to do?” He squinted into the bright morning sun and spat out the rear window.
“He’s going to change his identity again, isn’t he?”
“Agent Paris, I’m not telling you how to do your job, but no one knows Alvie better than me.”
“What’s your point?”
“You got one option to stop this guy.”
Jack remained silent.
Youngblood pulled tobacco from his teeth, gave it a look of disappointment and then spat again. “You’re going to need me to deliver him to you.”
43
Thursday –7:47 a.m.
Marquez sat in Jack’s car, looking out the window, remaining quiet. Colfax took Youngblood in tow, following Jack back to the off-site in Marquez’s Tahoe. Jack reached out and gave her a gentle touch, just to remind her he was there. She looked up with an appreciative nod before turning away to lean her head against the side window. The glass fogged each time she exhaled.
Jack turned around with his right arm over the front seat as he maneuvered in reverse. He considered taking Marquez to the office and leaving her with another agent, not wanting to add any undue stress.
“Why don’t I take you—” he started to say,
Marquez’s hand shot in front of his face.
He took the hint and kicked the air conditioner on high, accelerating back to the off-site.
Fifteen minutes put them around the corner, Jack’s Crown Vic in the lead, Colfax in the Tahoe directly behind him. Jack slowed, pulled out his cell phone and called Colfax.
“What’s up?”
Jack rolled down his window and pointed out to his left. “Take a spin around the back side. I’ll go the opposite direction and meet you there.”
“What am I looking for?” Colfax asked.
“Someone who may want to kill us.”
It was clear Cooper didn’t have any problem hunting down Homer or going after FBI agents and cops. He’d drawn a line in the sand the minute he tried to kill Marquez and Sizemore. Now it was time for Jack to cross it.
The two vehicles cruised the block but spotted nothing out of the ordinary. Porter had sent three agents to secure the perimeter in case Cooper was planning on coming later. Other cars were starting to fill the parking lot, employees from businesses within the complex. Jack eyed each suspiciously, and entered the office, the air conditioner whirring loudly.
Colfax held a hand up to the vent on the wall that divided the front reception area from the back, wiggling his fingers, feeling the cool air filter through them. “Man, it’s hot here,” he said.
Jack pinned the thermostat as far to the left as it would go, then walked over to his desk and dropped a full evidence bag on the table. Marquez, across the way, sat staring at the package.
“Is that the notebook?” she asked.
“Found it under the table next to Homer’s lap.”
“Why didn’t Cooper take the book?”
“I’m guessing he dropped it when he first attacked Homer, realized it was missing and tried to beat it out of him.”
“Only Homer didn’t give it up.”
“He must’ve hid it under the table. You and Sizemore got there before Cooper could find it.”
“If Homer just gave him back the book, maybe he would be alive to tell us what happened.”
Jack shook his head. “Cooper wouldn’t have been that generous.”
Jack slid on a pair of gloves and took the notebook from the plastic bag, filtering through the pages. Colfax stood next to him. The room stayed quiet, the only sound coming from the grind of the air conditioner and the turning of each page. Near the end of the notebook, Jack encountered a single
message that appeared different from the rest. It read “Rabbit Hole,” with an arrow pointing to a crude drawing of an envelope. The words were worn, as though written first. Jack stared at the entry, tapping a pencil on a separate notebook.
“Rabbit hole,” he repeated. “Like a hiding place.”
Colfax glanced at Youngblood, who was leaning against a dividing wall, not paying attention. He appeared startled when Colfax called his name.
“You know anything about any . . . rabbit hole?”
Youngblood’s jaw dropped.
Colfax curved an eyebrow.
Youngblood hesitated. “Yeah, I know about a rabbit hole.”
He walked over to where Jack sat, bent at the waist and gazed down at the notebook. Without touching it, his finger glided above the page. “I haven’t used it since before the time Alvie went to jail.”
Jack cocked his head toward Youngblood. “What is it?”
“It’s an old e-mail account,” Youngblood replied. “Not the one he recently contacted me from. I thought he stopped using this one after he went to prison.” Youngblood rolled back an empty office chair and sat down. “Before Alvie got arrested for the murder of his wife and kid, he started communicating with me by writing messages in his e-mail account.”
Jack responded, “You mean from his e-mail account.”
“No. The thing was, Alvie was scared the police were monitoring his e-mail. Like a wiretap. He was so paranoid, he told me never to write or call him. Just use the rabbit hole.”
“You just said he didn’t want you to communicate with him. Wouldn’t that include e-mailing?”
“That would include sending an e-mail. Alvie said if there was something important that I needed to talk to him about, I should access his e-mail account, write an e-mail and save it in his draft folder. He created the Rabbit Hole just for our contacts. They were never sent.”
Colfax tapped a finger on his forehead. “I don’t get it.”
Marquez chimed in. “There is a difference. By not sending the e-mail, the message never makes its way over Internet where it may be intercepted. By writing a message and saving it in the draft folder, the message never leaves the Internet provider’s server. Kind of like being parked. Youngblood simply draws up the message left in the draft file, reads it, then writes his own message back, leaving that one in the draft file for Alvin Cooper to read. No e-mails floating in cyberspace, no lost messages hanging in other people’s e-mails to be read. And deleting them would prevent the message from ever being retrieved.”
Youngblood nodded. “It was his way of keeping contact with his close friends hidden and private.”
“Hence the reference ‘The Rabbit Hole,’” Jack interjected.
“Do you think you can still access his account?” Colfax asked.
Jack was thinking the same thing. Bait. Better than a phone call.
“That was over five years ago,” Youngblood said. “I have no idea if he still has the same account.”
Marquez rolled her chair to another table, where an undercover computer rested in sleep mode. She shook the mouse and it sputtered to life. Marquez hooked a finger at Youngblood. “Let’s find out.”
44
Thursday – 7:50 a.m.
For the past hour, Jessica Baker’s eyelids fluttered open and shut. She remembered a dark and empty room void of sound or movement. Then she saw a window with shafts of gold and yellow light filtering through a dirty curtain. Then she was back in the dark. Different times, different places. She was being moved, but where? There was no way to know how much time had passed during those brief moments of consciousness. But for each of them she was conscious. She was still alive.
Jessica shifted, arms and legs bound from behind, trying to find a position to stop the pain radiating up her back. A short rope ran along her spine and connected her wrists to her ankles, keeping her from standing, contact points rubbing the skin raw and numb. She managed to cope with her cramped legs, but her head was in a bleary haze from a combination of stress and fear, and the lack of insulin was making her panic. She tried repeatedly to convince herself that this was all just a bad dream. But she couldn’t.
As she rolled to her left side, perspiration dripping down her forehead, the air in the room hot and heavy with the smell of dust, her body pressed deep into a pile of clothes, rags on top of some kind of dirty cushion left flat on the floor. It reeked of age. Whatever she was lying on, it hugged close to her skin, damn near suffocating her; it didn’t allow her body heat to dissipate, causing her to swelter in a slick pool of sweat. She was so tired and dazed, she didn’t much care.
Jessica noticed a thin strip radiating beyond her ankles, and she tried to focus her blurry vision. The glow became clearer. A gap between the bottom edge of a door and the hardwood floor. She tilted her head upward, eyes following the dark seam of the doorframe. Halfway up she spotted a pinpoint glimmer of reflective light bouncing off a curved surface. A brass doorknob. Suddenly Jessica felt a spark of hope. If she could get to the handle, maybe she could find her way out. She paused and listened for her captor but only heard the sound of her own heartbeat and labored breath. Straining to hear over the noise, searching for any signs of life on the other side of the door, she sucked a lungful of air, then forced her legs as straight as possible, pushing against the door. It bowed, allowing a sliver of white to filter around the edges. She tried it again, but it would not give. She realized she didn’t have the power to kick it open. The energy needed was more than she had and she was growing weaker by the minute.
If she could gain more leverage, more extension, perhaps she could pop the latch. Jessica spotted a tarp slung over a pile of junk three feet high. Unable to use her hands, she lurched forward with her jaw, biting down on the edge of it, and yanked her head back. She rocked, trying to gain enough momentum to roll off the stacks of clothing. The tarp pulled partially away, revealing a small collection of framed paintings and photos, which tilted, then tumbled onto Jessica’s face. The weight of the frames and glass pinned the tarp over her nose and mouth, causing her to cry out. Jessica struggled, flailing, fighting to shake the tarp from her face so that she could breathe. She twisted and broke free of the heavy objects. The glass in the frames cracked in thick fissures across the artwork, and her body fell still, exhausted and limp.
Jessica squeezed her eyes closed, her jaw tight. Tears steamed from her face, rolling off her left cheek and onto the dusty hardwood floor.
She lay still for a few minutes, waiting for something to happen. To be rescued. For her captor to come get her. To just die. Her eyes, now adjusted to the darkness, fell upon one of the framed photos, broken, leaning sideways against the wall. It was a black and white of a small town gas station, probably taken in the early ’40s judging by the bulbous round cars and men wearing fedoras standing around antique gas pumps. Then she noticed her reflection, her face fractured into sections, divided by the cracks. Broken glass with sharp, jagged edges. Good enough to cut through rope.
With a single kick, she smashed the glass. Most of it shattered into small pieces, too small to use for cutting, but one piece, in the shape of a dagger, lay flat on the floor, large enough for Jessica to get her hands around. She rolled over, slid her body over the shards, feeling for the larger piece. Glass dug into her skin with every push of her feet, searing, stabbing pain, but she didn’t care. Her fingers fished blindly. Finally, she felt the long, sharp edge. Her dagger.
Her heart raced, and she found it difficult to breathe. She started to cry, unsure if it was from joy or fear. Carefully, she pressed the bindings between her wrists across the glass, and started to move it up and down. The glass slid easily over the rope, but ten frantic minutes later, the rope still held. Jessica wanted to continue but she had nothing left. Completely drained of energy, she let her hands fall limply to the floor, both of them void of any feeling, body sagged and softened like a setting fog. Her mind wandered, spinning off, away from her ugly reality. She fantasized about warm
summer days, playing basketball, doing homework, lying lazily by the pool. In the darkened room, Jessica closed her eyes and drew a broad smile, mind floating in a daydream. As the seconds ticked away, Jessica started to feel the warmth of the room engulf her, more embrace than strangulation. Her breathing slow, she felt a flush, like a chilled body dipped into a warm bath. She could taste her breath. It was sweet. She’d felt like this before. It was the feeling of her body shutting down, falling into ketoacidotic shock, a diabetic coma. Jessica Baker knew she was dying, and she felt relieved.
45
Thursday – 8:14 a.m.
The three investigators hovered over Youngblood, who had been briefed on what to say—but it would still be up to him how to say it. Bait Cooper out into the open and hopefully lead the team to where Jessica Baker was being held. That was the goal. It had been two days since her abduction, and with each passing minute without her meds, Jack lost a little more hope of finding her alive.
Youngblood typed in the web address, then punched in Cooper’s username and password. The inbox was empty and there was nothing in the trash. But it was valid. Youngblood sat back and threw his hands in the air.
“I fucking can’t believe it. It’s still active.”
Jack thinned his lips into a tight smile. “We’re one for one. Let’s see if he’s still looking at his messages.”
Youngblood took a moment and thought about what to say, fingers resting on the keyboard without making a move. Then he started typing his message, pausing, backtracking, trying to get it just right. The last thing he wanted to do was make Cooper suspicious.
Alvie, Youngblood started. Your phone’s off and I’ve been waiting at the house all day without hearing from you. I can only think you’re in trouble. I ran out of ideas on how to contact you. This was the last. If you are in trouble, reply and I’ll come get you. I’m on the move in case they know about me.