False Positive

by Andrew Grant

  “Wait.” Hale had recovered some of her composure. “Back up, Jan. You said your mom lets the kids choose where they go? Are you sure about that?”

  “Absolutely.” Loflin nodded weakly. “She always lets them pick their favorite place.”

  “OK. Cooper, can I speak with you for a moment? Outside?”

  Hale ushered Devereaux into the corridor and waited for the heavy glass door to slide shut behind them.

  “Listen. This is our break. All we have to do is contact Alexandra and find out what Nicole would choose to do. That’ll tell us exactly where Loflin’s mother is going to be. Cooper—this will turn out OK. Ethan’s safely back with Mary Lynne and Joseph. Soon, your daughter will be with you. I can feel it.”

  Chapter Ninety-four

  The woman was beginning to think the problem wasn’t only with the preparation.

  She’d have been more comfortable with extra time to research the water park, for example. What exactly was an Acapulco Drop? Or a Neptune’s Plunge? And how assiduously would she need to avoid being swept into them?

  It would have been less suspicious if she’d had time to spread the purchase of extravagant quantities of swimsuits and hats across a wider variety of outlets—physical and online—rather than relying on what could be found at Target or Meijer in a couple of hours the next morning.

  A greater supply of sedative would certainly have been advantageous.

  But the real issue lay with the child herself. She wasn’t like the others. Controlling her was beyond a challenge. Because there was a flaw in the woman’s concept.

  This child wasn’t an orphan.

  Posing as her real mom, returned to reclaim her and bring her home—it simply didn’t hold water.

  Chapter Ninety-five

  Wednesday. Early Morning.

  Nicole missing for sixteen and a half hours

  The house is silent. She doesn’t answer when I call. But she must be here, somewhere.

  I open the closet door. In the hallway. Check behind the coats hanging on the rail. I find no one. But there’s a pair of boots on the floor. They’re tall. Industrial-looking. One falls over. It makes a strange sound when it hits the floor. A hollow sound. There must be a space underneath. A space where a kid could hide…

  I push the boots aside and run my fingers around the edges of the board. Find a place to grip, hidden in the shadows. Start to pull. The board moves easily. Light spills through the gap. Spiders and bugs scatter in all directions. And I see the girl.

  She tries to wriggle away, farther into the space. But she’s trapped. She can’t get away. I remove the second board. Reach down. Grab her shirt. Lift her out. Hug her to my chest. Carry her to the kitchen.

  I set her down on a chair. Start to bend down, so my face will be at the same level. Then I catch sight of my reflection in the window. I’m short, now. My hair is blond. It reaches my shoulders.

  There’s something wrong with my ear…

  —

  Devereaux made sure not to look in the mirror when he used the small, harshly lit bathroom in his hotel room, the next morning. He didn’t have long until the joint FBI/police briefing, and he didn’t want to reawaken the memory of his dream. He already felt tired and off his game. He’d been late to bed after helping to call all the hotels within a fifty-mile radius of the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, which Alexandra Cunningham had unhesitatingly named as the place Nicole most wanted to visit.

  They’d been searching for a record of Loflin’s mother. They had to check registrations under her real name. All of her former names. Plus the alias she’d used at the Roadside Rendezvous motel near the Casey Jones Railroad Museum. Their efforts had all been in vain. And then he’d hardly slept, haunted by the hideous vision of his own face morphing into hers.

  The FBI had used the hours of darkness to set up a mobile command post in the Space Center’s parking lot. It consisted of two huge trucks, set up to look like TV outside-broadcast vehicles to disguise their purpose and account for the array of satellite dishes and other communications equipment that covered their roofs. They were hiding in plain sight, right by the entrance to the Davidson visitor center, and in the shadow of the center’s giant Saturn V rocket.

  One whole end wall inside the nearer truck was filled with computer monitors, showing images piped in from the park’s security cameras. Larry McMahan—the agent in charge of the Birmingham field office—was standing and watching them when Devereaux arrived at eight-thirty, half an hour before the center was due to open to the public. Bruckner and Grandison were already in place around a folding metal conference table and a minute later Lieutenant Hale entered the truck and joined them.

  McMahan turned away from the screens, eager to get down to business. Now that Loflin’s mother was linked to the Bureau, he was anxious to take care of the dirty laundry quickly, before it got aired in public. He’d pulled plenty of strings, and brought a lot of resources into play in a short length of time. The fact that the woman had shot a cop—and taken another cop’s kid hostage—had only strengthened his hand.

  “Danielle, good to see you.” McMahan nodded to Hale and took his place at the head of the table. “Gentlemen. This briefing shouldn’t take long. Everything is in place, exactly as agreed last night. We have agents at all entrances to the center. In the security control room. At each of the key attractions, with double teams at the Rocket Park and the Shuttle Park. There are four pairs roving within the grounds. We have people at the ice-cream concession. The cafe. The souvenir store. We have two agents monitoring the entrance to the parking lot, and two more checking any cars that arrived early, posing as annual-subscription sellers.”

  McMahan’s briefing continued for another five minutes, with the in-depth information about the wider investigation provided by Lieutenant Hale. The longer it continued, the more Devereaux felt an intangible sense of competence and determination fill the room. He was still on edge—and knew he would be until Nicole was in his arms, safe and well—but he was satisfied with the Bureau’s response, even if it was somewhat driven by self-interest. By the time McMahan took the floor again to wrap things up, Devereaux only had one question.

  “What’s my role in all this? Where do you want me to be?”

  McMahan gestured to the bank of monitors behind him.

  “Watching these. The subject is known to be adept with disguise, and you’re the only one here who’s actually seen her recently. You’re best placed to spot her, if she’s attempting to alter her appearance. Conversely, she knows what you look like. We can’t risk putting you in the open because if she sees you, we lose the element of surprise.”

  Devereaux was disappointed—he desperately wanted to be outside, hunting the woman down, saving his daughter—but he knew McMahan was right. He wished the others luck, then took one of the hard plastic chairs and positioned himself in front of the screens.

  —

  After his dream, Devereaux had been anxious to avoid the woman’s image. Now he was desperate for her face to appear. The screens remained static, as if frozen in time, for the next eight minutes. Then a flood of people washed through the gates and spread out between the attractions. Men. Women. Young and old. Single and in couples or larger groups. With and without children. Some marching purposefully, with a definite destination in mind. Others loitering, checking maps and studying their smartphone apps. But there was no one who looked anything like Loflin’s mother, or the pictures Alex had shown him of Nicole.

  Devereaux settled back in his chair and tried to not deliberately focus on one screen, or search for one likeness. It was a technique he’d learned years ago, when he’d taken a surveillance course at the Police Academy. The idea was to let your eyes rove freely across the whole area, and leave it to your subconscious to intuitively pick out the relevant image.

  Devereaux stayed that way, barely moving, hardly even blinking, for another thirty minutes. He was practically in a trance when Loflin’s words about her mother
from the previous afternoon floated back into his head. She truly believes she’s saving the kids. She wants to do something nice for them…That sounded wonderful, especially when he measured it against some of the foster parents he’d had as a kid. But how could he explain the insane paradox? In the woman’s mind, saving equaled killing. Devereaux just couldn’t fathom that kind of logic.

  The thought brought into focus another area where the woman had an advantage over him. He didn’t have a clue how her mind worked. But she clearly understood him. She knew him well enough to lay a trail of bread crumbs he couldn’t help but follow. She’d left Ethan’s treasure where he was bound to find it. And the trimmed hair, at the Roadside Rendezvous. And the railroad museum flier. She’d even known things about him he hadn’t known himself. Fundamental things. Like who his father really was. And that he had a daughter.

  Devereaux pulled out his phone, called Bruckner, and asked him to come and take over watching the monitors. He’d realized he wasn’t going to find the woman by looking inside the park. He was going to have to look inside her head.

  Chapter Ninety-six

  Wednesday. Morning.

  Nicole missing for nineteen hours

  It’s a fraction over ninety-eight miles from the Space and Rocket Center to the UAB Hospital parking lot.

  Devereaux covered the ground in sixty-nine minutes, dumped his car in a space reserved for emergency vehicles, and practically ran the rest of the way to Loflin’s room.

  “Did you find her?” Loflin was sitting up in bed and looking as though the night’s sleep had done her a world of good.

  “Not yet.” Devereaux moved the visitor’s chair nearer to the bed. “We went to the place Alex thought Nicole would pick for her treat. We took enough Feds to invade a small country. And so far, zip.”

  “That’s awful. Maybe Alex was wrong?”

  “Maybe. But I doubt it. I think I was wrong. Because of how I pictured your mom. I saw her as a criminal. I tried to anticipate what a criminal would do. But she’s not just a criminal, is she, Jan? You said so yourself. She believes she’s saving these kids. She’s on a mission. That’s a different kind of motivation altogether. I need to understand her better if I’m going to stop her from harming Nicole. And to do that, I need your help.”

  “OK.” Loflin sat up straighter in the bed. “I’ll try. What do you need?”

  “This is the $64,000 question, Jan. And before you answer, remember I’m not looking to hurt your mom. Or get even with her. I just want my daughter back.”

  “I get that, Cooper. And, hey, I held a gun on her. I shot her. So I’m totally on board with stopping her from hurting another kid. Especially yours. Just tell me what I can do.”

  “I need to know how to contact her.”

  “I’m sorry, Cooper.” Loflin sagged back against her pillow. “I can’t help you with that.”

  “Please. It’s vital. For Nicole’s sake.”

  “I’m not saying I won’t. I’m saying I can’t. I don’t know how.”

  “You’re her daughter. You must have a way. Even if it’s just for emergencies.”

  “I don’t, Cooper.” Loflin leaned forward and lowered her voice. “I’ll be honest. I know this could make me look bad, but I tried to get in touch with her myself. Today. To find out what her state of mind’s like. I’ve been driving myself nuts with worry in case she comes here to punish me for turning on her. But it was no good. She wouldn’t pick up.”

  “You have a number? Can I try it?”

  “Feel free. It won’t help. The number’s out of service. This used to happen all the time. She was always getting new phones. She said she kept losing them. Looking back, I guess she ditched them whenever she thought they were too hot to use.”

  “Let me give it a shot. Just in case.”

  Devereaux dialed the number Loflin gave him, but had no more luck than she’d had.

  “When your mom would get a new phone, how did you find out the number?” Devereaux pushed the chair back so that he could straighten his legs.

  “I had to wait for her to call me.”

  “How about texting?”

  “I’d text her all the time. She never replied, though. She said she didn’t like doing it. And there’s no point trying now. She’s not blanking us. That number’s history. The phone’s either in pieces, or at the bottom of a lake.”

  “OK. What else is there? Email?”

  “No. She didn’t use it. She said she was techno-illiterate.”

  “Really?”

  “It’s true. She hated computers. I never saw her go near one.”

  “Thanks, Jan. You’re a genius.” Devereaux stood up, shoved the chair against the wall, and left the room on the double.

  Chapter Ninety-seven

  Wednesday. Morning.

  Nicole missing for twenty and a quarter hours

  The IT technicians had moved twelve months previously to a spacious glass and steel addition at the back of the Support Services Bureau on Fourth Avenue. This had caused a lot of bad feeling—why should the geeks get a new “clubhouse” while other police department buildings were closing all over the city?—but the people who worked there didn’t care. They felt they deserved it, after years of plying their trade in a dingy, airless basement. And no one complained to their faces, anyway. Not unless they wanted their work to end up at the bottom of the pile.

  Spencer Page was unusual in that he’d started his police department career in the field. He’d moved into technical support five years later, after recovering from a serious leg break he’d suffered in a fall while chasing a burglar down a fifteen-story fire escape. Some detectives didn’t like working with him after that, as if he were a bad luck charm. Or lacking in character, for choosing not to get right back on the horse. But whenever he had the option, Devereaux always picked Page. He thought it was smart, the way he’d come back to a role that better suited his talents. And the experience he’d had on the street made him a little more accommodating than some of the career techies. He understood how important it can be to get information fast, regardless of overtime restrictions. How sometimes the material you’re asked for doesn’t have to be genuine, as long as it looks real—like a well-photoshopped picture or a fake phone bill—if that’s what it takes to loosen a stubborn criminal’s tongue. And that sometimes it’s better not to ask why the request is being made in the first place.

  Page was tall and skinny, and he was wearing his trademark plain black T-shirt and skinny jeans with his ID clipped to a studded leather belt. He met Devereaux in the IT department’s small refreshment area, which was known as The Custard Bowl because of its luminous yellow walls. The two men shook hands, Devereaux declined Page’s offer of a drink, then they perched opposite each other on high stools at a round metal table in the corner of the room.

  “Spencer, I need your help.” Devereaux flicked away a curled-up remnant of lettuce that had fallen out of someone’s sandwich.

  “Name it, buddy.” Page grinned. “If it’s legal, it’s yours. And if it isn’t legal, it’s yours, anyway. Just don’t tell anyone.”

  “Thanks. I appreciate it. Now here’s the thing. I need to find someone, like yesterday. She’s snatched a kid, and now she’s in the wind. She’s got eleven dead bodies in her wake already, and I want to stop her making it twelve. The problem is, we’ve got nothing on her. Nothing at all. We’ve tried all the normal ways, and come up with zip. The only angle I can think of is something that’s up your alley.”

  “OK. Shoot.”

  “This woman, she painted a picture of herself as being techno-illiterate. However, I know for a fact she was using a bunch of webcams, and must have been dialing into them from all over creation. Which doesn’t sound so illiterate to me. And knowing how everything she does is deliberate, and designed to mislead and misdirect, I’m thinking this means she doesn’t want people to know about how up-to-date she is with how these webcams work. There must be something about it she wants to hide. Which mea
ns I want to find it. And I’m praying it’s something that’ll help me figure out where she is.”

  “I’ll be straight with you, Cooper.” Page ran his fingers through his straggly, straw-colored hair. “That’s longer than a long shot. Unless I catch her actually trying to access the cameras, there’s almost no chance. And even then there are all kinds of tricks she could play to disguise where she truly is.”

  “Does she have to be able to access the cameras? Because she can’t get to them. They aren’t online anymore. They’re in the evidence locker.”

  “Then, honestly, a snowball has a better chance of raising a family on Beelzebub’s front porch than we do of tracing where she is.”

  Devereaux slammed the palm of his hand on the table in frustration.

  “Hey, buddy.” Page looked around, hoping Devereaux hadn’t drawn too much attention to them. “Listen. Don’t despair. These webcams. What were they hooked up to? Was any other equipment recovered along with them?”

  “There could have been. Maybe. I don’t know. All I saw were the cameras.”

  “Well, you never know till you try, right? Give me the case number. I’ll dig those suckers out, and if there’s anything to be found that’ll help, I’ll find it. You have my personal guarantee.”

  Chapter Ninety-eight

  Wednesday. Morning.

  Nicole missing for twenty and a half hours

  Devereaux stayed at the table after Page returned to his desk.

  Another bright hope had dimmed, and seemed certain to fizzle out altogether. Devereaux felt trapped, as if each blind alley he’d run down had combined into an impenetrable warren he couldn’t find his way out of. He closed his eyes, pushing back against the darkness, searching for another option, when he felt his phone begin to buzz in his pocket.