Naya nodded. “I know. It doesn’t seem fair.”
Elliot shook his head. “And it never will.”
Vance and Kevin stopped up ahead, and Naya put her hand on Elliot’s shoulder again and came to a stop as well. “Let’s give them a minute, shall we?” She said as she turned to give them some privacy. Elliot followed her lead.
“So, how long have you lived in Denver?” He asked, probably finding it odd to stand there in silence with her.
“I came to help Vance a few weeks ago. But he always acted so strong I had no idea…I mean…when I got here…” Guilt rising up in her throat as she considered how she had basically gotten here and hired help.
“Hey, don’t worry about it. Sometimes getting extra help is all you can do. And I don’t think Vance would have wanted you to give up your career either.”
She nodded. “You’re right. This might be weird, and you don’t have to tell me, but how old are you Elliot?”
A small smile ghosted his lips. “I get that a lot actually. I’m twenty-six. But I know I look younger, and I was forced to grow up fast. I think I’ve been an adult since I was about seventeen.”
“Well, you’re good at what you do, Vance simply raves about you and Derek until the cows come home.”
“Thanks.” His cheeks dusting with pink from being put on the spot. “But really, that’s Vance. He makes my job easy.”
Naya glanced over her shoulder to see Vance getting out of his wheelchair and giving Kevin a brief hug. Anyone looking on might think it weird, seeing two guys hug, but if either cared, they didn’t show it. After another minute, Vance sat back down, and Kevin did a one-eighty with the chair. They quickly made their way to where Naya and Elliot were standing.
“Alright, shall we start making our way back?” Kevin asked. Though neither of them was as visibly emotional as Naya had been the previous night, she could tell the talk had affected them both.
Vance nodded and Naya began walking back up the path to the car.
Kevin seemed a bit on edge, whether from his talk with Vance, or because of Elliot, Naya couldn’t be sure. He was tense, his hands white knuckling the wheelchair.
“Anyone want lunch?” Naya asked with a smile on her face, knowing they had all just eaten loads of food at breakfast.
Vance grabbed his stomach, “If you try to put another bite in me, I will simply explode.”
“Says the person who ate like three bites of a pancake.” Elliot chimed in the banter light; he was clearly more comfortable with Vance than he was with Naya.
Naya noticed how Kevin said nothing at all and she fell back a step so she could put a hand on his arm. He relaxed slightly under her touch, but she could still tell he was tense. She would have to ask him what was going on when they were alone.
Elliot, Vance and Naya chatted comfortably as they walked along the nature path towards the car. Kevin did interject occasionally, but he didn’t volunteer anything of substance to the conversation, which wasn’t like him at all.
The conversation continued much of the same way during the drive to the house. As soon as they got Vance through the door, him and Elliot were off to the living room to play whatever video game they had been talking about in the car. Naya was starting to think that Vance used video games to keep his mind off of things, which if that was the case, she didn’t have a problem with him playing so frequently.
She made eye contact with Kevin as soon as they were alone.
“Do you want to talk about something?” She asked him quietly.
He shook his head and moved his arm out from under her hand. “I’m going to go. I’ll talk to you later.” And then he was out the door and down the walk before Naya could even give him a kiss goodbye. As the door shut she found herself standing there still holding out her hand and wondering what had just happened.
Just what had he and Vance talked about?
CHAPTER 24
NAYA
The night was all too short, and as Naya rolled out of bed the next morning she checked her phone to see if Kevin had messaged her. Nothing.
Her heart fell a little bit, but she couldn’t focus on being bummed now. She had a case to solve.
She slid on her work clothes and clipped her gun and holster to her belt. Forgoing coffee, she looked in on Vance quickly, who was still sleeping, then was out the door not more than fifteen minutes after she had woken up.
She didn’t know why she felt such urgency, she just had a feeling this case was about to break. Some piece of information they were waiting for today had to be the piece they needed to put the puzzle together.
Naya pulled into the work lot just after seven-thirty, incredibly early, only to spot Atlas’ truck in its usual spot. Damn! She wondered how he always managed to beat her?
Slightly defeated, she stepped out of her car and made her way in the building.
By the time she got to her desk, Atlas was already reading some sort of report that had landed on his desk. She saw another copy on her desk.
“I don’t know how you do it.” She huffed as she sat down and began reading, it was the RunTracker data for the three victims.
“Magic.” Atlas snickered, still busy reading.
Naya knew she read faster than Atlas, and if she tried, she could surely beat him to the end of the report, but she also knew that a woman’s life could be relying on this and she needed to read carefully. So instead, she pushed her competitive nature aside for the moment and invested herself in the reports.
Each stack was the print outs of the women’s last ten runs, they included a rough map of where the woman ran, as well as their speed, and distance.
Naya looked over the maps for Julia Charles, the routes varied quite a bit; it seemed like she really had been committed to switching it up. When she got to the last page, her last run, during which she had been abducted, she stopped and tilted her head. The line just stopped. It was if she was beamed from her route by magic. She separated this page from the stack then went on to read the one’s for Shanice Woods.
She hadn’t varied her route as much as Julia, but she had run much faster, after all, she had been a champion racer. But the story was the same, Shanice was running like normal, and then the route just suddenly ended. There was no visible struggle, or evidence of any kind, that the women even had a chance to attempt to escape their attacker. She separated this page as well, placing it with Julia’s.
She didn’t know what to expect from Alia Larson’s RunTracker data, but it read a lot like Shanice’s, a semi-varied route, less than Julia but still as varied as it could be with limited options. But when she got to the last page, she saw that Alia had indeed finished her run just as they had seen. So just as they had deduced, she had been abducted at some point after she re-entered the building.
Naya set Alia’s stack of data aside and set the last runs of the Julia and Shanice side by side.
“How do two women, who are fast and seasoned runners, just get beamed into space?”
Atlas must’ve been thinking the same thing, as he was looking at the last run of Julia Charles. “It’s as if he knew they were going to be there.”
Naya flipped through the packets again. “But both women varied their route regularly. There is simply no way to predict that either of them would have been in that place at that time.
Atlas suddenly sat up straight in his chair. “Wait. What if this guy somehow had access to the app?”
“What do you mean?” Naya could feel her brain was still waking up a bit. She shouldn’t have forgone the coffee.
“I’m saying, what if this guy is a programmer for this app or something? How else would he have this information? Even if he was the girls’ friend on the app these women varied their route way too much to predict. But what if, he could access the app and watch them as they ran?”
Naya felt her mouth fall open. “My god.” She whispered. “Call tech right now, I want to know how easy this app is to hack.”
Atlas already had
his phone in his hand. “On it. And can you contact RunTracker? Let them know there’s been a possible breach and our tech guys will be in contact shortly to discuss their security procedures and obtain a list of local employees.”
Naya nodded and rushed to looked up their phone number on the documents and dialed.
After she hung up, she turned towards Atlas. “Do you think the tech guys will have an answer for you today?” She was thinking about the clock ticking . Another woman was going to go missing tonight.
“I think so. They were already downloading the app to try to hack it while I was on the phone with them.”
Atlas’ phone rang in his hand, he hurried to answer and became consumed by his conversation with the person on the other end. Naya turned back to the reports, aghast at the possibility of what they might be dealing with here.
If this guy could really hack the RunTracker app, then no woman was safe, no matter how fast she ran or how careful she was.
Atlas hung up his phone. “That was the coroner. He can’t be sure, but he thinks there’s a chance there was an excess of potassium in her system.”
“As in potassium chloride? Like what is used in the lethal injection?”
Atlas shook his head. “He couldn’t be sure, as it’s difficult to locate potassium chloride in the body post-mortem. But my guess is that is exactly what this guy is doing.”
“So, he kidnaps them and kills them with a lethal injection within hours? And that’s it?”
“I told you, crazy.” Atlas made the gesture for crazy to his own head as he said it to emphasize his point.
Naya leaned back in her seat, biting the edge of the pen she was using to take notes. “Every time I feel like we are about to break this case open, I only get more confused. If only those tapes would show up.”
“They’re coming, I checked on them earlier this morning, they should be here before the afternoon.”
Naya slid her phone from her pocket, checking the screen to see if she had a text from Kevin, man she really was reverting back to a high school girl. Her screen was blank, no messages, she put her phone back in her pocket.
Of course, nothing escaped Atlas’ notice. “Everything okay at home?”
“Peachy.” Naya lied, as if her brother hadn’t told her goodbye two nights before and the guy she had been dating wasn’t not talking to her.
Suddenly, Naya’s email pinged, and she opened it up to see an email from the techs. Atlas noticed over her should and quickly opened it in his own inbox.
It was a large file, and Naya knew reviewing the footage might take some time.
“Conference room?”
“On it.” Atlas stood and disconnected his laptop, turning towards the conference room. “Grab me a coffee while this finishes downloading, will you?”
She shook her head, annoyed that he had been reading her thoughts and knew she would be going to get coffee. Atlas was truly meant to be a detective.
She entered the conference room with a cup of steaming hot coffee in each hand. She handed Atlas his and then sat in a chair facing the projection screen. She grabbed the notebook she had left there and pulled her pen out of her pocket, ready to note any suspicious characters.
“Okay.” Atlas pulled up the footage. “This starts at two hours before Alia left on her run. The techs have slowed it down for us, and lightened it, as the cameras are old and it’s difficult to see some of these people, according to them anyway.”
He pushed play and Naya could see the empty lobby. They were looking for people, mostly men, who entered or left solo. In the first hour there were three men who left the building in suits. Naya made a mental note but assumed they were going to work and wouldn’t be back until evening.
A couple of families with small children left. One woman also exited the building dressed professionally, as if she was going to work. Then Alia came into the frame, exiting out the door to go on her run.
“So, no one came in.”
Atlas shrugged. “It was early.”
They watched the lobby for the next hour of the footage. It was busier now as all the people who worked a nine to five job started leaving for work. One man did leave in what looked like gym or running clothes, with an armband on his arm, Naya made a note of him.
Before she knew it, Alia was back on the screen, crossing towards the stairs. Naya moved to the edge of her seat, watching for someone to follow her in.
“How is that possible?” Atlas grumbled, standing up from his seat. “How could no one enter, and our girl go for the stairs but not make it up the stairs?”
It suddenly hit Naya, the conclusion they had dismissed. “He lives in the building.” She gasped.
Atlas’ eyes went wide. “Damn it! She was probably still in the building while we were there!” He balled his hands into fists, looking like he wanted to punch someone.
“Quick, let’s get that list of residents, we’ll go over there tonight. And get squad cars, I don’t want anyone able to enter or leave the building tonight with anything unusual without being thoroughly inspected. We’re gonna get this guy.”
They rushed back to their desks and began frantically making phone calls and arranging to get the list of residents as soon as they could. As soon as they were done with the arrangements, they were in the squad car on the way to the building.
“Here’s the game plan, we knock on every door. If a woman answers, we move on. I don’t think there’s any way this guy can live with anyone.” Atlas surmised.
“Are you sure?” Naya didn’t want to question his plan, as it was a big apartment building and would take them a while to process even with his plan. “What if this is a couple or something?”
“Fine, fine. But single men first, let’s make note of the places with adult couples and no children and we can look into them after the men. If we don’t catch him tonight another woman’s life will be on the line. We need to work fast.”
Atlas was right, they were going for speed and efficiency, they were under the gun. Statistically this was a lone male perpetrator acting alone anyway. They could go back and look at the couples later.
“Let’s split up. I’ll start at the top floor; you start at the bottom.” Naya suggested.
“Deal. I’ve got patrol cars on their way too. We can have them start checking when they get there. Take notes about every household. Hopefully, we will have a list from the complex by the end of the evening so we can make sure no one is lying to us. Also, write down any apartments that don’t answer.”
“We will get this guy. We’re close, I can feel it.” Naya felt anxious and she wasn’t sure if it was because of the case, or what was going on at home right now. She glanced at her watch, noticing it was already three. She needed to find someone to come help Vance tonight because she would probably be out late. As much as she didn’t want to bug Kevin, she hoped he wasn’t too mad at her to help take care of Vance. She quickly pulled out her phone and typed out a quick text.
Naya: Hey I know you’re upset about something. But there’s been a break in the case, I won’t be home, but can you, Trevor or Sebastian check in on Vance around bedtime?
She didn’t have time to wait for the reply as they were pulling up at the apartment building. Naya slid her phone in her pocket and followed Atlas inside. As she pressed the button for the elevator, Atlas ran up the first set of stairs. As she stepped in the elevator and pressed the button for the highest floor she took a deep breath.
The elevator dinged on the thirty-first floor.
They could do this. It was go time.
CHAPTER 25
MARK
“Hello!” he called as he entered the house using his key. It was so convenient. He considered sliding off his shoes to be polite, but decided against it.
“Yo!” Vance called from the couch in the living room as Mark entered the room. Elliot was also there; they were playing video games per usual. “How’s it going man?”
“Good, you guys playing Call of Duty
still?”
“Yeah, you want in next round?” Vance’s eyes didn’t even leave the screen.
“Nah I’m good. I was actually just thinking of ordering food, you guys want anything?”
Elliot checked his watch. “No, I’m off in an hour so I probably won’t even be here when it gets here.”
“Is Kevin coming?” Vance asked as he continued to hit buttons on the controller. Mark wished he could find this entertaining, but he just couldn’t.
“Um, I don’t think so.” He was actually pretty confident Kevin wasn’t coming, but he didn’t want to reveal that information just yet. “So, I was thinking of ordering some soup from that one sandwich place, Panera or whatever. What kind do you want Vance?”
“I’ll take a grilled cheese with the tomato soup please; I think it’s a combo of some sort.”
Mark stood and headed for the kitchen, pulling out his phone to order the food. God, he was so ready to be done playing this roll. When he had stepped into it a few months ago, he had never imagined what an impact it would come to have on his plan. It had just seemed like a good idea to have work friends so he could have an alibi. Especially work friends who played a lot of video games and wouldn’t necessarily notice if he was in the room or not.
But now, now he was done. He was finally going to get the perfect specimen, and he was going to do it tonight. He hadn’t wanted things to escalate this way, but he found that he just couldn’t wait any longer. He had wanted things to be painless for Vance because he did sort of think of him as a friend.
Well, as much as he could, considering his total lack of emotional attachment to anyone.
After the food arrived, with a glance over his shoulder first, Mark pulled the vial out of his pocket. This wasn’t his usual stuff. Vance didn’t eat enough for that. He’d had to go off script. He hoped that no one would notice, but he figured there was a chance. Hopefully, he would be long gone by the time they figured it out.
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