Untraceable

by Laura Griffin

  “What, exactly, are you guys having her do?”

  He sighed absently, and Mia recognized the sound: I’ll do my best to explain it, but this is way beyond you. Mia heard that sound a lot at the Delphi Center. Everyone here was an expert in something or other, and it wasn’t always easy translating technical jargon into plain English.

  “Okay, you’re familiar with online classifieds, right?” Ben looked at her hopefully.

  “I guess so.”

  “I’m talking Craigslist, Kijiji, Zac’s Page. There are hundreds.”

  “Okay.”

  “So all those sites are major venues for underground communications. Chat about illegal activities. Right now, Alex is in the Personals section of Zac’s Page, where we’ve seen a recent spike in pedophile traffic.”

  He turned to gaze through the glass. Alex’s hands were in motion on the keyboard again as the head of Delphi’s Cyber Crimes Unit watched over her shoulder.

  “Okay, so she’s identifying the suspicious ads?”

  “That’s part of it,” Ben said. “And that’s hard enough. A lot of these guys are clever. They’re really good at disguising what they’re after, speaking in code.”

  Mia watched Alex point to a line of text, then key something in.

  “We’ve got guys on here looking to swap KP collections—”

  “KP?”

  “Kiddie porn. We’ve got guys looking for prepubes-cent girls. We’ve got mothers on here pimping out their children—”

  “That’s sick.”

  “That’s just the tip of the iceberg. You wouldn’t believe some of the twisted shit we see on a day-to-day basis,” he said, and Mia gave him a look because, hey, she saw some pretty twisted shit herself.

  “Okay, right,” he said. “You probably would believe it. Anyway, first you have to spot the illicit ads, then translate them, and then figure out the real identities behind the screen names. Everyone hides behind anonymizers and remailers.”

  She gave him a blank look.

  “An anonymizer supposedly lets someone surf the Net anonymously. A remailer program is designed to strip away header info and replace it with info that’s untraceable. There are loopholes, though, and Alex seems to know them all. It’s amazing. No prep. No formal training. She shows a lot of potential.”

  “So I take it you’re going to offer her a job?”

  “We did, but she didn’t want it.” He shook his head. “She’s pretty noncommittal. It’s weird. She wasn’t interested in a salary.”

  Mia glanced at him, startled. She’d never met anyone truly immune to money. “You couldn’t get her on board?”

  “Oh, she’s on board,” he said firmly. “She agreed to do some contract work for us.”

  “So what’d you offer her?”

  “That’s the cool part.” His voice bordered on reverence now. “The woman loves computers. Instead of money, she wants access to our toys.”

  Sophie nervously scrolled through the playlist on her iPod as she waited for Alex’s call. She landed on Neko Case, sang the opening bars of “Hold On, Hold On,” then started the song over and sang it again.

  Last night’s gig had wreaked havoc on her vocal cords. All that smoke. She should have turned down the job, but she was trying to get her feet on the ground in this town, and she wasn’t in a position to decline anything, not even an early night gig in Lake-way, where the absence of a smoking ban attracted bar patrons.

  Her phone vibrated. She plucked out her earbuds and answered the call.

  “Okay, I’ve got him,” Alex said. “He’s in a black Chevy Caprice. We’re heading toward you, should be there in about five minutes. You all set?”

  Sophie glanced at the shopping bags in her front seat. “Yeah.”

  They clicked off, and Sophie gathered her props. She hustled across the parking lot to the mall entrance and waited just inside the glass doors. It took longer than five minutes—probably due to rush-hour traffic—but finally, she spotted Alex’s Saturn.

  Sophie’s stomach flip-flopped. Her first surveillance job. She tugged down the brim of the White Sox cap Alex had given her and straightened her sunglasses. She set down her shopping bags for a moment and rubbed her palms dry on her sweatpants. It was stage fright, nothing more. She could do this.

  A black sedan turned into the lot, just north of where Alex had entered. The driver slowed, probably looking for Alex’s Saturn, which was making a leisurely pass down a row of cars. Alex pulled into a space. She got out of the car and crossed the parking lot with a purposeful stride.

  Alex entered the mall just beside the door where Sophie stood watching. They didn’t make eye contact. Sophie kept her focus on the sedan as it eased past the entrance and turned down a row at the far edge of the lot. It was the perfect lookout point, slightly elevated so that someone could look out over the parking lot and see any activity. Not too many cars around, either—a Porsche Carrera that some protective owner had parked away from the crowd and, several spaces down, a gray Mercury Cougar. It was the ideal location.

  Which was why Alex had known their guy would choose it. As predicted, he passed the Porsche and turned into a tree-shaded space about four spots in from the Mercury.

  Sophie’s car was the Mercury, which she’d rented this morning at the airport. She picked up her shopping bags and headed for it now.

  Her palms got clammy again as she neared the Chevy. A man sat in the front, a vague shadow she could hardly see because of the tinted windows.

  Sophie glanced away and kept walking. She hummed softly to calm her nerves. Numbers had never been her thing. She wasn’t good at recalling them, but Alex had taught her some mnemonic devices.

  She cut a glance at the license plate. 3–2–9-J-G-T.

  Three twenty-nine, jolly good time. It didn’t make sense, but it rhymed and she could remember it. She repeated the phrase over and over in her head as she unlocked the car and dumped her bags in the backseat. Then she slid behind the wheel and pulled the phone into her lap. She called Alex on speakerphone so she wouldn’t have to lift the phone to her ear.

  “You get it?” Alex asked eagerly.

  Sophie rattled off the tag.

  “And what does the driver look like?”

  “Hard to tell,” Sophie reported.

  “What’s he doing?”

  “Talking on his phone, I think. Doesn’t look like he’s going inside.”

  “Okay, call me if that changes. I’ve gotta go.”

  Sophie hung up and smiled. Mission accomplished.

  She backed out of the space, careful not to glance at the sedan. As she neared the parking lot exit, she looked in the rearview mirror.

  The Chevy’s door opened. A bulky man in a baseball cap hefted himself out of the car, tucked something under his jacket, and shut the door. He headed for the entrance.

  Alex strolled past Williams-Sonoma and inhaled the tantalizing scent of fresh banana bread. She resisted the urge to step inside for a sample as she waited for Ben’s voice in her ear. She’d used the Web browser on her phone to run a search on the license plate. When it came back “unavailable,” she’d called Ben. The tracers had access to databases not available to mere mortals like herself.

  “You still there?”

  “I’m here,” he said. “Otto’s thinking.”

  “Otto” was the pet name for the computer housing the latest-and-greatest vehicle-search program.

  Alex paused beside the window and let her gaze roam over an outrageously priced set of cookware.

  “Hmm… That’s funny,” Ben said.

  “What?”

  “It’s coming up as ‘blocked.’ “

  Alex’s phone beeped, but she ignored it. “What does that mean?” she asked him.

  “Could be a government car. Or maybe an undercover police vehicle. Usually, I’d be able to see that, though. Maybe it’s just a program glitch.”

  Alex gazed absently past the pans at the cooking demonstration going on inside the sto
re. Her mind conjured up possibilities.

  “This is weird,” he said. “Let me look into this for you and call you back.”

  Her phone beeped again. “Okay, thanks.” She clicked off with Ben and switched to the other call. “Hello?”

  Alex watched her own reflection in the glass. A large figure loomed behind her.

  Time slowed down.

  The man reached inside his jacket. Sophie’s voice echoed in her ear, like she was screaming across a canyon: He’s coming!

  Alex’s brain raced forward, but her feet seemed mired in quicksand. The man closed in. Adrenaline overcame her shock, finally, and she lunged away from him.

  A giant hand clamped around her upper arm. “Don’t scream,” he growled in her ear. Something hard jammed into her ribs.

  She sucked in a breath. Panic zinged through her. She lurched the other way, but the grip tightened.

  “Don’t make a scene.”

  She glanced around frantically. People were everywhere—shoppers, mall walkers, kids in strollers. But no one was looking at her.

  And she realized her mistake. She’d assumed she’d be safe here, in this sea of people. She hadn’t made herself safe; she’d put them in danger.

  They stumbled past a water fountain, and he jerked open a door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY. A scream tore from her throat and was silenced almost instantly by a meaty hand over her face.

  Now she couldn’t breathe.

  A new wave of panic seized her, and she kicked and clawed at him. He was behind her now, with his hand over her mouth and nose, as he wrestled her down the corridor toward another gray door.

  Alex shook her head violently, struggling for air. The edges of her vision started to spot. He was going to kill her. Somewhere in the panicked fog, she thought of her SIG. Zipped inside her purse. Sandwiched against her hip. She reached for it with her free hand, then realized she was still holding her phone.

  “Alex? Alex?” Sophie’s soft, tinny voice called out as the man hauled her through another door into a stockroom.

  She dropped the phone and fumbled for the purse. Her lungs burned. Her vision tunneled. The world dimmed.

  She bit his finger, hard.

  “Shit!”

  He hurled her away from him. She smacked into something hard and dropped to the floor.

  “Fucking bitch!”

  She sucked in air. Her head swam. She spied her purse on the ground and grabbed for it just as the man lunged toward her and the door they’d just come through flung open.

  “Police! Freeze!”

  For a split second, she stared in shock at the man in the doorway, his feet wide apart, his gun raised. A cloud of Sheetrock exploded beside his head.

  Alex rolled sideways, away from the blast. Another shot rang out. She scrambled to her feet, raced down the aisle, and dove behind a wall of shelves.

  Footsteps thundered close by. She glanced around desperately. The room was dim. Musty. Miles and miles of shelves and boxes and crates, two stories high.

  “Police! Freeze!” the voice bellowed again.

  Where was her weapon?

  In her purse. On the other side of the wall. She flattened herself on her stomach and commando crawled toward the end of the row. She paused to listen. Footsteps, two sets. A slide and shuffle as somebody raced down a row, then changed directions. Then a shrill female yelp and a door slamming open.

  Alex stumbled to her feet. Keeping her head down, she darted around the wall of shelves and spotted her purse on the floor. She snatched it up, jerked open the zipper, and yanked out her SIG.

  She was armed.

  She was alive.

  Another slamming door. Then a round of high-pitched chatter as people—department store workers, she guessed—reacted to the commotion.

  Alex slung her purse over her shoulder and winced at the unexpected pain. She glanced around. Her gaze landed on her now-silent phone, covered in a snowy layer of plaster, on the floor near the door. She snatched it up and tucked it into her bag. She was eye to eye with the bullet hole in the wall now, and a fresh wave of fear gripped her.

  A door crashed open behind her. Footsteps thudded down the row, and she whirled around, weapon raised.

  The white-haired policeman. He stood motionless at the end of the aisle. Only his gaze moved—from her face, to her weapon, then back to her face again. At his side, he held a familiar pistol.

  “Don’t shoot,” he said calmly.

  Slowly, Alex lowered her gun. Slowly, the man moved toward her. Fear and anger and confusion swirled through her head as he stopped in front of her.

  “Your name’s not Bill Scoffield,” she said.

  “No, it isn’t.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The voice was the same, though. East Texas, maybe Nacogdoches, Sophie had said. But Scoffield was supposed to be from Midland.

  “Where is he? That man?” Alex nodded toward the far side of the stockroom, where the chatter was reaching a fever pitch.

  “Lit out across that parking lot.”

  “But… shouldn’t you guys go after him?”

  “What ‘guys’?” He tucked his weapon into a holster beneath his jacket, and for the first time she noticed the star pinned to his lapel.

  “It’s just me,” he said. “And anyway, he’s long gone. You can put that away.” He nodded at her SIG.

  “I need to see some ID first.”

  He rested his hands on his hips and sighed. Then he tugged a leather folio from the inside pocket of his jacket and flipped it open.

  Alex eyed the photograph, then the name beneath it: John Holt. Texas Ranger. She glanced at his badge again. The cinco peso, it was called. And the lawmen who wore them were legendary throughout Texas.

  “Okay?” He flipped the case shut and tucked it back into his pocket.

  She slipped her gun into her purse beside her dusty phone.

  The door beside them burst open and a pair of wide-eyed security guards rushed in, walkie-talkies drawn.

  “Police,” Holt said quickly. He whipped out his creds again and flashed them at the guards.

  “We got a report of gunshots,” the larger one said, and his gaze dropped to the bits of plaster and dust on the floor.

  Holt turned to Alex. “Lemme take care of this. And then we need to talk.”

  Alex opened her mouth to protest, but her phone chimed. Holt turned away to calm the security guards while Alex checked the screen.

  Sophie, of course.

  “What happened?” she squeaked. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “I was about to call 911! Are you sure—”

  “Positive. I’ve gotta go now, though, okay? Call you later.” Alex clicked off as the guards strode past her, talking into their radios. Their footsteps faded to the other side of the stockroom.

  “Where are they going?” Alex asked.

  “Parking lot,” Holt said. “They need to check everything I told them so they can put it in their reports.”

  “And what did you tell them?”

  He watched her for a long moment. “We need to talk,” he repeated.

  “All right. Talk.”

  “Not here. Come with me.”

  Alex followed him through the bowels of the shopping mall as he made a few phone calls. Pipes creaked and hummed around them. They passed a whistling janitor, a security guard. After a few more twists and turns, they came to another gray door, this one with MALL SECURITY stenciled on it in black. Holt opened the door. A large African American man in uniform approached them. He and Holt exchanged words. Then the ranger opened yet another gray door and nodded for Alex to step inside.

  The small, putty-colored room had cinder-block walls and a low ceiling. A fluorescent strip of lighting gave everything a sickly hue. Alex entered the room, propped her good shoulder against the wall, and crossed her arms. “Talk,” she said.

  Holt pulled the door shut behind him. He glanced around, then dragged a metal folding chair over
and sank into it. For a moment, he just looked at her. Then he stretched out his long legs and crossed his arms.

  “You’re hard to keep up with.”

  She didn’t respond.

  “You don’t return phone calls, either.”

  “I didn’t want your job,” she said simply.

  “You could have told me.”

  She shrugged and looked away. She was still shaking, and she squeezed her arms closer to her body, hoping he wouldn’t see it.

  She met his gaze again. “You’ve been following me.”

  “I’ve been following someone else who’s been following you.”

  “Same thing.”

  “Not really.”

  “That guy back there,” she said, “the one who shot at you. Do you know who he is?”

  “We’re working on that. My guess is, he works with Coghan. Are you sure you don’t recognize him from anyplace?”

  “I’m sure.” Alex bit her lip and tried to conjure up details that might help with the guy’s identity. Just remembering him made bile rise up in the back of her throat.

  “He had a black sun tattooed on his hand,” she said. “And olive skin. I think he’s Hispanic.”

  Holt nodded.

  “He was strong, too. For his height, I mean.”

  “I’ll make a note of that.” Holt cocked his head to the side and frowned at her. “You want an ice pack? That cheek’s starting to swell.”

  “No,” she said. “Who’s ‘we’?”

  “What?”

  “You said, ‘we’re’ working on his identity.”

  “That would be me,” he said. “And some colleagues.”

  Colleagues. Talk about evasive. Alex tried for patience, but her stomach was twisted in knots and she could feel the shakes coming on.

  “I thought you were alone,” she said.

  “On this assignment, I am.” He smiled slightly. “I drew the short straw today.”

  “What is this, some kind of police corruption scandal?”

  He watched her calmly. It must be the training. Flying bullets and foot chases didn’t seem to faze him. But Alex still felt woozy. She hugged her arms closer.

  “I’m going to tell you more than I should,” he said now, “because I think you can help us.”