Judy put her arm around Deborah’s shoulders. “There’s no giving up, no surrender. Let Harry take you back to the hotel now. I’ll head to the office and print a brand-new batch of posters to pass out tomorrow.”
“It’s hopeless, isn’t it?” Deborah said, defeat in her tone. “I can’t believe I said that out loud. But I’ve failed Jenny.”
“Absolutely not,” Judy proclaimed. “Never give up hope. Besides, if I know Skye and Josh, right about now, they’re just getting started.”
“Really? But it’s so late in the day.”
“That’s just the way they do things. They’ll spend hours strategizing with the team and then head off to check out a lead.”
“They have a lead?” Deborah asked, hope rising in her voice.
“I bet they do,” Judy promised, trying to avoid Harry’s glare at the false statement. She finally cut her eyes to the grumpy detective. “Deborah needs us to stay positive.”
In his own curmudgeon way, Harry accepted his role as the upbeat chum. “They won’t say so right up front for fear of getting your hopes up. But Judy’s right. You need to remember this is a marathon, not a sprint. Leads come in from the strangest places, at the oddest of times. You never know which one turns out to be the jackpot.”
Harry was half right. He had no idea that Reggie had just logged activity in the camera. It had pinged mere hours after getting it back up in the tree. As intended, the Trojan horse had kicked in and sent back an IP address.
Reggie was in the middle of tracking the ping to a physical location. “We might have something this time. You won’t believe this, but it’s coming from a building that’s for sale in the Phinney Ridge neighborhood.” He rattled off an address near Greenwood and 79th. “I’ll pull up the satellite view so you can get a look at the vacant storefront. It’s an old gas station.”
Skye peered over his shoulder, only to see an area of Seattle where boutiques were peppered among charming houses and art deco apartment buildings. But there was an older section that had seen better times. “Great. How do we get into that without breaking and entering?”
“At least there’s no spooky basement,” Josh provided.
“That you know of. Are you sure this is a legit ping? I keep wondering why this guy would send a signal to that camera so soon after parking the Audi there.”
Josh took out his phone and keyed in the directions to that part of Phinney Ridge. “Maybe he’s checking to see if it’s still there and in good working order. He has to know by now the cops scoured that area and towed the Audi.”
Leo studied the whiteboard. “Could it be Clayton doing this? Is that guy really clever enough to work us like this? I gotta tell you, I’m skeptical that he had the brain power.”
“Which might mean Clayton is a victim,” Skye proffered. “Should we add him to the board?”
Josh picked up the marker and did just that. “I asked Harry to text me when the coroner ID’d the torso found at Lincoln Park. So far, all they know is gender. For now, we’ll refer to her as ‘unknown female’ Lincoln Park.”
“She was found near water,” Leo pointed out, as he rolled his chair closer to his computer. “Even though we aren’t for sure that she’s a murder victim. She might’ve drowned accidentally.”
Josh kept writing. “Until we hear back from the coroner, we’re not one hundred percent sure of anything. Yet. Until we are, we keep track of any bodies that turn up near water.”
“Which means we’re going to Phinney Ridge and check out this address at Greenwood and 79th. I better call your mom to pick Sierra up from daycare.”
“Why not just bring her with us?”
“Sure. But let’s not have a repeat of the warehouse. If this ping is real, we could be walking into another dangerous situation.”
Leo got to his feet. “Then let me go with you so that you and Sierra can stay in the van. I’d like to see his set up anyway for myself, see how he has the server configured. It might give us a leg up on the investigation. We can always park several streets over in case the place blows.”
At the idea of that, Skye rubbed her forehead where a headache began to throb. “Thanks for putting that in my head. I’ll call Josh’s mom and see if she’s able to babysit. We’ll drop off Sierra on the way.”
With traffic, it took longer to get to Phinney Ridge than they thought. By the time they pulled up in front of the vacant gas station, all that remained of the light was a sliver of sun, a golden ribbon that kept getting thinner. Dark purple storm clouds were moving across Puget Sound, bringing the threat of a good downpour by the end of rush hour.
“I hate leaving behind summer,” Skye grumbled as she got out of the van. “The vegetable garden just starts taking off and before I know what’s happening, the growing season has come to an abrupt end. It doesn’t last long enough to suit me.”
“Nor me,” Leo joined in. “I don’t grow vegetables, but I’ve taken to growing my own cannabis, of the hemp variety, thinking I’d start a side business in the oil. The CBD oil is more of a medicinal product derived from the cannabidiols without the THC. You know, the stuff in marijuana that gives you the high. I use it, you know, for all kinds of ailments.”
Josh found that funny. “What kind of ailments could a young guy like you have?”
“Carpal tunnel. Painful joints. Tight muscles. You name it. I’m on the computer so much that my hands and wrists and fingers feel the pain. But it’s so wet here I had to confine the growing strictly to the greenhouse.”
Skye stopped her progress. “You left your loft? When did that happen?”
“Yeah. I bought a house last June with a backyard and everything. It came with a potting shed, which I expanded. I’d planned to throw a party and have everybody over to celebrate, but it was in the middle of the build for Desolation Zone. Who had time with all the craziness of that?”
“We should compare notes on greenhouses,” Skye said, excited about the prospect. “I’ve been after Josh to help me build one, so we could grow vegetables year-round. But there never seems to be enough time. I thought for sure we’d get it done last summer, but then the game happened.”
“You should hire a contractor. That’s what I did. It’s amazing what a first-rate carpenter can do with a small eight-by-eight shed. I practically have my own arboretum now.”
Skye all but turned green with envy. “You hear that, Josh? Leo has an arboretum. I can’t wait to see it. Cannabis is something of a cash cow right now, isn’t it?”
“Don’t even think about it,” Josh cautioned. “Besides, it’s hemp.”
Skye glowered at her husband. “Well, I’m not looking at applying for a grow license or becoming a dispensary or competing with Leo. But the oil thing sounds interesting. The oil might be just the thing for Travis after working on the ranch all day, soothe his aches and pains. And what about your parents? They suffer from arthritis. I heard your dad mention it.” She cut her eyes to Leo. “Does it work on things like that?”
“I could give them a sample to try. Then, you tell me.”
“Hard to picture my parents resorting to cannabis oil,” Josh noted, as he took out a bag of gear and tools from the rear cargo area. “But as they get older, anything’s possible.”
“Don’t knock it, till you’ve tried it,” Leo fired back. “Cannabis and hemp have both taken a bad rap.”
“Hey, if it works, who am I to pass judgment?”
During the discussion, Skye had inched closer to the dirty front window pane to peer inside. “Uh, guys, could we focus on what drew us here to begin with? What’s the plan to get inside?”
Josh started around the corner of the station carrying the bag. “I spotted a service ladder on the side of the building. It probably leads to a roof hatch. I’ll use that to drop down inside.”
“Check for booby traps first before you open anything,” Leo cautioned. “I’ll stay put as a lookout.”
“Then I’ll go around back with Josh, make sure he doesn’t fa
ll,” Skye said, trailing after him to the other side. That’s when she spotted the little metal box sitting on top that provided access. By the time she reached the spot, Josh had already scaled up to the rooftop. “Any signs of a motion detector?”
“None so far. Looks like no one’s been up here since the Seahawks blew it in the Super Bowl. There’s a lot of sludge and tar here from repairs decades ago. So be careful when you get up here.”
She began to climb the outside ladder. “Is the box padlocked?”
“Nope.” To prove it, he managed to yank open the rusted metal and lift the lid. Shining his flashlight down into the blackness, he looked around for any obstacles or security wires. Instead of anything like that, he saw another ladder leading down. Hoping not to make any mistakes like the warehouse, he was extra careful dropping down into the hole. Every few steps he took on the rungs, he would do a three-sixty survey with his light. It soon became clear that he was descending into a closet or some type of small storage area.
Once his feet touched the dusty floor, he signaled Skye that it was okay to follow him down. He opened a door that led to the old service bays and an office area. The rooms were vacant. Everything that was once here had long been salvaged and sold. The only thing left that said it had ever been used as a fully functional service station was the iron stairway that led to the grease pit, the spot where the mechanic stood underneath a vehicle to change a filter or change the oil.
From the little light that filtered in, all you could see were dust particles floating in the air along with a layer of grime on the floor.
“There’s nothing here,” Skye noted from behind.
He pointed to the grease pit below. “That’s the only other place left.”
“Which means there must be a security system in place somewhere.”
“Exactly.”
They moved down the stairs, Josh shining the flashlight into every corner. “There. On the wall straight ahead. Looks like some kind of motion detector with a heat sensor. I’ll take a photo of it and send it out to Leo.”
A couple of minutes went by before Leo rapped on the outside door and Skye unbolted the lock to let him in.
“That is a passive infrared model,” Leo began. “You’ll need to block your body heat, so it doesn’t detect that you’re in the room.”
“How do we do that?” Skye asked.
“I noticed you had a window sunshade in the back of the van that reflects the sun. You know, with the aluminum foil type cover that lowers the temp.”
“We bought it to use during the summer months. With a baby, you never want a hot car,” Skye said.
“That’ll work for one of you. It should work long enough to give you time to get under the motion detector so you can disconnect it.”
After several false starts, Josh was able to use the foldable sunshade device to approach the corner where the motion detector had been mounted. But Skye got stuck holding the flashlight so he could see how to disengage and cut the right wires.
They waited several long, nerve-racking seconds to make sure they hadn’t tripped it before Josh removed the backup battery. Once they’d taken care of that, Leo met them at the bottom of the lower level steps carrying his own flashlight.
Over in the far corner of the cave-like room, Skye spotted a table set up with a laptop.
Leo shined his beam around the table, looking for any additional traps. Underneath it, he spotted a device attached to the folding table. “Looks like this is a weighted trap. Think Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark when he was trying to get the gold statue. Once you pick that laptop up, all hell’s gonna break loose. We have two options. Figure out who’s the fastest, they’ll grab it and take off up the stairs. But before that, two of us are already back at the car waiting. Or, we can tie something to it, cord, rope, that sort of thing. But it would have to be really long in length so we could stand on the ground floor and yank it up that way. Whatever it is you decide, do it fast because the longer we’re down here, the greater chance we’ll trip one of his alarms.”
“Run and grab,” Josh suggested. “We don’t have rope or cord long enough to stretch that far.”
“I’m not fast,” Leo admitted. “But I can stand at the garage door with a fire extinguisher if that thing bursts into flames again.”
Skye looked at Josh. “Looks like it’s down to us. You climbed the building, this is on me.”
“You sure?”
“No, but the clock’s ticking and we’re running out of time. You guys head for the top. I’ll give you a count of ten before I grab this thing and run. Go!”
She started the countdown. “Are you guys clear?”
“We’re clear,” Josh shouted from up top.
When the count got down to one, Skye sprinted to the table and grabbed the laptop, jerking it out of its power cords. As she climbed the stairs two at a time, she could feel the heat behind her building up. Halfway to the garage door, she felt the laptop becoming hot under her arm. “Get the fire extinguisher ready! This thing may truly explode.”
Once she was safely outside, she slid the computer on the pavement while Leo covered it in foam and quickly removed the hard drive.
“What is it with this guy and fire?” Leo grumbled.
“Sounds like he’s one part pyromaniac,” Josh answered as he settled behind the wheel. “Let’s get out of here before the whole place goes up in flames. I’m not explaining another drive-by report again.”
“Who the hell is this guy that he thinks he can do stuff like this?” Skye muttered, her voice laced with anger.
“We’ll know soon enough when we crack what’s on that drive,” Leo stated. “I just hope there are no more booby traps to deal with.”
****
Back at the office, Leo ran a virus scan on the hard drive before copying it onto another machine. He then searched for any strange coding that might trigger a vanishing act where all the data might disappear. When the scan came back clean, he cloned the drive again so Reggie would have a copy. The two clones would allow them to safely explore every inch of the hard drives each in their own way.
Hours into the process, Reggie stumbled on a captured video from when the hard drive had been transmitting another live feed. He whooped and hollered before getting to his feet. “Bingo! I found a video and if I’m not mistaken that’s Jennifer Mack.”
Skye rushed over to watch the scene play out on the monitor. She saw a dark, dank, tiny enclosed space with a filthy mattress on the planked floor and a chamber pot sitting next to the bed. The pretty brunette showed signs of being drugged. Her eyelids were barely able to stay open. Her body was propped up against a wall made of rotted shiplap. She was shivering so much from the cold, Skye could hear her teeth chattering on the audio.
“Oh, my God. She’s in deplorable conditions, but it looks like she’s breathing.”
Josh stood next to her. “Reggie, any way to track where this originated from?”
“Server is bouncing back between the gas station and the warehouse.”
“How is that possible?”
Reggie skewed up his face. “Dunno, but this guy has some chops. His skills working with VPN servers are better than average.”
“VPN, virtual private network,” Josh translated. “Secure tunnels between two or more devices to prevent snooping, spying, or interference of some sort.”
“Like keeping us from finding him,” Skye injected.
“Yeah, but I got a plan,” Reggie claimed as he rattled the keyboard in a flurry.
Judy and Brayden, who’d been watching from either side of the programmer, exchanged puzzled looks. But it was Judy who touched Reggie’s shoulder.
“Brayden and I are a little behind the others. Could you walk us through how you plan to trace this wacko?”
Reggie held up his iPhone. “If I had an unknown or private phone number that no one knew anything about, nobody could call me or find me, right? But if I called you from this private number, that call
would leave a footprint, a trail to follow.”
“But it would come through as unknown,” Brayden pointed out. “What good is that?”
“That’s true, but it could still be traced through the cell towers where the call, from me to you, bounced off and pinged each cell tower as it traveled. The location wouldn’t be precise, but it would be within a radius of maybe a mile or so around that particular cell tower, depending on how populated the area is.”
Reggie waited until Judy and Brayden seemed to indicate they were catching on.
“I get it,” Brayden said.
“Yeah, me too.”
Without more prompting, Reggie went on, “During my research on the IP address, I listed all the interesting places that one IP had visited.”
“Gotta be porn,” Leo stated.
“You’d think that, but no. Whoever this guy is, he’s a big fan of Zodiac and the Original Night Stalker. And it looks like he’s been monitoring a site frequented by amateur sleuths trying to solve various crimes.”
Winston cleared his throat. “Those type sites he enjoys leaving a comment. He’s a frequent poster, offering up his opinions on the crime forum.”
Reggie grinned. “Since Skye risked life and limb to retrieve the hard drive, I thought I might as well dig deep. Give me until tomorrow and I should have a broader idea of exactly who he kept tabs on and the locations of each.”
“Great job, guys,” Skye noted. “Call if anything else turns up. We’re heading home. I suggest everyone in this room get a good night’s sleep. From here on out, things will only get riskier.”
Judy studied Reggie. “If I know him, he’ll stay up all night going through that hard drive. And Leo won’t leave unless Reggie does.”
“And you’ll stay here to make sure they both eat.”
Judy nodded. “Jennifer’s life might depend on what they find.”
Those words carried Skye back to Bainbridge. She’d learned a long time ago that patience often eluded her, especially knowing a victim was out there somewhere, helpless and vulnerable at the hands of a ruthless captor.
Now was one of those times.
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