Chapter 53 Carnage #2
“That’s not all. There’s another file on here guaranteed to clench your cheeks,” Fowler continues, his voice animated with a heightened sense of foreboding.
“Last week, the surgeon created another set of mockup photos. The before picture of each matches his current face. We should proceed with the assumption that they grabbed the surgeon and killed the wife to force him to perform the procedure. If we don’t find Carnage soon, he’ll be in the wind again with a new face. ”
It might already be too late if he’s had the doctor for more than two days.
Fucking hell.
Andrews cuts in. “Something isn’t adding up. Why did Carnage abduct the doctor and kill the wife this time around? Not only is he the same surgeon from last year, but he was clearly on board if he prepped those mockups last week. What gives?”
“I have a theory,” Carson answers coolly.
“I peeked at the surgeon’s financials. Around the time Jabali Campos became Silas Everson, the doc had several large wire transfers into his account, totaling about a quarter of a million.
Carnage paid dearly for the Silas face. If he’s working this hard to secure significant funds for his STK mutiny, then he probably didn’t want to pay him again.
The sword is cheaper and more effective than the wallet for someone like him. ”
SSA Chase jumps back in. “Carson, let Fowler and Morales track down info on those wire transfers and other evidence to support our theory with this later. The gang unit can do its part as well. I need you to pivot back to the abductions right away. If we find Kenzie or the plastic surgeon, we’ll find Carnage. ”
“Oh, I’m on that too,” Bianca replies with a trill of smugness.
“I put out an APB for the red sedan Kenzie was taken in. Get this. Ginny Lawrence was driving the car. Her car, no less. Plates match, and she was the only one in the vehicle without a facial covering. She was clearly visible from several angles in traffic cams downtown. Not only that, her phone’s GPS puts her at the condo at the time of the abduction. She’s our getaway driver.”
I was right about her brain being a hollow cavern.
Tapping the unmute button, I fire off questions.
“Are you still tracking her location? Has a response team been sent to intercept them before they reach their destination? I don’t know why they wanted my sister again, but it can’t be to take her for a leisurely ride through town. We need to find them. Now.”
Before it’s too late.
Carson’s response is partially cushioned by compassion.
The rest is sheer frustration. “We lost the signal from both Ginny’s and Kenzie’s phones about two blocks away from your place.
Someone in the car smartened her up and turned the phone off or got rid of it.
The car itself doesn’t have GPS either. We followed their route on traffic cams for a while but lost them when they left downtown.
Not enough cameras for viable tracking.”
Son of a bitch.
SSA Chase attempts to mollify me. “We’re doing everything we can, Hayes. We’ll find your sister. I’ve got every law enforcement agency in the area looking for that vehicle.”
I stay on mute. Anything I say will only delay our progress.
And as the call shifts to the next topic, I’m hit with another delay. This one was unavoidable. Heavy traffic where the toll road hits the interstate.
Fuck I-4. Absolutely fuck it.
Why didn’t they make this a double-decker highway?
I slam on the brakes, reducing my speed by half, then weave into the emergency lane to bypass the masses.
After Hemsley provides a recap about the bodies found on the beach this morning, Chase green-lights them to enter the Sunset cruise terminal to coordinate dealer protection and continue the homicide investigation.
When pressed about tipping off STK with our presence at the casinos, she shuts down the bellyaching.
“Given what’s occurred in the last twenty-four hours, it’s clear Carnage knows we’re circling.
Our new directive is to save as many dealers’ lives as possible.
To do that, we need to split up. I’m sending some of you to coordinate dealer notification and protection activities.
The rest of us need to find Kenzie Hayes and the plastic surgeon immediately. Those are our goals, people.”
She starts blasting out assignments to match that decree.
Agent Fowler will return to the office to assist Carson and Romero with the hunt for Carnage, Kenzie, and the surgeon. I’ll be doing the same after I get Lila safe and secure.
Agent Morales is sent to Oak Winds. FBI agents from Jacksonville are heading to the gambling cruise in Daytona Beach. The Miami FO will take the casinos in South Florida.
As for the impacted casinos outside of Florida, the SSA will coordinate with her counterparts in Louisiana, Missouri, and North Carolina.
All bases are covered.
With the conversation winding down, I ask, “Carson, what was it you found regarding Kenzie’s online communications? You mentioned something about that before the others joined the call.”
“Thanks for the reminder,” she responds. “Before everything went haywire, I stumbled onto something bizarre. And now that we have Ginny Lawrence in the spotlight, it’s more concerning.”
Where the hell is she going with this? I haven’t the foggiest clue how Ginny Lawrence could intersect with my sister.
“When Ginny was here for questioning the other night, she foolishly agreed to let us hold her phone, which I immediately cloned.”
Ah yes. I almost forgot about another one of Ginny’s famous tumbleweed moments.
Never fucking voluntarily give your device to law enforcement if you’re even remotely connected to criminal activity.
As long as I live, I’ll never understand how that woman was romantically involved with Hartley, an STK key player who was connected enough to procure that fucking card marking dye.
He taught her nothing about evading the law.
His mistake is our gain.
Then again, perhaps he was also mentally inferior. After all, he tried to force Carnage to pay him a bigger cut and was withholding the magic ingredient as leverage.
Hartley and Lawrence might be our home invasion Bonnie and Clyde, but they’re as stupid as Lloyd and Harry of Dumb and Dumber fame.
Agent Carson recaptures my wayward thoughts when she gets closer to the point.
I hope. “Ginny’s phone has one of those hidden communication apps.
The kind that looks like a game, but its real purpose is to conceal chats.
I found a half dozen threads that show she was helping STK identify dealers to target for this scam.
She’s been working with them for almost a year. ”
“That’ll strengthen the indictment,” Chase surmises. “And perhaps we can use this to find more potential dealers who need protection.”
It’s killing me not to interrupt to ask how this relates to my sister. But I manage to resist.
Barely.
My partner does it for me. Bless him. “How does this tie back to Kenzie Hayes?”
“Bare with me,” Carson urges, then dives back in.
“Two weeks ago, a message request was sent to Ginny from a user with the handle SweetbutPsycho95. They chatted once or twice a day ever since. Typically, they set up times to meet for drinks or play Xbox together. Innocuous stuff. I almost ignored it. However, the message frequency spiked over the last three days. Here’s the kicker.
Psycho was the one and only person Ginny contacted after leaving here the other night.
No phone calls. No texts. No social media DMs. Just one message to this Psycho. ”
User names often include the birth year. Kenzie and Lila were both born in 1995. I see where this is going. I wish she’d spit it out and spare me the play-by-play.
Chase interjects, seeking clarity. “That was the night after her boyfriend, Troy Hartley, was brutally slain in their home, right?”
“Exactly,” Bianca answers. “Times out to just shy of twenty-four hours after she found his slaughtered body. And here she is, messaging Psycho to play a video game.”
Oh my fucking god. This is unbearable.
Jabbing the mute button, I fail to bite back a growl. “Are you telling me that my sister is Psycho?”
The line goes silent. Nobody speaks.
Aside from my blaring siren, I have nothing to distract me from how awkward that was.
Then someone snort-laughs. A single snort.
Shit.
“You know what I mean,” I tack on, then tap the mute button before I say anything else idiotic.
In my defense, Kenzie has psychotic tendencies.
“Uh. Alrighty then.“ Carson clears her throat, probably buying time to get the mirth out of her tone. “I did some fancy footwork to identify how Psycho accessed the internet while using the app. Other than a few messages when she was using her carrier’s data signal, all other communications were sent via a single wifi signal. Lila Kent is the named account owner for the ISP, and it’s registered to the apartment she shares with Kenzie. It was either Lila or Kenzie sending those messages to Ginny.”
My gut twists into a huge knot, entangled with barbed wire.
Andrews responds for me. “Timing rules out Lila. She’s been staying elsewhere the last few days.”
Thank fuck he said that. I sure can’t find my voice. And what if I said something else moronic?
The SSA attempts to wrap this up. “We have a lot more work to do, people. Kenzie Hayes may be an innocent victim. Or she could’ve been involved in the crimes and has fallen prey to Carnage’s housecleaning efforts.
Either way, we need to find her before it’s too late. You all have your orders. Let’s—”
Carson interjects. “One last thing.”
What the fuck else?
Through the cyclone of thoughts in my mind, I lock in on the explanation that follows.
“Ginny got another message this morning from Psycho.”
“What did that one say?” Chase asks.
Carson responds flatly, sounding like she’s reading it aloud. “Mission was a bust. Coming down right now. Roll with Plan B.”
With the typical inflection returning to her voice, Bianca continues, “And then Ginny responded with a thumbs up and a car emoji, which is her preferred language in the app with other users. Not a prolific writer, that one. And nary a capital letter or punctuation mark in sight.”
Worrisome dots connect in my mind, and I ask one last question. “Where was my sister’s phone around the time the message was sent?”
“Checking.” The clack of the keyboard comes through the line. “Yeah. Good call, Reed. She was at your condo. It was right before she was taken. In fact . . .”
After a few seconds, she finishes her thought.
“Shit. Ginny was parked two blocks from your place, which I already knew. We figured they were watching for Kenzie’s exit.
The timing is too perfect, though. Ginny started driving immediately after getting that message from Psycho.
Within five seconds. Which means . . . Kenzie gave them a signal that triggered her own kidnapping. Intended or not, that’s what happened.”
Did Kenzie orchestrate her own abduction?
And why?
If she wanted to leave with Ginny—which is beyond baffling—why make it look like an abduction? More importantly, why do it in front of my place when she could have done it anywhere? What was she trying to get from my condo?
With my next breath, I answer my internal wonderings with one word. Four letters. It isn’t a what. It’s a who.
Lila.