Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Liza was unusually quiet. Listening more than she was speaking as Nick laid out a new plan. It was a gamble and was contingent on Allyson agreeing to make our introduction to Mackenzie, but it was the best option we had.
“Thoughts?” Nick asked the room, though his gaze was firmly on Liza, clearly interested in her opinion.
“If Allyson agrees I think it’s a good plan. However, with our age difference I think we need to ask Jessica if she’s okay being brought into this. It’ll work better if I’m a high school friend of Jessica’s instead of Allyson. But the rest is good.” Liza paused to look at Dylan. “That is if Brady can invent the back story.”
I briefly glanced at Dylan, finding him smirking at Liza.
“I’m sure I can pull something together.”
That meant he’d have a long history of friendship between Liza and Jessica easily found on the internet within an hour, complete with fake pictures of them together as teenagers as well as a record of Liza graduating from the same high school as Liza. He’d throw in some group shots to include Allyson and other fake friends that would be untraceable deepfakes.
“What about college?” Jason threw out. “Should Jessica and Liza attend the same college?”
“Before we go too far down the rabbit hole, Liza’s right; we need to ask Jessica if she’s alright getting pulled in,” Nick stated. “And Allyson has to agree to take Tucker and Liza back to Tennessee with her. If they’re both agreeable, then yes, they should attend the same college. Lifelong friends. Family. A strong bond with Allyson, too.”
“That’s easy enough,” Dylan returned.
“What about—” Liza was interrupted by her phone ringing. “Sorry.”
She maneuvered her phone out of her pocket and announced, “It’s Shannon.” A few taps on her screen and she greeted her boss, “Hi, Shannon. I’m in the conference room at TC, you’re on speaker phone.”
“Who’s in the room with you?” Shannon asked.
“Tucker, Nick, Carter, Jason, and Dylan.”
“Gentlemen.”
After a round of hellos, Shannon didn’t delay the reason for her call.
“The lab’s back with the ballistic report for the Beatrice Collins case. No striations on the bullet. The coroner report showed polycarbonate present at the entry wound.”
“Well, fuck me,” Dylan mumbled.
That about summed it up nicely.
“And the shell casing?” Nick asked. “Any prints?”
“No,” Shannon answered. “And the coroner confirmed the angle of entry. Miss Collins was on her knees when she was murdered. Stippling around the entry wound suggests the barrel was no more than twenty-four to thirty-six inches from Miss Collins’ forehead. However, the burn pattern or lack thereof is inconsistent with a shot fired at close range.”
“They’re evolving,” Liza surmised. “The first three victims were done with poorly tooled eighty-percent lowers. The guns found in the house showed whoever made them had rudimentary skills. They’ve moved to 3D printing. Smart. Easy. Untraceable.”
Liza wasn’t wrong. 3D printers were easily accessible. Filament for the printer just as easy to find. And unfortunately, the plans to print a weapon were all over the internet—though not untraceable.
“They’re reloading,” I put in. “Polycarbonate filament is heat resistant but still multiple shots using factory loads would heat the barrel to melting. The lack of burn pattern at the entry wound also suggests it’s a light load.”
Liza nodded.
“Unless whoever printed the gun is extremely proficient with CAD and has the skills to design the parts themselves, they messed up. We can trace who downloaded the plans.” The excitement in Liza’s voice made me smile. “Even then, whatever program was used would have a record.”
“One hitch,” Dylan announced. “Non-network printer.”
Dylan’s declaration didn’t dissuade Liza’s enthusiasm.
“The plans came from somewhere,” Liza asserted. “The likelihood Nu Dawn has an engineer on standby to draw the parts is slim. The probability they also have knowledge to transfer the blueprints to a jump drive and wipe the software is less than slim. Those plans were downloaded from the internet.”
I was with Liza on this. CAD software even in its simplest form was a tough program to use. Designing parts from scratch would take someone with engineering experience and not a little of it. She was also correct; the blueprints for printing weapons were all over the internet and easily downloaded.
“It’s not illegal to download blueprints,” Nick pointed out.
“No, but it shows intent,” Shannon rejoined. “I need you two on that property ASAP. I need eyes on Tate Archer and I need an ID on him. I need eyes on the printer. Frank and Greg are looking into the filament. There’s a hobby shop in Kingsport that sells 3D printer supplies and two in Knoxville. All three shops have sold PC filament in the last month. It’s not a big seller, the shop in Kingsport had to special order it. Greg showed the owners a picture of Mackenzie. None of them recognized her but he got a description, all three shops were the same. Male, late thirties or early forties, brown hair, brown eyes, tall, slim build.”
“Security footage?” Dylan asked.
“The shop in Kingsport doesn’t have a system. The two in Knoxville don’t save the footage. One rotates after a week, the other after twenty-four hours. There’s a bank across the street from the one in Knoxville. Greg checked the angle of the parking lot camera. He doesn’t think it’ll give us much but I still want it. However, we don’t have enough to compel the bank to give us the footage.”
Liza glanced at Dylan then asked, “What’s the name of the hobby shop across from the bank?”
“Lowman’s,” Shannon supplied. “Reports are on the server. Now tell me you have a plan to get on the property.”
Dylan sent Liza a smile and went to work on his laptop. My girl wasn’t stupid, she knew Dylan would hack the bank’s security footage. She also knew it would be inadmissible. If the footage proved relevant, Shannon could go about getting it the legal way and no one would be the wiser. If it was a dead end, we’d know not to waste time on getting a warrant.
“Tucker and I are going to speak to Allyson. She wants to go back to Tennessee. If she agrees, we’ll go with her. Cover will be, I’m a family friend, went to high school with her older sister, Jessica. Tucker and I are looking to move to the area and she’s letting us stay with her while we look at houses. With any luck, we’ll get face time with Mackenzie.”
“You’re keeping the artist legend?” Shannon inquired.
“Yes. I can use that angle if I get in front of Mackenzie. We know they have an empty house on the property. If I get a chance I’ll ask about it, though I think if Allyson suggests to Mackenzie that Tucker and I take it over it’ll be better received. But again, this is contingent on Allyson.”
“And if she doesn’t agree? What’s plan B?”
Plan B was risky.
“This turns into surveillance and recon,” I answered. “We send in Matt and Trey to have a look around. The risk is them being spotted by a resident. We also don’t know what measures they’ve taken to secure the woods surrounding the property. There could be trail cameras set up. We’d have to scout the woods first, set up our own cameras, see if anyone patrols the compound. Liza and I would turn into buyers. As you know, making those contacts would take weeks, maybe months before we could make our first buy. Getting our hands on a gun, even longer.”
“Get Allyson to agree,” Shannon demanded. “We don’t have months. The locals are unhappy they have a murder, less happy that murder was carried out with an untraceable weapon. Further from that, they want these drugs off the streets and they don’t like what they’re hearing about Nu Dawn. They were happy to invite the ATF in on the investigation, but the longer this takes the more impatient they’re going to get. Impatience leads to premature arrests. I need you on that compound within forty-eight hours.”
“Allyson’s friend was murdered,” Liza pointed out. “She’ll want justice for Beatrice. Jessica will be harder to convince. She wants her sister to stay in Georgia and to cut ties with Nu Dawn.”
Liza wasn’t wrong. Jessica clearly loved her sister and didn’t want her mixed up in this mess.
I looked at Nick hoping he had some ideas on how to persuade Jessica this was the best course of action to get Allyson clear of Nu Dawn.
“We’ll be on our way to Tennessee by tomorrow,” I added.
“Good. Keep me updated.”
Shannon disconnected the call but still Dylan verified, “Are we clear?”
Liza held up her phone, showing Dylan the screen before she set it back on the table.
“The bank’s a bust. ATM is on the side of the building and the parking lot camera doesn’t reach the street.”
Liza shocked the shit out of me by saying, “That was quick.”
“I’m good like that,” Dylan quipped.
“More like illegal hacking takes less time than warrants,” Liza returned.
“There’s that, too.”
“I hate to say it,” Nick started. “Liza’s right, you’re going to have to push the murdered friend angle. Allyson will have to be the one to persuade Jessica. There’s nothing either of you can say to Jessica to convince her this is a good plan. It sucks, but you’re going to have to play on Allyson’s grief. Good news is, that play will eventually lead to Allyson getting safe and her friend getting justice, so as shitty as it’ll be, in the long run it won’t be unkind.”
Liza turned her attention to me. Sadness had already crept in. No part of meeting with Allyson was going to be easy.
“Will you call Allyson?” Liza asked. “See if we can come over now?”
“Yeah, baby, I’ll call her.”
Liza’s eyes narrowed, clearly not liking me calling her ‘baby’ in front of my team.
Too bad for her the squinty frown wasn’t a deterrent. I didn’t care what it said to my team. And I wasn’t hiding what she meant to me from anyone. She’d have to get used to it.
To tamp down the fire blazing in her eyes before it scorched the room, I reminded her, “You got a report in my office.”
My reminder did the opposite and the blaze ignited.
“I didn’t forget, Tucker .”
“Right. You gonna get that so I can make a call and we can get on the road?”
“Is me getting my report contingent on you calling Allyson?”
“No, but after we meet with Allyson, we won’t be coming back to the office. So if you want your report, I suggest you get it now.”
My declaration was met with the same panic I saw back at the hotel. Panic I didn’t understand, but I sure as fuck was going to get to the bottom of it.