CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Kate finished the last of her third cup of coffee and decided she’d have to stop there. The coffee did little to drive the fog from her mind, but her skin buzzed, and her heartbeat sounded dangerously close to the panic it had exhibited earlier.
Marcus hadn’t figured it out. He was too wrapped up in his own problems to realize that he’d been right from the beginning. It was a mistake for Kate to come back to this case. She wasn’t ready.
The problem was that it didn’t matter if she was ready or not. Cox wasn’t going to stop just because Kate was fragile. She needed to hold onto her sanity long enough to put him away permanently. Then, if she wanted to reserve a room at the Cuckoo Chateau, she could do so without any guilt.
Marcus folded his powerful arms across his broad chest and stared at the laptops. Kate’s screen showed images of the objects from the crime scenes. Marcus’s showed a list of the information they had so far.
“I’m trying to get a sense of Cox’s movements,” he said out loud.
“He kills Gloria Prentiss in Greenfield, Indiana. Then he kills Jordan Prescott in Louisville, Kentucky. That’s a two-hour drive.
After that, he kills Paul Delaney in Knoxville.
That’s a four-hour drive. Far but still within driving distance.
“Then we have Karen De Luca in Buffalo, New York. Definitely not within driving distance, but let’s say he breaks the trip up into legs.
He could drive to Harrisburg to visit Ruth Osgood, then up to Buffalo to kill De Luca, then down to Dayton to case out Warren Schulz’s place.
Across to Harrisburg to kill Ruth Osgood, then back to Dayton to kill Schulz.
“These are all six- to eight-hour drives. Long, but doable. St. Louis is six hours from Dayton, and that’s where he kills Douglas Hale.”
“But when does he stake out the other victims? We know he visited Ruth Osgood and Warren Schulz weeks before he killed them. I agree that he’s driving, but I’m not sure how that helps us.”
“Having his disciple makes that easy,” Kate said. “He probably handled some of that.”
“But he was seen at Schulz’s place.”
Kate frowned. “Yeah. Good point.”
Then her eyes popped open. “Oh shit. I’m an idiot.”
“What?” Marcus asked. “What is it?”
“Someone helped break Elijah Cox out of prison.”
Marcus’s eyes popped open just like Kate’s had a moment ago. “The maintenance worker.”
“Exactly,” Kate said. “We can get another description and another identity, maybe one we can follow up on.”
Marcus’s excitement dimmed a little. “What if it turns out to be another—” Kate’s glare stopped him. “Right.”
“It’s another breadcrumb,” Kate said, dialing the number for Frank Cirillo, the warden of the Northbridge Special Management Unit.
“We might be able to trace those breadcrumbs back all the way to the actual identity of Cox’s companion.
That could make finding him easier, especially if we can find a history of falsifying his identity that might give us a clue to his MO.
It’s not necessarily the final piece of the puzzle, but it’ll make another part of the picture clearer. ”
She really hoped it would yield more than just another avenue of investigation. And unless this man had been off the grid as long as Cox had, the trail of smoke in his wake would be thinner and easier to dissipate.
Frank answered on the fifth ring, just before the call would have gone to voicemail. “Special Agent Valentine. What a pleasant surprise. To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?”
His words slurred slightly. He had asked for early retirement rather than a full investigation into his incompetent leadership that allowed Cox to escape at the cost of a guard’s life and millions of dollars in damage.
It was the coward’s way out, and his request had been denied.
He’d been demoted to assistant facility manager instead and ordered to serve out the entirety of his contract.
Kate guessed he wasn’t handling his circumstances very well. Join the club, buddy. We’re all kicking ourselves in the teeth right now. “Frank, I need your help. Do you remember the fake maintenance worker who sabotaged Cox’s cell?”
“Of course I do. That man’s smug smile is a close second behind Cox as the tormentor of my nightmares.”
“Can you get into the security office and send me any information the SMU has of him.”
“I mean… I probably can, but shouldn’t you put in a formal request?”
“I can’t do that until the prison opens in the morning. You know as well as I do that a difference of a few hours could be all the difference in the world for a case like this. Can you get there now?”
“Well… they won’t let me inside at all hours, and I’m not on duty until eleven in the morning tomorrow.”
Kate bit back frustration. “There’s nothing you can do at all?”
“Hold on. Let me see.” The sound of clacking keys sounded on the other end. A muffled female voice asked a question, and Frank replied, “Nothing important, honey. I’ll come back to bed in a minute.”
Kate looked at Marcus and saw the same tense anticipation on his face.
“Yes!” Frank cried.
“You have him?”
“Well, I’m in the security system. I had to crack the new warden’s password, but if this gives us Cox, then it won’t matter. Hold on. I’ll get the footage now.”
Another minute ticked by while Frank looked for the footage. Kate bit her lip and tapped her heel on the floor before realizing what she was doing and pressing her feet together.
“Got it,” Frank said. “I’m sending it to you. Hell yes, Kate!”
“Hell yes,” Kate agreed. Her email pinged, notifying her that she’d received a series of attachments from Frank. “Good work. I’ll put in a good word for you.”
“Do that, please,” Frank said. “I want a chance to redeem myself.”
His voice broke a little, a reaction that would have disgusted Kate earlier but one she didn’t find so disgusting now. They all wanted a chance to redeem themselves, and bringing the most wanted man in the country to justice would be an excellent way to start.
She said goodbye to Frank, then called Winters. Her boss answered on the first ring. “Hello, Kate. I was just about to call you.”
Kate frowned at that, but she was too excited to stop.
“Ma’am, I’m forwarding you some security images of the man who broke Cox out of prison.
We believe this individual is the man he’s traveling with.
I need you to coordinate with law enforcement nationwide.
Have Poppy dig into this too. See if you can figure out what name or names he’s been using.
Put an APB out for him too. If we find him, we find Cox. ”
“Of course. I’ll do that.”
Kate frowned again. Winters didn’t seem excited. In fact, she seemed subdued, weary. “Is everything okay, ma’am?”
Winters sighed. “No, Kate. I’m afraid that everything is not okay.”
A ball of ice formed in the pit of Kate’s stomach. “What happened?”
Winters sighed again. “We have another body.”