Chapter Fourteen #2
With Niles not there, Rodriguez opened the front door. Frank stepped in, all brusque purpose and cop attitude. “Spectacular house, Daniels. Agent Williams.”
Pleased, Quaid shook his hand. “I like it. Let’s go in the dining room. Coke, coffee?”
At the heavy oak table, Frank dropped a folder on the edge and ran his fingers over the scarred surface. “This is an amazing piece.”
Quaid grinned, caught off guard by Frank’s interest. “Military surplus auction.”
Frank whistled through his teeth and nodded. “Good find. I wouldn’t say no to a cold coke.”
“Alanna?”
She shook her head. “No more caffeine.”
He went to the kitchen, grabbed two cokes and a bottle of water and went back in record time. Why that was necessary he didn’t analyze.
Frank pulled one of the heavy chairs and sat. “Complicated search you gave me.”
“I hope you found something. I need more data.” Alanna had grabbed her own seat, and leaned on folded elbows to stare at Frank. “Do tell.”
Frank took the coke from Quaid and popped the top. “Yes, I found a file on a girl on the date you gave me. Case is cold. Not solved. No name. No suspects. I found your assault report, too. You should have told me.”
Alanna kept her face neutral and took her water from Quaid. “A test of sorts. You heard part of it in the alley, and I figured you would find it. It’s not something I easily talk about.”
Quaid settled next to her. He didn’t want Alanna taking any heat for protecting herself. It was the only strategy she had left in this messy situation. “And in the dates around the incident, any other missing or Jane Does?”
“Yes, a couple that fit. One from two weeks prior. One a month after.”
Alanna straightened in her chair. “Where?”
“Same downtown area, same age as our girls the other night.”
“They weren’t solved?”
“No, disappeared, but the locations and trace evidence match the incident report from yours. That’s what took me so long.
I made the lab do a comparison. So we put in the system like evidence and did a run.
Unfortunately, we discovered thirty-seven girls in the last fifteen years.
They can’t be all his. Can they?” He handed over the two-page list of names with dates.
Alanna scanned through the information. “Doubtful. We can eliminate the dates we know are his assassination windows. He wouldn’t have been here.”
“Do you have those dates?” Frank looked from her to Quaid.
Alanna pointed at the whiteboard. “These details came from my boss. He’s been reviewing the cases with the classified materials and getting permission to release.”
Frank rose and studied the board. “This Mercer is a piece of work.”
“You won’t get an argument from us.” Quaid set his drink aside. He didn’t want caffeine either.
“Hand me a pencil.” She pointed, and he did what she asked. “Let’s eliminate a few of these names. Read me those dates, will you?”
Frank raised a brow, but did what she asked. When they were finished twenty-two names were eliminated. Twelve case files left. She handed the sheet back.
“Tell you anything?” Quaid stopped himself from touching Alanna. She wouldn’t appreciate the gesture in front of Frank, but reading her expression and body language, she needed the contact. He slipped his hand under the table to touch her thigh. Her leg twitched, but her posture relaxed.
“Well, twelve cases are better than thirty-seven. Eight of these are downtown, but the other four are the beach area. And, unfortunately, we still have no proof it was this Mercer.”
“Any trace evidence on file from those twelve.”
“No. No bodies. Disappearances only.”
Alanna sighed. “Besides the two you found who matched the trace evidence, we have nothing to compare.”
“We can make assumptions, but proof is not going to happen. What were you expecting?”
“Confirmation of his hunting ground and some answers to his methods.” She rubbed her eyes.
“It’s safe to say he likes to return to the scene of the crime. Four people assaulted in the same area, and three have disappeared. Why didn’t he disappear you?”
Alanna gazed at Quaid. “Whit stopped him.”
Quaid didn’t like the slump of her shoulders, and she was rubbing her left ear. “This guy has gone a long time without getting caught. If it was easy to trace this stuff back, someone else would have done it long ago. Let’s focus on what we have.”
Frank scratched his ear. “Like what?”
“Whit. We have to find Whit. An answer to what happened between the two of them might define the last four things he tried and why he failed.” Alanna turned back to the boards.
Quaid went to her side. “Whether it’s because he’s devolving or he has a definite agenda doesn’t matter. He’s after you. It’s his main objective. Two out of the three tries in the last few days have been about getting to you.”
Alanna put her back to the board and stared at him. “Agreed, but this way is taking too long. He’s in a window where the failures are pricking at his ego, and it’s the time to push him.”
Frank’s eyes widened. “Push him, how?”
Quaid let out an exasperated breath. “By putting Alanna back out there for him to find.”
“Bait.”
He didn’t like the way Frank said the word.
“How? When? Where?” Frank rapid fire spit out the questions.
“To be determined.” Quaid’s phone beeped.
“I want in. So keep me in the loop.” Frank finished off his drink in a couple gulps while Quaid checked his phone.
“Mackey.” He hit the redial.
When he answered, Quaid kept it short. “What do you have?”
Mackey got right to the situation. “I have Whit. We found him. Our Lady of the Open Gate. We need Alanna. He’s being uncooperative.”
“Well, hell.” Quaid changed to speakerphone and turned to Alanna. “Mackey found Whit.”
She jerked and grabbed the phone from his hand. “Is he all right?”
Mac’s dry answer told Quaid nothing. “I wouldn’t describe him that way, but we need you.”
She handed the phone back. “Let’s go.”
He stopped her. “Get armed. We’re not taking a full team with us. We agreed we’d be prepared for this guy no matter what.”
Frank set the empty can aside. “I’ll tag along. Where?”
“Our Lady of the Open Gate.”
“I know where it is. I’ll meet you there.” Frank jogged to the entry and exited the front door. With his siren, he’d beat them to the scene.
He put the phone back to his ear. “Frank was here. He’s on his way. We’ll be right behind him.”
“Copy. Out.” Mackey signed off.
“Let’s go.”
He followed Alanna to the security room and issued instructions.
Locked and loaded, they went out the door in a rush.
What was it one of his Marine buddies used to say?
Lord willing and come what may.
&&&&&&&&&&
In the back seat of the SUV, Alanna rubbed her stomach. Her gut was on fire, churning with acid and nausea from anxiety, anger, and frantic worries. He’d been so close this whole time.
Our Lady of the Open Gate. She knew the exact address of the location.
Had sought shelter there many times in her youth.
Whit was so tuned in to the streets. The padre there had been, too.
There was no way the old man didn’t know she was searching for him.
There was at least a dozen people who would have passed information along.
Enough people went through Our Lady, the whispers would have reached him.
So he was either hurt bad, told himself some fantasy about this didn’t involve her, or had a bug up his ass about her safety.
Quaid sat next to her in the SUV. There was a perfectly good seat in the front, but he wouldn’t use it. “Keep an eye out for a tail, Tane. Last thing we need is a compromised scene with civilians in the midst of a confrontation.”
“Copy, boss.”
Alanna couldn’t help it. She turned and checked behind them. She was FBI and preferred facts to intuition. Mercer would have to go out of his way to be obvious, and he wasn’t that far gone. Unless he was in sniper mode, and he wouldn’t gain the personal satisfaction he craved from his rifle.
She caught Quaid’s eye on swinging forward again, but his flat, neutral expression told her nothing.
She squashed the unpredictable emotional wave, straightened the tuck of her striped shirt, and checked her gun was hidden by her jacket. “Is he hiding out there because he thinks he’s safe? Or has he heard I was combing the neighborhood, and he’s trying to protect me?”
“Questions to ask him.”
“Would Mackey have questioned him?”
“Doubt it. He has Drucker with him.” Quaid lifted his phone and pointed at the screen. “Text message. He’s making a medical assessment. They’re calling Cait.”
“That means he’s bad.”
“That means Dr. Cait has very specific guidelines.”
She knew those guidelines from her own injury. She had more of her hearing back because Cait stayed on top of it. She turned toward him and lowered her voice. “I’m a wreck. I didn’t anticipate getting this far even though it was what I wanted.”
“Has he ever gone off the grid before?”
“Yes, but I could always find him. He hated the intrusion, and every time I got a lecture. After college, I moved to the East Coast to go to Quantico, and I wasn’t here much.
My first assignment put me in Florida. But when I moved back to LA six months ago, I noted he wasn’t as open with me as he used to be.
I thought it was the timespan without seeing each other or the FBI badge.
” She stopped right there because anything more was speculation.
She had to deal in facts. It was a line she’d repeated to herself many times in the last six months.
“My take?”
She bit her lip.
He took her hand. “You grew up, became a professional, took care of yourself. You didn’t need him anymore. He’s reacting to the passage of time. Sounds like my mother.” Quaid checked his phone again.
“Your mother was worried about you?” She lowered her voice. Tane exited from the freeway. The mid-morning traffic on the side street calmed the road noise.