Chapter Nineteen #5
It was all about focusing on staying alive and getting to him ASAP. They knew it was only a matter of time before he dropped the next set of bodies and more clues.
They’d only slowed him down with the press conference.
“I checked again to see if any of the tips were panning out,” Gene offered.
She was curious.
“And?”
He was to the point.
“No one has seen him anywhere near Damascus. Are you one hundred percent sure he won’t travel and instead, he’ll use people he hired?”
She wasn’t anymore.
“I have no fucking clue. At some point, he’ll run out of game plan, and that’s when he’ll really go off the rails. We have to get to him BEFORE that happens.”
Yeah, he imagined that wouldn’t be a whole lot of fun—especially when they were the target of that runaway train.
“How’s Caspian doing?” she asked.
He told her.
“Ivan has him locked down, and he’s sleeping. I remember sleep. I swear it was my friend.”
Yeah, hers too.
When she was in college.
She hadn’t slept a lot since she’d joined the FBI, and she’d slept less once she got married and became a mother. What wouldn’t she give to be down for a good twenty-four hours of uninterrupted sleep?
Now, that would be luxury.
When Gene’s phone chimed, he saw the message.
“Gabby has something,” he said.
That was all Elizabeth had to hear. She tapped her watch, getting MATE’S attention.
“Link us to Gabby, and again, make it encrypted and from my office,” she stated.
Her AI did as she asked.
“Gabs, what do you have?” she asked, as soon as the woman answered the phone.
Gabby went there.
“Boss, you’re not going to believe this. I was digging around in the information that Agent Price sent me regarding the rental. That account number was tied to a purchase about one year ago.”
Elizabeth sat up in the seat a little straighter.
She liked the sound of that.
“And?” she asked.
She explained.
“That same account that rented the car bought a house. It was a cash transfer, no financing. The account shut down about thirty minutes ago, but I was already in the trace. He has a good hacker, but not as good as I am.”
Elizabeth would have cried tears of joy if she wasn’t so dried up from crying the last few days.
“Are you telling me that you have a location where he just transferred money to pay for the vehicle? That you may have found his hidey-hole?”
She giggled.
“That’s what I’m saying, Boss.”
Oh, holy shit.
There was a light at the end of this shit tunnel. Now, she had to hope it wasn’t an oncoming train.
“Send us the information, Gabby.”
There was typing, and then Gene’s phone chimed.
“If this pans out,” Elizabeth said, “you have a million dollars heading your way.”
Gabby gasped.
“WHAT?” she asked. “Wait. Why?”
Elizabeth was to the point.
“I put a bounty out on this asshole. The reward was a million dollars, and you are included in that. You found him, so you get the money.”
She tried to stop her.
“Boss. I don’t want…”
Elizabeth wasn’t having it.
“All is fair, Gabs. You did the work, and I know you haven’t slept in days either. If I find him, you’ll get a million dollars. Period. Now, get a nap. Thank you for being loyal, and damn good at your job.”
Gabby didn’t want the money, but she knew Elizabeth. She’d gift wrap it and send it to her anyway as a present.
“Thank you, Elizabeth. I’m going to donate it over here. There are a lot of places that could use it.”
She wasn’t shocked.
This was exactly something Gabby would say and do.
“See you,” Elizabeth stated.
Then, she hung up.
Gene was already running the information, and he had a name on the purchaser of the house.
“The account name comes back to Sara Bishop,” he stated. “She bought the house.”
As soon as he said it, she knew it was going to be him.
“Deputy Sara Bishop,” Elizabeth stated. “She was a deputy in Salem. She worked under me until a serial killer got her. That’s what he was also telling me with the song in DC. Country Roads—she was killed on the side of a country road.”
Gene glanced over.
“Holy shit. That was the mother of all clues.”
She laughed.
“It was so fucking obscure that if I got it, I was a mind reader. How the hell was I supposed to pull that out of the stratosphere?”
That was the point.
She wouldn’t.
“It fits,” he stated. “He gives you a clue, but there’s a pitfall or he gives you a clue that you’d never figure out.”
Well, Gabby had by going a different route.
“Rayna scribbling that license plate number on the back of that report saved us,” she stated. “Had she not, he would have paid that car rental, and the account would be gone. He made a mistake,” she said. “He picked a good cop, and she knew how to do her job.”
Gene held out his fist.
“We got him. The house is on the outskirts of Damascus, in a rich development. He picked a place where he’d be safe. There’s a gate and security.”
She didn’t care.
She was going in with Marines.
And he was dead.
“Text Maura,” she said. “We’re in the home stretch. We’re going to go grab up that piece of shit. It’s time for him to pay for everything he’s done.”
Gene was good with that.
Devon Slater had done enough damage to his family.
It was time to make him pay.
With his life.