CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
"Holy shit," Kim said.
Miles was sitting back behind the desk in their conference room at the LA field office, and he had just finished explaining what happened in the desert.
The helium tank, Vic's concussion, Bennett nearly being launched into the air before Lawson had showed up and saved her—and then, of course, the killer fleeing in a stolen truck.
Kim sat across from him with her laptop open and her phone beside her on the table.
"And you're sure Vic's okay?" Kim asked.
"She will be. I think the CT scan is just a precaution.” Miles rubbed his face with both hands, feeling the exhaustion starting to catch up with him. "But as for you and me, we need to keep moving on this. The killer knows we're close now…and that makes him desperate and more unpredictable."
"Right." Kim pulled her laptop closer. "So we're waiting on fingerprints from the helium tank and hoping someone spots the stolen truck on the APB."
"That's what we've got." Miles checked his phone for what felt like the hundredth time in the past hour. No updates from the forensics team yet. "The prints should come back sometime in the next twelve hours, maybe less if we're lucky."
“God, that feels like forever.”
“I agree.”
"And what about the truck?"
"I'm assuming he’s already ditched it. If he's smart, it's already abandoned somewhere and he's using different transportation. I hate to say it, but it was a smart move. Leaving the van in the desert separates him from all that evidence."
“Unless he left prints all over it…which is doubtful, if he’s as through as all of the other Elementalist goons.” Kim went quiet for a moment, thinking. "Did you get the license plate of the van?”
“Sure did.” Miles pulled out his phone again and scrolled through several photos he had snapped in the aftermath of the attack. He had intentionally taken several of the van. He held the phone out so Kim could see it.
"One of the cops who responded to the scene ran the plates for me while we were out there," Miles said. "It came back registered to John Smith at an address in Riverside. But when they checked the address, it was fake. The house number doesn't exist on that street."
“As if John Smith wasn’t fake enough already.”
“Yeah, a double dose of fake leads on that. Another dead end.”
Kim took the phone from him and studied the photo more closely. "Well, I wonder…what about insurance?"
Miles looked at her with head cocked quizzically to the side. "What do you mean?"
"California requires proof of insurance for vehicle registration. Even if he used a fake name and address for the DMV, he would have needed to show an insurance policy. And insurance companies are usually more thorough about verifying addresses because they need somewhere to send bills.”
Miles felt something shift in his thinking and again felt a bit like an idiot.
He really should have thought of that. It was a reminder that being a field agent wasn’t his usual gig.
Maybe Vic would have thought of it if she hadn’t been clocked in the head with a heavy, metal tank. "We didn't check that."
"Let me see what I can find." Kim handed his phone back and turned to her laptop. Her hands moved quickly across the keyboard as she pulled up the California DMV database and entered the plate number. "Give me a minute."
Miles stood and walked to the whiteboard where they had mapped out the timeline of the attacks.
There was a printout of a map with markings Vic had placed there, indicating where the bodies had been found.
With the sheer size and maze-like structure of LA, the number of places this maniac could be launching from or even storing his equipment were endless.
But his last two victims getting away…surely that had to be messing with the killer’s mind.
He’d stolen a truck and blazed away after nearly being caught.
Surely, they’d have him sooner rather than later.
"Got it," Kim said.
Miles turned back to the table. Kim had pulled up an insurance record on her screen—among many other windows that were piled like weird playing cards on her screen. Miles had no idea how she was fast and organized when her laptop screen was always so cluttered.
"The van is insured through a company called Pacific West Auto Insurance to an individual named James Clancy,” Kim said.
“Pacific West Auto seems to be a budget provider, mostly online operations.
" Kim scrolled down through the document, making a hmmm sound as she studied it.
"The policy was purchased eight months ago with six months of coverage paid up front.
And the address listed for the policy holder is different from the fake one on the DMV registration. "
"James Clancy,” Miles said, as if testing the feel of the name on his tongue. “What's the address?"
Kim read it off her screen. "1847 Oleander Street, Los Angeles. It's in Highland Park, on the east side of the city."
Miles pulled out his phone and searched for the address on the map.
The location appeared in a neighborhood that looked worn down based on the satellite imagery.
There were countless small houses packed close together, some with chain-link fences and overgrown yards.
It was the kind of area where people kept to themselves and didn't ask too many questions about their neighbors—not a forgotten or abandoned neighborhood, but maybe just a few poor economic decisions away from it.
"It could be nothing," Miles said, though he did not believe that. "Just another fake address."
"Maybe. But it's worth checking out." Kim closed her laptop and stood.
"You said yourself that the fingerprints could take forever, and the APB on the truck might not lead anywhere if he's already ditched it. This address is the only active lead we have right now. Unless you want to stay here and go through security footage from the climbing gym.”
Miles looked at the map on his phone again.
The address was about thirty minutes away, depending on traffic.
They could drive over there and check it out; if there was a hit on the APB, it would come straight to them.
And if it turned out to be another dead end, they would have wasted an hour.
But if it was real, they might be able to end this before nightfall.
"You're right," Miles said. "It wouldn’t hurt to go take a look."
Kim grabbed her jacket from the back of her chair and checked her weapon. Miles did the same, surprised by how odd it felt to be hurrying off to investigate a lead without Vic by his side. But Kim looked excited, eager to help in any way she could…even if it wasn’t from behind a laptop.
For what felt like the hundredth time, Miles left the conference room with a lead dangling ahead of him.
Only this time, he knew the killer’s face.
And having come so close to catching him just an hour and a half ago pushed him even harder to make sure he took every possible step in bringing down yet another of Kane’s disciples.