Finally, Good News Theresa
Finally, Good News
Theresa
The call Theresa has been waiting for finally comes the day she gets back from Quantico.
She’s been drowning in crime scene photos and videos, and so far, the trail is ice cold.
They’ve been spinning their wheels. There’s no tangible evidence to work with.
The Malogen crime scene yielded nothing outside of the bodies, Andrew’s passport, and the damaged hair shaft, so whoever murdered the Lockes was, in her estimation, a professional.
The ability to sneak in and out of the airport, her town, her own damn house, tells her that as well.
Whoever tried to kill Brooklyn Locke, first with the car, then at the hospital, was determined, but sloppy. Were they the same people? The video from the hospital being down the night of the attack speaks to a more sophisticated plot.
The SUV being torched, the missing money, it is all very confusing.
Drake’s people combed the Lockes’ house in Malogen and Andrew’s house in Nashville to no avail.
They took everything apart: his office, his files, his computers.
Nothing popped, nothing illegal, and there is still no trace of the money he’s stolen.
The crypto might be trackable eventually, but not yet, and there was nothing at the house to give them a clue to what he might be up to.
It’s masterful, really. So masterful that Theresa is convinced there’s something much bigger going on.
Andrew leaves the airport at the behest of a stranger—a stranger who then visits death upon Malogen while looking for him.
He’s the linchpin in all of this; she’s sure of it.
They need to identify the man with curly hair.
The flight records give no immediate leads; all the people on the flight from Nashville to Atlanta have been accounted for.
Which means the man was in the airport from a different flight.
It’s going to take more than a day or two to comb the records and match them up.
She’s started to wonder if perhaps it was a disguise, a wig, maybe one of those creepy hyperrealistic silicone masks that make you look like someone totally different.
It’s only too possible, and that broadens the suspect pool even more.
Drake has struck out on the facial recognition, too. With the surgical mask and hat in place, and no clear shots of the man’s eyes or his ears or his hands, it was just a bridge too far. All they can hope is that the hair shaft gives them a DNA match.
Brooklyn has been healing in the hospital in Nashville; Eden has been reporting in regularly.
She claims the doctors are optimistic about her chances of recovery, but Brooklyn is still sedated.
The FBI has guards on her twenty-four seven, so no one gets in or out without scrutiny. She’s as safe as they can make her.
There has been no sign of Andrew, nor his sadistic shadow. Theresa is patient, though. She knows better than most that legwork is the way to solve a case. Talking, canvassing, running evidence, yes, but also intuition and expectation.
In the meantime, she and Drake follow the money.
They’ve been waiting on a final report to ascertain just how much, exactly, Andrew has stolen from Brooklyn’s aunt and uncle.
The estimate falls within the $40–$80 million range, a staggering amount.
TGG’s financial comptroller and CFO are also conducting due diligence, but forensic accounting is a slow and meticulous process.
Methodical. Painstaking. Way over her head.
She’s treading water, and all they can do now is wait for Brooklyn to wake up and interrogate the hell out of her.
So when she picks up the phone and hears Eden’s jubilant “She’s awake!” Theresa lets out a sigh of sheer relief.
“Is she . . . herself?”
“She’s confused, but she’s pretty aware, considering.”
“Don’t tell her anything without me there, okay.”
“Is there anything to tell? Any progress?”
“Nothing new, I’m afraid. Everything hinges on what Brooklyn remembers and shares. I’m on my way there. And Eden, be extra careful. Once whoever is behind all this finds out she’s awake, they might come again. And Andrew will be right there with them.”
“I know. Your security is taking extra precautions. They think like you—always worst-case scenario.”
“Good. See you soon.”
Her desk looks like a bomb went off, and she gathers up the files she needs and stashes them inside her backpack.
There’s a change of clothes and a Dopp kit inside.
She’s been waiting for Brooklyn to wake up, hoping she does.
After the incident in Atlanta, she’s been on tenterhooks.
The doctors didn’t think her heart was shut down long enough to cause damage, but no one knew for sure. What a relief to hear she’s okay.
Theresa dials Drake’s number and puts in her earbuds. She sticks her head in Armstrong’s office, and Drake answers just as she says to her boss, “Brooklyn Locke just woke up. I’m heading to Nashville to interview her.”
“Be careful,” Armstrong says, and Drake, in her ear, says, “I’m on my way. I’ll call you from the plane, figure out a place to meet up. We can decide how we’re going to approach her.”
They’ve been planning for this moment, coordinating their mini task force. Theresa will drive, Drake will fly, and they will meet in Nashville to find out what Brook remembers.
Theresa wasn’t exaggerating to Eden; everything is riding on Brooklyn now.
Theresa is unlocking her car when K-Swiss comes running out of the station. He might love the sneakers, but he doesn’t employ them often. He’s huffing and puffing after his sprint across the lot.
“You okay?” she asks.
“Yeah. Glad I caught you. I have something for you.”
“I’m on my way to Nashville.”
“You can’t leave just yet. You know Keenan Aikman, Mabel’s kid? He thinks he saw the Lockes’ killer. He’s called looking for you.” Mabel Aikman used to be the town librarian before she got sick and retired early. She knew everything about everyone in Malogen. Used to, at least.
“Is he at home?”
“At his momma’s. She’s doing poorly. He had her at the clinic in Alpharetta for her treatment and stayed there with her overnight, so we missed him on the neighborhood canvass. They just got home.”
“Wanna ride with me?”
“Sure.” He hops into the car, clearly delighted by the offer. As a crime scene tech, Kevin doesn’t get to do much straight investigative work.
She calls the station and gets a hold of Jayden Grimes, the captain’s admin.
“Y’all okay?” she asks immediately.
“Yes, Jay, but can you do me a favor? Tell the captain I’m heading to Mabel Aikman’s to interview Keenan, and to hold off going home for the day until I report back? I have K-Swiss with me. It’s in relation to the Lockes’ murders. I may need him.”
“Oh my goodness. Yes, of course. Be careful, doll.”
“You know I will.”
The drive to the Aikmans’ only takes five minutes. Mabel lives on the outskirts of town in a small white clapboard cottage. Her son keeps the place looking nice. There’s an inflatable reindeer lying in the yellow grass, waiting for nightfall and the fan to be turned on.
Theresa shivers in her coat as they walk up the drive, and not just from the cold. She needs a break.
She raps on the door, and Keenan answers right away. He’s a former linebacker who blew out a knee his first year at the University of Georgia and came home to go to work at the hospital. Another dream deferred, Theresa thinks as he walks her into the house.
“Momma’s asleep,” he says. “Can I get you some coffee? Cold as a witch’s you-know-what out there.”
“I’m fine, thank you. She doing okay?”
He shakes his head. “They say it will be only a few weeks now. She’s ready to go, I think. I’m not ready, but I hate seeing her in pain, you know? K-Swiss,” he says to Kevin, who gives him a fist bump. They were in school together, a year apart.
“Anything I can do, man. Just shout.”
“Thanks. So like I said on the phone, I think I may have seen the man who killed the Lockes. I have a picture.”
“What?”
“Yeah, I’d just finished putting up the decorations for Momma, and the house looked so nice, I thought I’d take some pictures to show her.
Maybe I just wanted them for me, later on, too.
So I took a few, and while I was doing it, this car got into one of my shots.
I didn’t think much of it, other than I didn’t recognize whoever it was.
We left the next morning, and I didn’t hear about the Lockes until yesterday.
I started thinking about the photos . . . Well, here.”
He hands her the phone. It’s taken from the side of the house, the reindeer inflated proudly, the lights dangling from the eaves, but the foreground is fuzzy.
The camera focused on the vehicle as it passed by.
It’s a black SUV, and two men are in it.
The picture is surprisingly vivid for a nighttime shot.
The man in the passenger seat definitely has curly hair.
“Thank God for portrait mode.”
“Yeah. I had it set up for night shots, which helped. These men are definitely strangers. Don’t recognize them or the car. Does this help?”
She pats his arm. “So much. Can you text that to me right quick? I’ll get it in the system, and we will run it immediately. Thank you, Keenan. This is huge.”
K-Swiss gestures for her to go ahead without him. “I’m gonna stay here. Let me know what happens, okay?”
Theresa doesn’t suggest otherwise. Her heart is full. This is what small-town living is about. You see your friend from high school in pain, and you stay to shoot the shit and cheer him up.
She leaves them reminiscing and hightails it back to the station.
She tries Drake on the way, but he doesn’t answer. A glance at her watch shows he’s probably already at the airport.
Captain Armstrong is waiting when she gets back. She shows him the photo.
“We need to run this through facial recognition. These men could very well be their killers. And now we know there are two of them.”
“This matches the SUV from the airport that Andrew Locke got into?”
“It does. But if he’s with them, he’s not visible. Not to say he’s not lying in the back seat, making sure he’s not recognized.”
“And this is the car that was ditched later that night in the junkyard?”
“We’d need a closer analysis, but black SUV fits. I think we have another set of suspects, Captain.”
“Okay. You get up to Nashville and interview Brooklyn Locke. I’ll run this through the system and see what pops. Great work, Detective.”
She grins at him. “Let’s get an ID on these bastards. Then you can congratulate me.”