Sara squirted some into her palm and rubbed her hands together to warm the lotion before taking Anna's frail hand in her own. She could feel each bone of the finger, the knuckles like marbles. Anna's skin was so dry that the lotion disappeared almost as soon as Sara put it on, and she was squirting more into her palms when Anna stirred.
"Anna?" Sara touched the side of the woman's face with a firm, reassuring pressure.
Her head moved just slightly. People in comas did not just magically wake up. It was a process, usually a drawn-out one. One day, they might open their eyes. They might speak without making sense, picking up on some conversation started long ago.
"Anna?" Sara repeated, trying to keep her voice calm. "I need you to wake up now."
Her head moved again, a distinct tilt toward Sara.
Sara made her voice firm. "I know it's hard, sweetie, but I need you to wake up." Anna's eyes slit open, and Sara stood, putting herself directly in her line of vision even though she knew that the woman could not see her. "Wake up, Anna. You're safe now. No one is going to hurt you."
Her mouth moved, the lips so dry and chapped that the skin broke.
"I'm here," Sara said. "I can hear you, sweetie. Try to wake up for me."
Anna's breath quickened in fear. What had happened was starting to dawn on the woman—the agony she had endured, the fact that she could not see.
"You're in the hospital. I know you can't see, but you can hear me. You're safe. Two police officers are right outside your door. No one is going to hurt you."
Anna's hand trembled as it reached up, fingers brushing against Sara's arm. Sara grabbed her hand, held on to it as firmly as she could without causing more pain. "You're safe now," Sara promised her. "No one else is going to hurt you."
Suddenly, Anna's grip tightened, squeezing Sara's hand so tightly that it brought a sharp, shooting pain as the bones crunched together.
The woman was fully alert, wide awake. "Where is my son?"
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
WHEN YOU PULLED THE TRIGGER ON A TASER, TWO HOOKED probes were propelled by an inert nitrogen gas, shooting them out at about 160 per second. In civilian units, fifteen feet of insulated, conductive wire facilitated fifty thousand volts being delivered to whomever the probes latched onto. The electrical pulses interrupted sensory and motor function as well as the central nervous system. Will had been shot with a Taser during a training session. He still could not remember the time frame immediately before or after the charge hit him, only that Amanda had been the one to pull the trigger and she had been sporting an incredibly pleased grin when he had finally been able to stand up.
Like bullets in a gun, the Taser devices required cartridges that were preloaded with the wires and probes. Because the Constitutional Framers were unable to predict the existence of such a device, there was no inalienable right attached to owning a Taser. Some bright thinker had managed to insert one codicil into their manufacture: All Taser cartridges had to be loaded with AFIDS, or Anti-Felon Identification Dots, that scattered out by the hundreds each time a cartridge was fired. At first glance, these small dots looked like confetti. The design was on purpose; the tiny pieces were so vast in number that it was impossible for a perpetrator to pick them all up to cover his trail. The beauty was that, under magnification, the confetti revealed a serial number that identified which cartridge they came from. Because Taser International wanted to keep the legal community on their side, they had enacted their own tracing program. All you had to do was call them up with the serial number from one of the dots and they would give you the name and address of the person who had purchased the cartridge.
Faith was on hold for less than three minutes when the company came back with a name.
"Shit," she whispered, then, realizing she was still on the phone, she added, "No. Thank you. That's all I need." She closed her cell phone as she reached down to crank the key in the Mini's ignition. "The Taser cartridge was purchased by Pauline Seward. The address listed is the vacant house behind Olivia Tanner's place."
"How were the cartridges paid for?"
"With an American Express gift card. No name on the card. It's untraceable." She gave him a meaningful glance. "The cartridges were purchased two months ago, which means he's been watching Olivia Tanner for at least that long. And, since he used Pauline's name, we have to assume that he was planning on taking her, too."
"The vacant house is owned by the bank—not the one where Olivia works." Will had called the number on the realtor's sign in the front yard while Faith was dealing with Taser. "It's been empty almost a year. No one's looked at it in six months."
Faith turned, backing out of the driveway. Will raised his hand at Michael Tanner, who was sitting in his Ford Escape, hands gripping the wheel.
Will said, "I didn't recognize the Taser dots in Felix's bookbag."
"Why would you? It was confetti on a kid's satchel. You need a magnifying glass to read the serial numbers." She added, "If you want to blame someone, blame the Atlanta Police for not picking up on it at the scene. Their forensic guys were there. They must have vacuumed the carpets in the car. They just haven't processed it yet because a missing woman isn't a priority."
"The address for the cartridge would have led us to the house behind Olivia Tanner's."
"Olivia Tanner was already missing when you saw Felix's bookbag." She repeated, "The Atlanta Police processed the scene. They're the ones who screwed up." Faith's phone rang. She checked the caller ID and decided not to answer it. She laid it out for him. "Besides, knowing the Taser dots in Felix's bag are from the same lot as the dots we found in Olivia Tanner's backyard hasn't exactly given us a huge break. All it tells us is that our bag guy has been planning this for a while and that he's good at covering his tracks. We knew that when we got up this morning."
Will thought they knew a lot more than that. They had a link now that tied the women together. "We've got Pauline connected to the other victims—'I will not deny myself ' ties her to Anna and Jackie, and the Taser dots tie her to Olivia." He thought about it for a few seconds, wondering what else he was missing.
Faith was on the same page. "Let's go through this from the beginning. What do we have?"
"Pauline and Olivia were both taken yesterday. Both women were shot with the same Taser cartridge."
"Pauline, Jackie and Olivia all had eating disorders. We're assuming Anna does, too, right?"
Will shrugged. It wasn't a big leap, but it was an unknown. "Yeah, let's assume."
"None of the women had friends who would miss them. Jackie had the neighbor, Candy, but Candy wasn't exactly a confidant. All three are attractive, thin, with dark hair, dark eyes. All three worked in well-paid jobs."
"All of them lived in Atlanta except for Jackie," Will said, throwing out a flag. "So, how did Jackie get targeted? She'd only been in Atlanta a week, tops, just to clean out her mother's house."
"She must have come up before then to help move her mother to the nursing home in Florida," Faith guessed. "And we're forgetting the chat room. They could've all met there."
"Olivia didn't have a computer at home."
"She could've had a laptop that was stolen."
Will scratched his arm, thinking about that first night in the cave, all the maddening non-clues they had followed up on since, all the brick walls they kept hitting. "This feels like it all starts with Pauline."
"She was the fourth victim." Faith considered the situation. "He could've been saving the best for last."
"Pauline wasn't taken from her home like we assume the other women were. She was taken in broad daylight. Her kid was in the car. She was missed at work because she had an important meeting. The other women weren't missed by anyone except for Olivia, and there was no way to know that Olivia made that phone call every day to her brother unless our bad guy tapped her phone, which he obviously didn't."
"What about Pauline's brother?" Faith asked. "I keep coming back to the fact that she was scared enough about him to me
ntion him to her son. We can't find a record of him anywhere. He could have changed his name like Pauline did when she was seventeen."
Will listed all the men who had come up during the investigation. "Henry Coldfield is too old and has a heart problem. Rick Sigler has lived in Georgia all his life. Jake Berman—who knows?"
Faith tapped her fingers on the steering wheel, deep in thought. Finally, she came up with, "Tom Coldfield."
"He's around your age. He would've been barely pubescent when Pauline ran away."
"You're right," she conceded. "Besides, the Air Force psych evaluation would have flagged him up big-time."
"Michael Tanner," Will suggested. "He's the right age."
"I've got a background check running on him. They would've called if something hit."
"Morgan Hollister."
"They're running him, too," Faith said. "He didn't seem really cut up about Pauline being gone."
"Felix said that the man who took his mother was dressed in a suit like Morgan from work."
"Surely, Felix would've recognized Morgan?"
"In a fake mustache?" Will shook his head. "I don't know. Let's keep Morgan on the list. We can talk to him at the end of the day if nothing else has come up."
"He's old enough to be her brother, but why would she work with him if he was?"
"People do stupid things when they're being abused," Will reminded her. "We need to check with Leo and see what he's come up with. He was working the Michigan police, trying to track down Pauline's parents. She ran away from home. Who did she run away from?"
"The brother." Faith said, bringing them back full circle. Her phone rang again. She let it go into voicemail before opening it and dialing in a number. "I'll see where Leo is. He's probably out in the field."
Will offered, "I'll call Amanda and tell her we need to formally take over the Pauline McGhee case." He opened his phone just as the stutter of a ring came out. Since the phone had been broken, it had been doing unusual things. Will pressed his ear to the device, saying, "Hello?"
"Hey." Her voice was cool, casual, like warm honey in his ear. His mind flashed on the image of the mole on her calf, the way he could feel it under his palm when he ran his hand up her leg. "You there?"
Will glanced at Faith, feeling a cold sweat break out over his body. "Yeah."
"Long time."
He glanced at Faith again. "Yeah," he repeated. About eight months had passed since he had come home from work to find Angie's toothbrush missing from the cup in the bathroom.
She asked, "What're you up to?"
Will swallowed, trying to generate some spit. "Working a case."
"That's good. I figured you were busy."
Faith had finished her call. She was looking at the road ahead, but if she had been a cat, her ear would've been cocked in his direction.
He told Angie, "I guess this is about your friend?"
"Lola's got some good intel."
"That's not really my side of the job," he told her. The GBI didn't start cases. They finished them.
"Some pimp's turned a penthouse into a drug pad. They've got all kinds of shit lying around like candy. Talk to Amanda about it. She'll look good on the six o'clock news standing in front of all that dope."
Will tried to concentrate on what she was saying. There was just the whir of the Mini's engine and Faith's ever-listening ear.
"You there, baby?"
He said, "Not interested."
"Just pass it on forme. It's the penthouse in an apartment building called Twenty-one Beeston Place. The name is the same as the address. Twenty-one Beeston."
"I can't help you with that."
"Repeat it back to me so I know you'll remember it."
Will's hands were sweating so much that he worried the phone might slip from his grasp. "Twenty-one Beeston Place."
"I'll owe you one."
He couldn't resist. "You owe me a million." But it was too late. She had already hung up the phone. Will kept it to his ear, then said, "All right. Bye," like he was having a normal conversation with a normal person. To make matters worse, the phone slipped as he tried to close it, the string finally ripping out from under the duct tape. Wires he had never seen before jutted out of the back of the phone.
He heard Faith's mouth open, the smacking of her lips. He told her, "Leave it be."
She closed her mouth, kept her hands tight on the wheel as she made a turn against the light. "I called central dispatch. Leo's on North Avenue. Double homicide."
The car sped up as Faith blew through a light. Will loosened his tie, thinking it was warm in the car. His arms were starting to itch again. He felt light-headed.
"I'll try to get Amanda to—"
"Angie was calling in a tip." The words flooded out before he could stop them. His mind raced to think of a way to get out of saying more, but his mouth hadn't gotten the memo to shut up. "Some Buckhead penthouse has been turned into a drug den."
"Oh" was all Faith offered.
"She's got this girl she used to know back when she worked vice. A prostitute. Lola. She wants out of jail. She's willing to flip on the dealers."
"Is it a good tip?"
Will could only shrug. "Probably."
"Are you going to help her?"
He shrugged again.
"Angie's an ex-cop. Doesn't she know somebody in narcotics?"
Will let her figure it out. Angie wasn't exactly good at leaving bridges unburned. She tended to light them with glee, then throw gasoline on the flames.
Faith obviously reached the same conclusion. She offered, "I can make some calls for you. No one will know you're involved."
He tried to swallow, but his mouth was still too dry. He hated that Angie had this effect on him. He hated it even more that Faith was getting a front-row seat to his misery. He asked, "What did Leo say?"
"He's not answering his phone, probably because he knows it's me calling." As if on cue, her phone rang again. Faith checked the ID and again didn't answer it. Will figured he didn't have a right to ask her what that was about, considering he'd put a moratorium on discussions of his own phone calls.
He cleared his throat a few times so he could speak without sounding like a pubescent boy. "A Taser gun means distance. He would've used a stun gun on them if he was able to get close enough."
Faith returned to their original conversation. "What else have we got?" she asked. "We're waiting for DNA results from Jacquelyn Zabel. We're waiting to hear back from the tech department on Zabel's laptop and the computer from Pauline's office. We're waiting to hear back on any forensic evidence from the vacant house behind Olivia's."
Will heard a distinct buzzing, and Faith pulled out her BlackBerry. She drove with one hand as she read the screen. "Phone dump on Olivia Tanner's line." She scrolled through. "One number every morning around seven o'clock to Houston, Texas."
"Seven our time is six Houston time," Will said. "That's the only number she called?"
Faith nodded. "Going back for months. She probably used her cell for most of her calls." She tucked the BlackBerry back in her pocket. "Amanda's working on a warrant for the bank. They were nice enough to cross-reference their accounts for our missing women's names—no matches—but they're not going to give us access to Olivia's computer, phone or email without a fight. Something about federal banking law. We have to get into that chat room."
"I have to think if she was using an online group, she'd have access at home."
"Her brother says she's at work all the time."
"Maybe they all met in person. Like AA or a knitting group."
"It's hardly something you can pin up on the community bulletin board. 'Like starving yourself to death? Come join us!' "
"How else would they all meet?"
"Jackie is a realtor, Olivia is a banker who doesn't write mortgages, Pauline is an interior designer, and Anna does whatever she does—probably something equally as lucrative." She gave a heavy sigh. "It has to be the chat room, Will. How
else would they all know each other?"
"Why do they have to know each other?" he countered. "The only person they have to know is the abductor. Who would have contact with women working in all those different fields?"
"Janitor, cable guy, trash man, exterminator . . ."
"Amanda's had Information Processing going through all those things. If there was a connection, it would be evident by now."
"Forgive me for not holding out hope. They've had two days and they can't even find Jake Berman." She cut the wheel, turning onto North Avenue. Two Atlanta Police cruisers blocked the scene. They could see Leo in the distance, his hands waving wildly as he screamed at some poor kid in uniform.
Faith's phone rang again. She dropped it into her pocket as she got out of the car. "I'm not on Leo's favorite list right now. Maybe you should do the talking."
Will agreed that was best, especially considering the fact that Leo already looked a couple of notches beyond furious. He was still yelling at the cop when they approached him. Every other word was "fuck" and his face was so red Will wondered if he might be having a heart attack.
Overhead, a police helicopter hovered, what the locals called a Ghetto Bird. The chopper was so close to the ground that Will could feel his eardrums pulsing. Leo waited for it to move on before demanding, "What the fuck are you doing here?"
Will said, "That missing persons case you gave us—Olivia Tanner. There were Taser dots at the scene that trace back to a cartridge purchased by Pauline Seward."
Leo muttered another "Fuck."
"We also found some evidence at Pauline McGhee's office that connects her back to the cave."
Leo's curiosity got the better of him. "You think Pauline's your doer?"
Will hadn't even considered the thought. "No, we think she's been taken by the same man who took the other women. We need to know as much as we can—"
"Not much to tell," he interrupted. "I talked to Michigan this morning. I was sitting on it, since your partner's such a ray of fucking sunshine lately."
Faith opened her mouth but Will held out his hand to stop her. "What did you find out?"
Leo said, "I talked to an old-timer they got on the desk. Name's Dick Winters. Been on the job thirty years and they got him straddling the phones. You believe that shit?"