“I can’t work with him,” Jaxon said.
“Dammit Jaxon! You’re going to have to. Do I need to pull you two off of this thing? Because I’ll do it in a heartbeat. Holt’s in and you two are going to have to learn to love it. Got me?”
“Fine,” Jaxon said and stood. “I’ll break out the welcome mat.”
Chapter 28
Luke hesitated with his finger poised over the send button. He wanted to send the text message, but something was keeping him from doing it. Maybe he was having second thoughts about the logic of harassing their tormentor. His phone vibrated in his hand and he jumped. It was Ellie.
“Hey.”
“Hi,” she said.
“What are you doing?”
“Waiting for you to call me, but I guess that was never going to happen. What are you doing?”
“Sorry, I was over at Q’s house.”
“Quentin Jenson?”
“Yep.”
She sounded serious now and asked, “What were you doing over there?”
“You won’t believe it. You need to see this. Can I come over and get you? I need to show you something.”
“Ok,” but he could hear a little apprehension in her voice.
“Be right there.”
When he got her back to his house, they went up to his room and he booted up the computer.
“What’s this all about?” Ellie asked.
“Just watch.”
He loaded up the tracking program Q emailed him and typed in the phone number. After a minute, the map came up and the blip was moving east. He turned to her and watched her study the computer screen. Her face showed confusion for a moment and then she looked scared.
“Is this-him?” She said.
He nodded his head, grinning.
“How?” She asked.
“I got Q to hack my cell phone and he used a special program his uncle wrote to find the phone number that sent the text message we all got last night. This is it.” He pointed to the number in a box at the top of the screen. “Then Q gave me this program that can track the cell phone anywhere in the country.”
“So, we can tell where he is?” She smiled.
He nodded.
“Where is this, now?” she asked pointing to the blip.
“Q said if the blip was moving then he was in a car or something. Hold on…” Luke played with the program and zoomed out so they could see he was in Pennsylvania. He zoomed back in and the map displayed roads and highways. “It looks like he’s on I-70 near Somerset Pennsylvania, heading this way.”
“What’s he doing?”
“I don’t know, but he was in Indiana earlier. Seems like a long way to drive. I wonder if he lives there.”
“Do you think he’s coming here to hurt somebody else?”
Luke shrugged. “Could be. I can’t even imagine what would be going on inside that psycho’s head.”
She stepped to him and hugged him. “We can go to the police now. We can show them where he is and they can take him away. We need to call Jaxon.”
“We will. As soon as we’re sure it’s him.”
“But you said it was his number.”
“How well do you trust a hacker?”
She turned away, thinking. “What are we going to do?”
“I was going to text a message to him and see if he responds like we expect. If he does, then we know it’s him.”
“Won’t that let him know we’re on to him?”
Luke frowned. “I was kind of worried about that too. I was about to text him before you called but I hesitated for some reason. Something was telling me to wait.” He smiled. “I guess I needed my smart girlfriend to see how stupid I am.”
She finally smiled at him. “Let’s figure this out together. There’s got to be a way we can tell if it’s him or not.”
Jaxon’s desk phone rang and he picked it up. “Jaxon.”
“It’s Holt.” Jaxon rolled his eyes and Sally chuckled. Apparently she could hear his voice from her desk. “I’ve got some interesting information for you.”
“Shoot. I’m going to put you on speaker so Sally can hear.”
“The Russians were not very forthcoming on our request for information. I wouldn’t count on anything coming out of Moscow, but we’ll sit for a few days and see if they bite on our offer.”
“What offer?” Jaxon asked.
“We promised them we’d back off of an investigation into their activities associated with a scam coming out of Western Iran through Dayton, Ohio. Nothing political, it’s all about money. They’ve been silent so far.”
“How can you promise that?”
“We lie.”
“Alright. That doesn’t help me.”
“The other thing you asked about has proven more lucrative. I’m optimistic this will help in the cold case in Indiana as well as your cases in Fairfax.”
Jaxon looked up at Sally who raised an eyebrow. “Sounds promising. What have you got?”
“An I.P. address and a physical address.”
“You’re serious.”
“As a heart attack. We’re going to Indiana in two hours. Benton’s agreed already and has cleared you. You two need to get your butts to Dulles and you’ll fly out on a company plane.”
Jaxon was grinning and Sally joined him. “Where do we meet you?”
“It won’t be me. As section Chief I get to coordinate, not participate. The agent I’ve assigned will meet you at the Custom’s office in two hours.”
“Who is it?” There was a pause and Jaxon thought he hung up.
“It’s Victoria. She’s worked on the cold case and is the most up to date on it. Problem?”
Jaxon swore under his breath. Sally smiled.
“Still there, Jaxon?”
“Yeah, I’m still here. Alright. Two hours.” And he punched off.
After a couple hours of racking their brains, William Smith actually made it easy for them. He texted Ellie.
She began to cry.
“He’s just messing with you,” Luke said, holding her against him. “You know that, right?”
She nodded against his chest, but then raised her eyes to his. “He’s right, though.”
He searched her eyes and saw something in them that confused him. “What do you mean? Eliana’s not your real name?”
“No, Eliana’s my name but I was born Eliana Ann Worthington. My mom’s maiden name is Pemberton and
