Brix looked at her, then at Robby. “Bats?”
“Bats. Their sonar got fucked up.”
Brix took a step to his left, saw Vail huddled in Robby’s arms. “What’s going on?”
“UNSUB says he’s in Virginia,” Dixon said. “He texted Karen. He’s at her son’s school.”
“You’re shitting me.”
“I need to go,” Vail said. She craned her neck up toward Robby. “When’s the next flight?”
“There’s a six-twenty-five out of SFO,” Lugo said.
Robby shook his head. “Even if you left now, you probably wouldn’t make the flight. Besides, it won’t even get there till almost six, and that’s if there are no delays. Then you have to get out of Dulles in rush hour.”
“I don’t care. I need to do something—”
“You called Bledsoe. He’ll handle it—if there’s even something to handle.”
Vail’s BlackBerry rang. She shoved Robby aside and fumbled the phone from her belt. Bledsoe’s number. “Yeah.”
“I’m on-site. Everything looks okay. I’ve got six officers en route, should be here any minute. We’ll comb the place, make sure everything’s cool. Then I’m gonna put someone on Jonathan, shadow him till you catch this guy. Good?”
She closed her eyes, took a deep breath. “Good. Thanks, Bledsoe. You’re the best.”
Robby walked in and took a seat. He placed a hand atop Vail’s. “I also asked Lugo to do a search for flights out of SFO that’d arrive in the DC metro area by morning. Just to see if it’s even possible. Virgin has one, a 9:35 p.m. departure, arrives Dulles 5:30 a.m. I mapped out the timeline and it works out.”
Vail bowed her head. “So he could be there.”
“Yeah,” Robby said. “If not him, an accomplice. Impossible to say.”
“Call Virgin. Find out if they had anyone on that flight who looked suspicious.”
Robby tilted his head. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Just get a passenger manifest and we’ll check ’em all out ourselves. And see if they’ve got any videotape of the terminal that we can examine.”
“Already done. Lugo’s calling the airline. And he’s requesting video from SFO’s security cameras, in case one of them caught the offender.” Robby fought off a yawn. “Before it records over.”
Dixon flipped her notepad to a clean page and clicked her pen. “Okay. Let’s take a step back and look at this. You two have a personal stake here. But we can’t let our feelings cloud our thoughts, affect our opinions.”
Vail warmed her hands on the sides of the mug. “He let me live, then he went after my son. All the way across the country?”
“A lot of effort just to scare you,” Dixon said. “Killing you would’ve accomplished the same thing if he was after control, to show his superiority.”
Vail’s phone buzzed, followed a second later by Dixon’s. Vail figured it was regarding the same issue. They both answered simultaneously.
At the other end of Vail’s call was Bledsoe. “I just wanted you to know I saw Jonathan and he’s fine. He’s in the classroom. School just started and I’ve got them in lockdown. There’s an officer posted outside and he’ll be Jonathan’s shadow until we put this scumbag away. Okay? You can stop stressing.”
“Why do you think I was stressing?”
“You don’t really want an answer to that, do you?”
“No. And—Bledsoe . . . thanks. Unfortunately I don’t have much info on this killer.” She told him what she knew, then said, “I assume you’ll want the unit’s help on this. If the offender’s now in your neck of the woods, you should pick up the investigation. Bring in Rooney and Del Monaco.”
“How about we just leave it at Rooney?”
Vail chuckled. “Do me a favor and touch base with Gifford, let him know what’s going on, okay?” Vail thanked him again, then hung up.
“I assume he found Jonathan,” Robby said.
“He’s fine. They’re locked down. Bledsoe posted a cop.”
Robby reached across the table and took her hand. “You okay?”
“Better. But I won’t be ‘okay’ till we catch this bastard.” She nodded at Dixon. “What was your call about?”
“Gordon and Mann are on their way in with a person of interest. They ran Fuller’s LUDs and cell records. One number in particular kept coming up, and the two of them had some long conversations the morning of the fire. Number belongs to Walton Silva, a buddy of Fuller’s. They went to his place with the K9 unit and got a hit outside an old cottage in the back.
“So they requested a warrant, and in the meantime they woke him up, gave him the bad news about Scott, and asked him to come down to the station to help us out. Once he was on county premises, they took his phone —gave him some bullshit story about new county guidelines because some workers in the building have pacemakers—and then executed the warrant on his wife. Searched the cottage and found chemical residue that looked and smelled like what was used around the building.”
“Until the lab can make a definitive match,” Vail said, “we don’t have much.”
“We can sweat him,” Robby said.
Dixon flipped her notepad closed. “That’s the plan. But there’s a little twist.” She looked at them. “Good, you’re sitting. There were also calls to another number on Fuller’s cell logs. And on Silva’s. Right after Fuller talked to Silva, Silva called this other number. Every time. Care to guess who the number belongs to?”
Vail shrugged.
Dixon rose from her chair. “I’ll let it be a surprise. C’mon, let’s go. You’re gonna want to see this.”
Brix motioned to the monitor. “Meet Walton Silva. A thirty-one-year-old investment banker with Rutledge Warren Stone. He’s a newbie in the firm.”
“Does he know why he’s here?” Dixon asked.
“I told him we needed help finding the guy who killed Scott Fuller, that we’re all pretty shaken up about it, and that Sheriff Owens was on our backs to solve it quickly.”
Dixon folded her arms. “Good.”
“Mind if I do this with Roxxann?” Vail asked. “One of the things we do in the profiling unit is teach interview techniques.”
Brix’s jaw moved from side to side. He was considering the request. “Roxx, you’re lead investigator. Your call.”
Dixon pulled her attention from the television monitor. “We work well together.”
“What’s your plan?” Brix asked.
Vail tilted her head. “We’ll need a printout of Fuller’s mobile calls.”
Brix reached over to the table and grabbed a manila folder. “It’s all in here.”
Vail snuck a look inside, then nodded. “Good. You got Silva’s cell?”
Brix dug it out of his pocket. Vail slipped it into hers.
“I think we should keep it cordial for as long as possible,” Vail said.
“Brix, when you see me pull out my BlackBerry, give me a minute, then come in and whisper in my ear. Nothing funny or cute.”
A smile thinned Brix’s lips, then he nodded knowingly. “I like that.”
“I thought you might.” Vail glanced over at Silva, then turned to Dixon. “Let’s do this.”
Moments later, after a brief strategy session in the hall, Vail and Dixon entered Interview Room 2, a small,
