Page after page of tangram problems, all categorized by country of origin and puzzle designer. There were jewelry, vessels, tools, animals, musical instruments, buildings. One page was devoted to plants. Another to mountains.
'The first four crime scenes were here.' Byrne pushed the newspaper triangles together in the relative placement to each other. All put together, the overall shape looked like a capsized boat. Or a mountain range. He moved two shapes up, two down. Now it resembled a clock or bell tower.
Bontrager stepped back inside. 'I just talked to Lieutenant Hurley. He heard back from the FBI.'
'What do we have?' Byrne asked.
'They said they're closing in on a location for the GothOde server. It looks like it's not in Romania after all. It's in New York.'
'When do they think they might have it?' 'They said sometime in the next two hours or so.' Byrne looked at his partner, then at his watch, then at his cell phone.
They had less than twenty minutes.
SEVENTY-FIVE
1:50 AM
Lilly was in a long, dark shaft. It was big enough for her to crawl through, but not by much. The walls were made of wood. It was not a heat duct of any sort.
Lilly was not particularly claustrophobic, but the combination of utter darkness and the thick, hot air of the passageway made her feel entombed. She did not know how far she had gone, nor did she see any end. More than once she thought it would be best to go back to the room and take her chances there, but the passageway was not large enough for her to turn around. She'd have to back up all the way. In the end, the decision was a no- brainer.
She continued forward, stopping every so often, listening. Music came from somewhere. Classical music. She heard no voices. She had no sense of time.
After what felt like minutes of edging through the passage she came to a sharp right turn, and felt a breeze. Thin light spilled down from above. Lilly looked up and saw an even narrower passage, too small to pass through. It led to an iron grate. She tried to reach it but it was just beyond her fingertips.
And that was when she heard the crying.
The grate appeared to be a floor register. The crying seemed to be coming from that room. Lilly banged on the wall of the shaft, listened. Nothing. She banged harder, and the crying stopped.
There was someone in there.
'Hello?' Lilly whispered.
Silence. Then the rustling of material, the padding of footsteps.
'Hello?' Lilly repeated, this time louder.
Suddenly, the register went dark. Lilly looked up. She came face- to-face with a girl.
'Oh my God,' the girl said. 'Oh my God!'
'Not so loud,' Lilly said.
The girl calmed herself. Her crying faded to the occasional sob. 'My name is Claire. Who are you?'
'I'm Lilly. Are you hurt?'
The girl didn't answer right away. Lilly supposed 'hurt' was a relative thing. If this girl had been kidnapped, like Lilly had been, it was bad enough.
'I'm… I'm okay,' Claire said. 'Can you get me out of here?'
The girl looked about sixteen or seventeen. She had long strawberry-blond hair, fine features. Her eyes were puffed and red. 'Have you searched the room?' Lilly asked. 'Have you looked for a key?'
'I tried, but all the drawers are glued shut.'
Tell me about it, Lilly thought. She glanced ahead. The endless, ink-black shaft glared back. She looked at Claire. 'Do you have any idea where we are?'
'No,' Claire said. She started sobbing again. 'I just met this guy in the park. He told me there was a campsite nearby. I walked with him through the woods, and the next thing I knew I was in bed. In this room.'
My God, Lilly thought. How many girls were here? 'Look,' she whispered. 'I'm going to get us out of here.'
'How?'
Lilly had no frigging idea. Not at the moment. 'I'll try to find a way.'
'I'm scared. He came in before. I pretended I was still knocked out. He left a dress in the room.'
'What kind of dress?'
Claire hesitated. Her tears returned in full. 'It looks like a wedding dress. An old wedding dress.'
Jesus, Lilly thought. What the hell is that about? 'Okay. Hold tight.'
'You're not leaving me, are you?'
'I'll be back,' Lilly said.
'Don't go!'
'I have to. I'll be back. Don't make any noise.'
Lilly hesitated for a few moments, not really wanting to leave, then continued forward. If her bearings were right, she was heading toward the back of the house. She hadn't sensed an incline or a decline, so she was probably still on the second floor. The sound of the classical music had faded to silence, and all Lilly could hear now was the scrape of her knees along the floor of the shaft, and the sound of her own breathing. The air was getting hotter.
She took a break, the sweat pouring off her. She lifted her T-shirt, wiped her face. After a full minute, she started moving again. Before she got ten feet she sensed another opening above her. It wasn't anything dramatic, just a change in the atmosphere. She ran her hand along the ceiling of the shaft, and felt A ladder?
Lilly slowly stood up. Her knees popped, and in the confines of the space, the sound was like gunfire. She reached out. It was a ladder. There were only five or six rungs. Above them, something solid. She gently pushed on it. It lifted an inch. She eased it all the way open, took a deep breath, then climbed the ladder. The rush of fresh air was dizzying. She lifted herself out of the hole, into another nearly pitch-black space. She had no idea how large a room it was. The air was cool and damp, and there was a sour smell of licorice and body odor. It took some time to allow her eyes to adjust to the scant light. She made out a few shadows-an armoire, perhaps; a cheval mirror.
Suddenly, there was a sound behind her. Heavy footsteps on a bare floor. Each step was punctuated with something that sounded like the screech of a wheel that needed oil.
Clump, squeak, clump, squeak.
Lilly couldn't see a thing. The sounds drew closer.
Clump, squeak, clump, squeak.
Someone was walking across the dark room.
Lilly felt her way, crawling through the blackness. She came across something that might have been a bed, or a large sofa. She crawled beneath it, and held her breath.
Clump, squeak.
SEVENTY-SIX
1:52 AM
Jessica stood on the sidewalk in front of the diner. The rain had backed off, but the sidewalk steamed. Watching a pair of sector cars troll up the street, she wished she could be in one of them, just a rookie again. There would be none of the weight, none of the responsibility. She glanced at her watch. They would never make it. She
