“So, we still have nothing,” he says.
“Not all doom and gloom,” Dean announces, coming into the room. “I did some talking around and then checked up on it, and we at least have one detail we can follow.”
“About Lotan?” I ask.
“No, about Martin. Turns out that car he got into wasn’t his.” He hands me a printout of a vehicle registration. “He drives a black pickup.”
I read through the information on the registration and give a slight laugh. “Wow. Didn’t peg him for the truck type.”
“Yep. And not even extended cab. Just two seats,” Dean continues, grabbing a handful of the grapes I bought from the cafeteria during a break and popping them in his mouth.
“Which means he couldn’t get in the backseat,” Sam says. “Catch Me wanted him to sit behind him?”
“Or there was someone else in the car, too,” I point out.
“Catch Me is two people? That would explain the trains.”
I think about the possibility for a second, but it doesn’t sit right with me, and I shake my head.
“No. I don’t think so. It would make sense for the two trains, but that’s it. Everything else has been too precise, too streamlined. This guy is hyper-focused on me finding him and him specifically. Everything has been ‘me’ and ‘I’. It’s extremely organized. You don’t usually see that when people are working together. Even if they are on the same page and telling the same plan, things go wrong, people’s personalities come out, and you see disorganization and disconnects. I haven’t seen any of that with Catch Me. This is very much one-on-one. It’s him against me. If there was someone else in that car, that’s a deviation.”
“Returning to our earlier theory: could Catch Me be working with your uncle? That would explain the second person,” points out Sam.
“It’s possible. But that doesn’t line up either. My uncle clearly had ways to get in the house to drop off those necklaces. He wouldn’t need to pepper clues for me to follow. I just don’t know what the connection is.”
“But it’s something. And that’s better than what we’ve had,” Dean says.
“That’s true.” I let out an exasperated sigh and shake my head. “It’s just driving me insane. I know I’ve heard of Leviathan. And not just because it’s a word. It means something, and I can’t remember what.”
“Could have been something your father told you?” Sam asks. “A case he was working on or something the CIA was investigating?”
“Maybe,” I acknowledge. “Maybe I saw something when I was reading his files, and it just stuck in my mind somewhere.”
I start towards the door.
“Where are you going?” Dean asks.
“To look through my father’s files,” I tell him. “When he left, his case files were still in his office. I didn’t get rid of any of them.”
I walk out of the room and go to the nurse’s desk.
“If he says anything else, call me immediately,” I tell Amelia.
She nods.
“I will. I’ll check up on him soon.”
“Thank you,” I tell her.
Both men catch up to me as I go down the elevator and head for the car. My eyes shoot back and forth as I drive through the parking lot and out onto the road.
“What are you looking for?” Sam asks.
“Anything,” I tell him. “Up until now, Catch Me has been really clear about his instructions. Even when he was leaving riddles, it was clear he wanted me to solve the riddle and figure out what to do next. But I don’t have that this time. I know it’s supposed to be about Martin. Obviously, he’s helping or was told to do something, and Catch Me had him meet him out in the parking lot outside the maternity ward as a message to me. But that’s where it stops. We don’t know where Martin went or what he’s doing, so how are we supposed to follow him?”
“You have to trust the police. We all gave our statements, and they are looking for him. That’s all we can do right now. We have to trust that they will do their jobs and be able to trace his movements. Once they find him, we’ll figure out what we’re supposed to do next.”
“I want to believe that,” I tell him. “But I feel like I’m missing something. Like there’s a link or some sort of connection I haven’t noticed. He’s already proven that when I don’t follow along with what he’s doing fast enough, or even when I do, the results get bloody. I don’t want anyone else to die because I didn’t play his game correctly.”
“You can’t do that to yourself,” Dean says. “You can’t make yourself responsible for everything that happens. You didn’t do this. You didn’t do any of it.”
“If I could figure out who he is, it would stop him,” I reply. “If I’d been able to find him on the train or in Feathered Nest, these things wouldn’t be happening.”
“You don’t know that,” Sam says.
“He’s right,” Dean agrees. “You can’t predict what he’s going to do. It’s not your fault he’s doing these things. I know it’s easy to get into that place where you feel like you caused everything. But you didn’t cause this, and you can’t blame yourself. All that’s going to do is distract you from stopping what comes next.”
“You don’t understand,” I say.
“I do understand, Emma. In one of my earliest cases, two children had been kidnapped. The mother was working with the police, but they didn’t have any leads and hadn’t figured out anything. She strongly believed it was her ex-husband. They had been fighting over custody for a long time, and she believed he only wanted it so he could get child support out of her. She made a lot more money than he did, and in court, he tried to demand alimony, but the judge shut
