“Tell me.”
“The murder, then the abductions? Most people never experience even one of those things, let alone both.”
Until now, Oldrich had thought only about the time that had elapsed between the crimes. But this was like getting struck by lightning twice, and how often did that happen? His cop senses started to tingle. There might just be something here, after all. “Can you do it?”
“For an active crime, you bet. Bring me the knife. It will take twenty-four hours. System matches?”
The system she was referring to had been established by the European Union ten years ago with the intention of sharing criminal DNA between countries. All current prisoners had been swabbed and catalogued. If the sample Olivia pulled off the knife was Matthew Jones’s (which, of course, it had to be), there wouldn’t be any issue coming up with a match.
“Run it against the system,” he said.
“Understood.”
Oldrich thanked Basia and hung up.
CHAPTER 36
The day was a bust. Connor and Olin watched the dot go from Dylan’s home to Carolton High School and back. Hours passed in between. It was the longest block of time the two had spent together without having something to do.
“What’s she doing there?” Olin had asked at some point, and Connor had frowned thoughtfully.
“Summer school, I guess. Should we go down there and try to talk to her?”
“No way. We have no business being on the school grounds. We’ve been lucky so far, but luck runs out. If we’re going to talk to her, we’re going to do it somewhere smart.”
Connor reluctantly agreed.
While they waited for an opening, they kept themselves busy watching TV. They talked a little about what life had been like for each of them before the abductions. But since talking around the abductions was the same as talking about them, that petered out fast. Until Connor could speak to Dylan, he didn’t want to think about any of it, and Olin seemed to feel the same way.
By the time six o’clock rolled around, Connor realized he had spent the whole day doing nothing. He was ready to give up when the dot started to move again. His phone had been sitting on the arm of the sofa, tracking app open, and Olin was the one who saw it first.
“Look,” he said, pointing to Connor’s phone.
“Where do you think she’s going?”
“I don’t know. Not back to school. Not at this hour.”
“A friend’s?”
Olin shrugged.
Connor hopped up, grabbed his phone. “Come on. This might be our chance.”
“Wait. We don’t even know where she’s going.”
“We also don’t know how long she’ll be there.”
Olin didn’t move. “I think we should stay here until—”
“Let’s get close. Just in case, okay?”
“Fine.” Olin followed Connor out the door, and they each headed for their own car. “I’ll drive,” Olin said, once he realized what was happening. “Your driving makes me carsick.”
Connor suspected the real reason Olin wanted to drive was so that he could pull the brakes—literally and figuratively—on the operation if he wanted to. But since he was happy to have Olin with him, he didn’t make a fuss about it.
Connor directed Olin to the Albright Mall in Brooklyn, a four-story glass building with an attached parking garage and a sprawling interior that dedicated most of the floor space to retailers. “Fashion-forward” retailers, if the sign above the parking garage entrance was to be believed.
Olin found a spot on the third floor, making a point of parking as far away from any other vehicles as he could. “My dad will kill me if I ding the car,” he said.
Connor didn’t respond.
“What do we do now?” Olin said.
Connor didn’t think that question had to be asked. As soon as he knew Dylan had gone to the Albright Mall, he had assumed the answer was obvious. “Let’s go talk to her.”
Apparently, this was all Olin needed to hear. He nodded and got out of the car.
They took the stairs down to street level and circled around the building to the main entrance, sandwiched between a Brooks Brothers and a DSW.
Olin shifted from side to side, trying to see around an endless wave of shoppers. “Where is she?”
From time to time since Dylan had arrived at the mall, Connor had noticed the little blue dot move this way or that. But he suspected that was the application struggling to pinpoint Dylan’s location. It was unreasonable to expect it to tell them the exact place she was standing. Even if it could, it couldn’t tell them what floor she was on. But instead of explaining all that, Connor summed it up by saying, “She’s in here somewhere. Let’s find her.”
He looked around, trying to decide how to approach their search. Olin did the same.
“You remember what she looks like?”
“I think so.”
“Let’s split up. I’ll start at the top. You start at the bottom. Call me if you find her.”
“We’re just going to go store by store? That will take forever.”
“Think like a teenage girl,” Connor said, before he walked away. “Where would you go if you were her?”
CHAPTER 37
Connor took the elevator to the top floor of the Albright Mall. Even though he had checked the tracking app on his phone only a few minutes ago, he checked it again now. It was becoming something of a nervous tic. Dylan was still here.
This time, he also noticed he had a missed call from Austin. But now wasn’t the time to call him back. Whatever Austin wanted to talk to him about, it could wait until he returned to the apartment.
The elevator opened onto a food court that sold every type of cuisine imaginable, and seemed to be twice as crowded as the first floor. Most of the tables were full. The most popular restaurants—Chinese Dragon, Chick-fil-A, McDonald’s—all had lines at least ten people deep.
There was an AMC off to the side, and there was a line there, as well.
Connor made his way around the food court. He hoped Dylan was by herself, but that seemed unlikely.
As
