The trail has gone cold. Dead cold. The mother refuses to give up hope. Maybe she really does believe her son is alive or maybe, on an unconscious level, she knows he’s most likely dead and needs the police to find him so she can grieve and move on with her life.’
‘It’s probably a combination of both,’ Karim said. ‘Hope is always the last thing to die.’
‘We know she’s referred to you by your contact in Colorado, the homicide detective who worked her son’s case. You ask me to talk to her and her husband. I arrive to find the upstairs bedroom light being turned off. When Theresa Herrera finally answers the door, she’s frightened but able to maintain enough composure to concoct a story about suffering from a stomach virus and that her husband is out for the night. She tries to send me away, and we know what happens next.
‘These are indisputable facts. We also know the shooter is inside the house before I arrive on the scene, but we don’t know why. What is her reason for gaining access to the house? I started with that question and operated from the theory that the shooter is somehow connected to Rico Herrera’s abduction. If so, why would she decide to visit the family four years later? It certainly wouldn’t be to tell them their son is dead.’
‘I think you’re right,’ Karim said. ‘If the shooter had told the mother her son was dead, she wouldn’t have allowed Theresa Herrera to answer the door. The woman would have been too distraught. Even with a gun pointed at her, she might have risked screaming for help — or chosen to flee the house.’
‘So the shooter had leverage, something to make Theresa Herrera cooperate.’
‘You think, what, the shooter told Herrera that her son was alive?’
‘It would give the shooter the power to force Theresa Herrera to do what she was told.’
‘It’s possible, sure. But we don’t know that was, in fact, what happened.’
‘Correct. Let’s go back to our original assumption that the shooter is either responsible or somehow connected to Rico Herrera’s abduction. If this is true, we’re back to the original question: what’s the shooter’s reason for being there? Not to kill the wife and her husband. If this was simply about killing, she could have done that very easily. We know she gained access to the house, and we know she had a gun. She could have used it at any time, but she didn’t. She made Theresa Herrera answer the door to send me away.’
‘You know what was going on inside the house, don’t you?’
‘I have a theory.’
‘Let’s hear it.’
‘Our shooter, the woman in the fur coat, planned on abducting one of the parents.’
Surprise bloomed on Karim’s face.
Fletcher stood, his ribs screaming in protest, and left the dining room. He entered the kitchen and came back with the manila folder holding the three sheets of notes he had written earlier that morning.
Fletcher resumed his seat and said, ‘I conducted some preliminary research and found eight families who have had either a son or a daughter abducted from their house, on their way home from school, from a car — the abduction methods vary. The child vanishes, and after a significant amount of time passes — several months or, in the case of Rico Herrera, several years — one of the parents vanishes, never to be seen or heard from again.’
‘And the surviving spouse?’
‘Killed inside the house.’ Fletcher slid the folder across the table and added, ‘They’re all unsolved.’
Karim read through the pages. They contained only salient details: the names of the eight families; the names of their missing children and the date and circumstances of their abductions; the date and details involving the murder of the husband or wife followed by those for the husband or wife who vanished afterwards.
‘These families are scattered all over the country,’ Karim said.
‘And there may be more. I only had a day to do the research.’
‘Where did you get this information?’
‘Articles posted on various newspaper websites,’ Fletcher said.
‘It’s an interesting theory — certainly one that warrants further investigation.’
‘There’s one other thing.’
Karim glanced up from his reading.
‘Theresa Herrera wasn’t who she said she was,’ Fletcher said.
16
‘That can’t be… that’s not possible,’ Karim said. ‘If what you’re saying is true, the person I assigned to do the data mining would have found it.’
‘The person you assigned was very thorough. I read the reports.’
‘But?’
‘I checked Theresa Herrera’s medical records on MIB — the Medical Information Bureau,’ Fletcher said. ‘It’s a digital warehouse for the country’s medical records.’
‘I know what it is,’ Karim said softly. ‘Insurance companies use it. What did you find?’
‘Her social security number doesn’t have a match on the MIB.’
‘Nothing?’
‘Not a single file.’
‘Could be a simple clerical error.’
‘Or it could have been expunged,’ Fletcher said. ‘Whatever the reason, it warrants further investigation.’
Karim nodded as he shut the folder.
‘There’s only one company that specializes in adding cremated remains to ammunition,’ Fletcher said. ‘Sacred Ashes, based in Dunbar, Alabama.’
He slid his smartphone across the table. Karim looked at the company website displayed on the phone’s screen.
‘I’ll drive to Alabama,’ Fletcher said.
‘Why?’
‘To look through the company’s records.’
‘No, I mean why drive when we can fly? We’ll take my plane.’
‘In case you forgot, I’m a fugitive.’
Karim waved it away. ‘What do you have for ID?’
‘A passport and driver’s licence.’
‘Let’s see them.’
‘The provenance is clean.’
‘Always check, Malcolm. Always check.’
‘I always do.’ To allay Karim’s concerns, Fletcher handed over the items for Robert Pepin.
Karim inspected them for several minutes before placing several phone calls to make sure the documentation hadn’t been compromised or flagged for review. His final call was to a contact at Interpol. Fletcher had, under his own name, been given an Interpol Red Notice — an international arrest warrant.
‘They’re clean,’ Karim said after he hung up. ‘What’s your plan once we reach Alabama?’
‘Surveillance,’ Fletcher said. ‘Then I’ll break into their company, examine their computers and paperwork, and find our shooter.’
17
Seventeen-year-old Jimmy Weeks saw police lights explode across his rearview mirror.
It wasn’t an ordinary cop car. Directly behind him and practically riding his back bumper was a big, black Chevy suburban — an undercover-cop car, he thought. No sirens, just flashing lights installed in the front grille.
Jimmy felt his chest tighten. An inner voice urged him to relax.
You haven’t done anything wrong, that voice said. The cop probably just wants you to move out of the way since you’re hogging the lane and driving like an old lady.
