“Very clever, Detective,” he croons in a tone that sends shivers down her spine. Not good shivers. Creeped--out--by--a--psychopath shivers.
“Do we have a deal, then?” she asks him, recognizing the background music.
It’s U2. “Sunday, Bloody Sunday.”
Bloody . . .
She wonders if he’s trying to send her a message.
“You’d have to promise to be honest with me if we do this, Detective Leary.”
Sully looks at Barnes, who nods.
“Absolutely. And you’d have to promise to be honest with me.”
“Of course, although . . . promises. Promises are never quite as convincing as proof. Do you agree?”
“Absolutely,” she says again.
“Well, you really are brilliant. We can text photographs to prove our locations. Make sure that yours is a selfie. I’d dearly love a photo of you.”
“And I’d love one of you.”
He laughs. “Nice try. A photo of my surroundings will have to suffice.”
“It wouldn’t prove anything unless you’re in it.”
Barnes jots something on the pad and shows it to Colonomos as the caller laughs again, saying, “Now that would be stupid of me, wouldn’t it? To send you a picture of myself? I enjoy my anonymity. Really, I do.”
Yeah, so did I, she thinks grimly, realizing she’s going to be looking over her shoulder until they catch this guy.
Colonomos nods at whatever Barnes wrote on the pad. Barnes slides it toward and mouths, Keep him talking.
The call is being recorded, of course, back at the precinct, and they’ll be attempting to trace it. The longer she keeps the guy on the line, the better.
“If you sent a photograph, how would I even know you took it right now?” she asks. “It could be any old picture stored in your phone.”
“You’re right. It could. I have to admit, you’re very, very clever, Detective.”
The way he says it suggests that he’s certain she’s not as clever as he is.
We’ll just see about that.
She glances at the note on the pad in front of her, and nods at Barnes and Colonomos.
“Okay,” she says into the phone, “here’s what I want. I want you to pull up a map on your phone that can show GPS coordinates of your location. And then I want you to take a screenshot and send it to me.”
“A screenshot?”
“Yes. One that shows a bull’s--eye of your location, and it has to be time stamped, obviously.”
She fully expects him to refuse, well aware that the NYPD would instantly put out an APB and, given the population--dense tri--state area, probably have an officer at just about any location in the city or its suburbs within seconds. There are so many security cameras in the area that even if it took a few minutes to get a live person on the scene, they’d have a virtual eye on his location right away and track him if he tried to get away.
“Fair enough,” he says, to her surprise. “You tell me, and then I tell you.”
“No, you tell me, and then I tell you.”
“I may be accommodating, but I’m not stupid, and neither are you. You first. And I want a photo. Deal?”
She hesitates for only a moment, glad she’s well over a hundred miles away from the city and the New Jersey suburbs where his phone is registered. It’s not as if he’s going to materialize here in a matter of seconds, even if he is by chance responsible for Brianna Armbruster’s disappearance.
“Deal,” she says.
“Good thinking. Where are you?”
“I’m in a little town in upstate New York called Mundy’s Landing.”
The statement is met with silence, followed by a long, hard laugh—-and then a click.
“Bastard,” she whispers.
A moment later, her phone buzzes with an incoming text.
It’s a screenshot of a map—-with a GPS bull’s--eye located a few blocks away, right here in Mundy’s Landing.
It takes Jake a few rings to answer Rowan’s call, and when he does, he sounds harried. “Hey. What’s up?”
“Where are you?”
“Don’t tell me you forgot again.”
“No, I mean, I know you’re in Saratoga Springs, but I meant . . . are you in the meeting?”