She pointed to several of his scratched-out attempts. “Except for these two blank spaces.”
“Yes. But here’s the thing. I don’t remember those two missing numbers, but I do know he only touched the glass one time for each of those numbers when he dialed. The others were repeated. So,” he said as he picked up the cell phone, “if I am right, and if Forensics didn’t clean or smudge this screen, I should be able to see which numbers were single-tapped and fill in my blanks. It’s like Wheel, only instead of buying vowels, I’m going for digits.”
“Question. What if Gallatin called Black Knight more than once?”
“You know, Smarty gave a party and nobody came.”
“But what if he did?”
“Then it would still work.” He paused and added, “In theory, because the two digits I need would still have fewer fingerprints on the glass.”
“What if George Gallatin also used it to call someone else, like his bookie or a sex hotline? Wouldn’t that mess up the screen?”
Rook stopped but didn’t look at her. “Would you let me have my moment?”
“Sorry.”
He resumed, carefully tilting the glass to find the sweet spot of the reflection. Looked over his shoulder, Nikki could see that the dusting powder left by Forensics had actually made the fingerprints easier to pick out on the surface. “Humph,” Rook said and set it back down. He closed his eyes, doing some inner-vision reenactment thing that involved humming. Then he broke into a grin. “Got it!” She regarded him skeptically. “No, really, I do.”
The cyber attack was still impeding the department’s databases, so Heat called Special Agent Jordan Delaney to run Rook’s phone number for her. The FBI man was barely cordial but ultimately professional. In spite of his annoyance that she had poached his federal prisoner, who had then escaped, Delaney called Nikki back to report that the number she had given him did not exist.
“I highly doubt that,” said Rook. “I’ve heard of numbers that are out of service. Or unlisted. But nonexistent? No way.”
“Then why don’t you call it and see who answers?” she said.
“Thank you, I will.” He got out his cell phone but then changed his mind. “If my caller ID shows up, it’ll be a tip-off. And suppose I use Gallatin’s phone. If they pick up and hear me, then what?”
“Rook, you’re talking yourself out of your own fix. What am I supposed to do here?”
He thought a short moment and said, “Indulge me?”
Heat listened to the groaning steel of the decrepit barge as it rocked at its mooring and smelled the musty decay wafting from somewhere in the dark recesses where she and Rook waited belowdecks. “We’re going to get our wounds infected down here.”
“We’ve only been here an hour, Nik. I spent two nights down here.”
She corrected him. “Ninety-three minutes. We’ll give this twenty-seven more, that’s plenty indulgent.”
“Deal,” he said. “But I have faith.”
“In a number the FBI says doesn’t exist?”
“Then why does it say ‘Delivered’ under our balloon?”
Sending a text message from Gallatin’s phone to the mystery number was the compromise she had reached with Rook. Although she wouldn’t admit it out loud, Nikki did feel a bit of a thrill from his sense of adventure and out-of-the-box thinking. To tell him would only encourage more. Not so thrilling, in her view.
She held up Gallatin’s burner again, which was powered up, but back in its plastic evidence bag. The screen did indicate delivery, right under their message, which was short and plenty concrete: “Urgent. Meet me at the barge. Hurry!”