Did Jasmine see what happened? She said she was with her father in the other room. Was she just covering for him? Little girls love their daddies. Maybe he told her what to say. Did he threaten to kill her, even back then when she was a child, if she told anyone what really happened?
If that were the case, one would assume she would have covered that in her book. But there was very little on her mother’s death—largely what was in the police report and on the 911 tape, as well as the medical examiner’s conclusions.
Vail pulled out her Samsung and called Jasmine, but it went to voice mail. “Jas, it’s Karen. I’ve got a couple of questions for you. It’s important. I hope you’re okay.” She tried the other cell number Jasmine had used and left a similar message.
Vail set her phone down on the desk beside her laptop and went back to Underwood’s book. She thumbed through the next case, and the one after that. Then her eyes caught something: an offender who left a note in the victim’s mouth.
It was blank. Except that indented writing was discovered.
Vail felt a chill run from her shoulders to her legs. The hidden message the UNSUB left was, “Next in line.”
She paged back to the beginning of the chapter and started reading: the offender was Desmond Robert Branson, also known as the Atlanta Strangler.
None of the behaviors Underwood discussed had any obvious connection to the Blood Lines case. There were no similarities she could find other than the note. Branson had killed seven prostitutes by asphyxiation. He was almost caught by the detective—but Branson got the upper hand and disabled the cop and took him hostage.
Vail sat there thinking. There was nothing, other than the communication with law enforcement, via the concealed message, that bore any resemblance to her current case.
You’re not reading carefully enough. Read it again.
She sat staring at the page—but not seeing anything. Why would he say that? What am I missing?
Unless he was saying that to throw me off.
Vail took a breath, then returned her attention to the book, speeding through some of the subsequent chapters before forcing herself to pull back and slow down.
Focus, Karen.
An hour later, she checked her watch, then dialed Jasmine again. Voice mail. Dammit. She got up, rubbed her forehead, paced a few times, then launched the app Uzi installed on her phone.
A red error message appeared: it was unable to establish a connection with the tracking device. Just as Uzi had warned her might happen. A window opened asking if she wanted to enable an alarm that would alert her when the connection was reestablished. It warned her that constant searching for a signal would affect her battery life. Fine. Do it.
She clicked “yes” and was about to put her phone away when Ramos called through.
“Where are you?”
“FBI Academy library. Why?”
“Got a twenty on Gaines.”
“No shit?”
“He’s in the mountains. We were monitoring his cell phone in case he turned it on. And he did—less than a minute, but it was enough to get a fix.”
“What’s the plan?”
“Hurdle’s deploying SWAT. They need their Bearcat, so it’ll take them a bit to get up there. Tarkoff and I have four-wheel drive SUVs.”
“On my way.” Vail rose from her seat, the books still splayed open. “Leave that stuff as is,” she said to the librarian as she headed out of the room. “I’ll be back.”
“How are you gonna get there?” Ramos asked.
“Figure out a place to rendezvous and I’ll meet you there.”
TWENTY MINUTES LATER, Vail was climbing into Ramos’s Toyota 4Runner. The undercarriage was caked with a mixture of mud splatter and salt from his winter driving.
“I take it you do a lot of off-roading.”
Ramos chuckled. “I live in the hills. And when it rains, this thing’s the only way I can get home.”
They were half a mile from the ping they had gotten when Ramos’s phone rang. He put it on speaker. “Boss, you got me and Karen.”
“How close are you?” Hurdle asked.
“Be there in a minute,” Ramos said. “You?”
“Not far behind. And SWAT’s about twelve behind me. Take a look around, see what we’re dealing with.”
“Got it. We’ll take care of it.”
“Best views we could get from Google Earth show an old trailer of some kind. But the dense tree cover made it tough to see. If we triangulated on the signal right, it’s sitting on land owned by someone else, seventy-two-year-old Jack Welker. No priors on the guy, not even in the system. You’ll see what looks like a large log cabin on the property. No idea where Gaines is exactly—cabin or that trailer. Be careful. We don’t know what we’re dealing with, if Welker’s a hostile or if he’s got no clue who Gaines is.”
“Roger that,” Ramos said, and disconnected the call.
A moment later, they approached the coordinates. It was indeed an old trailer—but not the kind usually used for habitation. This was a large forty foot cargo container that was traditionally attached to a long haul eighteen-wheeler. The tires were removed and the axles had been sunk into the ground so that its undersurface was flush with the hillside, leveled with cinder blocks.