Bill said to Riley, “Check her personal information.”
Riley clicked the “About” tag. It showed almost no useful information at all, only a few innocuous “Likes”—music, books, and movies. She didn’t even say where she lived, although Riley had already found out from Flores that she lived in Chicago. Rohm only had twenty-six friends.
“Just some crackpot?” Bill asked.
“Flores doesn’t seem to think so,” Riley said. “At least, it got his attention enough to pass it on to me.”
“What do you think?” Jenn asked Riley.
Riley thought for a moment. She was somehow fascinated by what she saw here—or rather what she didn’t see. With so few online contacts, Rohm seemed to be borderline reclusive, but she was alarmed enough to make a public statement about it.
Riley said, “Let’s see if we can get her to talk to us.”
She brought up the message bar and typed a message to Joanna Rohm.
I’m FBI Special Agent Riley Paige. I’m here with my colleagues, Agents Jeffreys and Roston. We’re investigating the railroad murders. We want to know why you’re afraid you’ll be the next victim.
Riley had no idea how long they would have to wait for a reply. But in a matter of seconds, her message was marked “seen.”
Then came a reply …
How do I know you’re who you say you are?
Jenn said, “Sounds a little paranoid.”
“Maybe,” Riley said. “But as they say, even paranoids have enemies.”
She typed again.
Check my own Facebook page.
She knew what Joanna Rohm would find there. Although Riley spent little time on Facebook, her information was very specific about her work and career, and her cover photo showed the FBI’s seal and motto. The woman would have to be remarkably mistrustful not to believe her.
After a few moments, Joanna Rohm replied …
I see it.
Riley typed …
Do you think you’re in danger right now?
Rohm quickly replied …
No. I think I’m in a safe situation at the moment.
Riley typed …
We need to talk.
As Riley waited for a reply, Jenn said, “Flores gave you her address. Maybe you could suggest that we meet her there.”
“No,” Riley said. “It might spook her to know that we’ve tracked down that information. Let’s just be patient for a few seconds.”
Finally the woman typed …
Meet me at the restaurant at the Stott Hotel at 4:30.
Before Riley could type a reply, she saw that Joanna Rohm had suddenly gone offline.
Bill said, “Stott Hotel—yeah, I was there once. It’s not far from Union Station.”
Riley glanced at the time. Hopefully the meeting Cullen had set up would be over in time for them to meet with Joanna Rohm by 4:30.
Bill added, “It’s a swanky place with a really high-class restaurant. This woman could just be some kind of rich eccentric who wants attention.”
“Maybe,” Riley said.
But she had a gut feeling that the truth was somewhat different.
She also felt sure that Flores was right. Joanna Rohm was genuinely scared.
The question was—of what?
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
As the train came to a stop at the platform in Chicago’s Union Station, Riley heard Jenn let out a growl of disgust.
Riley looked outside and spotted the cause of Jenn’s dismay.
Bull Cullen was standing on the platform, waiting for their arrival.
Riley said to Jenn, “Surely you’re not surprised to see him. We are here for a meeting with him, after all.”
Jenn said, “Yeah, but I guess I hoped he wasn’t going to meet us right off the train. What a drag.”
Riley resisted the urge to say again …
“You’re going to have to work with him.”
But of course, Jenn knew that already.
Or at least she’d better, Riley thought.
Riley, Bill, and Jenn stepped off the train, and Cullen strode across the platform to meet them. Riley didn’t fail to notice how Cullen not-so-subtly leered at Jenn as he approached. Jenn avoided making eye contact with him.
Riley suppressed a sigh.
These two really don’t mix, she thought.
She sensed that they weren’t going to get through this case without some kind of an altercation between Jenn and Cullen. She could only hope that whatever happened wouldn’t be too disruptive of the work that lay ahead.
Cullen grinned at them in his usual cocky manner.
“I’ve got good news, and some not-so-good news,” he said.
“OK,” Jenn said in a tight voice. “Give us the not-so-good news first.”
“Well, it’s not really news, I suppose. We haven’t found the killer. But the good news is he’s through killing. He’s not going to murder anybody else.”
Riley exchanged surprised glances with Bill and Jenn.
“How do you know?” she asked.
“You’ll find out,” Cullen said. “Come on, the meeting is already underway.”
Riley and her colleagues followed Cullen through the concourse into the station’s cavernous Great Hall, then up a wide flight of stairs with brass railings. After going up another flight of stairs, they arrived at the offices of the railroad police, where they went into a large conference room.
Riley was startled by how crowded the room was. As soon as she and her colleagues got seated, Cullen took his place at the end of the table and made some general introductions. A number of railroad police investigators from both passenger and freight units were there. She recognized a few of the faces from the Barnwell crime scene. She also recognized some agents from the Chicago FBI field office, including Special Agent in Charge Proctor Dillard, with whom she and Bill had worked in the past.
Riley was anxious to get right down to business.
She asked Cullen, “How do you know the killer isn’t going to strike again?”
Cullen grinned and clicked a remote that brought up an image on a large screen. It was a photograph of a vehicle that had been burned to smoking cinders in the middle of a field.
He said, “My guys got wind of a report about this SUV—a Nissan off-road vehicle. Somebody deliberately torched it in a field about twenty-five miles outside of Barnwell. It didn’t have a license plate, and it was too thoroughly incinerated to get DNA samples or any other useful information. But …”
He clicked the remote again and brought up two more pictures. One showed the tire tracks Riley had already seen alongside the railroad tracks near Barnwell. The other showed a similar set of tracks, obviously from the crime scene near Allardt.
Cullen said, “The FBI guys compared the tire tracks left at the two crime scenes, and they both were made by the same vehicle. The tracks are consistent with the type of vehicle that got torched.”
Riley just looked at Cullen. She didn’t quite understand what he was getting at.
Cullen shrugged and added, “What are the chances that the burned vehicle wasn’t the one used by the murderer at both crime scenes?”
“Slim to nonexistent,” Riley said.
Cullen nodded and smiled.
“Which means that our killer deliberately destroyed his vehicle to get rid of the evidence. And that surely means that he got skittish and doesn’t plan to commit any more murders. We still don’t know who he is, but all we’ve got to do is track him down. And we’re not up against the clock. Nobody’s life is in danger.”
Riley glanced across the table and made eye contact with Chief Dillard. He shook his head at her, obviously as bemused by what Cullen was saying as Riley herself felt.
A bit cautiously, Riley began, “I hate to say this, but …”
“But what?” Cullen asked.
Before Riley could continue, Jenn spoke up sharply.
“You’re jumping to conclusions. The only thing the burned vehicle tells us is that the killer is smart. He knows that the SUV was going to be easy to track down, and he didn’t dare keep it, much less use it a third time. He probably has a new vehicle by now.”
Cullen looked baffled.
Before Jenn could really lay into him, Riley silenced her with a stern look.