“About three days before I filed that.” He jutted his chin at the report still in Lincoln’s hands. “Look, I know she’s a junkie. My first thoughts were OD’d or run away, but then she didn’t show for her weekly visit with Mom in the care facility, which she never misses, no matter how strung out she is, and then someone called and threatened to harm her if I didn’t do what he said.”
“Why didn’t you report that to the police?” O’Shea asked.
“He said he would kill her if I went to the police.”
“He?” Lincoln said.
Weathers nodded.
“But you thought Agent Carter could help?” O’Shea asked.
Carter worried that Lincoln would object to O’Shea’s rewind, but he remained quiet, noodling something if his drawn expression was anything to go by. Or just avoiding the interrogation, which Carter recalled was not his favorite part of this gig, though Lincoln wasn’t nearly as bad at it as he claimed. For his part, Carter was interested in both lines of questioning and in Weathers’s responses.
The man bowed his head, hands clasped in his lap. “I was afraid I’d hurt . . . or worse, killed . . . someone in that fire. That’s why I went to church. To find out. I knew everyone would be there.” He lifted his gaze, locking on Carter. “What if what he asks me to do next is worse?”
“Are you sure he has her?”
“Do you still have my phone?”
O’Shea leaned out the door and hollered for Drake to bring him the phone. Carter had divested Weathers of it at the scene, then handed it over to the team as soon as they’d arrived here. They would make a copy of its contents in case Weathers or someone remotely tried to erase it, and tag it for tracking, so they could also track Weathers if released.
Drake appeared with the phone in an evidence bag. “We’re good.”
O’Shea dismissed Drake, then, after removing the phone from the bag, handed it to Weathers. A few taps at the screen and then Weathers handed it back to him. O’Shea’s wince was all the warning Carter needed to know it was bad. An agent of O’Shea’s experience didn’t visibly react otherwise. He passed the phone to Lincoln, and Lincoln’s gasp echoed the sound that wanted to escape from Carter’s own throat as he viewed the picture over his partner’s shoulder.
The emaciated blond woman appeared to be barely hanging on to life. Probably even before someone had stripped her naked, gagged and tied her to the bed, and beaten her. She was still alive—the color of her skin, the slack in her fingers, her eyes open and focused—but she wouldn’t stay that way much longer, injuries untreated and struggling to breathe.
Despite his initial surprise, Lincoln recovered quickly, putting two fingers to the screen and zooming in. But not on Stacy. He shifted the picture instead and Carter immediately caught on to what he was doing.
“Do you know where this is?” Carter asked Weathers.
“No, it didn’t look familiar to me.”
“Why would it?” Lincoln said. “It’s a generic motel room.” He moved the picture around, pointing out to Carter and O’Shea the hideous hotel bedspread that had been tossed on the floor, the channel guide next to the phone with a few extra buttons, and the plastic-wrapped cups on the bedside table. “There’s a logo printed on the plastic wrap,” Lincoln said. “But I don’t have the resolution on here to read it.”
“Let me see if we can clean it up.” O’Shea handed him the evidence bag before turning toward the door.
“Check the channel guide too,” Lincoln called after him. “The station numbers can narrow the location.”
“On it,” O’Shea said with a nod, then ducked out of the room.
Lincoln was still examining the photo, so Carter resumed questioning their suspect. “Did you recognize the voice on the call?”
“It was disguised, like with one of those voice modulators.”
“Then how do you know it was a man?”
Weathers’s face crumpled, his shoulders hitched, and he lifted his hands, covering his face and muffling his sobs. Beside Carter, Lincoln lowered the phone. He looked uncomfortable, to put it mildly, but also like he wanted to reach out and comfort Weathers. The parent in him maybe, which if Carter’s math was right, he hadn’t had in his toolbox the last time he’d been in the field. Carter held the evidence bag open, Lincoln dropped the phone inside, and before he could object, Carter pushed Lincoln’s rolling chair closer to Weathers. There was a second of flailing—Carter would pay for this later, no doubt—but Lincoln recovered with barely a squeak and leaned forward, moving directly in front of Weathers.
“We’re sorry for making you go through this again, Mr. Weathers, but if we’re going to find Stacy, we need all the details we can get. I can find a lot, that’s what I’m good at. Carter too. But there are some details, like that call, that only you know. Can you tell us about that? So we can try and bring Stacy home.”
Much better at this than he gave himself credit for.
Weathers lowered his hands and took a deep breath. “I can’t know for sure.” He swiped at the wetness under his eyes. “But even with the distortion, the voice sounded deep.”
Carter slid closer. “And he told you to torch the station?”
“The records room. He said if I did that, he’d let Stacy go. But that was yesterday morning, and I haven’t heard a thing since.”
