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“You’ll keep us posted?”
“As best I can, sure.” Hutch gave another wry grin. “And whatever I don’t tell you, I’m sure Casey will worm out of Lynch. He’s a free agent, and she’s very good at drawing information out of people.”
Marc tossed a few bills on the table. “I don’t want to know how you know that.”
“Sure you do. But I don’t plan on telling you.”
Casey spent the evening once again poring over the old case file Patrick had provided. She sat at the sweeping table in the Forensic Instincts’ conference room and scrutinized every detail—from names to dates and times, to investigative leads. Patrick had gone well above and beyond the line of duty, delving into every aspect of the Akermans’ lives. But, as Casey had explained to Vera, the technological resources of the FBI in the late seventies had been far more limited than they were now. Which meant that Ryan had his work cut out for him.
She’d already fed him the names Vera had mentioned tonight, and he was running them through various databases. Again, another long shot. A support group for a grieving mother didn’t scream child abduction. Casey was half hoping one of them would be married to or involved with a member of the mob. But she knew it was rarely as easy and straightforward as that.
Patrick had promised to drive down here tonight, after the meetings with Sidney Akerman broke up. Casey wanted him to fill her in—just in case Hutch had left out any details when he talked to Marc—and to flesh out any theories Patrick had entertained from the case information she was reading.
Marc showed up at the brownstone before Patrick. He climbed the stairs to the conference room, where he was greeted by an enthusiastic Hero. One leap, two slobbery licks, and Hero was sniffing at Marc’s pocket.
“Not to worry,” Marc assured him, unzipping the bag he carried with dog treats in it. “I know better than to challenge your olfactory skills. Here you go.” He gave Hero two healthy-sized biscuits.
“You know,” he said thoughtfully, watching the bloodhound chomp on the biscuits. “Hero did a great job sniffing out the neighborhood. Why don’t we continue to use him? Let’s go to the Willises’ house tomorrow and collect some more scent articles from Krissy’s room. Bring Hero. You never know where that supersniffer of his might lead.”
“You’re right. In the meantime, fill me in on what Hutch told you.”
A half hour later and, true to his word, the doorbell rang. Casey went downstairs to open the door, and Patrick strode inside.
“This is frustrating as hell,” he announced, tossing his jacket on a chair. “The sketches we were able to come up with from Akerman’s descriptions were vague at best.”
“I heard there was one strong lead,” Casey replied.
“Yeah. Lou DeMassi. He’s one of the Vizzini guys who’s still alive and serving time. He was in his late twenties when Felicity Akerman was kidnapped, which means he’s sixtyish now. The sketch artist aged the image Akerman came up with by three decades, and the resemblance is strong enough for us to pursue. Peg Harrington and two other members of the task force took Akerman and are on their way to the prison. He’ll look at DeMassi in a lineup, and they’ll interrogate the hell out of him. Whatever they can get is more than we have now. Oh, and DeMassi has a son who’s tied to the Vizzini family, too. Ken Barkley and two other agents are on their way to his place.”
“You think it’s possible he’s avenging his father in some way? Maybe because Sidney talked to the Feds? You think that’s the basis for Krissy’s kidnapping?”
A shrug. “Anything’s possible. Frankly, Casey, I don’t know what I think. Other than the fact that I could kick myself for missing the mob connection in the first place. We’re now investigating a complex web with no time to do it in.”
“That’s not your fault. But I won’t be able to convince you of that. So I won’t even try. I’ll just suggest we take what we’ve got and go from here. Ryan’s in his lair downstairs. I gave him all the names from the Akermans’ past that I could come up with, including a list of most of Felicity’s classmates. Hope and her mother put their heads together to supply those.”
Patrick started. “You think someone connected with a kid from Felicity’s past played a part in Krissy’s kidnapping?”
“I think we can’t overlook anything. And Ryan has the software and expertise to age-enhance those kids into adulthood—not only visually, but as whatever real, living, breathing human beings they’ve become. Their careers, marriages, children, financial circumstances—you name it. Trust Ryan to produce it all.”
At the moment, producing it all was precisely what Ryan was focused on doing. Except that the avenue he was pursuing was one of his own—one he was determined to see through before turning his attention to the project Casey had given him.
Ryan’s space was an interesting combination of the many facets of his personality. Most important was the “business section”: his server farm, where he was customarily stationed, staring at the two-by-two grid of screens. Located downstairs, the company’s secure data center took up a third of the entire floor. It was the technological heart of Forensic Instincts, housing Ryan’s custom-built servers: Lumen, Equitas and Intueri.
Then came the other sides of Ryan McKay.
In the middle of the basement
was his personal gym—a self-contained masterpiece of pulleys, cables and weights, for those times he needed to release energy by working out but didn’t have time to escape from his lair.
And, last, came his “stuff,” which helped him focus his intricate mind on assembling complicated machinery when the answers wouldn’t come. That “stuff” occupied a good chunk of the basement. In one corner was his electronics bench—a laminated rock maple tabletop with floor-to-ceiling shelves and racks, filled with electronic equipment: a dual-trace oscilloscope, computer workstation, Weller soldering station and numerous drawers of electronic parts. A high-definition monitor sat directly above the center of the workbench, able to display—with a word to Yoda—a live feed from the surveillance cameras positioned inside and outside the building, or any sporting event in the world.
In the opposite corner sat a small machine shop: compact lathe and mini vertical milling machine and welding equipment, along with a wall filled with hand tools, measuring devices and attachments for the machining equipment.
Between these two shops, he could design and build anything smaller than a go-cart. His “robots,” as the team liked to call them. For larger projects, he would draw on his network of fabricators who on short notice would construct anything he requested.
And, in the center of it all—where he was now crouched—was his “arena,” as he liked to call it: the place where he would test his latest robotic incarnation against a variety of challenges—obstacles, flames, circular saws. The swept-up pieces of those experimental designs that had failed in combat were in a neat pile in the farthest corner of the room.
The team could be as amused as they wanted. They’d be surprised as hell to learn how much playing in the arena supported his efforts at Forensic Instincts.
