AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Did he have any family?” Connor asked carefully.
"Yes, I believe his son also lived here," the wild-haired man explained. "But I never met him. He moved out a month or two before the old man died, and I don't think they were on such good terms."
“You know where the son went?” Connor answered. Now, Cami felt as if her mind was fracturing with anxiety. This was such an important question. Would this man know?
“I’ve no idea,” he said apologetically.
"You sure?" Connor wasn't giving up. "Sometimes, people hear things and don't realize it at the time. If you think back – take your time – maybe you might remember some mention of him. We can wait," he said, in a voice that Cami would never have connected with such a serious case. Connor sounded so encouraging. It was amazing how he did it. And now, this pajamaed man was looking thoughtful.
“My wife!” he said. “She might know. I gotta go wake her though. She’s a sound sleeper.”
“Please, apologize on our behalf,” Connor said. “We do need to find him tonight, or we’d come back.”
Now actually looking keen and motivated to help the kind FBI agent on his doorstep, the man hurried away. Cami shook her head, a tiny movement. She felt a sense of amazement that Connor was just so very good at what he did. Who else could jog the memory of a man woken from sleep, and answering the door in his pajamas? It was a serious skill.
There were hushed voices coming from down the corridor now. One irritable, one persuasive. Cami strained her ears. Please let this have a good outcome, she thought. Please. Because there was no other option. It gave her a sense of intense anxiety to think that all their hopes might rest on what this couple could remember about the old tenant here, who’d been so strangely murdered.
Footsteps returned, and she held her breath.
"Well," the wild-haired man said, "it seems that when the son moved out, he didn't go far. My wife, who usually knows what's going on in these parts, says that he went just down the road. There's a farm called Valley Rest. And that's where he's staying, in the cottage there."
“I appreciate that,” Connor said.
Valley Rest. He’d moved after the death of his father. And now, they could find him.
Connor thanked the man. He turned away. And as soon as the front door closed, he broke into a run.
He got on his phone at the same time. “Valley Rest. I need coordinates, fast.”
They leaped into the car, and Connor started driving in the direction that the wild-haired man had indicated. The coordinates beeped into his phone a moment later. Valley Rest Farm wasn't far. After just a couple of minutes, the signboard came into view.
Cami clenched her hands into fists as Connor blasted his way down the drive.
The farm itself was very much like the rest of the rural scene. Muddy, overgrown, a little rundown, and waiting for spring.
But the cottage, set about a hundred yards away, was not.
It was scrupulously neat. The grass was trimmed. The lights were on, and Cami could see an enormous signal booster jutting from the roof.
This was where they needed to be. Where they would find their killer.
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
As she and Connor climbed out of the car and sprinted toward the house, Cami felt nervous and terrified and determined all at once. Please, let him be home, she begged inwardly. Let him be home.
Connor did the same as he'd done earlier. He strode up to the front door and knocked hard. Cami waited, knowing instinctively that their welcome would not be as quick or as helpful as it had been at the farmhouse earlier.
The house was silent. Nobody was home. While Connor paced around the farmhouse, looking through windows, Cami reached for her phone. This man had a massive booster aerial on his roof. Would his wifi be accessible, and if so, could she pick up anything from it?
Connor’s shoes scrunched on the neatly swept paving as he returned to the front door.
“No sign of him,” he said. Cami bit her lip, staring down at her phone.
"I'm seeing if I can log into his wifi," she said. "Connor, I have a bad feeling about this." Time to spill her fears. She might as well get them out while her program was trying hard to break into Miles Ferguson's wifi. "I think that he meant to reprogram that control keypad at the last house, and because he didn’t manage to do it, he's planning on killing again more quickly.”
“Yes,” Connor said. “That’s been on my mind, too. I’m also very worried about it. What’s your program telling you?”
Cami checked. And she caught her breath. If there was ever a time she had needed some luck and some speed, it was now. Her program had found a way through.
