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Who was she talking to at the company? Who is Emma? Or do I have it wrong? Was she talking to Emma Paladin?
Sitting there as the rain beat down on the car roof, Bree did a series of internet searches on her phone based on the notes and questions she’d just written down. Within fifteen minutes, she found articles and filings that changed her view of Theresa May Alcott and her decision to hire Bree to investigate Frances Duchaine.
She put the rental car in gear and headed toward the Cleveland Airport, thinking,Paladin may matter in this. But who is Emma?
CHAPTER 69
Potomac, Maryland
WE SPENT SEVEN HOURSin total at the Kane family crime scene, watching as FBI forensic techs swarmed through the house, finding the four deadly slugs embedded in the floors and identifying where and how the killer had hacked the security system using override wires that were still in place.
We also helped canvass the neighborhood, which did us little good. The Kanes’ house sat on seven wooded acres. So did the other nine houses in the area.
It was the kind of neighborhood where people valued isolation. Several of the neighbors had not yet met the Kanes, who’d moved in two years before.
Mahoney went to the Kanes’ business to interview employees. Sampson and I took another course, trying to make some connection between the Kanes and the four other families executed in cold blood since the attacks began.
Using John’s computer in the squad room at DC Metro PD, we tried common-word searches among the files, including schools attended, employment records, current and prior residences, ethnicities, religions, socioeconomic standards, even extended family trees. Then we mapped the killings, looking for overlapping travel routes the killer might have taken to and from the attacks.
But other than proximity to the Beltway—the band of freeways that loop the nation’s capital—the attack sites appeared unrelated. Try as we might, we could not find the pattern, the motive, or the logic behind the killings. If there was a commonality among the victims, we weren’t seeing it, and neither were our computers.
“Maybe that’s the point,” I said around six that evening.
“What is?”
“The randomness of the targets, the cold-bloodedness of the executions, the meticulousness of the killer,” I said.
“Designed to throw us,” Sampson said. “So we’ll focus on his behavior instead?”
“That’s right, though I’m too burned out at the moment to see how, and I have to get to National. Bree texted that she’s coming in at seven.”
“Then I’m on my way home too,” Sampson said. “Willow and I are getting fried clams and French fries for dinner.”
“Still running in the morning?”
“Every day.” Sampson laughed and rubbed his lean belly. He headed outside to grab an Uber. I went to the garage and got the Jeep.
My cell phone rang as I exited the parking garage. I hit Answer on the Cherokee’s navigation screen, turned into traffic, and said, “This is Alex Cross.”
“Dr. Cross, it’s Ryan Malcomb. How are you?”
“Stuck in traffic. You?”
“In possession of interesting ore, fresh from the mines.”
“Already?”
“Frankly, you were lucky, Dr. Cross. As Steve may have told you, we had that first data loaded already. Your new request was merely a matter of changing filters.”
“And what did you find?”
“Your instincts were correct. There was a cellular and data blackout around Thomas Tull’s Georgetown address at roughly the same time another occurred in the Kanes’ neighborhood.”
“What about during the other family killings? Was Tull’s place blacked out then?”
“No.”
“No?” I said, disappointed because I was sure this blackout stuff was big, though I could not put my finger on why.
