Part 7 (1/2)
”The Arizona Highway Patrol is working to cordon off the area, but they don't seem very confident that it's going to work,” Katie said. ”Any news on Sheila Prichard?”
”Well.” Rebecca's voice went dry and cool. ”Miss Prichard seems to be something more of a black box than we'd antic.i.p.ated. Alex Forsythe has been here, and she's already turning up some dramatic inconsistencies-nothing that a general background check would have turned up, but enough to be very worrisome. For instance, her name was not originally Sheila Prichard.”
Alex? Well, it made sense; Alex's grandfather Charles had helped found the AthenaAcademy in the first place, and Alex was, of course, an alumnus. Though Alex was a coworker, in a sense-also in the FBI-her path didn't cross Katie's much. Her specialty was forensics, which Katie supposed could also include data mining. Katie stopped pacing, listening with all her concentration. ”If Prichard wasn't her original name, what was?”
”That, we don't yet know. Alex is digging. I'll keep you posted.”
”Tell Alex to call me directly,” Katie said. ”I want to talk this over with her.”
”Will do. What's your next step?”
Katie blew out a frustrated breath. ”The thing I hate the most,” she said. ”I wait.”
Her next call was to the FBI local field office. She knew the Resident Special Agent in Charge, or Resident SAIC; she'd worked with him on a couple of a.s.signments, not closely but enough to establish a professional rapport. He'd already received a call from her boss back home, who'd paved the way for any special requests.
Hers was simple. ”I need a better car,” she said. It went without saying that any car issued by the FBI would be reliable and durable-and the sedan she'd been issued was serviceable-but she needed the federal equivalent of a rental upgrade. ”This investigation keeps hopscotching, and I need something with networking ability.”
Within the hour, she had a freshly washed Lincoln, nondescript and scrupulously clean, with local Arizona plates and the necessary accessories, like an in-dash flasher and built-in siren, radio, GPS tracking uplinks. There were computer hookups, as well, and the whole car was a mobile Wi-Fi hot spot.
As an added bonus-and G.o.d only knew how it had happened, because no bureaucracy in the world, even the FBI, was about initiative-there was a laptop in the car, as well. A good one, loaded with everything she needed.
She thanked the agent who delivered it, and logged in on the laptop with her FBI identification codes. Surprisingly, the Wi-Fi connection was good even here. She began some digging in various databases, making and discarding search parameters as quickly as possible, chasing elusive bits of information and data through the system...
...and there it was. Alex Forsythe probably already had the trail, but Katie's job was tracing people, and she was better at it than most. Besides, she needed to keep busy.
In the end, she discovered that Sheila Prichard's original name was Sheila Richards Stanley. Which didn't ring any bells, but Katie put it through the system anyway, and forgot to breathe when she read the information that popped up on the screen.
Sheila Richards Stanley, twenty-six years old, was the illegitimate daughter of East Coast drug kingpin Timmons Kent. Kent was as dirty and unprincipled as they came, even among drug lords...and from the looks of things, she was very much Daddy's little girl, or had been up until a few years ago, when overnight, she'd cleaned up her act, changed her name and set about acquiring just the right credentials to apply to Athena Academy.
It was perfect, Katie had to admit. Having too much responsibility at the school would trigger a next-level personnel review, but her cover would have just pa.s.sed the lowest-level scrutiny for the school-which was still far better than anything that would have been administered for the average government desk job.
Sheila Prichard was a plant. She'd been sent inside with a specific mission, and, mission accomplished, was gone.
Gone with two students.
Katie slapped down the lid of the laptop and went in search of Stefan. She found him perched on the back b.u.mper of a Highway Patrol cruiser, sipping coffee with two female officers. A blonde and a redhead.
She felt an inexplicable surge of irritation. ”How much of that stuff do you drink in a day?” she snapped.
Stefan looked at her in surprise, then at the coffee cup. ”As much as possible,” he said. ”Why? Is it a crime? Some kind of Breathalyzer test?”
Ought to be, she thought. ”Time to go.”
He didn't move. ”Go where?”
”I'm going back to Glendale. Unless you'd rather stay here?”
He cut a quick glance right and left to the two female officers. They were young, competent and cute, and they were smiling at him. The redhead shrugged.
”Sorry, Officers, duty calls,” he said and started to toss his coffee cup into the nearest trash can.
Duty?
”Freeze!” Katie snapped. ”It's a crime scene. The last thing they need is to sort through more trash.”
Stefan stopped in midgesture. ”Oh. Sorry.”
”Just bring it with you. Say your goodbyes, and hurry up. I can't wait for you.”
She was irrationally angry, and she knew it. She didn't like waiting, although she was usually better at it than this. No, this was the fact that Sheila Prichard's new ident.i.ty opened up a huge field of new possibilities, unpleasant ones. As dangerous as kidnapping for ransom or drug abductions might be, political kidnappings were far, far worse. But why these two girls? Sure, someone with enough knowledge might be able to link the AthenaAcademy to AA. gov, and Athena Force. There were plenty of bad people in the world who might want to put a stop to the training of Athena women, or curtail their activities by using pressure.
But why these two girls?
Somebody knew. Somebody knew about the abilities the girls were displaying, and that opened up whole unpleasant vistas of possibilities.
Katie got in the car and started it up. It felt good to be behind the wheel again, in control of her destination. Stefan got in on the pa.s.senger side without another word. She dialed her cell phone again as she accelerated out of the parking lot and onto the highway access road. This car was a huge improvement, no doubt about it...sleek, smooth-driving, powerful.
”Kayla? It's Katie. Have you got access to Sheila Prichard's apartment yet?”
”Warrant's in process,” Kayla said. She sounded tired, but still focused. ”I haven't got access yet, but I was pulling it together. Look, I can meet you there. Alex Forsythe is here with me, too. Is it okay if she-”
”Yes, absolutely, tell her hi for me,” Katie said. ”Address?”
She didn't need a notepad; her memory was more than sharp enough for streets and numbers. When she hung up, Stefan, who was looking out the window, said, ”Who's Sheila Prichard?”
She debated telling him, but it was too soon; the jury was still out on Stefan Blackman and his true relations.h.i.+p to the crimes. ”Someone who may have information about the kidnapping.”
He let that sit in silence for a few seconds, then asked, ”You keep saying kidnapping. Some of the other cops called it an abduction. What's the difference between an abduction and a kidnapping?”
It was a good question, one she'd asked herself early in her FBI training. ”Kidnappers generally interact with the authorities or the families. They want something. Kidnapping is just a way to get what they want. That doesn't mean they're not dangerous and brutal, but at least they're more logical.”
”And abductions?”
”Abductors already have what they want,” she said and hooked a U-turn to get back on the freeway, heading back toward Phoenix. ”And they don't need to interact with anybody but the victim.”
”Interact,” he echoed faintly, and looked out the window again. ”You're not talking about conversation, are you?”
”Sometimes,” she said. ”Mostly, no. By the time they go far enough to risk prison like that, they're not usually satisfied with talk.”
He was silent for a few seconds. ”These guys haven't interacted with the families or the authorities.”
”No.”
”So you calling them kidnappers-”
”Wishful thinking,” she said. ”I'd like to think of them as kidnappers right now. Kidnappers have a standard operating procedure, a framework, and they do things in a logical manner. I can deal with kidnappers.”
”Do I even want to know what you've seen?”
”You really don't,” she said, and meant it. She liked that he was so shaken over a single dead body; that meant he had a soul. So many men she dealt with, week in and week out, had no souls left, or if they did, they were so irredeemably sick that it no longer mattered. That didn't just go for the villains, of course; the burnout rate in law enforcement was shocking. ”Tell me about what you do.”