Part 31 (1/2)
”We need to find out if the town house leads back to Jon's friend,” said Stuart, scrolling through his phone for a number Jon gave him. He pressed ”Send,” hoping like h.e.l.l Jon's friend would answer.
”Billings Lumber.”
”Jon is dead. My name is Stuart Quinn. I'm the friend that was driving into town to meet him this morning. If you're sitting near Leah, please step outside.”
”Everyone's still asleep here. How did you get this number?” said the man.
”Jon gave it to me in case something happened. I don't know your name or where you are.”
”Then I should probably hang up and dispose of this phone.”
”They killed him at your town house,” said Stuart.
”There's no link between the town house and our community.”
”Are you one hundred percent sure? They found the town house pretty quickly.”
”I think I'm going to hang up now.”
”Please don't. Please don't. I need you to think of anything that could possibly lead them to you. Anything,” begged Stuart.
”Nothing points in this direction.”
”Do you keep mortgage statements in the town house? Bills? Any paperwork?”
”Mail gets sent to a PO box. Sometimes I leave stuff in there, but the address on record at the post office is the town house. No link to our community. n.o.body knows about this place. It's unincorporated.”
”But they found the town house, which means they identified you, not Jon. How did they do that?”
”I don't know, and I don't care.”
”You need to care. This group won't stop until they find Leah. They'll either kill her or use her as a hostage to leverage Nathan,” said Stuart.
”Then they're going to be at this for a long time, because we don't exist.”
”They found you somehow!” said Stuart, then suddenly pieced a theory together. ”Jon used his laptop at a Starbucks to access his home security feeds.”
The man was silent.
”If they ran a trace on his remote access session, they could have identified the store's IP address. That's why he asked you to pick him up so quickly.”
”I'm listening,” said the man.
”What if they caught your Jeep on one of the store cameras and grabbed a license plate?”
”The Jeeps are owned by a corporation held in Billings. No identifying information.”
”You have a driver's license, right?”
”Using the town house address. I keep a notarized letter in the Jeep, from the corporation, granting me permission to use the Jeep. It's the only copy.”
”It sounds airtight,” admitted Stuart.
”That's because it is.”
”I've been working within the intelligence community for too long to believe anything is truly airtight. We're missing something. They found the town house.”
”And that's as far as they'll get. Unless somebody physically follows me here, there's no way to track us to the community, and n.o.body followed me back. We designed this place to be sure of that.”
Jon had felt safe leaving Leah there. Maybe Stuart should leave this alone.
”Mr. Quinn?” said the man, his voice suddenly sounding hollow.
”Yeah?”
”I did get a speeding ticket about two years ago. I remember being a little nervous because I had to give him my driver's license. Could they have gotten into the system and pulled the address from the citation?”
”Yes,” he said. ”They could have done that very easily.”
A long pause ensued, as Stuart processed every scenario he could imagine through to determine if the trail ended there.
”How deep can this group dig?” said the man.
”Deep. If your s.h.i.+t isn't hidden behind a lettered agency firewall, they can find it.”
”Then we have a problem. I'm not the only lead foot in here that keeps a place in town. If the group chasing the Fishers can access our corporate records-”
”I'm sure they already have.”
”Then they'll have a long list of license plates to run, and I guarantee they'll uncover a few more addresses in town. All of our vehicles are registered to the same corporation.”
”s.h.i.+t,” said Stuart.
”s.h.i.+t is right. I'm gonna have some seriously p.i.s.sed-off neighbors. They'll be watching those locations, too.”
”Not right away, probably,” said Stuart. ”It'll take a little time to move additional teams into place. They'll start right away with something less manpower intensive-which presents us with an opportunity.”
”How's that?”
He'd formed the idea as soon as Jon's friend had mentioned the PO box. ”They'll start by watching the PO box. That would be my play,” said Stuart. ”It's a direct link to the second half of their objective.”
”Why would I show up at the post office, or anywhere in town, if someone was murdered at my town house?”
”Normally you wouldn't, but if you want to put an end to this once and for all, you'll show up this morning.”
”Say again, over. Your transmission was garbled. Or did I just hear you suggest I walk into a trap?”