The Stolen Ones (31 page)

The downpour was relentless.

From his vantage point above street level, Byrne could see a SEPTA van a few blocks away. He knew that the workers were attaching plywood covers to the sidewalk ventilation grates to prevent flooding below ground.

At 9:55 Byrne’s phone buzzed. He looked at it. It was a FaceTime call from Colleen. He did not know if he was standing in enough light for his daughter to see him. One more step out of the shelter and he would be soaked.

He answered the call, held the phone up at arm’s length. He then realized that he could not sign with one hand. He looked around the shelter. There was a newspaper case for an independent paper, a sleazy tabloid called
The Report
.

Finally good for something
, Byrne thought. He walked over to the newspaper case, put the phone down on top of it, leaned it against the handle.

He looked at the screen. Colleen was warm and dry. At that moment she again looked like his little girl. It was a mistake to have brought her in to this, he thought. Too late for that.

‘Hi, Dad,’ Colleen signed.

‘Are you at Sunnyvale?’

Colleen nodded. ‘I am. Somebody called the administrator while I was on my way up here. It’s all set. They’re waking up Miriam now.’

‘Do you know what you need to ask her?’

‘I think so,’ Colleen signed. ‘We want to know if she remembers the names of any of the people who worked in administration at Cold River in the last few years it was open.’

We
, Kevin thought. It suddenly occurred to him that he might just have put his daughter in harm’s way. ‘Are there officers there with you?’

Colleen smiled. She picked up her phone, and angled the camera down the hallway. There stood two rather large young patrol officers. Colleen brought the camera back around to herself.

‘I’m fine, Dad. Eddie and Rich know who you are. They’re going to take care of me.’

Eddie and Rich
. His daughter had a way of getting to know everyone in about two minutes. ‘Okay.’

‘Is there anything else you want me to ask Miriam?’

Byrne thought for a few moments. ‘Ask her first about the names of any administration staff who were specifically involved in G10. We need those names first, if she has them. First and last names, middle names or initials will help.’

Colleen nodded in understanding. ‘If she remembers the names, how do I get them to you?’

‘Just text them to me, and I’ll get them over to dispatch. Make sure that we start with G10 personnel, and work from there. If she happens to know whether any of these people still live in Philadelphia, it would be really helpful.’

Colleen looked off screen for a moment. Byrne heard someone speaking to her from down the hallway. Colleen must have picked up the meaning of what was being said to her. She nodded, held up a finger, meaning she would be right along.

‘They just told me that Miriam is awake and alert. She’s sitting up in bed, waiting for me.’

‘Okay, honey,’ Byrne said. He almost said
be careful
, but she was probably in one of the safest place in the tri-county area this evening. Especially with Eddie and Rich on the case.

‘Text me if and when you get something.’

‘I will,’ Colleen signed. ‘I love you.’

‘I love you, too,’ Byrne replied.

But his screen had already gone black.

If Luther could be trusted to follow through with both his threats and his promises, he had to be within ten minutes or so of the drop-off point – if, indeed, he did not have accomplices, and that was a big if. There were more than a dozen detectives deployed in a broad circle of the area surrounding the train platform. In addition, sector cars patrolling the area were on a high alert to take a call at a split-second’s notice.

Add to this the imminence of the full force of the storm bearing down on the city, and there was a good chance that all of this would go wrong, and more people would die.

As the wind buffeted the shelter with cold rain, Byrne stared at his phone, willing it to make the sound that signaled a new text message had arrived.

The phone remained silent.

The anticipation was maddening.

Byrne wondered if Jessica had made it to the computer lab yet, and if they had tracking set up on his devices.

He stepped back into the shadows, took out his cell phone, one that belonged to the homicide unit, an untraceable TracFone. He speed-dialed Jessica.

‘I’m here,’ she said.

‘Do you have me on screen?’

‘We do. Everyone is in position,’ Jessica said. ‘All on standby.’

‘Do we have a fix on our subject?’

‘No,’ Jessica said. ‘We don’t have the phone’s Apple ID. Without that, we can’t track him.’

‘So we have no idea where he is right now?’

‘No,’ Jessica said. ‘We’ve got a sector car en route to James Delacroix’s house. Should be there any second.’

‘And if we don’t find him we’re flying blind?’

Jessica didn’t like to tell anyone in the field that they were a target, especially her partner. ‘Unfortunately, yes.’

Byrne heard a landline ring in the background where Jessica was. Jessica answered. ‘Yeah, Sarge.’

It was their boss, Dana Westbrook. Byrne heard Jessica say
okay
a few times. He knew his partner well. She was not happy.

Jessica got back on the line with Byrne. ‘We’ve got a problem, Kevin.’

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Sector car went to James Delacroix’s house. They knocked, rang the bell. Nothing. They went around back, looked in the window. They saw blood on the floor. The patrol officers then took down Delacroix’s door and found him in the basement.’

‘What happened?’

‘Hard to tell. But they said he was in a pool of blood.’

Byrne gripped the phone tight enough to break it. ‘What’s his status?’

‘They found a pulse. EMS is on the way, but they’re stretched pretty thin tonight, and half the main arteries are flooded.’

Byrne hated to ask the question that needed to be asked. ‘What about the information we need?’

‘They did a quick walk through. They did not find his laptop. They said the charging cable was on the floor in the dining room.’

‘That’s where he used it when we were there.’

‘Yeah.’

‘What’s our next step?’

‘There’s only one. We’re going to need to get a warrant to track Joan Delacroix’s phone.’

‘Is it in the works?’

‘Maria Caruso is typing it up now. We’ve Paul DiCarlo at the DA’s office standing by, and a judge on his way to the office. As soon as his pen hits the paper Chris will be on the line with Delacroix’s carrier.’

Jessica glanced at the clock every ten seconds. It had never once worked to make the process speed up, but she couldn’t help herself. When she took her eyes off the clock she looked at the large LCD monitor, at the two identical maps, at the icons at the center of each.

She knew that Byrne was not out there alone – there were a dozen armed personnel within a block or so – but you could not tell that by looking at the maps.

On the maps he looked completely isolated.

When the desk phone rang at 9:59 Jessica nearly jumped.

‘Balzano.’

‘We’ve got it,’ Westbrook said.

Within a minute they had the GPS coordinates for Joan Delacroix’s phone. A few seconds later they saw a second icon show up on both sides of the map. A red icon.

It was Luther. Jessica got Byrne on his TracFone.

‘Kevin. We’ve got the warrant.’

‘Do you have a fix on our subject?’

‘We do. He’s a block away. He’s moving east on Chancel Lane.’

‘Does anyone have a visual?’

Jessica checked with tactical. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not yet.’

The red icon moved closer and closer to the green icon in the center of the screen.

‘Subject is closer,’ Jessica said. ‘A hundred yards.’

‘Still on Chancel?’

‘On Chancel.’

‘I can’t see anything.’

Onscreen the icon’s progress slowed. For a moment it appeared to be sidetracking north. Jessica again checked with tactical, both on the ground and on the rooftops. No one had yet made visual contact.

Suddenly the icon began to move. Fast. It was on a course directly to Byrne’s position.

‘Kevin, he’s on the move again. He’s heading right toward you.’

No response.

‘Kevin.’

Nothing but static.

The red icon on the screen disappeared. Jessica turned to Chris Gavin.

‘What happened?’ she asked.

‘He must have turned the phone off,’ Gavin said. ‘We lost him.’

Luther stood on the roof of a shuttered fabric store, just a block from the Priory Park Station. The only movement was the river of water rushing down Chancel Lane.

He looked at his watch. It was ten o’clock.

He had turned off the phone less than a block away, knowing that every second it was on they could see him, could track his movements.

Luther scanned the train platform at the end of the street, saw the figure standing on the upper level, a dark blue gouache against the darker backdrop of the shelter. He saw no smaller figure standing with the man.

Perhaps the girl was behind him. Perhaps she was in the stairwell leading down to the lower level of the platform. Luther wanted to believe these things, but he did not.

They had betrayed him. They believed he would not make good on his promise.

They would see who he was. If they did not know the legend of Eduard Kross by now, they would very soon.

When he reached the portal at State Road he did not bother to open the door with his keys. Instead, he pulled back and rammed his fist through the glass.

He entered the dusty space, ran down the steps into the basement. He could hear the rain pelting the roof, the drip of water through the holes in the ceiling.

He pulled the vent off the wall, and shimmied through.

Five minutes later Luther stood across the street from the row house. Through the downpour he saw the shadows flicker across the window shades. The conductor, it seemed, was at home. When he saw the small figures silhouetted against the window shade, he knew that the man’s children were home as well.

At 10:05 Byrne’s rover crackled. He took it out of his pocket.

‘Byrne.’

‘Kevin, it’s John Shepherd.’

‘What’s up, John?’

‘Who’s on channel?’ Shepherd asked.

‘Jessica, Chris Gavin, everyone at HQ.’

‘Okay,’ Shepherd said. ‘We’ve got issues.’

For a terrible moment Byrne’s mind flashed on Colleen.

‘What’s going on, John?’ Westbrook asked.

‘I’m down at the foster home now. I just talked to the woman who runs it. The little girl isn’t here.’

‘What do you mean?’ Byrne asked. ‘She
has
to be there.’

‘She isn’t. About ten minutes before I arrived, the woman said a detective from the PPD was here. She said the man told her the little girl might be in some danger, and he wanted to take her into custody.’

‘Did you send someone, Dana?’ Byrne asked.

‘No,’ Westbrook said. ‘It didn’t come from this office.’

‘This detective,’ Byrne said. ‘He showed her a badge?’

‘Yeah,’ Shepherd said. ‘She said she didn’t look closely at the picture ID, and he didn’t offer.’

For a few long moments there was no chatter on the line.

‘What did this detective look like?’ Westbrook asked.

‘Hang on,’ Shepherd said.

As Byrne and everyone else on the line waited, John Shepherd asked the woman who ran the foster home the question. In the background they heard the woman give her answer. Byrne felt his heart sink. He reached into his pocket for his ID wallet. It wasn’t there. He checked all his other pockets.

Gone
.

By the time Shepherd got back on radio Byrne – and every other person on the channel – knew what had happened.

‘It’s Ray Torrance,’ Shepherd said.

‘It’s Ray,’ Byrne echoed. ‘You say he got there about ten minutes before you did?’

‘Yeah,’ Shepherd said. ‘I got caught in a flood on Arch. I had to go around. The whole city is inundated.’

‘We’ve got to put an APB out on Ray and Violet,’ Jessica said.

‘Do we know what he’s driving?’ Shepherd asked.

Byrne felt for his personal keys, even though he knew it was an exercise in futility. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘He’s driving my car.’

‘Okay. Do you know your license plate number?’ Jessica asked.

Christ
. He didn’t. He told Jessica as much. Providing he survived the night, he would have plenty of time to beat himself up about it later. Some cop.

‘I’ll get it,’ Jessica said. ‘Hang on.’

While Byrne waited he tried to pinpoint just when it was that Ray Torrance was able to lift his ID. It had to have happened when Byrne was taking the FaceTime call from Luther. He’d had his suit coat over the back of the chair. Ray had been standing next to him.

Byrne heard Jessica hitting computer keys. He then heard her dialing yet another number. She put out an all points bulletin and a BOLO – a Be On The Lookout – for Byrne’s car. It was something Byrne thought he would never hear.

A few moments later Jessica got back on channel. ‘Okay. The alerts are out,’ she said. ‘Just to confirm, Ray is armed, right?’

Byrne recalled that Ray Torrance had gone to his storage locker the night he showed him the videotape. He’d probably had a weapon there. Maybe more than one. ‘Yes,’ Byrne said. ‘He is.’

‘I figured as much,’ Jessica said. ‘I put it in the alert.’

‘I don’t want him taken down hard,’ Byrne said.

‘We understand,’ Westbrook said. ‘None of us do.’

When John Shepherd clicked off, Byrne put the rover back in his pocket. He looked down Chancel Lane. The water ran down the thoroughfare in broad streams. Nothing else moved.