“Why should I do that? Your helplessness is exquisite. It makes the suffering all the more satisfying. You’re never certain if I’ll let you come back, are you?”

“Aren’t you afraid … repetition … will take that … uncertainty … away?”

“Oh, no. It will just reinforce it.”

“Is that how … you’re going to kill … me? Are you … going to smother me?”

“Perhaps. I wouldn’t put you through this entertaining training if your death wasn’t to have certain similar elements.” He stroked the pillow. “I’ll leave you now. Try to sleep. It will be interesting waking you…”

He was going away.

For a little while, or an hour, or several hours.

Beth drew a deep breath. She would try to sleep because she knew he didn’t want her to do it. He wanted her to go through his damn anticipation and dread. Suffer mentally as well as physically.

Sleep.

Rest.

Gather her strength.

For the next time.

*   *   *

KENDRA AND LYNCH WERE FIVE minutes away from the FBI office when Lynch’s text chime sounded from his car stereo system. He pressed a button on his dashboard’s touch screen to read the text that had just come in on his phone. “We’re taking a detour,” he said.

Kendra looked at the text. It read. MEET SPECIAL AGENT METCALF AT BONITA TRUCK RENTALS 1525 12TH STREET. Her gaze flew to Lynch. “Colby’s white van?”

“That would be my guess. I told you having a confirmed name could really kick-start things. They’ve only had twenty-four hours, and they’ve already identified every place in the city that had rented a Ford Transit cargo van in the last week. But they haven’t had time to check names. If this name is attached to the rental, it could score big-time.”

Lynch exited and got back on the I-8 heading east toward downtown. Within fifteen minutes, they were standing in the lobby of Bonita Truck Rentals and Storage on 12th Street. Special Agent Roland Metcalf was already there.

Kendra moved quickly toward him. “What’s the story, Metcalf?”

“Colby was here. He rented the van six days ago under the name of James Wingate.”

“Address?” Lynch asked.

“The manager’s getting it for me now, along with the credit-card info he left. Although I don’t know where he got a credit card.”

“Probably part of the identity packet he bought in Mexico,” Lynch said.

The manager, a bald man with a bushy moustache, emerged from the back room with a canary-yellow copy of the invoice. He nodded his greeting at Kendra and Lynch as he laid the paper on the counter for them to see. “It was a one-way cross-country rental. The van’s due at Star Truck and Van Rentals in Norfolk, Virginia, this weekend.”

“Norfolk,” Kendra repeated.

Lynch nodded. “They shouldn’t count on seeing it there.”

“He knew what he was doing as usual,” Kendra said, looking at the invoice. “He also has a Norfolk address listed here.”

“Bogus, I’m sure,” Lynch said. “But you want to have it checked out, Metcalf.”

“We’re already on it,” Metcalf said. He turned toward the manager. “How many copies were there in this invoice?”

“Four. The customer gets the pink copy, we get the other three.”

Metcalf nodded down toward the invoice. “I want to take this with me. Will you please round up the other two copies and let me have those, too?”

The manager looked doubtfully at him. “Can’t I just make copies for you?”

“No, but feel free to make copies for yourself.”

“Uh, don’t you need a warrant or something?”

“No time for that,” Metcalf snapped. “Your customer is a serial killer, and I know you won’t want to be responsible for any other crimes. I need the three originals because his fingerprints may be on one of them. Got it?” Metcalf produced a clear document bag. “And I’d appreciate you handling them very carefully, okay?”

Obviously rattled, the manager nodded and hurried to the back room.”

“Nicely done,” Kendra murmured.

Lynch pulled out his phone and snapped a photo of the invoice. “Colby’s info may be bogus, but there’s something here that might help us.” He glanced up at Kendra. “We now have his van’s license-plate number.”

“Bingo. Success.”

He thought for a moment. “Yeah, it very well might.” He quickly motioned for her to follow him. “Let’s go back to the house. I need to talk to Sam.”

Lynch House

“LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT.” Sam pushed away from the desk to stare at Kendra, Lynch, and Eve. “You want me to do an ALPR hack?”

Lynch finished jotting down the license number and slid it across the desk to him. “Can you do it?”

“Of course. The only problem is how long it might take.”

“ALPR?” Eve asked.

“Automatic License Plate Reader,” Lynch said. “The DEA started using them in border states a few years ago to track possible drug trafficking. Then the Department of Homeland Security started throwing money at local police departments to install them in jurisdictions all over the country. They’ve given away at least $50 million to do this, probably a lot more. These devices are sometimes clamped on freeway signs, mounted in patrol cars, or even just apps in mobile telephones. They can be anywhere.”

“To track terror suspects?” Kendra asked.

“That’s the idea, but anybody who’s been on an interstate highway in the past few years has had their license plate automatically photographed, logged, and filed away in a database somewhere.”

“Several databases,” Sam said. “It’s kind of a mess right now. Homeland Security is working on combining the license-plate traffic data gathered from thousands of jurisdictions all over the country. One day, they’d like to be able to track any car from one side of the country to the other in real time.”

“That’s a little scary,” Kendra said.

Sam nodded. “The ACLU and other privacy advocates aren’t crazy about it. I’m not either. But for Beth’s sake, I sure wish they could do that right now.”

“You and me both,” Eve said. “So what can you do?”

Sam studied the license-plate number in his hand. “It depends on how quickly the local ALPR databases are updated with the license-plate numbers they capture. I assume the FBI is doing everything they can on their end?”

“Yes, but I’ve been part of enough investigations to know how difficult it is to quickly pull this kind of data together from all the various sources: California Highway Patrol, SDPD, San Diego County Sheriff’s Department, all the various municipalities … Like you say, it’s a mess.”

“In other words, the FBI doesn’t have a Sam Zackoff,” Kendra said.

“And they don’t have a Tom Sims,” Sam said soberly. “But even he would have been at a disadvantage here. There are miles of red tape that any official entity has to wade through for a multijurisdictional project like this.”

“My thought exactly,” Lynch said. “We don’t have time to cut through that tape right now. You know what I’m asking. You went around the system before to track his streaming video message. I want you to do the same thing with this.”

Sam leaned back in his chair as he frowned down at the license-plate number. “Not impossible, but when you start crossing swords with Homeland Security, they have a way of getting nasty. And fast. You’d better be ready to smooth things over with them if they come down on us.”

Lynch pointed to the walls. “Built to withstand 40mm grenade launchers, remember? I’ll try not to test them, but I guarantee I’ll buy you all the time you need while I make our explanations.”

Sam leaned toward the cobbled-together computer rig that dominated Lynch’s office. “I’ll see what I can do.” He added grimly, “It’s not gonna be pretty. I’m going for speed, so I’m not going to even try to cover my tracks when I invade those police departments’ networks. Get ready for some hell to rain down.”

*   *   *

“YOU’VE HELD UP AMAZINGLY WELL,” Colby said as he removed the pillow. “No tears. No begging. I’ll have to tell Kendra what a brave little soldier she had for a friend.”