Frozen Past (14 page)

Chapter 27

“Q, it’s Luke Harrison.”

“Yo! Luke! What’s up?”

Luke smiled into the phone as he heard Quentin Jenson’s Jersey accent. Even though the kid was from Atlanta, Georgia, you would never know it unless he told you. Luke guessed it was cooler being from Jersey than Atlanta.

“How good are you?” Luke asked.

“Depends on what it is you need,” Quentin said.

Everybody knew Q was the local hacker and could penetrate just about any electronic device known to man. Maybe even gadgets that were not of this world. Too bad there weren’t any to test this theory.

“I need you to hack my phone.”

“Damn, I thought you needed something that was challenging. Bring it over and we’ll crack it open.”

Luke yelled to his mom he’d be back in a while, hopped on his bike before she could object, and rode over to Q’s house. He lived in the neighborhood just behind Luke’s in a beat up 1950’s era cinder block home. Three large dogs roamed the chain link fenced in yard and Luke had to whistle to get Q to call them off. It was amazing to watch the transformation from vicious attack beasts with their teeth bared and saliva drooling from their mouths, to panting and wagging, happy go lucky pets that wouldn’t harm a fly. Q said their names were Wynkin’, Blynkin’ and Nod. Luke guessed the one with the missing eye was Wynkin’.

Q led him through a house which was littered with trash, boxes, and clothes, and they entered another world which Q said was his ‘Cave.’ Everything in the room either lit up, blinked, or hummed. It was an amazing assortment of computers, iPads, Smartphones, video monitors and web-cams. His desk contained three, twenty-four inch monitors lined up in a row and some program was displayed, running on each screen.

“Dude, this is awesome!” Luke said.

“Nothing but net,” Q said. “I paid for everything but the iPad. That was a Christmas gift from my uncle Bodey.”

Luke walked up to the desk and watched a video running on the screen to the left. A cat was playing a piano while a dog licked himself. He wasn’t sure what it was supposed to represent but it was funny as hell.

“Let’s see the phone,” Q said, his hand held out waiting.

“Will this ruin it?” Luke asked.

“This will make it better,” Q said with a grin. “What exactly do you want out of it?”

“I need you to find out where a text message came from.”

“Ouch!” Q said.

“Problem?”

“We’ll see. A lot of that kind of stuff is encrypted, but I just downloaded this new hack my uncle came up with and it might do the trick. I haven’t even got to use it yet.”

“Is it legal?”

“Define legal.”

“Uh—never mind. I don’t care. I need to know.”

Q took the phone, hooked a USB cable to it and plugged the cable into one of the many computers he had arrayed around the desk.

“Is your uncle a hacker too?” Luke asked.

“No. Better. Bodey’s a systems engineer for CRAY computers. He writes this stuff.”

Luke smiled. “Cool.”

Q loaded up a program and Luke watched as he typed in some commands and a list of calls and phone numbers came up on the screen. He could see Ellie’s number and John’s, along with his own house and various others. Q clicked something and all the text messages came up. Most were from Ellie and, as he saw them, Q turned and grinned at him.

“You and Ellie gettin’ hot and heavy, huh?”

“Just ignore that stuff,” Luke said. “This is the one I need to know about.”

He pointed to the message he had received during the group’s little get together last night. Q read the message and asked, “What town meeting?”

“It’s not important. Can you tell me where this came from. The number shows up only as zeros.”

Q clicked another screen and said, “Yeah, I see that. Whoever made this message didn’t want you to find out who they were, that’s for sure. It’s routed through a special server that people like me use so we can’t be traced.”

“Damn! I thought you’d be able to get it. Oh well.”

“You’re kind of impatient aren’t you?” Q said and then grinned. “I didn’t say I couldn’t get it.” He clicked through a few more screens so fast Luke couldn’t tell what they were and arrived at a screen that held a series of ones and zeros all lined up throughout the whole page.

“This is the binary code the server is using to scramble the cell phone numbers that make the incoming calls.” He clicked through another page and a list of numbers showed up. “Awesome! I’m going to have to tell Bodey this program rocks. The phone number you’re looking for is right here.” He pointed to a ten digit number about halfway down the screen. The area code was not familiar to Luke.

“Can you tell where it’s texting from?”

“I can even do better. I can track where the cell phone is right now.” He opened another program on another screen and typed in the cell number. The screen changed to a busy hourglass and then a map popped up with a blinking icon in the center. Luke bent over his shoulder to look. Nothing on the map looked familiar.

“How can I tell where that is?” Luke asked.

Q zoomed out and Luke could see it was in the state of Indiana. Northern section in a town called Hobart. The blinking icon was not moving.

“It’s stationary,” Q said. “He’s currently staying put. If he was in a car, or walking or something, you would see it move. Does this help?”

“Yeah, at least now I know the number.”

“What’s your e-mail?”

He told him. “Why?”

“I’m going to mail you this program and you can track the phone whenever you want.”

“Sweet!”

* * *

Jaxon woke with a killer hangover. After yesterday’s visits with Emory Holt and Victoria, along with reliving the night Michael died, his mind had had enough for one day and he elected to numb it. With Crown Royal. It worked like a charm, but now he was paying for it. His phone rang and he held his head as he looked at the clock. It was 10:00 a.m.

“Shit.” he said, reaching for the phone. “What?”

“Are you up?” Sally asked, a little pity in her voice.

“Yeah. Sorry. I’ll be there in a few.”

“Good. The chief’s looking for us. He wants an update. Holt called him.”

Shit. That’s all he needed.
“I’ll be there in fifteen.”

He threw on a tie and grabbed his jacket as he tossed a cup of food in Reverb’s bowl. The dog looked mournfully at him.

“What?” he said. The dog did not have an answer.

Swinging through Starbucks for a quick jolt of caffeine, he made it into the bullpen in twenty minutes. Sally was waiting impatiently.

“I thought you said fifteen minutes,” she said as they walked to the chief’s office.

“Fifteen—twenty—somewhere in there. I made it.”

“Oh God—you need a breath mint. Here. And it’s been twenty five.” She handed him a stick of gum and his stomach revolted as he stuck it in his mouth. He hoped he could keep things down until the meeting was over.

“Nice of you to find time in your busy morning to see me,” Chief Horace Benton said, as they walked in.

“Sorry, Chief,” Jaxon said.

“Sit.”

Sally and Jaxon grabbed chairs and sat in front of the desk. Benton was five years his senior and someone Jaxon actually respected. The man had not brown-nosed his way to the position. He had earned it in the trenches, and that meant a lot to Jaxon. The Chief didn’t seem to be sharing the love this morning, though.

“Why didn’t you discuss the FBI with me? I had to hear from Emory Holt this morning that my two lead investigators visited the J. Edgar Hoover building soliciting the help of the FBI and I was in the dark. Thanks.”

“Sorry Chief, we got a lead and we followed up on it,” Jaxon said.

“Do you want to fill me in or do I need to ask Holt to do that?”

He let Sally do most of the talking since his head and stomach ached. The sunlight streaming in through the window felt like molten gunshots to his head and at one point he had thought the bile in his throat was going to make an appearance that would probably earn him a day without pay. He forced it down, only barely. The Chief was saying something and he had missed some of it.

“The FBI wants to be involved. Holt informs me they have a case that is quite old, but he feels could be the same guy, and if that’s so, the investigation crosses state lines and they want to jump in. I’m inclined to grant them access since we seem to have run into a brick wall in this thing.”

“I don’t want Holt in on it,” Jaxon said.

“Why?”

“We’ve got this thing covered and I told him yesterday we weren’t ready to bring them in. We just needed a little information and they were the best source for it.”

“This doesn’t have anything to do with Victoria, does it? I would be highly disappointed if you put your own personal difficulties before the welfare of the people and children of this county. That’s not happening is it Jaxon?”

“I can’t work with him,” Jaxon said.

“Dammit Jaxon! You’re going to have to. Do I need to pull you two off of this thing? Because I’ll do it in a heartbeat. Holt’s in and you two are going to have to learn to love it. Got me?”

“Fine,” Jaxon said and stood. “I’ll break out the welcome mat.”

Chapter 28

Luke hesitated with his finger poised over the send button. He wanted to send the text message, but something was keeping him from doing it. Maybe he was having second thoughts about the logic of harassing their tormentor. His phone vibrated in his hand and he jumped. It was Ellie.

“Hey.”

“Hi,” she said.

“What are you doing?”

“Waiting for you to call me, but I guess that was never going to happen. What are you doing?”

“Sorry, I was over at Q’s house.”

“Quentin Jenson?”

“Yep.”

She sounded serious now and asked, “What were you doing over there?”

“You won’t believe it. You need to see this. Can I come over and get you? I need to show you something.”

“Ok,” but he could hear a little apprehension in her voice.

“Be right there.”

When he got her back to his house, they went up to his room and he booted up the computer.

“What’s this all about?” Ellie asked.

“Just watch.”

He loaded up the tracking program Q emailed him and typed in the phone number. After a minute, the map came up and the blip was moving east. He turned to her and watched her study the computer screen. Her face showed confusion for a moment and then she looked scared.

“Is this—him?” She said.

He nodded his head, grinning.

“How?” She asked.

“I got Q to hack my cell phone and he used a special program his uncle wrote to find the phone number that sent the text message we all got last night. This is it.” He pointed to the number in a box at the top of the screen. “Then Q gave me this program that can track the cell phone anywhere in the country.”

“So, we can tell where he is?” She smiled.

He nodded.

“Where is this, now?” she asked pointing to the blip.

“Q said if the blip was moving then he was in a car or something. Hold on…” Luke played with the program and zoomed out so they could see he was in Pennsylvania. He zoomed back in and the map displayed roads and highways. “It looks like he’s on I-70 near Somerset Pennsylvania, heading this way.”

“What’s he doing?”

“I don’t know, but he was in Indiana earlier. Seems like a long way to drive. I wonder if he lives there.”

“Do you think he’s coming here to hurt somebody else?”

Luke shrugged. “Could be. I can’t even imagine what would be going on inside that psycho’s head.”

She stepped to him and hugged him. “We can go to the police now. We can show them where he is and they can take him away. We need to call Jaxon.”

“We will. As soon as we’re sure it’s him.”

“But you said it was his number.”

“How well do you trust a hacker?”

She turned away, thinking. “What are we going to do?”

“I was going to text a message to him and see if he responds like we expect. If he does, then we know it’s him.”

“Won’t that let him know we’re on to him?”

Luke frowned. “I was kind of worried about that too. I was about to text him before you called but I hesitated for some reason. Something was telling me to wait.” He smiled. “I guess I needed my smart girlfriend to see how stupid I am.”

She finally smiled at him. “Let’s figure this out together. There’s got to be a way we can tell if it’s him or not.”

* * *

Jaxon’s desk phone rang and he picked it up. “Jaxon.”

“It’s Holt.” Jaxon rolled his eyes and Sally chuckled. Apparently she could hear his voice from her desk. “I’ve got some interesting information for you.”

“Shoot. I’m going to put you on speaker so Sally can hear.”

“The Russians were not very forthcoming on our request for information. I wouldn’t count on anything coming out of Moscow, but we’ll sit for a few days and see if they bite on our offer.”

“What offer?” Jaxon asked.

“We promised them we’d back off of an investigation into their activities associated with a scam coming out of Western Iran through Dayton, Ohio. Nothing political, it’s all about money. They’ve been silent so far.”

“How can you promise that?”

“We lie.”

“Alright. That doesn’t help me.”

“The other thing you asked about has proven more lucrative. I’m optimistic this will help in the cold case in Indiana as well as your cases in Fairfax.”

Jaxon looked up at Sally who raised an eyebrow. “Sounds promising. What have you got?”

“An I.P. address and a physical address.”

“You’re serious.”

“As a heart attack. We’re going to Indiana in two hours. Benton’s agreed already and has cleared you. You two need to get your butts to Dulles and you’ll fly out on a company plane.”

Jaxon was grinning and Sally joined him. “Where do we meet you?”

“It won’t be me. As section Chief I get to coordinate, not participate. The agent I’ve assigned will meet you at the Custom’s office in two hours.”

“Who is it?” There was a pause and Jaxon thought he hung up.

“It’s Victoria. She’s worked on the cold case and is the most up to date on it. Problem?”

Jaxon swore under his breath. Sally smiled.

“Still there, Jaxon?”

“Yeah, I’m still here. Alright. Two hours.” And he punched off.

* * *

After a couple hours of racking their brains, William Smith actually made it easy for them. He texted Ellie.

Eliana Pemberton is not your real name.

She began to cry.

“He’s just messing with you,” Luke said, holding her against him. “You know that, right?”

She nodded against his chest, but then raised her eyes to his. “He’s right, though.”

He searched her eyes and saw something in them that confused him. “What do you mean? Eliana’s not your real name?”

“No, Eliana’s my name but I was born Eliana Ann Worthington. My mom’s maiden name is Pemberton and when my father left her, she had it legally changed back to it along with her children.”

“Why would she do that? I mean I guess I could understand her changing her name, but why yours?”

“She hated him. She told us she didn’t want any part of him left in our lives. He abused her, left her for dead, then took every bit of savings they had and left her penniless.”

“I’ve never heard this before.”

“I usually don’t make a habit of telling people. It just doesn’t occur to me. I’ve been Eliana Pemberton as long as I can remember.”

“When did she tell you?”

“When I was nine.”

“We were in third grade.”

She nodded. “Do you remember the week I missed school because I had the mumps?”

“Yes.”

“I wasn’t sick. I was upset. She had just told me.”

“I remember. You were sad for like a month after that. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I was embarrassed. My family was messed up and I felt small. All I wanted to do was hide.”

“You must have been young when he did all this,” Luke said.

She nodded. “I don’t remember him. I’ve only ever seen one picture of him. Patrick remembers him a little. He doesn’t talk about him much though. He was four when our Father left. I was two.”

“I’m sorry Ellie. That sucks. All this time I thought he was dead or something.”

“He might as well be.”

“Who knows all this?”

“My family, my grandma I guess, probably my aunt and uncle. Not many.”

“Then how did William Smith know it?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I’m so upset. I could care less about my father. This asshole seems to know everything about me and I want to know how.”

Luke smiled.

“Why are you smiling?”

“Let’s ask him how he knows.” And he explained what he wanted to do.