Jaden Baker (60 page)

Mr. Fain leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. A defensive posture. “What’s he done? Why are you looking for him?”

“He’s killed,” Madrid said. “More men than I’d care to admit to.”

Mr. Fain’s chair fell forward. “He’s killed people?”

“Yes,” Madrid replied, scratching his chin. “Hard to believe is it?”

“Why aren’t the FBI here?” Fain asked.

“The FBI have other matters to attend to. They say they don’t have adequate proof Joel ever harmed anyone. And anyway, all the crimes were committed in one state. But we know what he did. May I ask some questions about him?”

Mr. Fain frowned. “He didn’t seem like a killer. Are you sure?”

Madrid and Dillard exchanged a look. “Why doesn’t he seem the type? What was he like?”

“Well,” Mr. Fain started, easing back into his chair as he looked to the ceiling. “Quiet, mostly. He always kept to himself, never ate lunch with the guys. Hell, he didn’t do anything with them. I used to watch him sometimes. Every lunch, rain or shine, he’d go out by himself and read a book. Joel’s a smart kid, I guessed he didn’t like people much.”

“You’re a trained observer,” Madrid said, smiling. Compliments always went a long way. “No, he’s not a fan of other people, and he does love to read. I’d almost forgotten that,” he said, grinning at Dillard as if reminiscing about an old friend.

“He was really helpful, for a price. Spoke at least two other languages.”

That was new. Dillard eyed Madrid and jotted down some notes.

“What languages?”

“Russian and German,” he answered. “Fluent in both. Just the other day I had him up here translating for me, in Russian. He’s so good at it he told a joke.”

The temperature seemed to drop. Speaking other languages opened new possibilities for the boy. He could slip on a boat and travel internationally. They hadn’t acted soon enough. Madrid assumed Jaden would stay in the United States, but he could blend in anywhere...

They both left Fain’s office then, offering their thanks.

“What about the woman he came into the hospital with?” Dillard asked as they walked toward their cars. “Should we look for her?”

The mystery woman crossed his mind, but his gut told him Baker wouldn’t trust anyone for help, especially, as Nurse Blithely commented, if she recognized the Archcroft symbol. The boy wouldn’t trust anyone associated with Archcroft. The mystery woman wouldn’t be able to provide any information they didn’t already have. He’d ordered a sketch of her but had not seen it. He focused on finding credible leads.

“But if she recognized Archcroft, then maybe she’s one of us. What if she helped him?”

He shook his head at Dillard. “No, he wouldn’t accept help. And a lot of people know the Archcroft symbol, we’re a public entity.”

They got into their respective cars, but Madrid did not drive to their temporary headquarters. He wanted to explore the area, and requested that Dillard do the same. Since today was Friday, all businesses were open. Trucks were being loaded. Cars were parked in front of buildings. Customers walked in and out of glass doors. He drove up and down streets, insisting other cars pass him when they needed to, searching for a building with no activity.

He thought he saw Baker a few times, but knew it was just his imagination. Baker wasn’t fifteen anymore. What if he had taken a boat and was now in Russia, disappearing forever? He avoided detection for ten years; if he fled the country, they may never find him again.

His cell phone rang, glowing and vibrating on the passenger seat. It was Dillard.

“Yes?” he answered.

“It may be nothing. I’m parked in front of an old warehouse building. There’s no one here.”

“Address?” Madrid asked, and he drove there as fast as he could, feeling more excited than he had in years. When he parked alongside Dillard’s car and saw the building, he knew this was it.

The door was large, sliding, and solid steel. There was no lock on the outside, and when Madrid pulled, it gave a little then wouldn’t move anymore. “It’s locked from the inside.”

“The bottom floor windows are bricked in, and the fire escape ladder is gone,” Dillard said. “I think this is it.”

Madrid knew it was. Only Jaden could lock a door like this from the inside. There was no key, no way to get in. If the windows were bricked, and the fire escape removed, then this front door was the only access point.

“Get the jaws of life,” Madrid said.

He couldn’t help it; he smiled.

When the boy escaped from San Francisco, he’d left virtually no trace. It was by sheer luck they had found him heading east through Livermore. A Ford Focus had been stolen in the radius they were searching, then spotted by their helicopter later. Finding him had been fortuitous—but it wasn’t stealthy enough.

Now Baker left clues, imprints of memories and behaviors on people.

The jaws of life pried open the door, snapping a chain. Before them was a wall of crates, Baker’s barrier.

Removing the crates took some time. Once the last division was removed, Madrid entered his quarry’s lair.

The ground floor was mostly clear, and remarkably clean. A punching bag hung from the strongest beam of the second floor. Several trash cans had hoses and piping leading to them from the story above. Madrid’s eyes naturally followed them to the upper level. He couldn’t see much from this angle. There were no stairs. A ladder was tucked on the top floor, which was further confirmation that Baker lived here.

Madrid requested a ladder, then climbed up.

What greeted his eyes was shocking. It was a full-sized home, complete with kitchen, living room, bedroom and even a functioning bathroom. There were kitchen cabinets, shelves of food, and opposite that wall, bookshelves filled with books.

“Whoa,” Dillard said, reaching the top and standing beside him. “This is unexpected.”

“Yes,” Madrid mumbled as he walked through. “Call the team.”

He had always known Jaden was intelligent, but what he found in that rudimentary apartment was more than intelligence, it was innovation. The way the bathroom functioned, how the kitchen sink operated, how every piece of furniture except the couch, was constructed not purchased...

Among the things they found was a litter box. Jaden had a cat.

Madrid read over the book titles on the shelves. Baker had books on advanced physics and calculus, as well as basic to advanced engineering. World and American history. Classics like
Moby Dick, Dracula, Pride and Prejudice, David Copperfield,
and
Kidnapped
, among others. His modern collection was more limited but still contained dozens of books.

The books he understood. They allowed Jaden to escape the world to which he belonged. Where most people read books for recreational purposes, Baker took it to the next level. He depended on them for an escape, having nowhere else to go. The book collection reinforced what Madrid already knew: rather than form connections with real people, Jaden opted to bond with the fictional, delving deeper into fantastical worlds instead of dealing with his own. He imagined Baker on his days off, pouring over his books, blocking out the world around him.

Madrid couldn’t help admiring Jaden’s thirst for knowledge. If he studied languages in addition to science and history, he did so for the pure joy of learning, trying to know the society he didn’t want to be a part of. Though a contradiction to the untrained eye, Madrid recognized this desperate seeking of knowledge and languages as a failed attempt to rejoin and connect with the world.

Jaden Baker knew carpentry, having designed and constructed his own furnishings. That, above everything else, was the most fascinating. The game changed. The boy was looking for roots. Madrid was wrong: Seattle was Baker’s first and only destination. He had not traveled aimlessly, going from one job to the next. Seattle was his home.

While the staff dusted for fingerprints to confirm Jaden had lived here, Madrid plucked a chemistry book from the shelf, and sat on the couch to read. He derived a sense of pleasure from it, sitting on Jaden’s furniture, reading his book, being where he had been, his long lost project.

Jaden had written copious notes in the margins of the book, underlining and highlighting formulas he didn’t understand, or wanted to remember. Dalton had started him with the basics of chemistry, but this was advanced. Jaden had jotted his own notes, scribbled drawings of chemicals and formulations. The pages were filled with them.

His cell phone rang, this time it was Sam. When he answered he heard static. He hung up the phone and waited for Sam to call again. The phone rang, but there was still static.

Madrid closed the book and told Dillard he was leaving the building to take a call. Dillard pulled the contents of Jaden’s desk and organized the files and papers in a pile. A dozen other people inventoried everything in the building, analyzing how things worked, taking photos, removing books and boxing them away. There could be no evidence that Jaden Baker had ever been here.

As he descended the ladder, Madrid noted three men on the bottom floor trying to peel a tarp from the ceiling, the base of the second floor. They assumed, Madrid included, it was a catch for anything that fell from the first floor, like water dripping from the bathroom, and would drain through the pipe to the garbage can on the ground level.

He strode outside, walking across the street as he dialed Sam’s number.

“Joseph?” Sam asked.

“Yes, what do you have?” Madrid walked further from the building, his reception growing stronger.

“Nothing yet, just checking in. What did you find?”

“The boy’s been busy. His home is littered with books. I just found a chemistry book filled with his own calculations and notes. If he’s been studying on his own it means he’s too afraid to get help. That’s a good thing.”

There was silence on Sam’s end for a moment. “What kind of chemistry?”

But what kind Madrid didn’t say.

A thundering explosion shook the ground, a brick and steel cacophony, sending shock waves through the air. Madrid was hurtled off his feet, flying fifteen feet, and landing hard on the sidewalk. A terrible pain raced down the back of his head and into his back. Eyes wide, he turned with his hand over his head, looking for the source of the explosion, covering his bleeding head with his arms, saving himself from the bits of debris now falling to earth.

The brick warehouse was ablaze, flames curling out of every remaining window, black smoke billowing, and the high-pitched scream of burning wood, steal, and human flesh crackling through the hot, pungent air.

Libby insisted all computer work, including studying a map, could only be done properly with music in the background. Before leaving for lunch with her client, she gave him a selection of CDs to be played on the stereo should he chose to listen. To appease her, he told her to pick one for him, and she put on Bach, one of her favorites. One of his favorites, too. He grumbled when she left, recognizing the burning feeling in his gut as jealousy.

With dramatic music in the background, and a pseudo-realistic landscape on the screen in front of him, Jaden planned. If it weren’t for the freezing winters, he would have loved to move to Alaska. The wild landscape and close proximity to Russia had its appeal. He knew islands like Hawaii were out of the question, as escape options were limited.

Seattle had provided him a great many options. Because it was populated, there was a smaller chance of being picked out of the crowd; important when he was younger and wholly unfamiliar with current events and unable to be employed without raising questions. Now he was twenty-five, those issues didn’t matter.

From what he knew about small towns (mainly from books), the smaller the town, the more closely knit the community. If a stranger arrived, looking for work and a place to live, they’d ask questions. He would stick out.

Which limited him to cities, but not just in the United States. He spoke a variety of languages with varying degrees of fluency. When he took it upon himself to become as well versed as possible, he started with languages of countries in which he could most easily hide, countries with people who looked like him. He could live anywhere in Europe, the Slavic countries, and, because he had dark hair, possibly many more. Canada was only miles away. His light complexion and gray eyes were ill suited for Africa, Central and South America, India, and other Asian countries.