Flash Point (19 page)

‘Whoa, stop!' Yancy said, noticing the numbers on his screenshot and the numbers scrolling in another window sync up, forming a pattern.

The text in another window stopped as Irv halted typing. ‘Whatcha got?'

‘The numbers in the far right database. Whatever library that is, that's our location. All of the card numbers start with 3 0009. Those are the first five digits of our eighteen!'

Irv clicked on the far right window with the matching numbers, and it burst in front of the others. ‘I'll be damned,' he said. ‘Every card here only has fourteen digits, but let's give it a whirl.'

The keys Irv hit manifested on Yancy's screen. ‘Could it be that easy? As easy as them being in order?'

Irv continued typing, windows shooting up all over the screen again. ‘Hey, sometimes the simplest answer is the most likely. Besides, from what I hear about what it took to
get
these numbers to me, if they hid this bitch in a code so only the worthy could find it, the fact that we have the digits to plug them in makes us worthy.'

The search done for the first fourteen digits of the eighteen, Irv's fancy footwork had yielded a single result now glowing at Yancy from his own computer screen: a picture of a library card.

Irv's voice cracked in Yancy's ears. ‘Shut up now, I'm on the phone.' Then, ‘Hey, Dr Dangerous. I had to try a few things, but I've got something for you. Head back toward Bethesda. I'm sending you an address.'

After about forty minutes on the highway and ten minutes too many of Grey's whistling, Jenna led the group from the SUV down the sidewalk toward the building that housed the Suellen B. Holloway Memorial Library, which just
happened
to be attached to an elementary school in Falls Church, Virginia.

‘Google Maps informs me we could hit a nice, spacious public library in this area approximately … I don't know, every time we
turn around
, but these creeps send us to an elementary school's media center,' Porter whispered to Jenna as they walked. ‘You think this is some kind of sick threat?'

Jenna's throat tightened, and for a moment, Ayana's smiling face popped to mind, the expression the exact one she'd been wearing when Jenna had ducked out of dropping her off in her classroom to book it toward the bloody bank scene left by the killers. She stopped walking, her eyes on the ground.

Bloody handprints. Charley's face, blue and pale. So limp next to the toilet.

Footsteps! Go! Run!

Charley!

‘Whoa, cowgirl,' Dodd's voice jogged her back to reality, his hands clasping her biceps on either side, firm.

It felt good. She hadn't even realized until his steady pressure had rooted her that she'd been swaying on the spot.

She shook the thought away, breathed in and out, two deep, cleansing breaths, shaping her lips into a thin O so she'd be forced to exhale more slowly than her rapid heartbeat told her to. After a few seconds, she nodded to no one in particular. Opened her eyes.

‘I'm OK.'

Dodd squeezed her right shoulder, and they all continued for the building. If the location
was
a threat, time was of the essence.

Stop worrying. A is safe.

I think.

They passed through the glass doorway and were met by a young, attractive blonde woman with a grin so huge and eyes so wide and bright, either she'd just downed a whole case of Red Bull or she was a fembot.

‘Hi, there! I'm Hattie Zimmerman. I'm the media specialist here at Eagle Stone Elementary.'

Dodd introduced them all, and Jenna shook hands with Hattie Zimmerman when it was her turn. She took in the plump, rosy cheeks, the eager-to-help demeanor that seemed to exude from every pore the same way the uncanny sheen from her skin did.

Dodd finished by presenting Grey as a special guest consultant on the case.

If it was possible, Hattie Zimmerman smiled even wider and more intensely at the mention of Grey's expertise in linguistics and literature. ‘It is such an honor! My parents just never have understood why I chose the career I did. You know what they say, though. You have to do what you love.' She turned her back, waved them along. ‘Come on over to the desk. Not sure what exactly y'all are gonna need from me, but I'll do my best to accommodate in any way I can.'

The group followed Hattie's curvy hourglass frame past tables and chairs set on colorful rugs, then several rows of waist-high bookshelves. Jenna fleetingly thought of whipping her phone out and shooting Charley a quick text to check on Ayana but fought it. A was fine. She'd checked in with all three parties on patrol twice since meeting McKenzie McClendon in the parking lot and gotten the all-clear responses.
Concentrate.

The round service counter that apparently served as the hub of the media center came into view. As Hattie slipped through one of the swinging doors and had a seat at the first of two inset cubicles, Porter caught up to Jenna and propped his elbows on the counter.

‘You have to do what you love?' he said. ‘I wish someone had told me that. I love eating bacon.'

Jenna looked around for Grey, expecting a jab, but Grey had wandered over to one of the shelves they'd passed and was now seated on the floor with her legs crisscrossed, a colorful picture book about butterflies open on her lap. Jenna turned back to see Hattie continuing to peck away at keys on the computer.

Finally, she tapped a key hard, then turned the monitor to face them, saying, ‘There! You should be all set. This is the library card account your data analyst requested, and if you scroll through, you can view all activity on the card. When it was applied for, when received, which books were checked out, in, any late fees, etc. I still don't entirely understand how it'll help, but I guess that's why we leave it to the professionals.'

Hattie slipped through the little doorway but scooted a stool inside the command center to prop the door from clicking shut. ‘Anyhoo, feel free to go on in, peruse, find whatever you need. If you run into something you need my help with, holler.'

As Hattie strolled away carrying an armful of books to return to their individual homes, Jenna entered the library command center and sat behind the computer. Irv had figured out the eighteen digits were this fourteen digit library card number and the four leftover digits after you took away the fourteen for the card were the pin number on the account. They'd have to figure out the next steps, but before they could do that, Jenna pressed Saleda's speed dial on her smartphone. She needed to relay some info, and she also needed orders.

‘What do you have?' Saleda asked as she picked up.

Jenna relayed all the information she could about the individual the library card was registered to. Name, birthdate, mailing address, phone numbers, e-mail address, and then some.

‘Irv sent you the picture, right?' Jenna asked.

‘I have an image of the whole card on my tablet, and yes, he also sent a picture of the card's owner. You think Paul Neary is involved with the terrorists?'

Jenna stood up and paced in the confines of the round media center hub. ‘No, I really don't,' she said, picturing the clean-cut face of the middle-aged, balding guy with sandy-colored sideburns who they now knew had taught sixth grade Pre-Algebra here at Eagle Stone Elementary for seven years and counting. ‘I have Irv checking on him in depth, but no. I'd seriously doubt any of our UNSUBS even know the guy. If they made us dig through a letter so loaded with code that you can't find it for all the code, it wouldn't be their style to bring us straight to them.'

‘Go ahead and send Porter to his classroom to interview him just in case. You and Dodd can tackle whatever you need to do there. Which, speaking of, do you have any idea what that is?'

‘Frankly, I was hoping you'd have some ideas,' Jenna sighed, plopping down in the computer chair. ‘I'm brainstorming, but I'm at a loss so far.'

‘Let's hang up so you can send jock boy out on his mission. That'll free up two brains to think easier. Teva and I will dig through the library records as soon as Irv sends the copy he's making. In the meantime, maybe get Grey to focus on the guy's library records in conjunction with the McKenzie letter. They made this thing to lead to something. The answer's got to be here somewhere.'

Jenna nodded, glancing to where Grey was lying on her stomach, the butterfly book open on the floor between where her elbows were propped, chin resting on her fists. ‘Will do. Thanks, Saleda.'

‘Call if you have something. We'll check in soon if we don't hear anything.'

‘Ditto, that. Bye,' Jenna said.

Porter left straight away after Jenna relayed his orders, seeming thrilled to have an escape from Grey. Dodd took the tactic of following Hattie around the library as she attended to her responsibilities, asking her questions that were ultimately hooks without teeth. Jenna took a seat back at the computer and resumed her search of Paul Neary's library records. She clicked the mouse to bring up another window on Paul Neary's library account page, this time a history of holds he'd placed on books, titles he'd requested, and a few other things.

As she scrolled through the list, she could hear Dodd's voice across the room as he lobbed question after question at Hattie. Had any strangers been to or called the library recently? Did she know if any faculty regularly attended groups designed to bring together intellectuals, like MENSA? Were any outside groups allowed to use the school facilities for get-togethers: maybe Alcoholics Anonymous held a meeting there, or maybe a women's club hosted a fundraiser?

Jenna kept thinking if only she looked hard enough, far enough …
stared long enough
at this account's pages, something would pop out at her. The letter had sent them here.
Something
was here.

As Jenna's ideas of how to figure out the next step circled round and round in her mind with no clear path, her agitation seemed to whip itself into a frenzy until it felt like she was about to boil over. She beat her fist hard on the marble countertop, shoved back from the desk, and stood again. There
had
to be a way to figure it out.

‘Damn, that hurt! Why the hell did I do that?'

Dodd had heard her outburst and was a few feet away now, heading back to check on her. ‘That counter was obviously being deliberately unhelpful. Somebody had to teach it a lesson.'

Jenna turned her hand over, expecting it to be red, but it wasn't. Still, it throbbed.

They both leaned against the counter. Jenna grimaced, squeezed the pad of her right hand, trying to massage out whatever kinks she'd jammed into it. She shook her head. ‘Seriously, Dodd, I don't know
when
the last time was I've knocked the fire out of my fist that hard … No, wait. I actually do remember. I was at the ATM a few weeks ago …'

But Jenna stopped talking, walked away from the counter and Dodd. Something had flashed, and she'd missed the color by milliseconds.
Come on, brain. Let me see that again …

She'd been thinking about hitting her fist on the ATM machine! Right!

This time, Jenna didn't miss the frustrated pewter blue-gray that flashed in. Just like it had when she'd been agitated at the ATM. She'd beat the side of it, pissed because she could only get three of the four digits of her PIN number to register on the screen, and she needed to pick up Pull-Ups on the way home. It was a freak connection, but it gave her an idea.

‘Hattie, I need your help!' she called in a voice loud enough to make any librarian Jenna had ever known die of offense on the spot.

‘Of course, of course. I'll be right there,' Hattie called.

Jenna rushed back to the computer and clicked through the account information page, double-checked the dates on when the account was opened. That no changes had been made to it. They hadn't.

Hattie rushed to the media hub.

‘Can anyone besides the librarian or the card account holder access records of what books have been checked out with the card, when, etc.?' Jenna asked.

The color flash had jarred the PIN number to the forefront of her mind. It was
important
that the terrorists had given them the PIN.

Hattie shook her head. ‘They would need both the account number, which is the library card number, and the PIN number.'

Jenna turned to Dodd, her heart picking up. ‘Then, for some reason, they want us to look through the records of books on this guy's account. And
they
have his PIN number. We can put Irv to work on making connections to Paul Neary to get some possible leads on who might have access, but right now, it's more important we know they
have
it. They tacked on those numbers to the end of the code. If they hadn't needed them, they wouldn't have been in there.

‘They wanted whoever solved the code to end up logging into Paul Neary's records—'

‘Hey, guys!' Porter's voice called, and a door slammed behind him.

In the next moment, he came into vision, jogging toward them, a tall, graying man in khakis and a white button-down keeping pace just behind him, his blue-striped tie flapping side to side. Jenna's heart quickened even more. Running never meant good things.

‘This is Paul Neary,' Porter said, a hitchhiker thumb over his shoulder indicating the teacher and coach. ‘He does have the library card with the number we used, and he has checked out books here before—'

‘But not in over two years,' Paul Neary said, seeming to only half-understand the weight of his statement. He glanced around at each agent in turn and shrugged. ‘Will someone please tell me what the
hell
is going on?'

Jenna and Dodd shared a glance, then Jenna's eyes travelled to where Grey was still on the floor with her butterfly book, only now on her back, feet crossed at the ankles.