Flash Point (31 page)

They lock clicked, and she turned the knob, opened the door.

‘They, Mrs Viselli?' Jenna said. ‘Ashlee Haynie is married?'

Nanette stepped into the apartment's marble foyer. ‘Why, yes. To JP. I'm surprised you didn't already know that. Seems like the sort of thing you guys would uncover fairly quickly.'

As she continued into the depths of the apartment, calling out just in case they were wrong and someone
was
home after all, salmon flashed in.
Yes, it
is
the sort of thing we usually know about right away, especially while working victim profiles of a crime.

And yet Ashlee hadn't mentioned her husband or wanting to see him, nor had their searches into her background turned up any marriage certificates or evidence of legal marriage. Fuchsia flashed in as a strange feeling crept into Jenna's gut. They were in the right place, but she was starting to think the reason for it wasn't
quite
what she'd bargained for.

A silver-framed picture set on an antique white desk in the corner of the room pulled Jenna's attention. She picked it up and looked at the smiling couple in heavy winter coats. Ashlee Haynie and her husband JP – also known as Marius – grinning at the camera through the snow.

It suddenly all made sense. The goldenrod of deliberate overlook she'd seen when Marius had passed where Ashlee had claimed to be hiding in the bank, the spot where he'd have to have been blind to have missed her. Why the yellow – the unintentional overlook – she had seen in relation to the survivor at the hospital who was terrified and ready to fight for her life was such a contrast to the circumstances of Ashlee's survival at the bank. Marius hadn't only known her. She'd been a willing player.

‘What were you saying about them liking to do something together, Ms Viselli?' Jenna asked, her eyes still glued to the image featuring the man whose body she'd seen pale and blue last night in the Mt. Olive morgue.

Nanette Viselli wandered back toward Jenna, having finally called out to every corner and toward every room. She waved her hand, chuckling. ‘Aw, some kind of sword-fighting or something crazy like that! They even asked permission to use our aerobics room at the clubhouse so he could teach her some kind of thing he did with it in college. Wild, huh? If that was my husband's hobby, well, he'd just have to be on his own, because the closest you're getting me to any kind of fighting is a bidding war for a property I have my eye on!'

Nanette laughed, her teeth so bright white against that puce lipstick they looked almost unnatural, not too unlike the shiny marble columns around the fireplace she stood next to. Jenna's gaze drifted sideways from the landlady, noticing the black, lacquered shelves on the adjacent wall that started at the marble floor and stretched all the way to the ceiling itself.

Grey had seen it first and was already sauntering by the shelves as if she were a customer window shopping. Jenna crossed toward them. ‘I take it they also did a lot of reading.'

Nanette stayed where she was but turned to watch Jenna and Grey examine the bookcases. ‘Magnificent, aren't they? And not just the shelves. They've got quite a collection. A bit picky in taste, though.'

Jenna reached for a hardback copy of
The Catcher in the Rye
, opened it, and flipped through the worn pages. ‘What makes you say that?'

‘Probably more me being sore than anything,' Nanette said, taking a seat in the desk chair in front of the antique corner desk. ‘Just that, well, knowing they were big readers, I recommended my niece's book to them, and well …'

‘What?' Jenna coaxed, sensing some shame in Nanette's voice.

‘They seemed interested at first and asked about it, but …'

‘It's OK, Ms Viselli. This is just between us.'

‘Well, they were nice enough, but once they found out it was only available as an e-book, any interest they'd had in it before dissolved like that,' Nanette said, snapping her fingers. ‘They said it was nothing against my niece or anything, and how they were sure
her
book was fantastic, but that they just didn't buy many e-books since so many of the books available on that platform are self-published by people who wrote a first draft and put it up without ever editing it or anything. They said they had tried some but had ended up buying so many poorly written works because it was hard to tell the wheat from the chaff that they stopped buying e-books all together. Said they hadn't downloaded any in over two years and, even if they wanted to, wouldn't know where to look to find their old Books-E e-readers.'

From a few feet away came the sound of Grey grunting.

Jenna glanced over, and Grey was seated on the floor, legs crisscrossed, reading the first page of a tattered paperback version of
The Jungle.
She grunted again, this time a little louder. Let out a strange, amused laugh.

‘Something funny about that, Grey?' Jenna asked

Grey didn't look up. ‘If they stopped reading e-books two years ago, how come there's a new Books-E Glow on that end table,' Grey said, cocking her head toward the one of the pewter stands flanking either side of the white leather couch.

Sure enough, a Books-E Glow, the newest e-reader on the market, faced her, settled in its charging dock atop the table. Jenna glanced at the identical table mirroring it on the opposite side of the couch. No Books-E Glow, but there was a matching charging dock for one, its cord snaking behind the couch to plug into an outlet.

They both had e-readers but didn't read e-books. One was here, one missing. Most likely this one was Marius's, and Ashlee had hers with her wherever she'd gone.

And she took her Books-E with her. The one she doesn't read books on.

Flint had mentioned that the locations of the meetings were never given on the forum, that they'd found other ways. They had the email account to get the URL of the website Black Shadow members used to share things like the video footage of attacks for Ishmael to see, and yet, no details about dry-runs or the coming attacks were on those. It
had
to be getting more and more dangerous to get that big group together in person, so they couldn't be meeting every time they needed to discuss the locations and dates to show up for the next blitz. Besides, with a group as ragtag as the people who made up Black Shadow, the fact that many
were
empathetic like Marius and the dry-heaving Scout was dangerous. Atticus and Ishmael were smarter than that.

Just like the ever-moving website used to share information after talking on a stationary, forum became too risky, once again, Black Shadow's leaders had found a better way.

That better way would tell her how to stop the third attack promised in the note at the hospital. The only problem was, as much as Grey knew about literature, if they didn't know what book to look for on the e-reader – if they even
needed
to look for a book on the e-reader – her weird human trick was of no use. And as many things as Jenna could elicit from her color associations, no color in any shade or variation of the rainbow was going to flash in and explain to her how a terrorist network's system of communication through e-readers worked. In the corner of her vision, a small curio cabinet caught her attention. Inside were at least a dozen pieces of
Gone With the Wind
memorabilia, from the classic poster, to character portraits, to a figurine centerpiece of a classic southern belle.

I've found you, Scarlett.

Cutthroat UNSUB finally had a name.

The memory of her conversation with Flint Lewis resurfaced and the new Black Shadow members who had inspired him to break away from the group. A bluish hue flashed in.

Mr Darcy and Scarlett …

She didn't have the slightest clue how the process of communicating via the e-readers might even begin to work.

She'd let Irv look at it when she got back, but she suspected she knew someone who already had the answer.

Jenna was relieved when Flint Lewis answered his phone after the first ring. This whole thing had her on edge, and while part of it was nerves that if she couldn't get hold of the one person who could crack this communication system, odds got better more people would die, another part couldn't shake off the concern about the very real danger Flint and his family were in. Danger Jenna's team had
put
them in by risking them attracting the attention of Black Shadow. Getting Flint back on their radar.

‘Flint, so glad to hear your voice. Listen, I know we've already asked so much of you after you'd put this behind you, tried your best to steer clear of these awful people …
especially
with your sweet wife carrying the next addition to your family and a toddler to care for—'

‘But,' Flint interjected, his voice flat. Angry?

Jenna bit her lip and closed her eyes. ‘I need your help one more time. I wouldn't ask again. I really wouldn't, Flint,' she said, cringing through every word. She knew better than anyone about trying to get away from your past. Keep your family safe. ‘But lives depend on it.'

‘And what about my
family
and
our
lives? They not important enough?' came Flint's reply, his tone loud and seething.

Something was different. Something had changed since they'd run out of his home toward the scene of the hospital attack. He sounded mad on the surface, but there was more to it.

‘What's happened, Flint? What's going on?'

‘They
know
, Doctor,'
he fumed. ‘They know I logged on. I don't know how they know, but I know they do. They know I logged on, they know I dug around. I'm just …' he paused, his trailing words losing fire. He took a rattling breath. ‘I'm just worried.'

Jenna's chest clenched. She knew the feeling better than he'd ever know.

‘Help me put them away, Flint. I know how to get them, and I'm close. All I need is one piece of information I don't have.'

The silence seemed to go on for minutes until finally, Flint sighed. ‘And I suppose you think I do?'

Jenna took the slight opening and launched into everything: finding Marius's dead body, identifying him and Ashlee, his apartment, the e-readers. She told the landlady's story about their aversion toward e-books, then filled him in on how she'd made the leap to them being a communication system.

‘I'm sure they use them to pass information to each other without being traced, but I can't tap into it unless I know their technique. I know this is probably something they put in place long after you were out of the picture, but I guess I was hoping …' Jenna paused. How to explain?

Flint said nothing, but Jenna could hear him breathing heavily on the other end, assuring her he hadn't hung up.

‘Please, Flint,' she said finally.

When he spoke again, his voice sounded tired, frayed at the edges. ‘If they're doing what I think they are, they're using the same method as on the old forum when we wanted to get all the members to a private chat room all at once to talk about something we didn't want the Internet to keep a record of,' Flint explained.

Somehow, Jenna was pretty sure those private chats probably had more nefarious reasons, but for now, she wouldn't argue.

‘How did you get in touch? Pass messages?'

‘I made an account on one of the online book review sites and did a review of a book. All the members of the private forum were given the title I'd reviewed, and every day, they knew to check my account there. It would pull up my reviewer stats, and in turn, they could see if I had posted any new reviews.'

‘So, if you had, I take it that they clicked out to that review, where there would be a message waiting for them hidden in it,' Jenna said, catching on.

‘Something like that.'

But on an e-reader, could you click out on individual reviewer handles? Would it even show reviewers stats?

Flint seemed to have spotted the problem, too. ‘I know what you're thinking, but I think I know how it works. The more messages we used, the longer the list of reviews under my handle and people got sick of wading through them, trying to figure out which was newest,
if
one was new, etc. So we simplified by deciding on a single book title. Instead of checking my review handle every day, members checked that book's page for any new reviews posted that contained the phrase ‘right now' in any capacity as a part of the title of the review. It was a much more sustainable system, though I have to admit the review titles got pretty creative.'

‘So how do we know what book they're checking now?' Jenna asked.

‘I can't be sure,' Flint said, ‘But if I had to guess, I'd say they've already told you. I'd say it'd be the book that brought you to Black Shadow in the first place.
A Tale of Two Cities.
'

‘Is the review in some kind of code?' Jenna asked.

‘Probably,' Flint replied.

‘Can you read it?'

Flint half-laughed. ‘If your point about how some things change while everything stays the same holds up. Guess we might as well see. Booting up my tablet now.'

Jenna waited, forcing herself not to ask more questions or otherwise distract Flint from looking for a hidden message in the reviews of
A Tale of Two Cities
.

Almost fifty people had been brutally murdered this week. She needed Flint to give her information. She needed at least a chance of stopping anyone from seeing this brand of horror even one more time.

‘I'm almost done,' Flint said, his voice jarring Jenna from her thoughts of the bank and the hospital emergency room. ‘I think I know where the next attack's going to be.'

What he said next made Jenna's heart leap into her throat. She couldn't breathe. Or swallow. So many people … and they didn't have much time.

Phone still to her ear, she headed for the Haynies' apartment door, grabbing Grey by the wrist and practically dragging her toward the exit without explaining to her or Nanette Viselli. All she could think was to get to her car. Go!