"Look, I didn't - er - there was a problem with that customer," he said. “I think my assistant might have done the incorrect admin.”

  He opened his phone with shaking hands. He clearly did not want to go into the police station. Cami had the strong feeling that the list of his misdoings would not stop at one. He was now deciding cooperation was better than arrest, but he was blaming an invisible assistant for his wrongdoing.

  Connor read through the messages, giving no indication that he was doing so for the second time.

  "It seems you sold this car, and then you reported it stolen?" he said.

  "It - it was an honest mistake. I'm an honest salesperson," he spluttered. “Honest Bruce, that’s me. I really don’t know how that happened. It was an admin error, for sure.”

  "I'm sure it was just an honest mistake," Connor said. "I'm sure that before we've even left the premises, you'll be making a few calls and withdrawing that stolen vehicle report, won't you?"

  "Absolutely. I will. I promise." Now, he was sweating. Cami could see the perspiration beading on his wide forehead.

  "You need to remember that insurance fraud is a serious offense. It's a felony. You've got a jail sentence of up to five years coming your way, and this looks like a pretty cut-and-dried case to me."

  "I - it was a genuine error. Genuine."

  "Good. Now that we've cleared that up, it appears this vehicle was used in a serious crime. Two serious crimes, in fact," Connor said, and Cami's eyes widened. While they were waiting at the gate, he must have received footage of the earlier crime as well from that street camera and seen the same car in the vicinity of the other dumping site.

  "I really didn't know that was going to happen," Bruce protested.

  "Absolutely. You had no idea. But now, we need to get information from you, which I'm sure you'll be willing to provide."

  "What do you need?" Honest Bruce asked.

  "We need to know what the buyer looked like. Any identifying characteristics? You have a name for him, I assume?"

  "I - I took his name, yes. His name is Bob – Bob – er - someone." He made a face. It was an expression that told Cami he was regretting all his life choices from the moment he'd agreed to do the deal with Bob No-last-name-given. If Bob was even the man’s first name, which she now doubted.

  Connor's grim nod told Cami that he understood this cash deal had been transacted without the need for any mundane details like proof of identity.

  "Address?"

  "I might not have asked for that. It was - it was up to him to reregister the vehicle, you know. I just sold it."

  "You just sold it, of course. Now. What did this man look like?"

  "He was - well, he was about five-seven. Brown hair. Sort of an average looking guy."

  "What was he wearing?" Cami asked, wondering if there was anything distinctive like a red jacket.

  "Jeans, a brown coat," Bruce mumbled, dashing her hopes.

  "Did you get him on camera?" Connor demanded.

  Bruce squirmed miserably. "We might have - we might have been out of sight of the cameras when the car was handed over. Just coincidentally."

  Cami guessed he was telling the truth in that regard. When planning on committing insurance fraud, you definitely did not want your cash sale captured on camera.

  "Okay." Connor paused, and Cami could see he was weighing up the situation. "I don’t have time to follow up on your actions now, but that doesn’t mean I am going to let you get away with it. You’ve been operating a criminal racket here.”

  “This was the first time it’s ever happened,” the man mumbled. “I’ve had a hospital bill to pay. I know I shouldn’t have done it. My kid bust his arm and needed an operation, and business is so slow in the winter, and I guess I was desperate.”

  Cami doubted his story, it sounded like a version of ‘one lady owner and lightly driven’ that she was sure all his customers got. But she didn’t doubt the fear in his eyes as he was forced to confront the consequences of his actions. That was all too real.

  “I'm going to send the local police around to take a look at your books. They can decide whether to take action. And I'm going to make sure they drop in from time to time to do a spot check. Ultimately, if you keep doing this, the insurance company is going to get you at some stage soon. They’re not fools. They might even have gotten you this time. So consider this an early warning, and a lucky escape. A chance to take a different path in life."

  "I appreciate it," Bruce said in a small voice.

  Connor turned and strode out of the office, with Cami following.

  As he walked, he was already on the phone to the FBI offices.

  "We need an urgent trace on a phone number," he said.

  Cami guessed that the chances of getting the information would be small. After all, this man hadn't even given his full name when he'd bought the car. It was very likely that he'd used a burner phone.

  Connor gave the number to whoever he was speaking to at his office. Listening to the one sided conversation gave Cami a pang of regret, because when she'd first been brought in on cases, that person would have been Ethan, and now Ethan was dead, and she could never hear Connor having those talks without remembering him. The sharp way Ethan had replied, his speed, his passion for getting the work done fast. His dedication to his job.

  It reminded her all over again that Ethan had tried to act. He'd seen there was something wrong within the FBI, that someone was behaving in a way they shouldn't, and he'd tried to find out more, but they'd found him first.

  Cami knew that a vein of rot within such a massive organization was a possibility, but it was deeply hidden, and now, she was the one who had to take the risk and danger, and try to root it out.

  They got back into the car. And then, Connor's phone rang.

  He answered it, sounding cautiously hopeful. "You got something?"

  "This is surprising in the circumstances, but we got a trace on the number," the man on the other end of the line replied.

  "Good work. Where is it?"

  "West of where you are. Pin drop coming through."

  In another moment, Connor’s phone beeped, and to Cami’s astonishment, they had the location, about ten miles from where they were. The actual location of the man who’d bought the truck that had dumped the body.

  This was a breakthrough that could see the case solved.

  The number was live, the phone was active, and now the chase was on.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Cami was on the edge of her seat – literally, as Connor drove. They were tracking down the cellphone number of the man who'd bought the car used to dump both the bodies. This was a seriously strong lead. She’d thought that the case would end up with her searching through the victims’ phones for clues and links. That had often happened in the past. This time, though, a different set of evidence was blazing the trail forward.

  Would she and Connor be face to face with the killer soon?

  It seemed likely. She stared through the windshield, nerves fizzing inside her. This could get dangerous.

  The radio was crackling with updates as they got onto the main road heading west.

  "It looks like the phone's location is a halfway house institution," the agent who was doing the tracking from the FBI offices said.

  "That's a place for paroled convicts," Connor muttered to her, and Cami's eyes widened. Paroled convicts? That was what they were heading toward?

  “Any idea on the details?” Connor asked. “Number of residents, layout?”

  "I’m on the phone now, asking,” he said, and paused. “The manager says the place consists of two main buildings, with six rooms in each. So a twelve bed setup, for men only. I'm not sure how many people are in the building right now," the agent continued.

  "Nobody must be allowed to leave," Connor said. "Entry allowed, but no exit, until we’ve arrived."

  “I’ll tell him that.”

  "Also, we need to keep things very calm. It's better that nobody's forewarned," Connor said. "We don't want this guy figuring out we're coming."

  He accelerated along the road, lights activated, but not siren. The pin drop was getting closer. Cami watched it in trepidation.

  Had an ex-convict committed these crimes?

  "These halfway houses are all very different," Connor said to her, once the radio conversation was over for the time being. "Some are well run, others not so much. I don't know what we'll be going into here."

  Cami's stomach twisted harder. She stared ahead at where they were going.

  Connor's fast drive had taken him out of town, and now they were heading into an area that was a mix of small industrial buildings, wooded areas, and the occasional housing complex. He turned down a cul-de-sac and sped along it. Once more, he got into radio contact.

  “Is the phone still on site?” he asked.

  “Still there and turned on.”

  “Can you get a more accurate location on it?”

  “I’m trying, but I’m not getting any luck. It might be that he’s moving around within the building.”

  Cami remembered the rather vague description that Bruce had given them, which she wasn’t sure if they could even trust. A man with brown hair, average height, and he hadn't been wearing anything distinctive. In a place like this, there might be a few people fitting that, she worried.

  A low, steel fence at the end of the road, with two hulking buildings beyond, signaled the halfway house. The gates were closed, but a mustached man in a black parka with a badge on the pocket was waiting beside them.

  "Agent Connor, and Cami Lark," Connor introduced them, showing his badge.

  The man nodded, pressing a button to open the gate.

  "I'm the manager of this place, and we've got about five or six of our occupants here at the moment. Two are out, and the rest are at work. I haven't said anything to anyone, and I'll stay here by the gate so that nobody leaves."

  "That sounds like a plan," Connor said.

  He drove through the gate and up to the paved parking lot between the two buildings. There was no sign of the black Dodge pickup. Cami guessed that if this pickup had been bought for cash and used by a killer, it was hidden far away from the halfway house where this criminal was supposedly reintegrating with society.

  "Any update on that phone?" Connor asked on the radio as he walked toward the first building.

  "I'm battling to get a clearer signal on it," his contact replied. "Network is patchy here."

  "Keep trying," Connor encouraged him.

  He walked into the first building. Cami followed, finding herself in a small lobby. There were steel lockers, coat hooks, and a scuffed, tiled floor. The desk at the far end was empty, with nobody in attendance.

  Beyond, though, she could hear voices coming from a small living room. Smoke filtered out, and she followed Connor inside, breathing in the acrid scent.

  The room was shabbily decorated with a hodgepodge of furniture. A scuffed couch, a few armchairs, and a few wooden chairs. Two of the armchairs were occupied.

  One of the men, tall, with a blond buzz cut, straightened up hurriedly from his relaxed slouch on the chair where he'd been checking his phone.

  "Cops?" he asked in a loud, worried voice.

  "Just looking for a certain individual to ask a few questions," Connor said.

  The other man in the room was short - five-five at the most, Cami estimated. He was dark and swarthy and stocky, and he was busy working on a very old and battered-looking laptop.

  Neither of these looked like the man they wanted, but Connor clearly also didn’t trust Bruce’s description, and was not leaving any detail unchecked.

  "Mind handing your phones to me? Just need to check your number, that's all," he said politely.

  Both the men handed their phones to Connor, who quickly checked the numbers. From his quick nod, Cami saw that neither of them was the owner of the phone in question. Now, Connor was asking around.

  "You got a guy staying here who's about five-eight, with short brown hair?"

  They stared at each other doubtfully.

  "No. Nobody exactly like that," the closest man said. “There are a couple of guys who are taller. One with dark hair.”

  As Cami had worried, Bruce, the second-hand car salesman, had either misremembered or else told them wrong. Personally, she thought he'd been in a flat panic and had probably misremembered.

  "No problem at all," Connor said easily. "How are you gentlemen finding this place?"

  "Life outside is good, I guess," the blond man said. “Better than being inside. That’s a place I don’t want to go back to.”

  The dark-haired man frowned. "Getting a job is hard."

  "Yeah, I can imagine. Tough world at the moment," Connor sympathized. "I hope you find something soon. Thanks for your help."

  Again, Cami felt impressed by how he treated everyone with kindness and respect. Well, everyone apart from Honest Bruce, the second-hand car salesman, who’d seen his tougher side.

  After thanking the men again, Connor turned and walked out, heading for the neighboring building.

  Cami followed behind, looking around as they walked between the buildings.

  Connor headed straight to the door, but as he walked in, Cami hesitated. Had she seen a flash of movement at the first-floor window on the left side of the second building?

  She looked again, but it was gone.

  Maybe it had been nothing, just a flicker of light, or someone innocently passing by the glass. But even so, she felt uneasy, because what if someone had been looking out and seen them? She didn’t want the killer to end up sneaking out.

  Perhaps she should try to be stealthy, too, and see if she could spot him.

  While Connor walked in, Cami hung back, hugging the outside wall, staying out of sight and checking her surroundings. Looking and listening, just like Connor had taught her to do.

  And her instinct paid off.

  There was another flash of movement, this time from somewhere behind the building. Someone was running out from behind the building's cover, as if they'd made a hasty exit via a side door.

  Then she tensed as she saw the figure sprint fast to the steel fence at the back of the property. The next moment, the brown-jacketed man had scrambled over it and was sprinting into the woods.

  Without a doubt, this was their suspect.

  He'd seen them coming. And he was on the run.

  CHAPTER NINE

  "Connor!" Cami ran into the second building, shouting his name.

  In a moment, Connor appeared, bursting out through the living room door.

  "What's up?" he asked her, his voice urgent.

  As quickly as she could, Cami described the predicament.

  "A man with a brown jacket ran out of the back of the building, just after you went in. I saw him go up to the fence. He jumped it, and he ran into the woods. You can see his footprints and where he went over."

  "Right." Connor had time for only that once concise word. And then he was on the chase.

  He shot out of the building, with Cami pounding behind, her Docs digging into the snowy grass as she headed toward the steel fence.

  It was about the height of her head. She was going to have to get over it - somehow. She wasn't sure how. This might end with her staying behind, while Connor pursued their runaway suspect.

  But, as Connor raced up to the scuffed portion of snow that marked the place where he'd leaped over the fence, he stopped.

  He waited for Cami to run to the fence. And then he bent down, grasped her leg, and boosted her up.

  Cami found herself flying into the air. Connor's powerful lift had taken her all the way over the fence. All she had to do was grab it and keep her balance, and get her other leg over the top.

  And then she was slithering down the other side, landing on a crackling and uneven surface of snowy grass. Small branches cracked under her shoes. By frantically windmilling her arms, she avoided landing on her backside.

  The next moment, Connor vaulted in an agile way over the fence, landed much more lightly than she had despite the fact he was six foot tall, and raced off in pursuit.

  It was easy to see where the man had gone, because the snow was disturbed by a deep, widely spaced line of footsteps leading toward the trees. He was running hard.

  But the trees were thick, and once they were in the woods, Cami hoped they'd still be able to track him. She raced valiantly behind as Connor entered the thick cover of the trees.

  In the forest, it was cold and still, the snow lying in drifts, half covered by pine needles, and immediately, Cami saw it would be far harder to see any footprints. No wonder he'd headed straight for the wood. He had known it would provide the cover he needed to escape.

  "Okay," Connor hissed to her, slowing his speed. "Quiet."

  Cami obeyed - as far as she could, trying not to breathe as she planted her Doc Martens firmly in the ground, hoping they would not disturb a twig or a leaf.

  This wasn't her environment. She had no idea how they'd tell where this man had gone, because it seemed he'd totally disappeared.

  But she saw what Connor was doing. He'd instantly adapted to his surroundings, and he was now using his ears to tell him where this man had run.

  And as she listened out, straining her own ears too, Cami heard what Connor was listening out for.

  The thud-thud of footsteps. It was coming from their left, and now, ahead and through the trees, she saw that a trail, covered in slush and pine needles, ran in that direction.

  "So he's gone that way," Connor muttered. In a moment, he was on the run and veering toward the trail.

  With her only determined thought to keep this man, and Connor, both in sight, and not to get completely lost in these woods, Cami charged after them.

  The trail led through the trees, zigzagging left and right. A dollop of snow, falling from an overhead branch, landed on Cami's head and shoulders, covering the brim of her FBI hat with a thick, heavy layer so that she had to take it off and shake it as she ran. This never happened to Connor, she thought. Maybe just like machines could sense the fear of unskilled novices, the trees could, too.

 

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