Storm Born by Christine Pope

Author:Christine Pope [Pope, Christine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dark Valentine Press

Hotel rooms were plentiful in Las Vegas. Randall Lenz checked into Mandalay Bay, figuring it was as good a choice as anything else, then got out his laptop and attached his secure phone to it. A moment later, Agent Dawson’s face appeared on the screen. She looked both tired and cross, and he recalled that it was well past seven on the East Coast. Not that it really mattered; normal work hours were the exception at their agency, not the rule.

“Anything?” he asked, not bothering with a greeting.

Dawson tucked a stray strand of mousy hair behind one ear. “I don’t know.”

“You ‘don’t know’?” he repeated. He scowled at the screen. “Either you found something or you didn’t. Which is it?”

“I did get an image of a black Jeep Gladiator on an I-15 traffic cam passing the Cheyenne Avenue exit at approximately fifteen-thirty local time. However, when I attempted to continue tracking the vehicle at the next camera, the images were scrambled again, just as they’d been in Kanab.”

Interesting. Lenz ran a hand over his chin, absently feeling the stubble there. He’d been so out of sorts that morning, he hadn’t even bothered to shave. Not that it probably mattered, but he still felt annoyed with himself for being so sloppy. Normally, he would never have slipped up in such a way. He needed to make sure it never happened again.

“Where’s the scrambling coming from?”

Dawson’s thin shoulders lifted slightly. “I can’t tell for sure. Our analysts aren’t finding any obvious intrusions into the traffic-cam systems, so if it’s deliberate, whoever’s doing it is damn good at hiding their tracks. But we haven’t given up.”

“Don’t. Keep trying. Whoever is doing it has to be leaving some kind of trace behind.”

“Yes, sir.” A pause, and then she asked, “Any idea how long you’re going to be in Las Vegas?”

“As long as it takes, Dawson. Keep me posted if there are any updates.”

“Yes, sir.”

He closed the laptop then, severing the connection. A scowl creased his forehead as he went to the window and stared out at the city, glittering in the bright afternoon sunlight. Somewhere down there, Adara Grant and the mysterious “Jake” had hidden themselves…if they hadn’t already left town. It was entirely possible that they’d only spent one night there, or had merely stopped for food before pushing on to…well, wherever it was that happened to be their destination.

For just a moment, he wondered if he’d been too hasty about destroying Adara’s Kanab home. Possibly, this Jake person might have left a fingerprint on the door, or on the jamb. But no, he’d only knocked and hadn’t touched anything else. Even if he had, there was a good chance he wouldn’t have left a clear print anyway. Besides, fingerprints were far from a sure thing. They only existed in a database if someone had had a reason to get fingerprinted in the past, whether to get bonded, obtain a teaching credential, or get some kind of clearance…or possibly because they’d been arrested at some point.

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