Thirty-Five

Taylor heard voices, then music. What in the world? She forced her eyes open. Good. She’d slept. She sat up, surprised at how refreshed she felt. Just a couple of hours of rest, but rest it was. She’d dreamed heavily, not her usual dark, murky nightmares, but of a happy, smiling man wrapped in a rust-colored sheet. A monk. Holding out a small, thin piece of string for her to tie around her wrist, his toothless smile engaging and encouraging. “Protection,” he’d said.

Protection. Her hand went to her wrist. It was bare.

If only dreams were capable of such powers.

She pulled back the covers, dressed and hurried downstairs. Baldwin was standing in the middle of the living room, bleeding, and two very large men were standing on either side of him. What in the hell were they doing in the house? And why was Baldwin bleeding? Damn it.

“Gentlemen?”

All three of them started. The two bodyguards’ hands instinctively strayed to their weapons before they caught themselves. Baldwin gestured to the men.

“Your guards,” he said.

She was struck by the coldness of his tone. Something had happened while she was asleep, that was obvious.

She met his eyes for a moment, tried to ignore the frustration and questions in them, then addressed the guards. “Wells, Rogers, we’re fine here, as you can see. Why don’t you wait outside. We’ll be heading back to the CJC shortly.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Wells said. They turned and went to the front door, slipped out quietly. Stealthy, for such large men.

When they were finally alone, Taylor turned back to Baldwin. “What happened?”

“They got the drop on me. I was getting the mail. They seem very capable.” He shrugged, she could read the embarrassment in the line of his shoulders. There was more he wasn’t saying, but she didn’t push. He’d tell her when he was ready; she could feel him struggling with something. When he turned and went to the kitchen, she followed behind. A change of subject was in order.

“Let me see your hand,” she said.

“It’s fine,” he said, but let her glance at it to prove he was okay. She ran the water in the sink, let the blood wash down the drain. It was a shallow cut, but a bleeder. The gaping edges were already starting to clot and crust.

“I think you’ll live, but let me put some alcohol on it, just in case. How did you cut it?”

“We received a gift in the mail.” She retrieved the first-aid kit from the cabinet and went to work. He hissed as she dosed the cut in alcohol, then let her slowly wipe the excess off, apply Neosporin and close it with a large Band-Aid. Echoes of the ministrations that had been performed on her back in Forest City.

“How’s your leg?” he asked automatically. Reading her thoughts again.

“It’s fine. I haven’t thought about it in hours.” Which was true, but now that she remembered, her shin gave a throb. “I’ll change the dressing on it later.”

She brought his hand to her mouth and kissed the bandage.

“All better?”

“We’ll see,” he said, and the obliqueness of his tone made her take a step back. He really was upset, just keeping it hidden, right below the surface. Was he mad at her? Or was it something else?

“What came in the mail, Baldwin?”

He flexed his fingers a few times, as if testing the binding. He made a fist and didn’t grimace. She knew he was okay.

“Our friend sent us a message. Though I’ll be damned if I know what to make of it. Come on, I’ll show you.”

The Valentine’s card was on the counter where he’d left it. She opened it with a pen, read the words. Was surprised at how little they affected her. She was becoming inured to his threats. This was just a game to Copeland, just a stupid game. No wonder Baldwin was so peeved. He was poking at them, just trying to get a rise.

She let the card close.

Baldwin led her back to the living room and pressed play on the stereo. Music streamed from the speakers.

After a moment, she said, “The Platters?”

“Yep. There’s more. Writing on the disc. He burned it himself, it’s not an original recording.”

“Let’s see it.”

Baldwin ejected the CD midwail and handed it to Taylor.

“It’s gibberish to me. I don’t see any rhyme or reason to it.”

At first glance, she had to agree. There were just a bunch of numbers and letters, none that spelled out anything obvious.

“White board,” she said, heading up the stairs to her office. She erased everything that was on the board, then wrote down the numbers and letters at the top, enjoying the strange scent of the erasable marker and its small, squeaking scratches as she wrote. She loved her white board.

When she was finished, she stood back and looked at the string.

148NAD77HCBOTM4482901QRE

“What about a VIN?” Taylor asked.

“Nope. Vehicle Identification Numbers are only seventeen digits. That’s twenty-four.”

“You remember when we used to get actual airline tickets? There was always that huge long string at the bottom that didn’t make sense, but it was really the codes for the airports, and the equipments, dates and seat numbers. Maybe that’s it.”

“Good idea.”

They started playing with combinations of letters, breaking them into groups, writing them backward, but nothing was apparent. No call signs for airports, no dates, nothing that made logical sense.

Baldwin was getting frustrated, his hair was standing on end. Taylor smoothed it down, then wiped away all their conjecture, leaving them with the original numbers and letters at the top of the board.

“Let’s look at this a different way. He’s sending us a message. What do we think is happening, right now?”

“He’s playing a game.”

“Right. And we know that he has probably recruited people to play with him. There have been three recent copycat crimes that we know of.” She stared at the board, mind whirling.

“Break it into threes?” She transcribed the numbers on the board.

148NAD77 HCBOTM4 482901QRE

“Still means nothing.”

She had the first glimmers of an idea. “Let me see the disc again,” Taylor said.

Baldwin handed it to her. She looked closely at the placement of the letters, then wrote a new pattern on the board.

148NAD77HCBOTM4482 901QRE

“It looks like there’s a space between the first string of letters and numbers and the end. If we break that off, then separate them into three sections…”

She scribbled on the board, then stood back and looked.

148NAD 77HCB OTM4482 901QRE

“License plate numbers?” she said, and heard Baldwin suck in his breath. He tapped the computer on her desk to life, fingers flying over the keys as he accessed a database through his FBI identification.

“Damn, you’re good. That’s got to be it. Let me call Kevin, have him put some elbow grease into this.” He smiled at her, his face radiant, and she knew she was forgiven her transgression.

Would he feel the same way if he knew she’d killed a man on purpose?

She shoved that thought away.

She took the CD and put it into her laptop, stepped out of the room so she wouldn’t interrupt Baldwin. Went into their guest room, sat on the bed, and hit Play. The song spilled out of the computer, and she listened carefully to the lyrics. They gave her the creeps. Such a simple song, perverted for a psycho’s purpose.

The song finished, and there was silence, deafening quiet. She started to press the eject button, then heard something. Leaning closer, she turned the speakers up as far as they could go. There was rustling, like a plastic bag being wadded up, then a cough. She strained to hear more, but there was nothing. Then a deep voice spoke.

“Don’t be late, Taylor. We’ll be waiting.”

The CD spun to a stop.

She froze for a moment. We’ll be waiting. We who? Ewan Copeland and Ruth Anderson? Ewan and his copycat monsters?

Her mind flashed back to the white board, to the last set of numbers, the ones that had given her the idea to break them apart from the rest anyway.

901QRE

We’ll be waiting.

It hit her like a landslide, and she yelled for Baldwin. She heard him excuse himself from the phone and rush to the room immediately.

“What’s wrong? You’re white as a sheet.”

“The last numbers. I was wrong. They aren’t a license plate.”

“What are they?”

“I don’t know what the E is, but 901QR has to be 901 Quaker Run.”

The significance dawned on him. “Oh, my God.”

“That’s Sam’s address. Baldwin, he’s got Sam.”