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Suddenly, as Gray stared at the Post-it notes and printouts filling the board in front of him, something clicked: the vague description Jenna had given him of a tall, fit man with brown hair. Could it be? He raced to a computer, not wanting to say anything until he’d checked.
He motioned Thornton over. “Whittaker matches the description Jenna gave me, and he was in school with Andreas’s wife all the way back to third grade. Same college too.”
“What about his alibi?”
There’s got to be an explanation. Could someone be lying for him? “What was the time of death?”
Thornton flipped through a file. “Between one and two.”
“While he was at the fucking movie.”
“I bet he left the theater after buying popcorn, probably used a side door. I bet his car was fixed and parked at the theater. Why didn’t we think about that?”
“We know now,” Thornton said. “I’ll get us a warrant, and we’ll track the son of a bitch down.”
Close. They were so fucking close. They’d tracked Whittaker to a coffee shop. He’d been there an hour ago according to the staff they’d questioned. Now they just needed to trace his steps since then. Gray and Thornton had split up so they could cover more ground. Each of them had a couple of patrol officers with them in case they found Whittaker and he tried to run.
Gray’s phone rang. He pulled it out expecting it to be Thornton checking in.
At first he didn’t recognize the number, then he realized it was Jenna.
“Where are you?” he asked. “We’ve ID’d the suspect.”
“He’s after me.” She sounded terrified.
“Where are you?”
“I—” She screamed, a piercing sound of terror.
“Jenna? Jenna?”
The line went dead. “Fuck!”
He called Karen, his favorite computer forensics expert. “I need a trace on the last call to my phone as fast as you can get it.”
“I’m on it. I’ll call you back.”
Next he dialed Thornton. “Jenna just called. He’s got her. Karen’s tracing the call.”
“Where are you?”
Gray told him.
“I’ll meet you there with the car.”
A few seconds later, Karen called. “I got it.” She gave him the address. “It’s close to where you are now. Another property owned by Andreas, or at least owned by the holding company he bought his other house under.”
“Thank you. You may have saved my informant’s life.”
“No, you will. Now go get her.”
Thornton pulled up soon after Gray ended the call. “The call came from another house Andreas owned over on Burton Street,” Gray said as he sat in the passenger seat.
Thornton rattled off orders to the officers who were with them, then took off.
En route, word came that there was no one at Andreas’s condo, though there were signs of a struggle. It looked like Jenna had been forced into a vehicle.
“Ideas?” Thornton asked.
