Page 64 of The Guilty Trial

Dale led them down a narrow hallway with buzzing fluorescent lights and linoleum that squeaked under their shoes. The unit was on the first floor, a small room with a single bed, a dresser, and a window that looked out onto a strip of dead grass and a chain-link fence. The current occupant’s belongings were scattered across the surfaces, and the room smelled of cigarette smoke and fast food. Dale was right; there was nothing here. He had passed through this place like a ghost, leaving no imprint at all.

They thanked the facility manager and walked back to the parking lot. The smokers had gone inside, and the lot was quiet except for the distant hum of traffic on the main road.

“He’s been off the grid since August.” Jason sighed. “That’s over three months.”

Allie nodded. “He could be anywhere. And wherever that is, he has Park with him.”

“We need to connect with Linda Hayes,” Jason said. “She visited him at St. John’s. She’s the only person we know of who maintained any kind of relationship with him. If anyone knows where he might be, it’s her.”

Linda Hayes lived in a quiet residential neighborhood where mature trees arched over the streets and the houses sat back from the sidewalks on well-tended lots. It looked like the sort of neighborhood where people waved to their letter carriers and knew each other by name. Jason parked at the curb in front of a small Craftsman-style home with cedar shingles and a covered front porch. The yard was tidy, with flower beds mulched for winter and a ceramic birdbath standing empty near the walkway.

They approached the front door, and Allie pressed the doorbell. A faint chime sounded inside. They waited. Nothing moved behind the curtained windows. She knocked, three firm raps, and leaned toward the nearest window. Through a gap in the curtains, she could see a living room with a sofa, bookshelves, and a knitted throw draped over an armchair. The house looked lived-in, warm, but undeniably empty.

“Nobody home.” Jason stepped back from the porch.

An older man in his seventies was working in the adjacent yard, raking leaves into a neat pile near the property line. He wore a canvas jacket and a flat cap, and he leaned on his rake as he watched them with open curiosity.

“Help you folks?” he called over.

Allie crossed the strip of grass between the properties. “We’re FBI and are looking for Linda Hayes. Do you know when she might be back?”

The man’s eyebrows rose, but he didn’t seem alarmed. He set the rake against a tree and wiped his hands on his jacket. “Linda’s on a camping trip with her boyfriend. They left a couple weeks ago.”

“Can you describe the boyfriend?”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “Thin guy. I’ve only seen him a couple of times and always from a distance. He’d come pick Linda up, and they’d leave together. Never came over to introduce himself or anything.”

Allie pulled up a photo of Arthur Pym on her phone and held it out. “Is this him?”

The neighbor squinted at the screen, studying it for a long moment. He tilted his head one way, then the other. “Could be. The build looks about right, and the height. But I honestly couldn’t swear to it. I’ve never been close enough to get a good look at his face. Just seen him from my window or across the yard.”

“When did they leave?” Allie asked.

“Maybe two weeks ago. Linda mentioned something about the Olympic Peninsula. Said it would be a long trip—about a month. She asked me to keep an eye on the house and water her plants.” He smiled slightly. “Which I’ve been doing. Her ferns are very particular.”

“Do you have a way to reach her? A phone number?”

“I do, actually. Hold on.” The neighbor walked back to his house and returned a minute later with a piece of paper. Linda’s cell number was written in neat, careful script.

Allie dialed immediately. The line rang once, twice, then rolled to voicemail. A woman’s pleasant voice asked her to leave a message. Allie kept her tone steady and professional. “Ms. Hayes, this is Special Agent Bishop with the FBI. I’m calling regarding Arthur Pym. It’s urgent that you contact me as soon as possible.” She left her number and hung up.

The Olympic Peninsula was miles of wilderness, old-growth forest, and rugged coastline. She thought of her own time in the backcountry the previous month, how quickly the world had shrunk to trees and silence and rendered any cell phone useless for days. If Linda was deep enough in the peninsula, there might be no signal at all. But then another possibility gnawed at her, harder to dismiss. What if the camping trip was a cover? What if Linda wasn’t on vacation but assisting Pym in some way, providing him with shelter, transportation, a place to operate from without detection?

The neighbor was still watching them with deep concern creasing his face. “Is Linda in some kind of trouble?”

Jason pulled a card from his jacket and handed it over. “If you hear from her, please have her call us right away.”

The man nodded and turned the card over in his fingers as they walked back to the Charger.

Jason pulled away from the curb and headed back toward the highway. “The timeline fits. Linda went back to visit Pym a few months before his release from St. John’s. She maintained contact and reconnected. And now she’s conveniently unreachable on a camping trip that started right around the time things escalated.”

Allie pulled out her phone and called Marze while Jason navigated through the neighborhood streets. Her SAC picked up on the first ring.

“Tell me you’ve got something.” Marze’s voice carried the same ragged edge that hers did, the sound of a man who hadn’t slept and wouldn’t anytime soon.

Allie briefed him on the transitional housing visit, on the facility manager’s description of Pym and the slender blonde visitor, and on what the neighbor had just told them about Linda Hayes camping trip with her boyfriend. She gave him the phone number and the approximate departure date.

“I’ll issue a BOLO on her,” Marze said. “And I’ll get Brandy working on tracking her phone and any recent credit card or bank activity. We’ll alert campgrounds and park rangers across the Olympic Peninsula. If she’s out there, we’ll find her.”