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She didn’t know wherehe might be and what he might be up to. One horrific possibility presenteditself: he might already be out there, putting another winch in place, tryingto abduct another victim. That thought made her blood run cold.
“We need to searchthe surrounding area,” Amber said, breaking the silence. “Francesca, can youget a team out here to help us?”
The detectivenodded, pulling out her phone to make the call. Meanwhile, Simon was alreadysearching the house for any clues that might give them a lead on where Morrisonhad gone.
As they waited forbackup, Amber couldn’t shake the feeling that they were running out of time.Every minute that passed without finding Morrison was a minute in which anothervictim could be taken.
“I’ll get thewhole force searching for him,” Francesca said. “If any of them spot him, they’llbring him in.”
Yet it didn’t feellike enough to simply sit there and wait for the Westford PD to bring in JackMorrison for the killings.
“We need to movefast,” Amber said to Simon. “We need to get out there and search for himourselves.”
Simon shook hishead. “We don’t know Westford, and the odds of running into a suspect at randomare thousands to one. Let the local cops search the area. We can do more goodhere.”
Amber wasn’t surehow they would be able to do that. But Simon had a point. They were FBI agents,not local police. They needed to work with the resources they had and stayfocused on finding any evidence that might connect Morrison to the murders.They needed to build their case as well as try to find him.
“Okay,” she saidreluctantly. “But we need to keep searching this place. There has to besomething here. I don’t believe that it’s completely empty and ordinary. Maybethere’s even something here that might suggest where he’s gone.”
They split up,combing through every inch of the bungalow. Simon searched the bedroom, whileAmber went through the bathroom and kitchen.
“I’m going tostart calling his friends and family,” Francesca said. “See if anyone knowswhere he might have gone.”
Amber noddedabsentmindedly, her focus solely on finding something in the house, anything,that might give them a lead.
She opened adrawer in the kitchen, looking through old receipts and bills. She went throughthem one by one, looking for any address that Morrison might have gone to, anylocation where he might be hiding out.
“If he’s not here,does that mean that he’s hiding out somewhere?” Amber wondered aloud. “Might hehave gone somewhere else to commit his crimes if he thought the police werelooking for him?”
“Well, he isn’there,” Francesca pointed out, as if it were obvious that Morrison must besomewhere else.
“No, I mean thathe might have found a safe house or something,” Amber said.
“Rather than comeback here?” Simon said. He didn’t sound entirely convinced. “He would have tobe sure that the police were looking for him.”
“Have the mediaannounced the FBI’s involvement in the case yet?” Amber asked.
Simon nodded. “I’malready getting messages from reporters looking for a story.”
The strange thingwas that Amberwasn’tgetting those messages. At the very least, shewould have expected Joseph to call to ask what was going on. Amber hadn’t heardanything from him since she left, and normally they talked every day. Was heupset about the way things had gone back at the restaurant?
She couldn’t thinkabout that now, though. Her relationship wasn’t the priority at this point. Shehad to focus on the case.
“If he knows theFBI are in town, maybe that explains why he wouldn’t want to risk being athome,” Amber said. “Given his engineering skills and obvious motive, he musthave known that we would want to talk to him eventually. If he’s found a safe housesomewhere, maybe that’s his way of staying a step ahead of us.”
“I still don’tquite buy it,” Simon said. “This is all about him losing his wife and daughter,so why would he leave the home he had with them? Wouldn’t the connection herebe too strong for him to just abandon it like that? If that grief can make himkill, then he’s not just going to walk away from this place.”
Amber had to admitthat he was right. If the motivation for all of this was Jack Morrison losinghis wife and daughter, then it made sense that he might be somewhere that wasconnected to them, somewhere significant.
Amber foundherself going back to the note she’d found. She’d been reading it as aconfession, but what if it wasn’t? What if it was something else? Another,troubling possibility occurred to her.
“There’s one placethat’s more significant to him than here. More significant than anywhere else,”Amber said. “One place that all of this is about, to him.”
“What place?”Francesca asked.
“The place wherehis family died.” Amber looked over at Simon, trying to see what he thought ofit.
Simon’s eyeswidened as he understood what Amber was talking about. “You think that he’sgone to the crash site.”
