Castillo wasn’t a detective yet, but because of her competence and enthusiasm, she’d become essentially a junior member of the unit, almost always assigned to their cases. And despite her junior status, she was no shrinking violet.

Right now, her dark eyes were blazing and her black hair, tied back in a ponytail, was bobbing up and down along with her animated responses. Her muscular arms and athletic frame were both tightly coiled in frustration.

“None of us are experts in this sort of thing,” Detective Kevin Edgerton insisted. “We need to bring in the police psychologist.”

Keri wasn’t surprised that Edgerton wanted to go that route. Tall and skinny with perpetually unkempt brown hair, he was a computer genius who knew the ins and outs of everything from a smartphone to the utility grid. But not yet thirty years old, he didn’t always trust his instincts when it came to things with less clear-cut solutions. It was his nature to defer to expertise, if it was available.

The problem was that Keri wasn’t confident the police psychologist would have any more insight into the letter than the rest of them. Any conclusions he was likely to draw would just be speculation. If that was the case, she trusted her own speculation more than most others’.

Lieutenant Hillman held up his hands in an appeal for calm and quiet. To Keri’s surprise, everyone complied.

“I sent a copy of the letter to Dr. Feeney at home. He’s looking at it now. We’ll probably get feedback soon. In the meantime, any other thoughts? Sands?”

Ray had been sitting quietly, rubbing the top of his bald head, taking it all in. From this angle, Keri could clearly see the reflection of the station lights off the glass left eye that replaced the eye he’d lost boxing. He looked up and she could tell where he stood before he even spoke.

“I’m inclined to agree with Frank. That letter is just so over the top that it’s hard to buy. Everything is so overheated. That is, except for the part about wanting the money and where to bring it. That section is completely straightforward; pretty convenient, if you ask me. Still…”

“What?” Hillman asked.

“Well, I’m just not sure whether it makes any difference. We know so little and don’t have much time. Regardless of whether he’s a psycho or a con artist, there’s still a drop with him in a few hours.”

“I’m not sure I agree,” Keri finally said. She didn’t love contradicting her partner publicly under any circumstances and especially not with the way things were between them at the moment. But it wasn’t about that right now. It was about the job and finding this girl. Keri had never held her tongue about a case before and she wasn’t about to start now, regardless of the personal consequences.

“Look, I don’t know for sure if this guy is faking or for real. But I think it does matter which is true. If he’s just pretending to be some kind of religious fanatic and this is all just about money, I’d prefer it. Then this is transactional for him, not personal. And that scenario is way more predictable. It means he’s more likely to show up. And it’s more of a priority for him to keep Jessica alive.”

“But you don’t buy it,” Ray said, proving he knew her as well as she knew him.

“I’m skeptical. I think it’s possible that money stuff was so straightforward because he didn’t really believe in it and was just saying what he was supposed to in a ransom note. What if that’s the fake part and the real part is the crazy stuff? I mean the contrast between those sections is so dramatic as to be ridiculous. The ‘overheated’ language seems to be where his passion is.”

“Seems to be,” Brody interrupted. Keri reminded herself to keep a level head. The short-timer was baiting her, hoping he could rile her up to make her argument seem less credible. She nodded politely and continued.

“Yes, Frank, seems to be. I don’t pretend to know anything for sure. But all that talk of freeing her from her own evil spirit, of the machinery of the Lord, it’s pretty detailed, like he’s developed some kind of personal liturgy to reflect his own warped religion – one where he’s in control, like he’s the Pope of his own demented faith. And if that’s true, we’ve got a much bigger problem.”

“How so?” Edgerton asked.

“Because if this is all truly about cleansing spirits and pleasing his deity, then he doesn’t really care about the money. It might just be a way to justify the abduction to himself in societal terms. He tells himself it’s about the money so he can function in some kind of normal way. But deep down, he knows that’s just an excuse, that the real reason he took her is much deeper and darker.”

“So Locke,” Hillman said, “you’re suggesting this guy is having some internal struggle and that the money is just a way for him to hide what he really wants to do to the girl from himself?”

“Maybe.”

“That seems like a stretch,” he said. “Other than the language he used, what do you have to support the theory?”

“It’s not just the language, Lieutenant. The very fact that he offered to return her, to let her own father purify her, suggests that he might be trying to fight this thing, that he’s trying to find an ‘out,’ some way to not free her from the demon by killing her.”

She stopped talking and looked around at the faces of her co-workers, which were a mix of skepticism and genuine intrigue. Even Hillman seemed to be reconsidering.

“Or he could just be after the money and your mumbo-jumbo is as full of BS as he is,” Brody said derisively. His comment seemed to drain the room of goodwill and Keri felt everyone retreating to their safe corners.

“You’re a Neanderthal!” Castillo said, disgusted.

“Yeah?” he spat back. “I think you could use a good hair dragging.”

“You want to go right now, old man?” Castillo said, taking a step toward him. “I’ll knock your beached whale ass back in the ocean.”

“Enough!” Hillman shouted. “We’ve got a twelve-year-old girl to save and we don’t have time for this crap. And Brody, another sexist comment like that and I’ll dock your pay for the rest of your frickin’ career, even if that’s only a month, you got me?”

Brody reluctantly shut his mouth. Castillo looked like she wasn’t done yet so Keri put her hand on her shoulder and led her away.

“Let it go, Jamie,” she muttered under her breath. “The guy’s one more burrito away from a heart attack. You don’t want to get blamed when he keels over.”

Castillo chuckled despite her anger. She was about to reply when Detective Manny Suarez walked into the room. Manny wasn’t much to look at, with his longish stubble, his love handles, and his heavy-lidded eyes that reminded Keri of Sleepy the dwarf. But he was a tough, able detective. And most importantly right now, he was returning from the FedEx office where the ransom note had been dropped off. Keri hoped he had good news.

“Give me something good,” Hillman said.

Suarez shook his head as he sat down at the conference room table and pulled out one lonely receipt from the manila envelope he was holding. He slammed it on the table.

This is it,” he said. “This is the one piece of meaningful evidence I was able to retrieve from the FedEx store. It has the time and date of the purchase, which was made with cash. That’s it.”

“Wasn’t there any security footage you could match to the time of purchase?” Hillman asked.

“There is, but it’s mostly useless. The exterior footage from the place shows someone walking in. But that person is wearing a bulky sweatshirt with a hoodie and sunglasses. I’m having it circulated but it won’t be much help. It’s hard to even tell whether it’s a male or female.”

“What about inside the FedEx store?” Castillo asked.

Suarez pulled out a second sheet of paper from the envelope and put it on the desk too. It looked like a photo but it was basically white with black around the edges.

“This is a still image from the interior camera,” he said. “It looks like he was using a pair of laser refraction sunglasses that blow out anything onscreen. This is what the footage looks like the whole time the person is in there.”

“That’s hardcore tech,” Edgerton noted, impressed. “Usually that sort of thing is only used in high-end robberies.”

“What about other cameras?” Ray asked. “Ones he didn’t look at directly.”

“They were unaffected. But the suspect stood conveniently out of frame of each of them. It’s like he knew exactly where every camera would be and steered clear of all but the one he couldn’t avoid, right behind the register. And that’s the one that’s blown out.”

“I’m assuming he avoided any other exterior cameras on the way out too?” Keri guessed. “No chance he walked to his car and we can get a make or license plate?”

“No chance,” Suarez confirmed. “We have him walking around the corner. But the direction he went leads to an industrial block where none of the businesses have cameras. He could have gone anywhere from there.”

“I hate to pile on,” Edgerton added, studying the laptop in front of him. “But I’ve got more bad news. Jessica’s backpack and phone were busts. CSU just emailed me that they didn’t find any unexpected prints.”

Lieutenant Hillman’s cell phone rang but he indicated for Edgerton to continue as he stepped out of the room to take the call. Kevin picked up where he’d left off.

“And I’ve been running a program using her SIM card to look for suspicious activity. It just finished. But there’s nothing out of the ordinary. Every single call she made or received in the last three months is from either her family or friends.”

Keri and Ray exchanged a silent glance. Even the tension between them couldn’t undermine their shared concern that this case was going downhill fast.

Before anyone could respond to Edgerton, Hillman walked back in. Keri could tell from his expression that there was more bad news coming.

“That was Dr. Feeney,” he said. “He buys the con man theory too. He thinks this guy’s faking the crazy stuff and just wants the money.”

Great. Every lead we have has gone nowhere and now the unit consensus is that this guy is just a run of the mill kidnapper.

Keri couldn’t explain it, even to herself. But her instincts were telling her that the consensus was dangerously wrong; that this kidnapper was something else entirely. And she feared that if they didn’t get on the right track soon, Jessica Rainey would pay the price.