Murder Theory Read online

  “Yes!” says Hailey. “We use a courier service at the office when it’s real important stuff.”

  “And I use a specialty courier when I send lab samples. Damn it. Of course!”

  I pull out my phone. “Look up the nearest FlowTrek center. They have special services for medical and laboratory.”

  “Got it,” says Mylo. “Richmond International Airport. Forty-four forty-four Fox Road.”

  Hailey slams the Tesla into reverse and spins us around in the parking lot while I tap the address into the car’s nav unit.

  I realize that Gallard is calling me back. I pick up and put him on speakerphone. “Yeah?”

  “Are you okay?” he asks.

  “Yeah. We think we know where it’s shipping from, but we’re not sure. We’re trying FlowTrek”—I spell it for him—“but someone should call all the local courier services. Can you do that?”

  “It’ll be hard.”

  Hailey speaks up. “Just go to their websites and pull up press releases. You’ll find numbers for their PR people. Call their cell phones directly and ask them if they want to be famous for being the shipping service that helped a serial killer murder thousands of people.”

  “Who’s that?” asks Gallard.

  “Theo’s accomplice,” Hailey replies.

  “Just do what she says,” I say, then hang up.

  Damn, she’s clever.

  We speed into the parking lot, and Hailey doesn’t even bother centering the car. A light is on behind the glass door to the FlowTrek office. I burst out of the car and hurry inside.

  Hailey beats me there because my shoulder screams when I try to run. She stops at the door and holds it open for me.

  An older woman behind the counter peers over her computer. “Can I help you?”

  “A man came in earlier. About my height. Early fifties, piercing blue eyes. Did you see him?”

  “Is he single?” asks the woman.

  “Uh, yeah. He murdered his wife in cold blood. Very single and could probably use a pen pal,” I growl. “Did you see him?”

  “What time?”

  “I’m asking you!”

  The woman looks at Hailey. “Is your friend always this rude?”

  “It’s, like, real fucking serious,” she replies. “Like, people are going to die.”

  “Then don’t you think we should call the police?”

  “They’re on the way,” I lie, sort of. “I’m sorry, but I need to ask again: Was there a man like that here?”

  “I got in at midnight,” says the woman. “I’d have to call Robert. He has the evening shift.”

  She sits in place, unmoving.

  “Well?” asks Hailey.

  “Who exactly are you?”

  “He’s Dr. Theo Cray, world-famous serial-killer hunter.”

  “Oh. Never heard of you. Is that a television show?”

  “Ma’am,” I say, “you’re going to be evening news if you don’t call Robert and ask.”

  “I need to call the supervisor to okay this. Hey, what’s she doing to my garbage?”

  I turn around. Mylo has upended the garbage can and is sorting through the trash. Hailey drops to her knees and helps her.

  “Call!” I shout at the woman.

  “I found his S,” says Mylo. She holds up a sliver of what appears to be a shipping-label carbon copy with an S at the top and part of a 2 below.

  “Are you sure?” I ask.

  “Yeah. I recognize that from his journals. Notice the anal way he tilts the S back at the top?”

  I turn to the woman. “What time did the garbage go out?”

  “Hell if I know.”

  “Okay. I notice you’re not calling anyone right now, so answer me this. When did the last shipment leave?”

  “Leave? Four thirty p.m.”

  Damn. “Wait? Is there another one?”

  “Yes. But you just missed it.”

  “But you said four thirty was the last one.”

  “It left but hasn’t shipped yet. Same thing. It’s being loaded onto the airplane.”

  “Airplane? Which one?”

  “The big white one. The only one being loaded.”

  I turn to Hailey. “Keys.”

  “Actually, it’s a fob. What are you doing?”

  “Don’t ask. You’re insured, right?” I toss her my phone. “Pin code is 3251914. Call Gallard. Then my lawyer.”

  I run outside and hop into her Tesla. I peel it around in a tight circle and race onto the main road that stops at a dead end where a fence blocks the airport runway.

  In the distance, cargo’s being loaded onto a 757 by an elevator lift. I back the car up as far as it can go, then press the button on the console that says “Insane Mode.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  HIJACK

  Eight seconds later, I’m on the other side of the fence, dragging a section of it behind me as I speed toward the airplane.

  Standard operating procedure when a maniac makes his way onto the runway is to shut down the whole airport.

  After that, send the police to the problem area.

  I estimate that I have about two minutes before the cops start flying like bats out of hell from wherever they’re parked.

  While getting the police to respond is great, their only concern will be to get me off the runway and flight operations back to normal.

  At least there’s a good chance that this will lead to a search of the FlowTrek plane’s cargo, but because its cargo is time sensitive, there’s the chance it won’t. Too big of a chance to take.

  I catch a glimpse of sparks being thrown into the air by the fence I’m dragging behind me. By the time I come to a squealing halt by the plane, the men loading it look baffled and somewhat afraid.

  I jump out of the car, hold my hands in the air, trying to look as nonthreatening as a guy who just tore through a fence at two hundred miles per hour in a federally secured facility can, and yell, “FlowTrek! Did you load it?”

  A man in an orange vest standing on the elevated lift points to the large container about to be loaded into the plane.

  It would make sense that FlowTrek was last on and first off. This gives their cargo a speed advantage. Thank god it wasn’t already loaded behind all the existing cargo. It would have been a long, drawn-out process. I probably would have needed hostages.

  “Lower the lift!” I yell to the man at the top.

  He turns to the other men on the ground near me. They’re equally confused. Here I am, dressed as a doctor, acting like a lunatic . . .

  I use it to my advantage. “It’s a medical emergency.”

  A man on the ground approaches me. “What do you need?” He’s the oldest one here and appears to be the supervisor.

  I try to calm myself. “I need you to lower that container and open it.”

  “Are you threatening us?” he asks.

  “Damn it.” I notice there’s an emergency release button on the lift. “Watch out!” I shout to the man on the platform above.

  I slam the button, and the lift starts to descend. The supervisor grabs my bad shoulder.

  I scream and jerk it away, spin around, and glare at him. “Touch me again and die.”

  The lift reaches the ground, and I notice flashing police lights and sirens in the distance.

  The man backs up. “He’s their problem now.”

  I glance down at the key ring on his belt. “Hand me those, now.”

  “Whatever, asshole.” He drops them in front of me. “There are better ways to handle this kind of thing.”

  “I wish I knew what they are.”

  I grab the keys and flip through them until I find the one that unlocks the rolling door on the cargo container. I slide it open and reveal an interior half-filled with boxes.

  The police cars come to a stop, and cops are running toward me, guns drawn. Now what?

  Screw it. I climb inside the container, crawling over boxes to clear away from the door, then pull it shut behind m
e.

  Let ’em come in here and get me.

  It’s a perfect plan until I reach for my phone to use as a light, then realize I gave it to Hailey to call Gallard.

  Brilliant, Theo. Just brilliant.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  VECTOR

  All right, let’s focus on the present.

  I trapped myself inside a cargo container so I could find a roughly one-foot-by-one-foot-by-four-inch box that a deranged scientist is using to transport a murder virus.

  The only problem is that I have no way to see the box because I accidentally locked myself in here with no light.

  Bam! Bam! Bam! Someone pounds on the outside of the container.

  “Sir, open the door and come out with your hands up!” yells a gruff voice.

  “I can’t do that,” I shout back.

  I start to sort through the boxes, trying to put my hands on anything that feels the right size. Each time I find one that comes close, I toss it to the front.

  Bam! “Sir! Get out of there now!” yells the cop again.

  I decide to stall. “Call Gallard at the FBI.”

  “Come out and we’ll let you do that.”

  “Get ahold of him first,” I shout back, still sorting through boxes. I have at least ten candidates so far.

  “We can’t let you continue to damage those packages. We’re going to open the door!”

  “Don’t do that!” Actually, I could use the light. “Or . . . I’ll hurt myself.”

  “Personally, sir, I don’t care.”

  “Don’t come in!” I desperately cast about, trying to find any more boxes.

  “I’m going to open the door. Are you armed?”

  “Would you stay out if I said I was?”

  Damn it, I need light. I pull out the big key ring I swiped from the manager. He’s got a small multitool attached to the chain. I swivel out something sharp.

  I slam it into the roof of the container. It makes a bang! sound.

  “Gun!” shouts the cop. “He’s got a gun!”

  Oh crap.

  I lie flat, expecting a barrage of bullets to puncture the container.

  Seconds go by, and I’m not dead. I still only have one bullet hole.

  A few inches in front of me, a small, rough circle of light shines from the outside. Quickly, I pull packages from my pile and examine them in the tiny shaft of light. Most of them have typed addresses. I recall what Mylo said about the piece of carbon copy with Forrester’s handwriting. His funky S. I need to find it.

  “Sir? Are you okay?”

  “Uh, yeah. It went off accidentally.” I don’t exactly say what went off. I need time. More time.

  I make it through the last of the packages that seemed to be the right size. None has what looks like Forrester’s handwriting.

  What if I was wrong? What if he used another cargo carrier?

  What if there’s no package?

  I have no idea how I’m going to explain my way out of this one. I might have to take a page from Forrester’s book and try to fake a suicide.

  Do I simply roll up the door and surrender? I can try to tell them I was under a lot of stress after getting shot . . .

  Theo, you’re in so stupidly deep at this point, what’s the point?

  You’re not going to Bayesian-statistics yourself out of this one. No amount of machine learning can find the right pattern.

  You screwed up. You screwed up big.

  “Theo!” shouts the cop from outside. “We have your wife on the phone. She has a message for you.”

  Well, that’s odd. I don’t recall getting married.

  “Uh, okay?”

  “She says to call your psychologist. Do you need the number?”

  Well, several things don’t add up now. I don’t have a phone on me. But something tells me my “wife” knows this. “What’s the number again?”

  “Dr. Mylo’s number is 324-315-1515.”

  “Uh, thanks. Calling him now.” I try to convince myself that I didn’t just make a pretend phone with my thumb and pinkie. It’s stressful in here.

  Uh, 324-315-1515? What area code is that? And she knows I don’t have a phone in here. Even if it’s Mylo’s phone number, it won’t help.

  Wait . . . is it a message? Wonderful, why not just send me Morse code, too, for all the good it will do. I don’t have a phone or my computer.

  Okay . . . 324-315-1515? How am I supposed to solve that in here?

  Relax, Theo. She figured you’d get this. Start simple.

  Three two four . . . What’s that mean?

  Well, the product of the three numbers is twenty-four. Um, not helpful. What else? The Wythoff symbol for a cube is 3|24. Okay. A cube. Like a package.

  Then the number three, followed by three fifteens. Does three mean three of them? Or three dimensions? Oh, that would explain the 151515.

  She’s telling me to look for a cube-shaped box in the dimensions of fifteen by fifteen by fifteen!

  I start sorting through packages again, this time looking for a cube. I try to make a new pile in a different part of the container—this time one that won’t block the door.

  A second later, I find a cube. Let’s check it in the light . . . Oakline Media to STZ Digital. Typed. Damn it.

  “Theo, we’re hearing a lot of movement in there. Are you talking to your psychologist? We can’t have you damaging anything.”

  “She put me on hold,” I reply.

  I keep sorting and quickly find another.

  What’s this one say? Oakline again. Seriously, guys? I reach down below my knees and find another cube.

  “We’re coming in, Theo. We’re armed and will shoot.”

  “Wait!” The door starts to slide up. “Don’t come in!”

  I flip the box around, trying to find the label. It’s cold.

  Unusually cold.

  “I’ll hurt myself!”

  “You don’t have a gun, Theo.”

  The whole container starts to move.

  “What are you doing?” Bam! Something hits the container from the side, like a fucking car, and I’m thrown against the inside wall. The door flies open, and all hell breaks loose as men in tactical armor reach inside.

  “It’s a bomb!” I yell, clinging to the cold, cubic package. The men quickly stand back.

  “Um, metaphorically speaking . . .”

  I glance down at the label, heart racing, as Forrester’s handwriting stares back at me.

  My heart stops for a moment when I see what he’s written on the label.

  Oh god.

  Oh dear god.

  Let this be the only one.

  It’s undiluted flu vaccine.

  There’s enough in here to make one hundred thousand doses. The box has the CDC stamps and all the proper paperwork. It’s addressed to the facility in New York where they prepare the dosage for the entire United States military.

  Who knows what Forrester has done to make sure it would be used in the production line? I’d put nothing past him.

  When the Taser hits my chest and I’m blasted with one million volts, I’m okay with it.

  I can’t move my arms. I’m twitching on the ground. Each pulse jerks me like a fish on a hook.

  It’s. Okay.

  It could have been worse. Much, much worse.

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  AFTERMATH

  My lab is quiet. Everyone else has gone home. Jillian dropped me off. It still hurts to drive. Hailey offered to buy me a Tesla to make it easier, but I declined to take her up on the offer. In part because I am not sure Jillian would quite accept that Hailey’s sort of my protégée and not some younger competition.

  Forrester was pissed when they told him I found his package. Real pissed. He tried to rip out his IV and had to be sedated.

  I guess that means we got all of it. I pray.

  If we hadn’t . . .

  It’s not just that one hundred thousand doses of Hyde could have infected one hundred thousand soldiers . .
. it’s what one hundred thousand homicidal men and women in uniform could do. Most of them live at home in the United States.

  It would have been an epidemic. An epidemic of murderers.

  The FBI and the army are still trying to wrap their heads around it. The official story was that Forrester tried to taint the supply of flu vaccine but was stopped.

  I like that story a lot better.

  I flip on the lights and go into my inner lab. Hyde still has some secrets to reveal.

  Figueroa knows I have samples from the crime scenes. Sooner or later, USAMRIID and the CDC are going to come collect them. But I have questions.

  Forrester was trying really hard to make this thing fully airborne. Infecting one hundred thousand men and women during flu season might have led to enough mutations to make that happen.

  I put on my clean-room suit and step into the negatively pressured chamber.

  After checking my suit, I enter the code on the cold-storage safe and pull out the samples in the test-tube rack.

  To be cautious, I place them in a sealed chamber so I can do an antibody test.

  I’d ask Darnell to help me, but he’s been pretty overworked since Todd left.

  I’m going to try not to do so much on my own anymore. I’m going to think things through in a more commonsense manner and not just treat everything like a math problem.

  Hailey and Mylo found the rest of Forrester’s carbon copy of the shipping label and were able to piece together the shipment. That’s how they got me the right dimensions. Hailey insists that if I hadn’t driven her car through the fence and gotten airport SWAT to zap me into the next universe, the package would have gotten through.

  Maybe. But I think we could have stopped it at its destination.

  Live and learn, Theo. Live and learn.

  Things are going to be different from now on. Figueroa sees the advantage of letting me have a little more latitude. The FBI, at least some of them, are starting to realize I can be of help.

  I’ve also acquired a deep respect for them. Nobody is more tireless than Gallard, but a man who has to follow the law to enforce it doesn’t have the same advantage as someone willing to break a few things and seek forgiveness later. The FBI’s job is incredibly hard. If I ever have to sit in another conference room and explain something technical (god forbid), my first reaction when they don’t understand won’t be to storm out.