God knows, he could be sending her Photoshops of him in photos of Guam. He could carry the charade on for months if he needed to. Even have Jeff break up with her or get sick and die over there or vanish in a scuba accident.

His wife would never know.

It’s the perfect way to hide a murder; never let anyone know the victim is dead.

I think about how much of my contact with friends outside of work is electronic. It’d be easy to masquerade as me if you had access to my e-mail and text accounts.

I decide it’s best not to tell the wife anything right now. For all I know, the Warlock has her phone tapped. I need to make sure we can get to her before he does. I say good-bye as calmly and cheerfully as I can and hang up.

On the surface it’s a flimsy premise, yet it makes sense. It’s what I would do.

I call Ailes as I race for a taxi to take me back to the conference hall.

I almost shout the name into the phone. “Jeff Swanson.”

“Jeff who?” asks Ailes.

“Have one of your people look him up.”

“Hold on.”

I run out to the taxi pickup zone and flag down a cab. I bark the name of the hotel to the driver.

On the way back to the command center Ailes gets back to me. “Good match, Jessica, but someone already checked his name. He’s alive and well.”

“Did they talk to him?” I ask.

“What?”

“Did someone actually talk to him? What do the notes say? Did the person following up the lead actually see him in person?”

“Hold on. They said his wife said he was fine. No priors on her. No reason to think she’s lying.”

“She’s not. I think she’s been deceived. She’s only been talking to him via text message for the last three days. Anybody with his phone could do that. Swanson could be dead. He could be our pilot.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah.”

Ailes lets out a breath of air. “This is major league thinking, Jessica. Let me get to Knoll and the director on this. It changes everything.”

A break. Our first real break. Not a planted clue. A genuine chink in his armor. And all I had to do to find it was let one sociopath and potential murderer back into my personal life.

What will taking this all the way cost me?

23

BY THE TIME I walk back into the hotel conference hall, the Faceplaced.com image of Jeff Swanson is up on the screens alongside the photograph of the dead pilot we found in the plane and the photo of Captain Kelsford. The resemblance is eerie.

Knoll weaves his stocky body through the tables toward me. He points a finger in my direction.

“You’ve been holding out on us.”

At first I think it’s an accusation. Then I realize he’s paying me a compliment. I pull my laptop out of my bag and set it on an empty table.