He might have left a trail. She exchanged a look with her boss.

“Can you find him?” Alex asked grimly.

Evi1Geni-us. Not Greg Wallander. Because the former was currently doing something so heinous to the woman he held in his possession that the man seated beside her had gone pale and looked like he might throw up.

Yael drew in a deep breath and ignored the way the HRT operator’s eyes latched onto her so intently.

“I’m trying,” she said.

There was something weird about the data but she couldn’t figure out exactly what without stopping and going through every line of code and she didn’t have time right now.

Excitement surged through her. “I found an IP address.” She sent the 32-bit number to a work group chat that allowed all the other analysts at Cramer, Parker & Gray to start doing their own things with the info.

“That tells you his exact location, right?” the HRT guy asked.

“It’s a unique identifier that tells us about his online activities and…okay. Found the ISP.” She typed it into the chat box and explained. “Internet Service Provider. Which gives us another handle on the approximate geolocation.”

“The info matches what I have for location,” Alex told her.

Good.

Maybe Evi1Geni-us wasn’t as smart as he thought he was.

“We have a ZIP code.” Alex reeled it off and the FBI agents started huddling around the map.

Yael opened another window and zeroed in on a map of the ZIP code area. Could they really be this close to catching the guy after all the months and years he’d been leading Alex in circles?

The operator’s breath was so close to her cheek now she could feel the minty warmth brushing her skin. She pushed aside her hyperawareness of his proximity.

“Looks like a bunch of warehouses,” he said.

“Yeah. And a school over there.” She pointed to a building on the right-hand side.

“We are checking for the most likely locations within that area,” Agent Chen stated.

“Let’s hurry it up.” The HRT guy’s eyes went back to the live screen even as Chen nodded.

Both of their expressions were bleak.

“What’s he doing now?” Yael asked quietly, meaning Evi1Geni-us.

“You don’t wanna know,” her new friend said grimly.

“Is she still alive?”

“Unfortunately.”

Yael closed her eyes briefly then went back to the earlier code. What was in there that had bothered her? A quick scan told her nothing. She scrolled back to the start of the session even though the feed was still streaming.

“We have a possible address,” Ashley Chen shouted over the general din. “A warehouse off Eastman and Grove. It’s been empty for two years but the electricity use surged over the last three days.”

“Help me find any nearby security cameras,” Alex urged her.

“I want to check the code—”

“Grab a couple of surveillance camera feeds first. Then examine the code.”

She nodded, zeroing in on a couple of nearby premises that likely had cameras.