Some people say they want to own a piece of the pie.

Blake didn’t want a piece of the pie.

And he didn’t want the whole thing.

He wanted to own the bakery.

And he was on his way to making that happen.

68

11:02 A.M.
3 hours left

We waited while Reese tried Ibrahim’s number, but no one picked up, and Angela wasn’t able to trace the call or locate the man’s cell. Apparently, but not surprisingly, whoever was using that number had either chosen a burner phone or was using high-level end-to-end encryption.

“To take us closer to Blake we need to nail down this novelist’s relationship to Julianne Springman,” DeYoung told us. Then he assigned Thurman the task of uncovering the connection. “Springman’s a former cop. She wouldn’t likely give up her gun to a stranger. Maybe they have a past together.”

Senator Murray showed up, and while DeYoung went to speak with him for a few minutes, Ralph, who’d finally arrived, joined us.

“That was an interesting idea about looking into charities,” Thurman observed to me. “What made you think of that?”

“Just trying to cover all the bases. Listen, you specialize in working with confidential informants. From your experience, do you think it’s possible we could turn Mannie?”

“I suppose it is.” He looked past me thoughtfully. “I really couldn’t say without knowing more of his background. We’d need to find out what’s motivating him first.”

Motives. Great.

I recalled what Ralph had told me about the legislation on the senator’s desk, and I considered the timing of what was happening in this case. “Quantum encryption research?”

“I’m not sure I know what that is.”

“I’ll forward you the files,” Ralph said.

One of the other agents, a petite woman named Patricia, said to me, “After I got word about Sabian earlier this morning before the briefing, I started looking into his background. Turns out this novelist of ours has quite a past.”

“In what way?” I asked.

“When he was a boy, his dad was suspected of five murders but disappeared. Timothy’s mom was sent to prison for her involvement with the crimes, spent more than a decade behind bars, and then, only a couple weeks after she was released, she was found dead in a bathtub, wrists slit.”

“That’s enough to send anyone off the deep end,” Thurman noted.

Patricia went on. “According to the files, Timothy was the one who made the original 911 call to the Cincinnati cops back when he was a kid. Turns out he saw what his dad was doing with a hammer to the people in their basement.”

I tried to take all of that in. “And his dad was never found? Never arrested?”

She shook her head. “Nope.”

“Post the notes to the online case files,” Thurman said. “This might explain why Julianne contacted Sabian.”

“Why’s that?” she asked.