Collins let us know that an unauthorized email, content unknown, had been sent to an email address previously associated with one of Blake’s accounts. It originated from Greer’s computer at the Field Office.

When I was about to call him, I saw a text from Christie that she was with him.

I tried her number first, then his, but neither picked up.

Ralph didn’t trust Greer, hadn’t from the start. He was also suspicious about him escaping after being abducted by Blake’s men.

Was he involved in this?

But then why would he have contacted Blake? How would he have even known how to reach him? And was he really stupid enough to send a message to Blake from his own computer at the Field Office?

I doubted that. It was too obvious, too convenient.

But he knew about the tracking device.

My head was spinning.

Who else on this case could have gotten into Greer’s computer?

Thurman?

Maybe, but he wouldn’t have likely had the clearance. It’d need to be someone higher up.

Then another thought.

Patricia had said that when Timothy Sabian was a boy, he’d made the 911 call to the Cincinnati cops, so . . .

Did Thurman ever work in Cincinnati?

I didn’t know.

Who could have accessed that computer?

Collins? Someone from her division?

No. Higher.

The agents at Sabian’s place said that DeYoung had called them off the house.

Was that even possible?

They couldn’t be sure it was his voice, but—

The assistant director was from Cincinnati.

No.

He knows how to make someone’s past disappear.

Could he be Sabian’s dad?

Don’t assume. Verify.

I tried Christie again, but she didn’t pick up.

I contacted hospital security and sent them to Calvin’s room. “Hurry. I need you to see if my wife is there. And if Assistant Director DeYoung is with her.”

++++

As a boy, Timothy had been instructed not to play with knives.

He knew that he would get in trouble with his mother if he did, but he wanted to find something that was sharp enough to hurt his dad if he ever needed to protect her.

His mom let him open up the envelopes that they got in the mail.

He used a special opener.

It cut through paper, tape, even heavy packaging if you pushed hard enough.

He’d kept it with him all the time when he was young.

Hidden, so she couldn’t see.

Hidden, but close.

And he kept one close by him when he got older as well.

So, before he’d left the house with the girl he’d given the Beretta to, he’d grabbed the letter opener and tucked it into his jacket pocket.

Then he slipped an X-ACTO knife in another pocket, already thinking of how he might use it if he needed to.

++++