When Silver opened his eyes, they were filled with a renewed determination.

He started pumping shilling after shilling into the coin slot, dialed a number he had committed to memory, and listened as the call went through.

Then Prior Silver waited for the one person in the world who might be able to help him to answer his desperate call.

Chapter 18

18

Detective First Grade John Frankel felt completely helpless and disconnected from the world.

That’s what happens when you’re stuck thirty-five thousand feet in the air on a 777 flying across the Atlantic.

He looked across the aisle. Rachel had fallen asleep on the red-eye, snugly tucked under a courtesy BA-logoed blanket and the eyeshade that came with it. But her father was wide awake beside her, staring straight ahead. As frustrated as Frankel felt, Grant had to feel doubly so as they winged their way back to the UK.

It was becoming abundantly clear that Austin Grant had become the focal point for the killer. From the crossed-out picture in the stolen Far Rockaway car, to the emergence of Prior Silver as the prime suspect, and now the “Fleming Mess” (Grant’s words); it couldn’t be a coincidence.

Frankel had been fascinated listening to Grant recall his pursuit of Jared Fleming and Elizabeth Dozier. He vaguely remembered seeing it in a tabloid, but burdened with his own caseload, Frankel didn’t pay much attention to a trial happening on the other side of the Atlantic. But the pair certainly fit the criteria as Silver’s intended victims.

It hadn’t taken much convincing to get Lieutenant Harris to authorize Frankel’s heading to London alongside Grant. Frankel was sure his superior was breathing a sigh of relief that the killer had taken his serial spree to a distant shore.

There had been much debate about Rachel accompanying them. Grant hadn’t thought it a good idea, but his daughter argued that having helped unearth Prior Silver she was now part of this, and that she was concerned for her father’s safety and didn’t want to be up all night worrying on a separate continent. Plus, she was a grown woman who made her own choices as to where and how she spent her time.

Frankel smiled; the last reason was enough to know this was an argument Grant would never win.

He checked his watch; still three hours till they landed at Heathrow. Frankel tried watching some action movie with Dwayne Johnson but quickly lost interest.

Instead, he replayed where they were in pursuit of Silver. It wasn’t great.

The former thief had been in England for nearly a day by the time the three of them boarded the British Airways jet. There hadn’t been a sighting of Silver since he’d stepped off the Norwegian Air flight. And Hawley had reported he hadn’t been able to locate either Jared Frankel or Elizabeth Dozier.

He glanced over to find Grant watching him.