Chapter 7: The Voice on the Telephone
Chapter 7: The Voice on the Telephone
Detective Elena Brooks stared at the photograph recovered from Subject 27's folder.
Rachel.
Addie.
Boston Children's Hospital.
Taken only hours earlier.
Luke had been inside a secured detention facility the entire morning.
He couldn't have taken it.
Which meant only one thing.
Someone else was following them.
A Protective Detail
Within twenty minutes, two unmarked police vehicles quietly took positions around the hospital.
Brooks deliberately kept the officers out of sight.
If someone was watching Rachel, she didn't want them to know the police had noticed.
Officer Melissa Grant approached Rachel outside Addie's room.
"We're moving you."
Rachel looked confused.
"Why?"
"We've arranged a secure room on another floor."
"Is Addie okay?"
"She's fine."
"Then why move us?"
Grant hesitated.
She couldn't tell Rachel about the new photograph.
Not yet.
Instead, she simply said,
"We believe it's safer."
Rachel looked down the hallway.
"You're scaring me."
Grant answered honestly.
"I'd rather scare you than lose you."
Rachel nodded.
"I understand."
Interview Room Four
Luke had requested another interview.
That surprised everyone.
Usually suspects asked for lawyers.
Luke had already spoken with his attorney.
Now he specifically requested Detective Brooks.
She entered alone.
The recorder clicked on.
Luke smiled politely.
"I heard you've been busy."
Brooks remained standing.
"You asked for me."
"I did."
"Why?"
Luke folded his hands.
"You're looking in the wrong direction."
Brooks didn't react.
"You've used three identities."
"True."
"You secretly documented dozens of children."
"Apparently."
"You withheld medication from two asthmatic children."
"So you believe."
Brooks leaned forward.
"And you think I'm looking at the wrong person?"
Luke met her eyes.
"No."
"I think you're looking at the wrong number."
The sentence lingered.
Brooks frowned.
"What does that mean?"
Luke smiled.
"You've counted one."
He raised a finger.
"Then two."
A second finger.
"But you've never asked..."
He slowly raised a third finger.
"...who started counting."
Brooks stared at him.
For the first time since his arrest, Luke seemed almost...
Concerned.
Not for himself.
For someone else.
"Are you trying to warn me?" she asked.
Luke laughed quietly.
"I'm trying to warn everyone."
The Call
At 2:13 p.m., the homicide division's main telephone rang.
Dispatcher Karen Mills answered.
"Boston Police, how may I direct your call?"
A calm male voice replied.
"I'd like to report a mistake."
Karen frowned.
"What kind of mistake?"
"You arrested the wrong man."
Karen immediately signaled another dispatcher to begin tracing the call.
"Who is this?"
"You already know me."
"I don't believe we do."
A brief chuckle came through the line.
"You've been reading my journals all morning."
Karen's blood froze.
The caller continued.
"Detective Brooks missed something."
Karen kept him talking.
"What did she miss?"
"The journals aren't instructions."
"They're homework."
The trace technician silently counted down.
Thirty seconds...
The caller continued speaking.
"I was the teacher."
"Luke was only the student."
Karen's eyes widened.
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying..."
The voice paused.
"...class is still in session."
The line went dead.
The Trace
"Got it!"
The technician shouted.
Everyone crowded around the screen.
The call had lasted forty-two seconds.
Long enough for a partial location.
Not a home.
Not a cellphone.
A public payphone.
Less than three miles from Boston Children's Hospital.
Brooks was already running before the report finished printing.
Too Late
Patrol units reached the payphone in under five minutes.
Empty.
Rainwater dripped from the receiver.
No fingerprints.
No witnesses.
Only one nearby street vendor remembered seeing anyone.
"He was tall."
"Wearing a gray coat."
"Cap pulled low."
"Older than fifty."
"Did you see his face?"
"No."
"Anything unusual?"
The vendor thought for a moment.
"He walked away smiling."
Another Discovery
Back at headquarters, forensic analyst Amy Collins continued examining the recovered journals.
She wasn't reading them anymore.
She was measuring them.
Page margins.
Spacing.
Ink flow.
Something bothered her.
Every journal had been written by the same hand.
But...
Not at the same speed.
Journal One contained smooth, confident writing.
Journal Two became shakier.
Journal Three improved again.
Journal Four was almost identical to Journal One...
Except for tiny inconsistencies.
Amy enlarged several letters.
Then several more.
She compared pressure patterns.
Her heart began racing.
She immediately called Brooks.
"I think we've been wrong."
Brooks answered while climbing into her car.
"About what?"
"The journals."
"What about them?"
"I don't think one person wrote all of them."
Brooks stopped walking.
"What?"
"There are two writers."
"How certain?"
"Ninety-five percent."
Brooks frowned.
"But the handwriting matched Luke."
"It does."
"Then how..."
Amy interrupted.
"The first writer taught the second one."
Brooks suddenly remembered the phone call.
"I was the teacher."
Addie's Memory
That evening, a child psychologist met gently with Addie.
No pressure.
No leading questions.
Just conversation.
Near the end of the session, the psychologist asked,
"Can you tell me about the man outside your house?"
Addie nodded.
"He wore gloves."
"Even though it wasn't cold."
"What color?"
"Black."
"What else?"
"He limped."
The psychologist looked up.
"Limped?"
Addie demonstrated by dragging one foot slightly behind the other.
"Like this."
The psychologist smiled encouragingly.
"Very good."
"Anything else?"
Addie thought quietly.
Then she drew something on a piece of paper.
A simple circle.
Inside it...
Three connected triangles.
The psychologist frowned.
"What's this?"
"The necklace."
Rachel looked over.
"I've never seen that before."
Addie nodded confidently.
"The man wore it."
The Symbol
Less than an hour later, Brooks received the drawing.
She stared at the strange symbol.
Three interlocking triangles enclosed within a circle.
It seemed oddly familiar.
She couldn't place it.
Then Officer Grant walked into her office carrying another evidence box from Storage Unit 214.
"We found a false bottom."
Brooks immediately stood.
Inside the hidden compartment lay an old black-and-white photograph.
Four young men stood in front of a brick building.
Each wore an identical pendant around his neck.
A circle.
Three interlocking triangles.
On the back of the photograph, someone had written a single sentence.
"The Four Never Break."
Brooks counted the faces.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
One face had been scratched out with a knife.
Another looked remarkably like a young Luke.
The remaining two...
Had never been identified.
Brooks slowly lowered the photograph.
If the message on the back was true...
There had never been just one predator.
Or even two.
There had once been...
May you like
Four.
End of Chapter 7
