The Blue Nowhere

people that his family’d be moving out here to join him after his kids were out of school.”
    Bishop said to Alonso, “We know his next target’s probably a student at Northern California University but we don’t know who exactly. Make sure your people look for anything that might give us a clue about who he’s going to hit.”
    Johnson shook his head and said, “But now we busted his hidey-hole, don’t you think he’ll go to ground and forget about other victims for the time being?”
    Bishop looked at Gillette and said, “That’s not my take on him.”
    The hacker agreed. “Phate wants a win here. One way or another he’s going to kill somebody today.”
    “I’ll give them the word,” the SWAT cop said and went off to do so.
    The team examined the other rooms but found them virtually empty, hidden from the outside by drawn blinds. The bathroom contained minimal products—generic-brand razors and shaving cream, shampoo and soap. They also found a large box of pumice stones.
    Bishop picked one up, frowning with curiosity.
    “His fingers,” Gillette reminded. “He uses the stones to sand down the callus so he can key better.”
    They walked into the dining room, where Phate’s laptop was set up.
    Gillette glanced at the screen, shook his head in disgust. “Look.”
    Bishop and Shelton read the words:
    INSTANT MESSAGE FROM: SHAWN
    CODE 10-87 ISSUED FOR 34004 ALTA VISTA DRIVE
    “That’s the tactical assault code—a ten eighty-seven. If he hadn’t gotten that message we would’ve collared him,” Bishop said. “We were that close.”
    “Fucking Shawn,” Shelton snapped.
    A trooper called from the basement, “I’ve got the escape route. It’s down here.”
    Gillette went downstairs with the others. But on the last step he paused, recognizing the scene from the picture of Lara Gibson. The clumsy tiling job, the unpainted Sheetrock. And the swirls of blood on the floor. The sight was wrenching.
    He joined Alonso Johnson, Frank Bishop and the other troopers who were examining a small door in the side wall. It opened into a three-foot-wide pipe, like a large storm drain. One of the troopers shone his flashlight into the pipe. “It leads to the house next door.”
    Gillette and Bishop stared at each other. The detective said, “No! The woman with the white hair—in the Explorer! The one who pulled out of the garage. It was him.”
    Johnson grabbed his radio and ordered troopers into the house. He then sent out an emergency vehicle locator for the four-by-four.
    A moment later a trooper called in. “The house next door is completely empty. No furniture. Nothing.”
    “He owned both houses.”
    “God damn social engineering,” Bishop snapped, uttering the first cuss word Gillette had heard leave the detective’s mouth.
    In five minutes the report came back that the Explorer had been found in a shopping center parking lot not a quarter of a mile away. A white wig and dress were in the backseat. Nobody canvassed at the shopping center had seen anyone swap the Explorer for any other vehicle.
    The state police crime scene unit went through both houses thoroughly but found very little that was helpful. It turned out that Phate—as Warren Gregg—had actually bought both of these houses, using cash. They called the realtor who’d sold them to him. She hadn’t thought it strange that he’d paid cash for two houses; in the Valley ofthe Heart’s Delight wealthy young computer executives often bought one house to live in and one for investment. She added, though, that there appeared to be one odd thing about this particular transaction: when she’d looked up the credit reports and application at the police’s request just now all the records of sale were gone. “Isn’t that curious? They were accidentally erased.”
    “Yeah, curious,” Bishop said wryly.
    “Yeah, accidentally,” Gillette added.
    Bishop then said to the hacker, “Let’s get his machine back to CCU. If we’re lucky there might be some reference to his victim at the college. Let’s move on this fast.”
    Johnson and Bishop released the scene, then Linda Sanchez filled out the chain of custody cards and she bundled up Phate’s computer and disks.
    The team returned to their cars and sped back to CCU headquarters.
    Gillette broke the news to Patricia Nolan that the arrest had been unsuccessful.
    “Shawn tipped him off again?” she asked angrily.
    Sanchez handed Phate’s laptop to Gillette and Nolan and then took a