Criss Cross (Alex Cross #27)(20)

After I finished, he stared down at the wooden floor and then up at the beams.

“This was Diane’s idea,” he said, gesturing around. “She designed it to look like her grandma’s farm kitchen, which was where she was happiest as a child.”

“It’s beautiful,” I said.

“I think so,” he choked out. “My girls … I … I don’t know what to tell them.”

Jenkins broke down and hung his head.

“Mr. Jenkins, you have to stay positive,” I said, putting my hand on his shoulder. “There’s always a possibility that M will change his pattern.”

Jenkins stiffened. “You’re what this is all about, aren’t you, Dr. Cross? I mean, M leaves these notes for you. He knew you’d find your way to this case.”

“I think that’s fair to say, Mr. Jenkins.”

“So my Diane’s a pawn in some twisted game you’re playing with this guy?”

“It’s not a game I entered willingly. It’s a game I was sucked into.”

“For twelve years?” he said. “Who does that? Why you?”

“I don’t know.”

My phone made that odd dinging noise again.

I did not move a muscle.

“Is he going to kill my wife in order to punish you?” Jenkins asked.

“I can’t answer that. But I do know that this is the first time he’s requested money. That’s a good thing. Money is traceable.”

“Not those cryptocurrencies,” Jenkins said. “I’ve read up on them in the past day or so. They’re untraceable. That’s why China banned them.”

“Mostly untraceable,” I said. “FBI experts are on their way from Quantico, and they’re brilliant with anything cyber. If anyone can track the flow of the ransom money, it’s them.”

My phone dinged a third time.

“Excuse me,” I said. I walked out into the hall and pulled the phone from my pocket in time to see It’s me, Dad! Ali! Go to Wickr on your phone and message me back. We can be spies!





CHAPTER 24





BY THE FOLLOWING EVENING, as the deadline for the ransom payment approached, I had put aside the extreme irritation I’d felt on learning that Ali had put the Wickr app on my phone without my permission.

I’d checked the app out on the web and saw it was legitimate, but I told Ali he’d better ask me in the future before he put anything on my phone and emphasized that there was to be no “spying” when I was on duty. Ever. He promised, and after a few “secret” messages between us over breakfast, I was able to turn my full attention to the Diane Jenkins case.

An FBI contractor and eccentric tech genius named Keith Karl Rawlins had flown in along with his handler, Special Agent Henna Batra. I’d worked with them before and considered them a formidable team. As I sat in the Jenkinses’ kitchen that night, I felt like we had a decent shot at finding our way to M and to Mrs. Jenkins.

Rawlins, who went by the nickname Krazy Kat or, sometimes, KK, was dressed in green parachute pants, sandals, and an embroidered purple shirt that matched the color of his hair—or some of his hair, anyway. The FBI forgave his free spirit because, with dual PhDs from Stanford and another from MIT, the man was beyond a wizard at a keyboard.

“We good?” Mahoney asked, glancing at the wall clock in the Jenkinses’ kitchen.

Rawlins sat at the breakfast counter chewing his lip and looking at three different laptops set around a much larger screen.

“If historical data reverts to the mean, we have a real chance,” Rawlins said.

Special Agent Batra, a petite woman in her thirties, sat by him. “We would if this were a cash transaction,” she sniffed. “Crypto is an entire paradigm shift.”

“Paradigm shift,” Rawlins sniffed back. “How Y-Two-K of you, Batra.”

“He could be anywhere,” she snapped.

I understood the conflict. Historical FBI data going back to the 1920s strongly suggested that kidnappers interested in money usually remained close to where they’d snatched their victims. Based on interviews with serial kidnappers, investigators knew there were many reasons why. The biggest was to avoid a long drive that might trigger a police stop. Better to take a victim somewhere quickly and make the ransom demand from there.

Being close to the victim’s home also helped when the kidnappers moved to pick up the cash payment. But with cryptocurrency, that seemed less important.

Still, Rawlins had set up digital traps in the operating system of cell towers around Cleveland and in the park where Mrs. Jenkins’s cell phone had gone silent. He’d also buried digital tracking bugs in the metadata surrounding the Ethereum currency.

Jenkins’s iPhone buzzed and rang. On the screen was unknown name, unknown number.

“Here we go,” I said, tugging on wireless headphones linked to Jenkins’s phone.

“Hello?” Jenkins said.

The voice was the same as in the recording—flat, sexless, hollow.

“Are your hands clean, Mr. Jenkins?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Did you notify the FBI?”

“You told me not to.”

“Answer the question.”

“No.”