“I love you,” Josh said.
“I never get tired of hearing that. I love you too,” Maya said as they each clicked off.
She sat for a moment trying to sort through her thoughts and what they needed to find out. It was time to touch base with Kessler. They needed to know more about Aaron.
Maya dialed his number and thought it was going to go to voicemail, but then Kessler picked up. “Thompson. Where are you?”
“I’m at the sheriff’s office.”
“Good. Stay there. We’re headed your way.”
The line went dead. Maya stared at her phone like it would give her answers. But there was only a blank screen.
Juniper was studying Maya, probably hoping they could get going soon. “We’re not leaving yet, girly. How about I get you out to run around for a minute? There’s something strange going on.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Maya went back to the front entrance and saw Kessler and the other two agents coming in at the side doors. She followed them to the conference room where Pops had joined them. Had Josh told him yet about what he knew? She wanted to make sure the other two agents didn’t find out about locating Marcus’s girlfriend just yet.
None of them took a seat. Kessler’s face was tight and he had circles under his eyes from lack of sleep. He had a daughter too. She was still a baby, but even so, Maya had heard that once you had children, cases with kids took on a new meaning and were even more taxing.
Kessler had his hands on his hips and took a big sigh. Then he opened his laptop and clicked on some files. “We received more proof of life photos from Abigail.”
“What?” Maya asked. “Did she email them to you?”
“She did.”
Pops and Maya moved behind Kessler as he opened the photos. “Can you trace them?” Maya asked. “Maybe we can get a location.”
Kessler gave her a tired look. “We tried. I had theFBI cyber guys start looking into it immediately when I received the first pictures. Unfortunately, she’s managed to do what good scammers do and is using a program to remain anonymous. The program hides her IP address and makes it hard to track where she’s sending emails from. So far, the cyber guys have traced her location to servers in Russia and Africa. It could take them days to sort through it all... and we don’t have days.”
“No, we don’t,” Maya agreed, peering over Kessler’s shoulder at the pictures. There was something about the background of the photos that was familiar to Maya. A painting was hanging on the wall behind Hope. Maya had seen it before, but where?
“Abigail sent a demand too,” Kessler said.
“What does she want?” Pops asked.
“She claims she’ll trade Hope for Eric.”
“Then we should do that,” Maya said. “Eric would want it.”
“I know he would,” Kessler said. “But I would have a lot to answer for if I sent him, a person being detained with charges pending including eluding capture, to an armed and dangerous person who just escaped federal custody. No way is that happening.”
“Then I’ll go,” Maya said. “Tell her she can have me in exchange for Hope.”
“What?” Pops said, his face turning red. “No way. You’re not doing such a crazy thing. She’ll kill you.”
Maya knew the red face was a sign his blood pressure was instantly rising. “Okay, but maybe we can use Juniper somehow to help apprehend her. Maybe Juniper can track her.”
“I’m all for Juniper biting the crap out of her,” Kessler said. “But the problem is, we don’t know where she’s located.”
“It’s like finding a needle in a haystack,” Agent Bernardo added.
“Let me see that first picture again,” Maya said, leaning closer to the computer.
Kessler clicked on it and the picture came up.
“You really think you can figure out where they are from a piece of art on the wall?” Agent Ross asked.
