Chapter Two
Raissa strolled into the Internet café across town, her laptop tucked under her arm. Her normally casual look had been replaced with a loud pink blouse, skintight black pants, and a wig with long red curls. As she waited in line for a latte, she pulled a mirror from her purse and studied the ceiling edge around the room while pretending to check her lipstick. She closed the mirror and tucked it back into a huge silver bag. She’d been right—no security cameras.
She placed her order and received a compliment from the clerk on her long turquoise nails with purple dolphins, then collected her coffee and took a table on the patio outside that offered her the best view of the street corner. Placing the laptop on the table, she gave the street the once-over, her eyes safely hidden behind the polarized lenses of her sunglasses. After a quick glance back inside the shop, she peeled the dolphin nails off her fingertips, satisfied that no one would ever think that the dolphin-nail-wearing woman and Raissa Bordeaux were the same person.
When her fingers were free of the long nails, she opened her laptop and started working. It took only minutes to get to the files she’d come for, even with the added time of diverting the FBI firewall security, but then she hadn’t been known as the best hacker at the bureau for nothing. She inserted a flash drive and began the download of every case file she could think of that might be relevant, every possible angle she could come up with that might keep her alive. Her fingers flew across the keyboard, and the screen scrolled with page after page of downloading data. She looked at the time and checked the street again. A minute, maybe two, was all she had left before they closed in on her.
She opened the last log she wanted to check and scanned the list. The second-to-last entry was the one she expected to find. Mission completed, she pocketed the flash drive and deposited the laptop in the trash-can before she left the cafe. A block from the café, she slipped into the alley and pulled a large trash bag from her purse. She shoved the sunglasses, wig, and purse inside, along with the fake nails she’d removed earlier, then buried the bag in a Dumpster behind a Chinese restaurant. As she exited the alley, she peeled the wax off her fingertips, scattering the remains on the sidewalk as she went.
She had a moment of regret at the thought of the laptop crushed alongside latte remnants, but the reality was, it was marked. If she used it to access the Internet again, the trace would begin automatically. Still, it always killed her to sacrifice good computer equipment, which is why she always picked up old systems at garage sales and secondhand stores. With minimal tinkering she could upgrade them to suit her purposes.
She glanced at her watch as she hopped into her car. Despite his obvious disdain and disbelief of her profession and the “evidence” she’d given him, Detective Blanchard had run the case through the bureau—just ten minutes before. She knew it would take at least forty-five minutes for him to get clearance approval and for the information to queue. She figured that gave her about an hour to double-check that everything was in order at her shop before the surly detective paid her an “unoffi cial” visit.
That meant an hour to ensure that the outside of every door and window of her shop was free of fingerprints, just in case she’d properly read the serious and quick-thinking Detective Blanchard. Once he realized Raissa was right on all counts, the logical thing to do would be to scrutinize the source. And since the source in this case didn’t want her fingerprints run through a national database, at least not until she’d had an opportunity to come up with plan B, an unscheduled date with Windex was in order. She smiled. How unlucky for Detective Blanchard that Raissa had nine years of experience in remaining out of sight.
Zach scrolled down the screen, scanning the result of the FBI database search he’d done earlier. His pulse quickened as the screen scrolled, child after child. All six years old. All blonde with blue eyes. All missing from a locked house with frantic parents who had been cleared of any involvement. All had been returned a week later, and medical examinations had revealed no injury or abuse. None of the cases had ever yielded a decent set of clues, much less been solved.
And every single child had claimed she’d been abducted by aliens.
Shit.
He scrolled back to the top of the page and checked the cities—Tallahassee, Orlando, Gulfport, Jackson, Baton Rouge, Brooklyn. Son of a bitch. That psychic had nailed it.
Damn it! How in the world was he supposed to explain to his captain that a psychic had tipped him off? And that the chief suspect was apparently a character from The X-Files. He shook his head. The answer was simple—he didn’t explain. They would have run the case through the FBI database eventually. Zach could just claim that the odd aspects of the crime made him decide to do it sooner rather than later. He wouldn’t even mention the alien thing. The captain could just read that himself.
But there was also a whole other issue to deal with.
Zach didn’t believe for one second that the woman he’d met was really psychic. Zach didn’t believe in psychics at all. Which meant that Raissa Bordeaux had come about that information some other way than through spirits or tea leaves. And the only way that came to mind was that she knew who had kidnapped those girls.
Or had done it herself.
Zach combed the printouts of everything he could find on Raissa Bordeaux, which was next to nothing. A mere two pages. A ten-year-old would have a file bigger than this woman. Raissa—no middle name—Bordeaux had appeared in New Orleans nine years ago. She’d worked as a waitress at a bar downtown for about a year, and then she’d opened her little shop of paranormal tricks. Her driver’s license was nine years old, and as far as he could tell, she hadn’t been issued one prior to then. Her Social Security number showed only her waitress income and the business, and beyond that, Raissa Bordeaux didn’t exist.
No arrests, no credit history, not even a parking ticket. It was as if the woman had appeared out of thin air nine years ago.
Zach frowned and tapped his pencil on the desk. Women who abducted children usually did so because they wanted their own, or they were involved in a baby-selling ring. But these missing girls had been too old to sell to couples wanting an infant. It was more likely Raissa Bordeaux knew so much because she was somehow involved with the man who had taken the girls. Zach wasn’t buying that “vision” nonsense for a moment, but fronting for some guy running drugs, prostitution, kiddie porn, whatever—that he’d buy.
It was a shame that all the real lookers hooked up with piece-of-shit men. As long as he lived, Zach was certain he’d never understand the attraction. But there was really no other explanation. Either Raissa Bordeaux liked little girls and was playing a game with the police, or she knew a man who liked little girls and she wanted out of whatever she’d gotten herself into.
Zach was banking on the latter.
He rose from his chair and grabbed his keys off the desktop. It was time to pay Ms. Bordeaux a visit. And maybe try to pick up a random fingerprint while he was there. She might be able to change her driver’s license and Social Security card, but fingerprints are forever.