Page 35

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

On any other day, Keller would rush out of the station house and join the rest of the team tracking down a person of interest in a time-sensitive investigation. Blane Roosevelt’s father, who by all accounts shouldn’t have been anywhere near SCU, is one of the last people seen with Blane before he vanished. But Keller wasn’t invited, purposefully so. And she’s been ordered to keep a low profile, to stand down. Work on getting the geofence data. She can’t disobey a direct order on her first day. Or can she?

She decides, no . She needs this assignment. For Pops. For Bob. Besides, her gut tells her that Blane Roosevelt’s father—a disgruntled ex-husband and bitter novelist—has nothing to do with the disappearance of The Five. He should be interviewed, for sure. But the response from her ASAC and the newly forged task force, so many bodies rushing to wherever they’ve found him, seems disproportionate. Killing a mosquito with a sledgehammer… another Stan-ism.

Fate in the form of text messages confirms she’s making the right decision. They’re from the AUSA who is dealing with Google’s legal investigations specialist on the geofence request.

They say we need warrant for each phone

Keller texts back:

So let’s get them

When he doesn’t reply right away, she calls the guy.

“It’s not that simple,” he says. “Recent case law is against us. We can’t just get a list of all phones in a particular area without probable cause for each particular phone. Those days are over.”

“This could break the case,” Keller says. “If we know who was in the same area as the students when their phones last pinged, it could identify the perp or witnesses.”

“Sorry, I can’t take this to a judge,” he says.

To hell with that.