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CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

THE KELLERS

Keller wakes from an uneasy sleep to the sound of her phone vibrating on the nightstand. It takes her a moment to realize they aren’t back home in New York. That disoriented feeling when you travel. But she remembers she’s not traveling. She’s a Bay Area resident for the indefinite future. She feels a twinge of anxiety thinking about her less-than-illustrious start: already an internet meme from the Golden Gate Bridge incident, already sidelined by her new boss. But there’s something far more pressing: five missing students whose chances for a happy ending diminish with every passing second.

The phone continues to rattle. She sees it’s a call from her ASAC, 3:40 a.m. Probably not good news. Good news can wait until morning.

“Agent Keller,” she answers, trying to sound awake, though she’s not fooling anyone. Bob isn’t snoring, thank goodness.

“It’s Peters. We need all hands on deck.”

She doesn’t reply, processing.

“We found the van.”

The Scooby-Doo van. By the tone of his voice, this isn’t good news.

An hour later, Keller lingers at the periphery of the patch of gravel off Highway 17. The two-lane road has no streetlights and is illuminated by only the headlamps of the cluster of vehicles crammed to the side. Flares burn in the distance, warning drivers to slow as they approach the scene. On either side of the road are stands of evergreens. A thick stench of smoke clogs the air. Burning rubber and plastic.

The van, once a tribute to a beloved cartoon, is now a smoldering pile of metal. Torched.

Keller sees campus police chief Jay McCray, also on the periphery, and walks over to him.

“Bodies?” she asks.

“No, thank god.”

She looks out at her ASAC, who’s talking to a small group.

McCray continues: “Burned to destroy any evidence.”

“What the hell is going on?” Keller says, as much to herself as to McCray.

He shakes his head.

“I was surprised to get the call from Peters,” Keller says. “He’d made it pretty clear that my help isn’t, um, needed.”

“Same,” McCray says. Then adds: “But they need us for the search. They’re shorthanded with the other search team still scouring the park.” McCray looks out at the trees lining the road.

Keller understands. Since the van was torched, maybe The Five are in the area. Or their bodies are. Her heart sinks at the thought.

“So, Blane Roosevelt’s father was a dead end?” she asks.

“I only know what I’ve seen on TV,” he says. “I’m not exactly in the loop.”

“No ransom demands to any of the parents?” Keller asks. This is one instance where she’d welcome a demand. It would increase the odds the students are alive. Dead hostages aren’t valuable.

McCray shakes his head again. He may not be in the loop, but he’s tight with members of Peters’s new task force. Campus officers under his command. Old friends on the Santa Clara PD. From the Bureau’s San Jose office. “No demands—unless the parents are keeping it from us.”

He glances toward the tall woman. The State Department official, Blane Roosevelt’s mom. She’s talking to Peters, her index finger stabbing the air, punctuating whatever she’s saying. Keller doesn’t see any of the other parents.

“They found blood?” Keller asks. Peters mentioned it on their call, though he still hasn’t come over.

“Yeah. On the ground near the van.”

“Another ‘oh shit moment,’” Keller says, repeating the phrase McCray used when they first met. His instinct that the disappearance wasn’t just kids being kids was spot-on.

Trucks arrive with those portable streetlamps. An agent appears to be organizing a grid, assembling the search team, which will include Keller and McCray and about a dozen agents and local cops. There’s already a table set up with flashlights and reflective vests. A K-9 unit arrives.

Keller surveys the search area. The trees along the roadside are thick, so drones will be ineffective. Hence the manual search plan. Another Bureau agent shepherds them over to the makeshift command center, where they’re told to await instructions.

Keller doesn’t mind doing grunt work. An investigation is a team sport. Sometimes you’re the star player, sometimes you’re on the bench, sometimes you’re the water boy. She’s the new person at the office, hasn’t even met most of her colleagues. But it does seem like a waste to bench someone who spent the day gathering evidence, however useless it turned out to be. Sometimes the little nugget that meant nothing initially breaks a case wide open when another piece of the puzzle emerges.

“That was clever, finding the FedEx footage,” McCray says.

“Thanks.”

He adds, “I’m just waiting for the reporters to get wind of the video and start calling him the Smurf Bandit.”

“I was thinking they’d say the kids were Smurf-napped.”

They’re mercifully interrupted by someone calling Keller’s name.

She catches Peters waving her over, an impatient get over here gesture. Next to him stands Cynthia Roosevelt, hands on her hips.

“Good luck,” McCray says.

Cynthia has moved away by the time Keller gets there. Peters doesn’t look happy and his team members are all studying their shoes.

“We need you on the investigation,” Peters says. “Not on the search,” he clarifies. There’s no enthusiasm in his voice. But Keller isn’t going to question it.

Peters rubs a hand over his face, gives a tired nod. He then pulls out his phone, taps on it. “Start here,” he says.

Keller hears her phone ping. The text has a pin for an address.

“CCTV video that needs review,” Peters says.

She nods, decides to push her luck: “The chief of campus police knows this terrain, do you mind if”—she glances over at Jay McCray, who has a search vest on over his collared shirt—“if he rides shotgun with me?” She doesn’t give Peters her father’s speech about the need for local counsel.

“Fine,” he says.

Keller heads toward Jay as someone sidles up next to her. It’s Cynthia Roosevelt.

“I saw you on the news at the bridge,” Roosevelt says. “And I understand you found the only viable clue, a video of the possible kidnapper.”

Keller doesn’t reply.

“Like I just told your boss: Never send in a man to do a woman’s job.” She turns, faces Keller. Her voice is steady but her eyes look shattered. “Now go find my son.”

With that, Roosevelt is whisked away in a black SUV.

Keller looks over as flashlight beams wink in and out of the trees lining the road. She catches up to Jay before he disappears.

“Peters cleared me to have you help chase down some leads, if you’re game.”

“You don’t gotta ask me twice,” he says. “Besides, those kids aren’t out there.” He looks toward the trees.

“What makes you so sure?”

“The trail of blood they found, it stops well before the tree line.”

“Like they got into another vehicle,” Keller says.

He nods.

“Run with me to Starbucks?” she asks.

He gives her a skeptical look. “I could use a coffee as much as the next person, but…”

Keller says, “I’ll explain on the drive.”

It’s 5:15 a.m. when they arrive, and there’s already a long line in the Starbucks drive-thru. It’s a place off the highway in Santa Clara that’s open twenty-four hours.

Keller parks, gets out of the car, stretches her back. Jay seems wide awake, which is somehow annoying but comforting at the same time.

“We don’t have those in New York,” Keller says, admiring the drive-thru.

She points to a Volvo parked nearby. Two people inside: Libby Akana’s parents. She texted them, asking to meet here. Unsurprisingly, they were awake at this ungodly hour and readily agreed to come to the Starbucks where someone slashed their tires.

When the judge and his wife see Keller and McCray, they climb out.

They look like a pile of devastation.

Keller greets them with hugs. What else can you do in circumstances like this? McCray, less comfortably, follows suit.

Inside, Jay orders coffees for the group while Keller and the parents collapse into chairs at one of the wobbly circular tables.

“They finally released the CCTV?” Judge Akana says. He’s not a large man, but he’s somehow imposing.

Keller nods, decides against trying to explain the delay. She looks over, and Jay is holding one of those cardboard drink carriers, talking to the manager of the Starbucks, a young guy with acne wearing a green apron. The one agents pressured to get access to the video footage, but who resisted until he got approval from Corporate. He must’ve been given the green light tonight after running it through the company’s army of lawyers. Not everybody is a George G. Peacoat from FedEx who doesn’t bow to the almighty Corporate.

The judge examines his phone, as if willing it to bring good news. Amy Akana seems distant, out of it.

When Judge Akana puts his phone back on the table, Keller catches the wallpaper screen. It shows a boy and girl at the beach. The boy has white zinc cream on his nose, floaties on his upper arms, and is hugging his big sister. The girl has pigtails and is holding an inflatable inner tube. Keller feels a ripple of sadness, thinking about her twins in their beach gear, imagining what these parents are going through.

Jay comes over. Removes the cups from the tray and places one in front of each of them. “They’re allowing us to review the footage without a warrant, but required that we come on-site. Because of some legal issues, they haven’t had time to get approval to send a digital copy.”

Judge Akana says nothing, stands, and he and his wife follow McCray over to the manager. The kid bows his head at the parents, surely knowing why they’re here.

Behind the counter, there’s a door that leads to a break room and a tiny office. The rich, earthy smell of roasted coffee beans permeates everything. They crowd into the office and the manager sits down at the desk, pulls up video footage on a desktop computer.

Judge Akana and his wife watch the video from Friday: their car pulling up to the coffee shop before their world turned upside down. They get out of the vehicle, dutifully lock the doors. The camera switches to the inside, where they head to the restrooms. The teen manager clicks to the shot from outside again. A man in an N95 mask enters the frame. He looks around. Then removes something from his pocket. He ducks low at the rear of the vehicle. Then he emerges and walks to the other side of the car, ducks down again.

“Do you recognize him?” McCray asks.

Keller watches both of them. The judge is squinting at the screen, head already shaking. Amy Akana looks less certain but says nothing.

Keller asks the manager to play the clip again. And again.

Judge Akana shakes his head, clearly frustrated. “I’ve never seen that man before in my life. Can I take a photo of this to send to my security team?”

The Starbucks manager looks conflicted. He says, “Um, I’d need authorization from Corporate, so I can’t approve that.” The guy thinks for a moment. “But I really need to use the restroom, so I’ll be right back.”

Once the manager extracts himself, Judge Akana raises his phone and takes a photo of the screen. He then sends a text to someone.

Keller studies the judge’s wife. She’s staring blankly at the monitor.

“We can get the video enhanced,” McCray says. “The perp’s wearing a mask, but there’s probably enough of his face to run it through facial recognition.”

“You don’t need to do that,” Amy Akana says.

They all look at her.

“I know who he is.”

This sucks the air out of the room.

“But I need a moment alone with my husband.”