Chapter Twelve

"All right," Faith said softly. "Let's go over this one more time."

"It's like we're in the middle of a damned interrogation," Michael said. "I don't care what they taught us in training. I'm only really discovering the power of that damned phrase now."

"Okay then," Faith replied, "let's go over this one more time."

She said it drily but felt oddly playful. That was probably just the exhaustion. The sky was lightening outside, which meant they had been brainstorming and researching and hashing out ideas for two hours and come up with nothing. She was working off of four and a half hours of sleep, which was usually enough for her, but for some reason, her mind still felt sluggish.

Maybe she was finally getting old. She was turning thirty-four later that year, and while she still saw a young woman's face in the mirror, there was no denying that it was getting harder and harder for her to bounce back from the physical stress of the job. It didn't help that after yet another near-death experience at Franklin West's hands less than a week ago, the emotional stress of the job was once more at an all-time high.

And now she had the mental stress of a difficult and urgent case to deal with. Bad things come in threes, right? Three victims in three days, three agents dealing with three layers of exhaustion—yeah, that tracked. Occam might not have had a damned clue what he was talking about, but whoever made that little statement about threes was right on the money.

"And that's pretty much the only connection we have." Michael said.

Faith realized he'd been talking while she was thinking all of this, and she hadn't paid attention to him at all.

She sighed. "I need a second. I'm going to take a walk."

She walked from the hotel room out the door and along the breezeway until she could find a spot with a lot of sun. Whatever the hell was going on in her head, she needed to focus. Rest would come eventually, but not until she found some kind of answer.

"You, okay?" Michael asked from behind her.

Normally, it would infuriate her to have him follow her, but she was too exhausted to feel that way. Besides, she had just ignored him for the past… hell, she didn't even know how long.

"They're not just superheroes," she said. "Hearers. Super hearers."

"I think we've established that."

"They all have jobs involving sound, right?"

"All right. I think it might be a stretch to include Emily in that, but I'll bite. What's your point?"

She nodded and turned to look at him. She could see concern etched on his face. She most definitely didn't want to deal with any of that concern now.

"The killer is someone who deals with a lot of sound and hearing professionals," she said. "Maybe that's the answer. Not someone who has super hearing himself or herself, but someone who's around people like that a lot."

"So, a sound engineer, like Rebecca? A sound? Are those two different jobs or the same one?"

"I don't know. Just someone who works with sound."

He let out a whistle and shook his head. "Faith, there are countless people who work with sound. That's everyone from the announcer at the state fair to Beyonce."

"But we're looking for someone who works with people who work with sound. Maybe a professional who crosses paths with them."

"So like Rebecca Wells."

"Like someone who would work with Rebecca Wells. Not necessarily for, but with. Like… not the guitarist, but the guy who sells guitars to the guitarist."

"Like someone who fixes equipment? Is the same guy who fixes headphones for a studio going to fix the headphones for a hearing test?"

Faith didn't know anything about it, really. She imagined she could send days exploring sound technology and sound professions online and wouldn't even scratch the surface. It might take a week of research just to identify how much knowledge would actually constitute scratching the surface.

That was the damned problem. "I think someone is luring the victims," she said.

"We know that too."

"I'm trying to think, damn it," she snapped.

He lifted his hands placatingly. "I'm just trying to follow along. Besides, you already know I agree that some high frequency broadcast is involved. It could be luring. It could be taunting. I could just be distraction or even torture."

"Torture?"

"Like the kids at the lab. He's hurting them in their last moments of life. It's thin, but everything we have is thin right now."

"Okay, so let's just focus on what we know. We know high-frequency sound is involved. We know our killer is targeting people sensitive to that kind of sound. I like what you said about people who fix sound equipment, so let's go with that. Let's try to find people who would know how to work with equipment that could produce high-frequency sounds that our victims could hear but normal people wouldn't. We can work out why the killer does it later. With any luck, we'll get the killer to explain it to us. That's the common thread, though. Agreed?"

"Agreed," he said, "Are we going to do all of our best work out here on the balcony or can we go back into the room?" She rolled her eyes and he said, "What? It's cold as hell out here."

"It's almost exactly the same weather as Philly," she said as she headed back inside.

"Yeah, but I don't usually stand outside in shorts and flip-flops in Philly."

"Why did you even bring those?" Faith asked.

"Because I thought we'd occasionally spend some time inside the room the FBI is paying for, and these are more comfortable than pants."

"So bring sweatpants and fuzzy slippers."

"You sound like Ellie."

Faith grimaced. "Don't tell her that."

"Do I look suicidal?" He sat down at the table and said, "I think we start with people who might have a connection to at least one of the victims. To narrow it down. Bonus points if we happen to stumble across someone who might have worked with more than one of them."

"Agreed. So what's step one?"

"Step one," he replied, "is to find out what kind of sound equipment would show up at a recording studio, a university auditory research department and a linguist's office. I just have no idea how to do that."

"Well," Faith said, opening her laptop. "I suggest we start with a good, old-fashioned Internet search."

Michael shrugged. "Can't hurt."

As it turned out, there was a lot of equipment in common with all three jobs. All three required sensitive instruments to pick up sounds and analyze them. Unfortunately, not all three required instruments necessary to produce high-frequency sounds. They spent a solid hour looking for something that all three could use when Faith smacked her forehead with her palm.

"Damn it. We're overthinking this."

"How's that?" Michael asked.

"We're looking for a murder weapon when we should be looking for a murderer."

His brow furrowed. "Explain."

"We're trying to find a piece of equipment that could be present at all three scenes. But our killer might not have necessarily sold all three victims the same piece of equipment or repaired the same equipment. He or she might have just met them that way."

"So the killer would know that they have enhanced hearing, and then he could choose a murder weapon that might not even be something the victims would use," Michael said. "You're right. We forgot about Occam's razor."

Faith pursed her lips. She didn't enjoy knowing that she was wrong to toss Occam's razor out the window. But she didn't have time to worry about her own ego.

"Okay. So let's find out if there's a supplier somewhere who sold equipment to all three of our victims."

Discovering the answer to that was tedious. When they called Bethel Records, the office was closed, so they called the University. It took them fifteen minutes to get to someone who knew what materials were purchased or requisitioned by Professor Tate for his studies. It took another thirty minutes for them to learn enough about Emily Chen to even know who to call about her own audio equipment. Finally, they called Bethel Records and spent another ten minutes waiting to get a hold of Zeke before he finally answered the phone and gave them a list of equipment Rebecca Wells used.

In a rare silver lining to their ever-darkening cloud, they were able to finally find a supplier for all three places. Washington University and Bethel Records both obtained their equipment from Pacific Audio Solutions, a wholesaler of professional audio equipment based in the city of Yakima in Central Washington.

Faith called the company and got an answer from a receptionist who sounded young enough to think that dating a forty-five-year-old professor was a good idea because he was totally in love with her. "Good morning, thank you for calling Pacific Audio Solutions, home to all your audio equipment needs. My name is Darlene, how can I help you today?"

"This is Special Agent Faith Bold of the FBI. I'm following up on a multiple murder investigation, and I need the name of the sales representative responsible for sales to The University of Washington and Bethel Records."

Darlene was silent for a moment. Then she said warily, "Um… let me get a supervisor."

She put Faith on hold, and Faith took a breath to remind herself to be patient. It was always hardest to be patient when she was closest to an answer.

After a moment, a slightly older sounding voice said, "Good morning, this is Shawna, how can I help you?"

Faith repeated her earlier statement. The pause was longer this time, long enough that Faith said, "I can provide an ID number for you to verify if you'd like."

"Um… Hmm…"

Faith resisted the urge to reach through the phone and throttle both Shawna and Darlene. "Is there a problem?"

"Well… No. No, there's no problem. I'll put you through to the rep now. Um, you don't…" she lowered her voice. "You don't think that an employee of ours was responsible, do you?"

"I can't answer that right now, ma'am," Faith said. "All I can say is that it's critical that I discover who may have had contact with all three of our victims."

Another pause. "Okay. God, um… Let me transfer you."

Faith released a sigh and took a deep breath. After another eternal hold, a gravely male voice on the other end said, "Yeah? This is Dave."

"Dave," Faith said. "I'm hoping you can help me with something. Did you sell audio equipment to the University of Washington and Bethel Records?"

"Not me personally, no. That was the rep before me. I've only been here for two weeks."

"Who was the rep before you?"

"Elena."

Faith sighed. "Does Elena have a last name?"

"Vargas."

"Elena Vargas. Wonderful. Can you tell me if a woman named Emily Chen was also one of Elena Vargas's customers?"

"Yeah, the name sounds familiar. I think we sold her a microphone and a vocal recognition software. She was on the list of accounts to manage when I took over. Why?"

"I'm afraid I can't answer that. Can you give me Elena Vargas's contact information?"

"Um… I mean, she doesn't work here anymore, and I don't know if I should give her personal info out."

Faith suppressed another powerful urge to throttle someone through the phone. "Dave. Three women are dead. It's my job to find the person responsible before more women end up dead. So can you please, pretty please with sugar on top, give me Elena's fucking phone number and address before I call a judge and get a damned search warrant?"

"Okay, okay," Dave said, cowed. "I just had to make sure. This isn't the kind of call we get every day, you know."

"I suppose that's a good thing," Faith said. "The contact info, please?"

"Right. Here goes."

He gave Faith the information she needed, and with a sigh of relief, she hung up and grinned at Michael. "Okay. Got it. We have a suspect."

Michael grinned. "Outstanding. Let's go see if we have a killer."

Faith wasn't quite ready to hope just yet. Her hope had been dashed too many times for her to take that risk at the moment.

But as they headed toward the car, she said a silent prayer that this time, they would catch their killer.