Page 61 of Sharp Force
“I’d have no reason to be aware,” she answers. “But I’m not surprised, and it makes me wonder what’s gone on inside Thirteen Shore Lane. Who might have been in and out of the house besides Zain Willard? What was the killer seeing when he was spying?”
“Spying with the drone Marino was asked about by two men allegedly from the CIA?” I inquire.
“Based on what I’ve been hearing, Marino looked suspicious ashell trespassing in someone’s gazebo,” Lucy says. “And we know what he’s like when confronted.”
“The agents involved probably wondered if he was the killer.” Benton takes the lids off tubs of butter and cream cheese. “And I can see why it might have crossed their minds.”
“Bottom line, around the time of the attack a drone was detected intermittently in the area,” Lucy says.
“Benton says a drone has been used in the other murders,” I reply.
“And we don’t want the killer knowing we’re aware of that,” she says.
“Then you best remind Marino not to be talking about it to anyone but us,” Benton says.
“I’ll take care of it.”
Lucy goes on to explain that transmissions are picked up whenever the Slasher overrides the autonomous function, entering commands that divert the drone from operating as programmed.
“When that occurs, a signal is transmitted in the four-fifty-megahertz range,” Lucy describes. “The same bandwidth as the walkie-talkies a lot of emergency medical techs use.”
“Adding to the confusion at a crime scene.” I marvel at the ingeniousness of it. “You might assume the signals detected are from the rescue squads.”
Lucy says that the drone in question isn’t the typical quadcopter. It’s a Hoberman sphere about the size of a medicine ball and equipped with Keyence AI sensors. Propelled by thrust vectoring nozzles, the orb has scissorlike joints that can fold into different shapes and sizes. It’s stable in stormy weather and able to maneuver in zero visibility.
“Got to go. Just pulling up to HRT,” Lucy tells us.
She’s in Quantico at the FBI Academy’s Hostage Rescue Team. Hangared there is the beast of a helicopter called the Doomsday Bird that she pilots for the Department of Homeland Security.
“See you later. Be careful out there,” she adds as I cover to-go cups with plastic lids.
Benton and I put on our jackets. He arms the security system and opens the door, shutting it behind us. The warning beeps pierce the gloom, then abruptly stop. I listen for the strange animal sounds I heard last night, but everything is quiet.
The overcast has begun to brighten along the dark horizon, a sharp wind gusting but not as powerfully. Lightning veins the sky, thunder mumbling as the storm retreats out to sea like a warring armada. Benton carries my scene case across the back porch, the deep snow melted by heavy rain and rising temperatures.
We make our way down steep steps, water dripping from trees, the fog thick and cold. Lights blink on as we follow the footpath leading to the driveway. Benton pulls out the scene case’s retracted handle, the wheels loud like a drum roll over pavers, the slush several inches deep in spots.
I think of what Janet said about screams and hoots made by an animal not found in any database. I’m waiting for the startling vocalizations again, but all is still. I see things that aren’t there, shadows shapeshifting, and it’s imagined. Lightning strobes like a camera flash going off, illuminating the garden and greenhouse, and I can barely make out the purple glow of Dorothy’s UV light.
When Benton and I reach the former carriage house, he opens the wooden doors, vanishing in the inky blackness. The Tesla’s electric engine is quiet as he drives out, and I close the carriage house doors, locking them. I settle into the passenger’s seat, headlights painting over huge magnolias dense with rubbery leaves.
Tall hardwood trees arch bare branches over us like the vaulted ceiling of a cathedral as we pass the guest cottage, our headlights illuminating pavers and woods. I look up at turbid clouds, halfway expecting the red-eyed ghost to appear. Or maybe an orb-shaped drone that makes no sound.
At the end of the driveway Benton eases to a stop, and we wait for the heavy metal gate to lurch along its track. We’ve been having trouble with it getting stuck. Often it ends up half open or half shut, depending on how you look at it. As we’re sitting here, our every detail is detected by multiple AI-assisted cameras and sensors.
Software is conducting facial and voice recognition, capturing our vehicle type and license tag while detecting any electronic devices we have. Information is constantly analyzed and uploaded in real time.
WTF?Marino is texting me now.
He explains that he’s inside the bedroom where Georgine Duvall was murdered, going over it with forensic lights. I open photographs he’s taken with a filter in the UV spectrum, startled by what I see. Bloody smudges on a hallway runner fluoresce a neon fiery red as if made with luminescent poster paint.
WTF is right,I text Marino as Benton pulls away from the gate limping shut behind us.Wonder what’s lighting up?
Got no idea. But nothing like this was at the other three Slasher scenes,Marino replies, sending another photograph.
This one is of a wingchair in a corner of the bedroom, an area of the seat cushion glowing the same electric red. I pass along to Benton what’s going on as I send DNA scientist Clark Givens another message. Before he heads to Mercy Island, I need him to grab a handheld Raman spectrometer from the trace evidence lab.
“Hopefully, it can help me identify the composition of whatever’sreacting to UV light, causing the fluorescence,” I explain to Benton as he turns left on Prince Street. “Assuming it’s the Slasher again, he likely doesn’t realize he left a trace of something that he carried to the scene this time.”
