Page 16 of All He Sees
He had a car, clearly, and that car was green. It probably wasn't difficult to find a green car in Florida, but he could have picked it up in another state.
What was his motive? He was clearly obsessed with these girls--he was acting out a fantasy, but whose?
Nicky shook her head.
"I just don't know how this guy thinks," she said. "I need to get inside his head."
"Well, is there anything about him that might help us?" Ken asked. "Not necessarily a clue to who he is, but does anything about his methods give us any idea of where he might be?"
"I don't know," Nicky said. "Maybe his victims are meant to represent some part of his fantasy. Maybe they look like someone from his past, someone he was obsessed with or someone who left him."
Ken leaned back in the chair, stretching his arms behind his head. "That would make sense, though it points us no closer to who this guy is."
Nicky sighed. This Pedro clue, as flimsy as it was, really was all they had to go off at the moment. Nicky turned back to her laptop and went back into searching through the database.
Just as she was about to call it quits and take a fresh-air break, one Pedro Lopez stood out to her. He drove a dark green CRV. Nicky cross-referenced his name in the FBI database, and that was when she saw it:
This Pedro Lopez had once lived in Vale, not far from where Mira was taken. In fact, he lived right around the corner from her.
He moved away a few months ago.
According to his file, he had never been charged with any crimes, but there was a note that he'd been reported for loitering.
"Holy shit," Nicky said, looking at Ken.
"What?"
"This guy," she said. "He used to live in Vale, and he moved away a few months ago. He lived in Mira’s neighborhood."
Nicky pulled up his file and skimmed through it. She found the incident report and looked through the description.
She was right.
He was a Hispanic male, with brown hair and brown eyes. He was in his late twenties. He had been reported when he was standing around Mira's neighborhood, just hanging out. When he was questioned, he said he was waiting for a friend who lived in the area. The report also listed his address, which Nicky quickly wrote down.
"This could be our guy," she said. "He used to live in the area."
"So, he might have some kind of connection to the place."
"He might," Nicky said. "He might be the guy who paid Dean to break the camera. If he was familiar with the neighborhood, he could have known Dan's Convenience had the camera."
"But you said he doesn't have any priors," Ken said. "He doesn't seem like a hardened criminal."
"I know," Nicky said. "But he might have been involved with someone who was, and he might not even know it."
"So how does this help us? He's not even in Vale anymore," Ken said.
"It's a start," Nicky said, standing and closing her laptop. She felt like she was finally on the right track, and it made her feel much better. "It's a place to dig, at least," she said, "and he might have a connection to Mira that we haven't figured out yet."
"All right," Ken said, standing too. "Let's go."
CHAPTER SEVEN
She could feel it moving.
As Mira curled in the corner of the box, holding her head between her hands, she could feel the movement of the boat beneath her. She didn't know where they were taking her. She didn't know where they were, or who the hell took her. All she knew was that she was trapped in this box, and that there was no way out.
As she sat there, terrified, shaking, she thought about all the events in her life that had led her to this moment. She wondered if anyone heard her scream when she was taken. She wondered if anyone missed her or was looking for her.
