The Predator (28 page)

Realization dawned. Cassie’s mouth gaped wide and her face filled with horror.

“You… You’re…
Justin
?” Her voice was hoarse with disbelief. Her head swung from side to side in increasing panic.
“Nooooo! Nooooo!”

James glanced at the gym bag he’d left on the back seat, grateful he still had another loaded syringe in the side pocket. He always kept one ready, just in case. ’Til now, he hadn’t needed it.

“Shh,”
he murmured soothingly. “It’s okay, sweetie. I’m not going to hurt you. I’m your uncle. I’d never hurt you.”

The exit to the mall loomed up in front of him, but he knew what he had to do. With seconds to spare, he wrenched the steering wheel and crossed over two lanes of traffic. Horns blasted behind him, but he didn’t pause. With his foot down hard on the accelerator, he took the exit that would lead him back to the freeway. He left the mall behind them in a cloud of exhaust fumes.

* * *

 “I’m sorry, boss. We’ve lost him.”

Declan cursed long and loudly into the phone. “What the fuck do you mean, you lost him? You were right on his tail. He was turning into the mall.”

“Yeah, he was. But at the last minute, he changed his mind and pulled across the traffic. We couldn’t change our course without causing an accident. We had to make the turn.”

Declan bit down on his anger. It wouldn’t do any good to give vent to his grievances now. He had to get things back on track. “Where are you?”

“In the car park.”

“Where’s Gibbons?”

“Back on the freeway, I think. That’s the way he was headed.”

“Fuck. Fuck.
Fuck
.” Declan scrubbed at his hair with both hands, the frustration nearly killing him. Dragging air into his lungs, he made an attempt to regain control.

Dread settled in his gut. He had to tell Tom. He had to tell Tom they’d fucked up. But first, he’d call Brandon. Brandon hadn’t yet arrived at the mall. There was a chance he was still on the main road. He could be their only hope.

* * *

The traffic in front of Brandon once again came to a standstill and he cursed aloud. He was less than two hundred feet from the exit. His phone buzzed.
Declan.

Brandon grimaced and answered it. “I know what you’re going to say, but I can’t get there any quicker. The traffic’s piled up just before the turnoff. I can’t see what’s happening, but we’re barely moving. I swear to God, every man and his dog is trying to get to the beach today.”

“Brandon, we’ve lost him. For some reason, he changed his mind. The boys were committed to taking the exit. We think he’s back on the freeway. Can you get out of where you are and try and find him? If he is on the freeway, he’ll be on it for at least five or six minutes before he can exit again. You might be able to catch up with him—”

“Christ, Dec. Tom must be ready to rip you to shreds.”

“Yeah, no doubt he will when I tell him.”

“Shit. I don’t envy you that job.” Brandon cleared his throat and checked his rearview mirror. “Anyway, leave this to me. If I spot the bastard, I’ll call you.”

With a squeal of tyres Brandon pulled across a double lane of traffic, narrowly missing a bus. No longer mindful of damaging his car, he wove in and out of the traffic, forcing his way through. Family was more important than
things
, even something as precious as his Mustang.

He accelerated again and cut in front of another car. The driver hurled abuse at him and demonstrated his anger with rude hand gestures, but Brandon paid it no heed. His niece’s life was at stake. Nothing else mattered.

Freeing himself from the tangle of traffic at last, he sped toward the freeway. Less than a minute later, he was on it and immediately began scanning the vehicles in front of him for a white Ford F250.

A vehicle matching the description changed lanes ahead of him. His gut clenched. The pickup was about five hundred feet in front of him, too far away to read the license plate. He sifted through the traffic again and cursed when he spotted another white F250.

Fuck
. It was also too far ahead to make out the plate. He bit his lip in consternation. Which one to follow? The one closest to him had its blinker on, indicating it would take the next exit. The one further ahead remained in the middle lane. The odds were fifty-fifty. Good, if you were a gambling man. But he wasn’t and even if he were, he’d never gamble with the safety of his brother’s daughter.

Indecision gnawed at his gut. If he chose the wrong one, it could be fatal. Increasing the pressure on the accelerator, he gained on the vehicles in front of him. Squinting through the traffic, he made out part of the license plate on the closest vehicle. A… It was all he could see. Adrenaline surged through him. It had to be it. Flicking on his indicator, he moved to the left and followed the Ford off the freeway.

Not wanting to alert the other driver, Brandon stayed well back. The car turned right and then left and then right again. A set of traffic lights loomed up ahead, turning red on their approach. Brandon accelerated and then changed lanes. He came up beside the pickup, his nerves taut.

Glancing across to the driver’s side, he gasped in disbelief. An Asian woman of about thirty stared back at him, her face expressionless. In the backseat, he spied a couple of kids smiling and waving at him through the window.

He drove his fist against the steering wheel. Hard.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

It wasn’t him.

* * *

The AFP squad room was a hive of activity, at odds with the late hour. The sun had long since set, but the day shift had stayed on to provide additional manpower and had been joined by the night shift.

It was more than eight hours since Cassie went missing and the tension in the room remained high. A search by air had failed to locate James Gibbons’ vehicle. Another surveillance team had also been dispatched to his apartment, but so far, nothing. If he was aware they were onto him, it was unlikely he’d return to his abode, but it was a possibility they would be prepared for, no matter how slim. The apartment would be watched 24/7 until they had him under arrest. A joint taskforce made up of AFP officers and State police was being hastily put together by the superintendent.

A low-level feeling of dread in the pit of Alex’s belly had been a constant presence ever since Brandon had told her about Cassie’s disappearance and she ached with the strain. She wanted her niece safe and sound. She couldn’t even begin to imagine how Lily was feeling.

Wanting to do whatever she could to help, she’d left Sam in the care of her mother and the hospital staff and had come into work. She glanced across at Brandon where he paced the length of the squad room, a frown darkening his features. Gripped tightly in his hand was the list of thirteen suspects they’d narrowed down from the original one hundred and sixty-five. Gibbons was on it.

Patrick had urged them to remain calm. Gibbons was part of a much larger investigation and the super wasn’t going to jeopardize an international investigation by moving too quickly.

“Okay, everyone, listen up.”

She looked up when Patrick spoke. Making her way around the clutter of desks, she joined the other officers as they gathered around their boss. The grim expression and white lines of tension around his mouth did nothing to allay her nerves.

Brandon stilled, his gaze sharpening on Patrick’s face. Alex tried to slow her racing heart, a reaction as much to the tension in the room as her nearness to her husband. She hadn’t spoken to him since the telephone call when he’d alerted her to Cassie’s disappearance.

“All right, just so you know where we’re at…” Patrick said. “I’ve contacted the other agencies involved. I’m still waiting to hear from INTERPOL and the FBI. The time difference is causing us some problems. Some of the powers that be are asleep.”

A couple of eye rolls and quiet chuckling broke the tension. Alex noticed Brandon didn’t laugh, didn’t move. She knew how he felt. Every minute Cassie remained unfound increased the odds she would be hurt—if she hadn’t been already.

The evidence seemed to indicate she’d been taken straight after the game. She’d been with Gibbons, a suspected pedophile, for hours.

Alex’s mind shied away from the implications. There was no point in thinking along those lines. It would only drive her crazy and would make the inaction even more impossible to accept.

Patrick eyed the team of State and AFP officers surrounding him, his gaze landing on Brandon.

“Make no mistake, we all want to find this girl, but we need to put it in perspective, no matter how hard that is to do. If we can help it, I’d rather not jeopardize months of work involving hundreds of suspects and thousands of investigation hours for the sake of one girl. I hope everyone understands that.”

Brandon flinched and his hands clenched into fists, but he remained silent and Alex felt a wave of admiration for his courage and professionalism. She didn’t think she’d be able to remain so calm in his situation. He had to be straining at the bit to get out there and do something, anything. Whatever it took to find Cassie and bring her home.

“We can’t afford to jump the gun on this,” Patrick continued. The plan is to conduct simultaneous raids across all thirteen of our suspect’s premises. INTERPOL and the FBI and every other law enforcement agency involved in this investigation will be conducting similar raids around the world. It’s imperative that none of these persons receive a tip-off that anything’s amiss. That’s why it’s so important we all act together, and at the same time.”

He looked around, meeting the gaze of each one of them. “Unfortunately, this Gibbons character has forced our hand. It appears he has a young girl in his custody. For a man who has no children and who has an extensive history of visiting online child pornography sites, that’s of grave concern.”

Brandon’s lips turned white. Alex’s heart clenched.

“But we’re going to do this right. I’ve been liaising with Detective Senior Sergeant Declan Munro of the Hornsby Local Area Command. For those of you who don’t know, they’ve been working in conjunction with us, running surveillance on Gibbons. Fortunately for us, one of the local boys and Jack Nelson were watching this bloke’s apartment and saw him carry a young girl to his car and leave with her.”

His gaze flicked to Brandon. “According to Detective Munro, the girl matched the description of Cassie Munro, the niece of both Declan and Brandon Munro.” There was a general murmur of surprise amongst the group of officers and a few surreptitious glances thrown in Brandon’s direction. Most of them had been unaware of his personal connection to the case.

“Jack and the constable from Hornsby tailed the vehicle, a white Ford F250, to the Warringah Mall, but then lost him. They’ve been watching his apartment ever since, but so far, he hasn’t returned. We’re thinking he may have taken her somewhere else.”

“What do we know about this Gibbons character?” Ryan asked.

“Not much, unfortunately,” Patrick replied with a grimace. “He’s one of those smart enough to fly under the radar. No previous charges, or arrests—not even an outstanding parking ticket. Works in IT as some sort of sales rep. Travels a fair bit up and down the coast.” His expression turned grim. “Really, he could be anywhere.”

“Does he have any property registered in his name?” Alex asked.

Patrick turned to her. “Nope. We’ve checked with the Land and Property Information Office. Nothing at all in his name, not even the unit in Hornsby.”

Alex spoke again. “What about any family members? You said he had no children, but what about parents, brothers and sisters?”

Acknowledging her question with a nod, Patrick answered. “We’re still looking into that. He came from a dysfunctional family.”

“Don’t they all?” Brandon murmured, his voice icy steel.

Patrick ignored him and went on. “Gibbons’ parents divorced when he was young. Five or six, I think. We haven’t been able to find out what happened to his mother. His father re-married when Gibbons was about sixteen or seventeen to a woman who had a young child. He was largely living on his own by then and it appears he had very little contact with his new stepmother and stepsister.”

Brandon frowned. Something niggled at the edge of Alex’s memory. Brandon turned to her, his eyes dark with turmoil.

“Lily?” he mouthed, his expression uncertain.

Alex shrugged, her mind racing. Lily had a stepbrother. He worked in IT. He’d told Alex he traveled a lot.

Her heart pounded. Could it be Jim? Could he have targeted his
niece
? The horror of it was almost too much to imagine. She looked back at Brandon and nodded slowly.

“In an awful, awful way, I think it makes sense,” she whispered.

Brandon’s eyes gleamed with feral anticipation. “Sir,” he interrupted Patrick. “Does anyone have a picture of James Gibbons?”

Patrick frowned and looked toward a couple of the detectives from the Hornsby Local Area Command who had joined the taskforce. “I’m not sure. Do you guys have any images of Gibbons?”

They looked at each other and shrugged. “Not that I know of,” one of them volunteered, “but I can call the boss and find out. Perhaps someone on the surveillance team got photos.”

“Get onto him and if he has any, tell him to email them to us right away.”

“Yes, sir.”

The two State officers moved away, one of them pulling out his phone. Alex sidled up to Brandon, hardly daring to voice the question.

She kept her voice low, not wanting to be overheard. “You think it might be Lily’s stepbrother?”

Brandon’s expression was grim. “Let’s hope not, for her sake. But there’s always been something odd about that loser.”

Alex felt the instinctive need to defend him. “That doesn’t make him a pedophile.”

“No, but the similarities are too many to ignore. James and Jim. Works in IT. Lives in Hornsby. We can’t sit on this. If we can find a picture of James, we’ll know for sure.”

Alex frowned. “You don’t know Jim’s last name?”

He shook his head. “I never bothered to find out. He wasn’t at their wedding. I don’t think they were talking back then. Lily only reached out when she started having children. I think she felt sorry for him because of the way his own childhood had been disrupted.”