Cold Spite (Cold Justice: Most Wanted #5)

Chapter 29

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

D elilah stared, frowning, at a timeline on a whiteboard.

Alex Parker’s team at the Cramer, Parker & Gray satellite office consisted only of a woman called Yael Brooks and a young man named Tim Theriault who looked like he should still be in high school. Apparently, most of the company’s employees were in DC or were busy on jobs.

She was impressed by the amount of tracking they’d done of Scanlon’s movements using his cell phone, but not what it showed. So far, the only time the man had left the great state of Louisiana had been on Tuesday when he’d gone to Washington State to visit his kid.

“This timeline doesn’t add up.” Parker watched her with a concerned expression on his face. “Even ignoring the cell data, it would be nigh-on impossible to go from California on Monday night to catching a commercial flight to Washington State on Tuesday morning from NOLA. And back to NOLA this morning. It’s almost impossible for him to have committed both crimes and to have also visited his daughter.”

Dammit.

She knew it was Scanlon, but how had he pulled it off ?

“Do we have him on camera seeing his kid in Washington State?”

“Sure do.” Yael pulled up a video feed.

In a cramped room full of toys sat an incongruous-looking Scanlon licking an ice-cream cone as he sat directly opposite the camera. A little girl sat on the floor a few feet away also eating an ice cream. They appeared to be talking, although no sound was available from the feed. An unknown female sat in another chair, observing, presumably some sort of social worker. Every so often Scanlon smiled up at the camera as if he knew someone would be reviewing the footage for this exact purpose.

Delilah leaned closer. “Is that a scar on his face?”

Yael zoomed in and sure enough there was a two-inch scar beside his left eye.

“That’s his brother, Virgil,” Delilah exclaimed.

“You’re sure?” Parker sounded excited.

“Yes. His brother had a scar like that. The guy must have lost a few pounds and started pumping iron, enough to pass for his brother. They are identical twins.” Excitement cruised through her veins. He was making mistakes. They could do this. They could catch him.

“I hate to burst your bubble.” Yael rolled her chair away from her screen. “But check out this video I found of Joseph Scanlon leaving Miramar three weeks ago.”

Delilah watched a black-and-white footage of Joseph Scanlon walking out of the brig into the parking lot and being met by what looked like his father and his brother.

She didn’t get what the other woman was referring to until Yael enlarged him and she leaned closer at the screen.

“Dammit.”

The man leaving the prison had the exact same scar.

“So, either Joseph pulled the trick of the century and got his brother to serve his sentence, or…”

She exhaled. “Or Joseph deliberately cut himself, so he and his brother are more or less indistinguishable to the camera. I wonder if Virgil got a matching tattoo?”

“I’d bet on it.” Parker didn’t look happy.

“Which begs the question,” Yael voiced her thoughts, “which Scanlon showed up in Washington State?”

Delilah stared at the screen where the man had finished eating his ice cream and was now playing checkers with the little girl. “And how the heck do we prove it?”