Page 29 of Catching Fire

Kalan had been smart enough to call Maggie and Sebastian at 4am. Neither had balked. But they'd come and they'd sat on the couch and, aside from a few bursts of frantic conversation, the four had mostly stared at each other.

Wendy Buck may have been their fake best friend, but Seline had really liked Marina the more that she’d gotten to know her. It seemed that even given her past with Sebastian, Maggie liked her too.

“At least you haven't gotten another note.” Maggie’s soft commentary interrupted Seline’s thoughts, but not in a good way.

Maggie stood and walked into the kitchen leaving Seline as every muscle in her body clenched with the thought of what would happen if and when she did get another note. What if he sent her a message with the letters he’d carved into Marina’s torso?

Seline almost bolted for the bathroom as her stomach revolted at the thought, but she managed to hold it back. Almost without her own thoughts, Seline wandered woodenly into the kitchen, following Maggie. As Maggie pulled out eggs, she shook her head at her friend.

“No, I can't.”

Maggie merely put the eggs back without a word and turned to the pantry. “Oatmeal?”

Seline could agree to that. It was instant, easy to digest, and she would need the sugar to keep her system going today.

Agents Rossi and Verner came back inside as Maggie pulled a kettle out. Seline was grateful right then for friends who would not only just head into her kitchen and make food, but who already knew where everything was. She, on the other hand, wanted to sit down in the middle of the pretty hardwood flooring and pretend it was just a normal day.

But she couldn’t. Leaving Maggie behind, she bolted past Sebastian and Kalan to question the agents. “Did you find anything?”

“Nothing that we didn't already find last night.” Rossi was clearly frustrated by that fact. They'd gone out at three am with high intensity flashlights and found what they believed were plausibly footprints in the grass. They’d said it was possible that he’d cut into the yard from the side, where he would have stayed out of sight. The bent and trampled grass and disturbed gravel in the flower bed made their best guess that he had thrown the tracker through the trellis or wiggled a hand through, to toss it toward the middle of the home.

This morning everything looked the same.

Seline couldn’t tell if that made her happier or more upset.

Just then Verner’s phone crackled to life. “Send it over,” she said, heading across the living room to where she’d stashed her bag by the side of the couch.

The two agents had conferred with Watson and Decker, who’d begun their search at the Gutierrez home as soon as there was word about the tracker. So far, they’d found blood and evidence that Sanders had pulled the tracker from Marina’s arm there, then taken her elsewhere.

None of this was good. Sanders had bypassed every measure the Bureau had put in place to keep Marina safe. Seline wished she could feel something, but the numbness was probably protecting her.

She watched blankly as Rossi and Verner set up in her living room, looking like command central.

Now, all Rossi had to do was park herself at the card table Seline had put in front of the couch for them and open her laptop. Rossi quickly powered it on, then leaned in to watch something. Only a minute later, she motioned to Verner. “Come look at this.”

Though she wasn’t invited, Seline moved closer, too.

“This is the map of where the tracker went and when,” Rossi told Verner, but included Seline as well.

“So we can see earlier in the day, she’s in her home.”

The Gutierrez home, Seline realized, and watched as the dot moved quickly through the house. Eventually, it paused in one room of the blueprint that Rossi had expanded on the screen and stayed, unmoving, in the corner of the room. “What happened?”

Rossi offered a small grin. “She probably took a nap. This is why it doesn’t ping just because it doesn’t move for a while. It would ping us all night when she was asleep. Honestly, the tracker itself is very invasive. See?” She pointed as the dot began moving on the screen again and headed down the hallway to a small room. It took Seline a moment to see that the small space was a bathroom and that, yes, being tracked everywhere allowed no privacy. But Marina had agreed because she wanted Sanders caught.

“Go back.” Verner pointed at the screen. “There.”

“What?” Rossi asked what Seline wanted to.

“See how it stops moving so much?”

“Maybe she just sat down?”

Seline was trying to keep up with the rapid back and forth.

“But why would she just sit in the middle of the back room? Play it in real time.” They’d been watching a speeded version so they could get to the point where the tracker arrived at Seline’s house.

Rossi clicked at the keys and touched the screen and the dot jumped back to the other side of the house. Seline watched as the dot moved through the home. This tracker was specific enough to pinpoint Marina’s location to the inch, prompting Seline to ask, “Where was the tracker on her?”

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