Page 70 of Catching Fire

“I gathered what I thought would be useful.”

Verner and Rossi looked to each other, as if to saywho was this?But didn’t they already know that Ivy Dean was the head librarian?

It was Kalan who looked to them, his own stern expression learned from firefighting—the kind that saidyou will stay behind the established line. “Ivy helped us find the farmhouse. She's an excellent resource. Listen to her.”

If he didn't repeat the last part out loud, he did in his head—several times. All he could think wasListen.If everyone put enough information together, they could find Sanders.

He watched as Ivy took over the room. Verner and Rossi had been operating back and forth, occasionally picking up a marker and adding something to the whiteboard or passing something back and forth. Kalan had literally been pacing with nothing to do. Ivy gave him action that he’d desperately needed.

“This and this—” Ivy pointed as she spoke and rolled out a large map, letting her new helper anchor the corners. “These are the two previous locations that we know of. The ones where Sanders took his victims. One was where Merrit Geller took Maggie. The second one was found by us.”

Oh, go Ivy!Kalan thought as she readily established her past successes.

“But what else do you have?” Verner wasn’t beating around the bush. She’d already closed the door on two nosy-slash-helpful neighbors.

Ivy wasn't done. “Here are other places that I’ve found with my research these past weeks.”

She reached into the bag again, and this time pulled out little pieces that looked like tiny chess pawns. She set one at each position she pointed to, and then pulled out another color and began placing other markers. “Here, between Thedford and Brownlee. He has a cousin who had a farm there.” She dropped a marker. “And here—” she trailed a finger the other direction, “—northeast of Lincoln. Outside of Defiance, Sanders had a great-grandfather who maintained a farm until about fifteen years ago. This farm has since been sold.”

Ivy dropped a marker there, too, then laid out three more of the pieces. She moved her finger off of the map and to the right. “Apologies, but here—almost to Des Moines …” she touched bare tabletop, “He has a cousin and a second cousin. Here and here.” She touched a third marker. “This is a great uncle.”

Ivy pointed to one, then looked to Kalan. “This is the one who went to jail for the rape case.” Then she turned back to the agents, who were following with rapt attention. “This was his farm, but it also sold.”

“So these are all possibilities for where he could be now?” Verner waved her hand at the table, indicating the tiny markers.

“To a certain extent, yes,” said Ivy. “However, I've followed the records and contacted the families where I could. We have the genealogy and the public records.” She pointed to one of the last pawns. “This family here, near Des Moines, lives in that home. I reached out and—at least by what they were willing to tell me—they have had no contact with William Treat Sanders. The man, Daniel Swilling, remembered Sanders and said he didn't like his cousin when they were kids, and has cut off all contact as adults. This one was the same.” She motioned to the other nearby pawn. “These two families remain close. So I think these two places are much less likely to be where Sanders is taking victims. Both contacts would have had to lie to me. This one’s also closer to Kansas City, and I think it would be harder to get in and out with a body.”

She looked to Verner and Kalan waited for a harsh question. When none came, Ivy plowed ahead. “Here,” she pointed to a third marker. “The aunt and uncle are still alive. Here, here and here. These properties have been sold. I managed to get through to the owner at this one and tried to contact the others. But haven't made it through to any of these three. There's another one over here, though the relation may be too distant for Sanders to be taking advantage of it.”

She pulled a stack of printed pages from the bag. “I also began looking at people who Sanders went to school with or lived with over the years. But I'll be honest, the spider map on that got far too complex, and I wasn't able to follow them up. However, I do have some information about who he was most in contact with. And I did manage to locate the names of people he'd worked for in the past. So I have his work history up until about … ten years ago.”

Kalan could have kissed her right then. She’d done a good portion of the FBI’s work for them. Or maybe they'd done it too. Either way, it gave them a starting point. If the FBI had canvassed all these places as well, the overlap would give them a clearer starting point.

Rossi immediately confirmed his thoughts. “We have eyes on these properties—” she pointed to Ivy’s markers. “And these we'd ruled out. We also decided the cousins outside of Des Moines were unlikely bets.”

“But,” Verner stepped in. “We didn’t know about these two. Do you have the addresses?”

“Absolutely,” Ivy said with a fresh smile as she reached into her bag once again. She pulled out another small stack of pages. She had a printed document on each piece of land, copied and pasted material about the family, the physical address, and a picture of the property.

Kalan was just thinking,Damn, she’s good,when one of them caught his eye. “Ivy? Can I have that one?”

But he didn’t wait for her permission, just reached out and snatched the page from her hands, his eyes growing wide.

Chapter Forty-Five

Seline peeled her suit jacket as quickly as she could, revealing her bare arms to the cold night air. She clutched the wad of fabric beneath her as she crushed herself to the ground and tried her hardest not to be seen in the headlights and not to breathe at all.

Her arms were pale. The shell she wore under her suit was a cream color, but hopefully less reflective than the pink had been. She still wore the pants and there was nothing she could do about her skin.

This was the moment when there was nothing to do but pray. It had to be Sanders. Who else would be here? She fought back tears at being caught again.

But she wasn’t done yet, so she prayed the light didn’t catch her. Prayed that he didn’t think to look this direction. Prayed that he still thought she was in the house …

Luckily, the headlights of the car did not sweep over her. She squeezed her eyes shut, seeing only the red of light beyond her eyelids. And when the redness went dim, she opened them again to see the car had driven behind the house. He couldn’t see her right now.

With that, she was up and running again.

Her feet pounded the cold ground, her heart beat heavily enough that he could likely hear her from the driveway. She chastised herself with each step.

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