NYPD Red 6 - James Patterson Page 0,85

twisted mind of Bobby Dodd. And if he did have an accomplice, I would think you’d want to know about it as much as we do.”

McMaster exhaled hard. “You’re right,” he said. “My priorities have been a little screwed up. A few days ago I was positive that this kidnapping was a career-ender for me. But Erin wants me to stay on. I’ve been so desperate to get this nightmare behind me that I stopped thinking like a cop and started acting like a man with a business to save and a reputation to protect. I’m really sorry. Tell me what I can do to help.”

“For starters, can you find out where Erin was on June third?” Kylie asked.

“I can tell you where she was every day for the past couple of years. June third is the day before her birthday. What’s the significance?”

“Dodd says he was with Erin that day. Which probably means that wherever she was, he was close enough to watch her. If we know where Erin was, we can figure out where Dodd was, and with any luck we might be able to find out if he was alone or with someone.”

“Give me a sec.” He pulled an iPad out of his briefcase and began tapping on it. His face screwed up in a scowl. “Shit. It was one of her WAN days.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning every now and then, she puts on the standard celebrity disguise—sunglasses, baseball cap, baggy sweats—and she goes out into the real world to WAN, ‘walk around normal.’ I’m not allowed to follow.”

“But knowing you,” Kylie said, “you have.”

He grinned. “Not me, and don’t ever repeat this, but a couple of years ago I hired someone she’d never met to tail her on those days. The first time, she took a cab to the Cloisters museum up at Fort Tryon Park. The next time, it was the Bronx botanical gardens. She really was walking around normal. I don’t like it, but I get it. The poor woman has spent most of her life in a goldfish bowl. Sometimes she just needs to totally escape and be by herself. Bottom line: I have no idea where she was on June third.”

“We could ask her. Will she remember?”

He shook his head. “After what she’s been through? I seriously doubt it.”

“What about the GPS chip?” I said. “The one that Bobby cut out of her arm. The one that was supposed to keep tabs on her whereabouts.”

“The Korean company’s LyfeTracker,” McMaster said. “Good call, Zach—if it was working. But like I told you, it crapped out about a month ago. Middle of May or so. They’re still trying to figure out how to fix the problem.”

“I’m not an engineer,” I said, “but a better battery might do the trick.”

“It doesn’t take a battery,” McMaster said. “The chip runs on kinetic energy, like a self-winding watch. The more you move, the more juice it produces. When it stopped working I spoke to one of the engineers in Korea. He said maybe Erin wasn’t active enough to get it charged. I said bullshit. The woman is a human dynamo. A week later he calls me back and tells me I’m right. It’s a product flaw. Erin generates plenty of energy. The damn chip was just not storing enough to transmit the data. It’s like having a GPS in your car, but it won’t tell you where you are.”

“But …” Kylie said, working the thought out in her head as she was talking. “But just because your car doesn’t tell you where you are doesn’t mean it doesn’t know where you’ve been.”

“You lost me,” McMaster said.

“Something was sapping the energy from the LyfeTracker, which kept it from transmitting Erin’s whereabouts,” Kylie said. “But did it at least have enough juice in it to record and store the data?”

“I have no idea,” McMaster said. “It was just another one of Erin’s crazy product endorsements. I didn’t really ask the engineer too many questions.”

“Well, I’ve got a few questions for you,” Kylie said.

“Go for it,” McMaster said.

“What’s the engineer’s phone number, and what time is it in Korea?”

CHAPTER 75

MCMASTER LOOKED AT his watch. “It’s one in the morning in Seoul. Nobody at Kinjo Technology is going to pick up the phone for at least six more hours.”

“Do you have a home number for the engineer?” I said.

“No, but I’ll bet Peter Woon has it. He’s the head of their New York office. At least, he was when he came to see