the three weeks she’s been pretending to move into the tiny little rental house in Richardson, she’s only had to share her story once, thanks to an accidental run-in with the next-door neighbor. The poor chain-smoking woman spends most of her time caring for her wheelchair-bound husband and their two service dogs, and as Charlotte shared Hailey’s story with her, she seemed both too exhausted and too worried about accidentally blowing smoke in Hailey’s face to absorb a single detail.
The props that come along with being Hailey Brinkmann serve one real purpose. They’re for Cyrus Mattingly to root through after he abducts her.
As for her little rental house, the name on the lease belongs to a company hiding a company hiding a company. Besides, she doubts Mattingly’s the type of guy who’d be willing or able to check.
He’s not a hacker. He’s a truck driver. And if what they’ve observed of him over the past few nights can be believed, he’s got a particular weakness for women who speak their minds.
Two nights before, at another showing of Sister Trip, this one at the Cinemark 17 in Farmers Branch, she watched Mattingly rise from his seat just a few seconds after the woman who’d earlier called him out over his texting walked past him. Instead of hopping into the little Kia Soul in which she drove to the theater, Charlotte stepped into Luke’s souped-up Cadillac Escalade, courtesy of Graydon Pharmaceuticals, and they followed Mattingly as he followed his target to a sprawling apartment complex about a fifteen-minute drive from the theater.
They watched as Mattingly’s target pulled into a subterranean parking garage, an automated gate rolling shut behind her while Mattingly watched her from behind the wheel of his Econoline van, which he’d parked at the nearest open curb. If Mattingly made a play for the woman, they’d initiate their thwart plan—Luke would find a way to intercept Mattingly before he got to the woman’s door, posing as either a concerned citizen or an affable moron who’d made a wrong turn down a dark hallway.
But Mattingly never got out of his van. He didn’t even wait around for very long. Instead, he sped away, driving an hour south to his isolated house in Waxahachie, where he promptly turned out the lights and went to bed.
While Luke and Charley got some rest, Kansas Command watched Mattingly through the spyware they’d planted in his devices and the microscopic cameras they’d placed throughout his house. Mattingly did nothing of note.
Until the following evening rolled around.
Then he started all over again.
Once again, he stocked the pouches in the thick Velcro belt wrapped around his stomach with a syringe full of sedative, three pairs of flex-cuffs, and a nine-inch leather billy club with wrist strap. Then, wearing a similar outfit to the one he’s got on now, he headed to the movies. This time it was a 6:45 p.m. showing of Sister Trip at the AMC Valley View 16. When Mattingly took out his phone at the exact same time, right as the studio logo filled the screen, Charley rose from her seat to say something to him, and that’s when the woman sitting right behind him beat her to the punch. Charley thought about saying something to him anyway, just to try to draw his attention. But there was a risk in that. If he chose to follow the first woman who spoke up, her chance of hooking him at a later date would be blown; she’d be exposed.
So, she kept silent, and she watched.
Again, Mattingly followed the woman who’d dared tell him to turn off his phone.
Again, he watched her pull in to her residence, a freestanding ranch-style house.
But this time he lingered. Until another car pulled into the driveway soon after the woman’s, and a man, clearly her boyfriend or husband, stepped out, clad in gym gear matted with fresh workout sweat.
Within seconds, Mattingly was back on the road to Waxahachie.
The qualifications for ending up in Mattingly’s sights were simple—you had to have the nerve to tell him to turn off his phone during the movie. But for the courtship to continue, you had to have something else—an easily penetrated residence.
Patrice Longman and Melissa Esperanza—Kansas Command kept them under digital surveillance just in case Mattingly decided to make a play for either of them after the fact—were both very lucky women. One lived cheek by jowl with her neighbors in a gated apartment complex; the other had a husband with excellent timing. Of course,