No News is Not Good News

Abel contemplated grabbing himself a coffee as he drove in, but chose instead not to, thinking the caffeine might make him jittery. Parking in the lot, he made his way into the building, bag full of Gil’s clothes in his hand. Going directly to Tom’s office, he dropped the plastic bag in the chair opposite the desk.

“What the hell is that?” Tom asked, face sour and in no mood for games.

“I went for a run this morning, when I came back, those were waiting for me. Gil’s clothes the night he vanished. His side arm is there too,” Abel explained.

Tom let out a breath and shook his head, thick callused hand sweeping overtop of his military style flat top haircut. “Fuck me,” he said, looking at the bag then back to Abel.

Abel nodded, noting the prominent throbbing vein on Tom’s forehead. “You want me to take it over to Forensics?”

“Just get it to Beckett, he can take it from there,” advised the supervisor.

Grabbing the bag again more forcefully than necessary, Abel snorted under his breath and turned to leave.

“I don’t like this either Abel, goddammit,” Tom said causing the junior agent to turn.

“Sorry?” Abel queried, expression softening but only slightly.

“I don’t like this shit. Whoever this Lily person is, she’s ass fucking us in our own house, I don’t like it,” he growled.

Abel nodded in agreement. Feeling there was no more to be said, he left, complying with the instruction and handing off the bag of Gil’s things before making his way down to the subterranean chamber that served as his office. Removing his jacket, he hung it on the rack and took out his phone before plunking down in the chair behind the desk. Checking the device, there were no new messages.

Lily had indicated she was going to ‘set Gil free’ today. Gil had no clothes. Forecast called for overcast skies, temperatures in the upper thirties to low forties. There was a surveillance team in a cube van disguised as a plumbing truck stationed at Gil’s house and two units on emergency intercept, another on standby recovery. If she released him in the DC area, they would find him quickly.

A light bulb flared in his brain. She had abducted Gil in Louisiana. There was no conceivable way she got him up all the north to DC other than by personal vehicle, which might mean out of state plates. Highly unlikely it was a car. Picking up his phone, he dialed Beckett’s extension.

“Beckett,” came the reply.

“John, it’s Abel, I just had a thought about Gil’s case,” he said.

“Normally I would tell to keep your hands off the case, but I know you and the old man got close. What have you got?” asked the other agent.

“We didn’t find a phone at Gil’s house, but we know the signal was coming from there, meaning Lily has probably has Gil here in DC. How did she get him up here? You know? I think she might be driving an out of state vehicle big enough to sneak the old bugger up here. What do you think?” Abel asked.

“Hmm, I don’t know, it places a pretty heavy emphasis on the assumption Lily is from out of state. Not to crap on your theory, but what’s to say she’s from Louisiana, or Texas, or New York, you know. What if she’s local and drove down to New Orleans and did what she did? I mean I can put DC Police on point to keep their eyes open, but it’s a needle in a field of haystacks. There’s also the grim possibility the picture of Gil wasn’t recent, meaning he may not necessarily have made the trip,” John replied solemnly.

He was right. “Just trying to help,” Abel said, feeling deflated.

“I know, I’m sorry. Doing what you and Gil do, you know better than most how this plays out. Each passing minute our chances of recovering him diminish and I am willing to entertain any effort or strategy you have to try and help get him back,” Beckett offered.

“Thanks,” Abel expressed, hanging up the phone.

As much as he didn’t want to think about it, he hadn’t considered the picture might not be recent. It would explain how Lily was able to get in and out of Gil’s house without drawing any attention to herself from the neighbors. Why was Gil so bound and determined to believe it was a woman? Abel shook his head, still not sold on the idea of Lily being a female, let alone a single person, Gil was just too bloody bulky to easily pack around unobtrusively. Which meant? If it was a collusion, who and why? Gil had been a cold case fixture for years. He had cleared dozens of cases and nothing in particular stood out, except... Wait. There was one. What the hell was it? It was years before Abel’s time. Knocking his knuckles against his forehead, he tried to remember. The girl’s name was something Kelley. And the group was what? The Hand? Snapping his fingers, the Red Hand, Satan’s Left.

The Red Hand had grabbed the daughter of one of their former members who had run away from the cult. What the hell was that girl’s name? The group had the Kelley girl for years before Gil was able to track her down. For a group of nut bars, they had been fairly well organized. Did they possess the wherewithal to pull something like this off? Believed disbanded, the inner circle of the group went underground or to jail.

Jumping up, he needed to get to archives and see the file. If that girl’s name was Lily, he just might be onto something.

Given his job assignment in Cold Case, one of the very few benefits the post offered was enhanced access to case files. With his clearance, he was able to check the physical file out of the archive. Grabbing the banker style box, he returned to his office.

Like an expectant child ripping open a Christmas present, he opened the box and cracked the file.

Elise Kelley. Fuck. Doing some more digging, both in the file and on the database, he was able to establish that of the seven persons originally convicted, four were still in jail, one was out on parole, one was dead, and the remaining person had completed her sentence. Her name, Elizabeth Jensen. Was Lily a nickname for Elizabeth? He couldn’t find anything on Google confirming it. Some stupid devil cult. Maybe that was the tie in to Gil’s scribbled notation ‘Lamia’?

The cell phone on his desk vibrated.

“Albert, I swear,” he said, reaching over and picking up the device. The message was from Lily.