Chapter 16
The next day, Xavier walked out of the elevator into the garage where his father was working on the hauler. "Hey Dad, I got the phone working... sort of." he said excitedly.
"Really? That's great." he slid out from underneath the armored truck and looked up at his son.
"Yeah, I probably would have gotten it done last night, but my headache started flaring up." he explained. "Anyway, I looked inside and saw that the insides were fried to a point where it can't be saved. Luckily, the SIM card seemed to have survived, so I removed it and put it in my phone."
"That's it?"
"Yeah."
"If it was that simple then I wonder why Mike's guys couldn't figure it out?" Don pondered.
"I was wondering the same thing, but maybe no one noticed it at first." he tossed the unusable phone to his father. "See those marks on the phone."
Don examined the back of the phone, along the bottom of it were tiny, brown markings. "Yeah, they kind of look like burns." Don noted.
"Specifically electrical burns... most likely from a taser or something."
Don raised an eye ridge. "And you know this because..."
"Remember a few years ago when I broke my phone and I told you I had no idea what happened."
"Yeah." Don said slowly.
"Well... as a crazy pre teen experiment, I may have taken a taser to the phone."
Don only looked to his teenage son, exasperated. Xavier shrugged at the look. "What? I was 12 and wanted to know what would happen."
"Where did you even get a taser?"
"I found it... I still have it." Xavier shrugged. "Listen, this isn't about me and the fact that I could have made something explode in the name of science. The point is I think someone hit this with something electrical. Whether it was on accident or on purpose, I don't know." he quickly explained.
"How do you send an electrical current through a phone on accident?" Don wondered.
"Anything's possible." Xavier shrugged again. "Now, wait till you see what's on it. Go to the text messages."
He handed his phone off and Don turned it on. Only the seven victims names were displayed. He shook his head before pressing on one of the names, Beth. Their last conversation was displayed in front of him.
"Heyy, Liam."
"Hey."
"What are you doing?"
"Nothing."
"Well, do you want to meet up now? I want to finally meet you."
"I'd like that. You want me to come by your place?"
"Nono! You can't come over here."
"Husband's home?"
"Yeah, he works from home. He's here all the time."
"Alright, we can meet somewhere else if you want."
"Name the place."
"Golden Oak?"
"Fine with me."
"See you there, Beth."
Don spoke to his son. "That's the motel where the second killing took place and Beth, we can assume is short for Bethanny, was the second victim. Well, it's definitely the killer's phone." Don noted. "And we've got a name."
"Not quite." Xavier stopped him. "Check the other texts."
Don scrolled through until he saw the name, Monica, victim number three.
"Oliver!"
"Yes."
"Can I see you?"
"Sure."
"Come over."
"What about Caleb?"
"He just left."
"I'll be there in ten."
"Let me guess," Don inquired. "He changed his name for every victim?"
"Yep," Xavier said. "But at least that's something."
Don stood up and headed for the elevator, bringing both of them back down to the lair. "Thanks Xavier, I'll drop this off with Mike." he removed the SIM card and returned his son's phone. "You go rest." he ordered.
Xavier groaned, annoyed. "I'm fine, Dad. I don't need to rest anymore. I actually think I'm well enough to start training again."
"I'll be the judge of that." Vanessa said as she came into the room.
"Oh no." Xavier sighed, knowing full well what was going to happen. Vanessa has always been way more strict when it comes to physical health, especially when it involves her sons.
"Oh yes. Get to the lab." Vanessa ordered.
Xavier turned his hazel gaze toward his father, silently pleading with him. Don responded by putting his hands up, letting his kid know that he was on his own before walking away. He made a beeline for his brother that was sitting on the couch. Mikey was fully engrossed in a game he was playing with Austin and Malcolm.
"I'm gonna pass you, Dad!" Austin exclaimed as his car began gaining with his father's.
"I don't think so!" Mikey happily played along.
"It doesn't matter because I'm beating both of you!" Malcolm boasted.
Don waited for their virtual race to finish before he began speaking. "Hey Mikey, wanna take a ride with me?"
"Hm? Where?"
"Gonna go see Mike. I have something to give to him." Don said, keeping the details vague in front of the younger children.
"Oh okay." he stood up. "I gotta head out, you two. I'll be back later."
"Okay, Dad." Austin said and got right back into another race with his cousin.
"Bye, Dad." Malcolm said to Don.
"Later guys."
Mikey and Don made their way to the garage where the hauler was. "So, what are we giving to Mike exactly?"
Don climbed into the driver seat and handed the fried phone to his brother. "Mike gave it to me to see if I could get it working."
"And, of course, you fixed it."
"Well, Xavier did. And he didn't fix the phone itself. He only removed a SIM card." Don answered before making a call to Mike. It rang a few times before Michael's tired voice could be heard through the speaker phone.
"Hey Mike, where are you?"
"At the station. Why?"
"Mikey and I are on our way over. We got your phone fixed up for you... sort of."
Michael suddenly sounded a bit more energized. "Really? I knew I could count on you."
"We'll be right over." Don chuckled.
The garage door opened up and they drove off. The whole drive there, Don had a deep look across his face. "You got your thinking face on." Mikey said. "What are you thinking about?"
Don wanted to say what was on his mind, but decided to hold his tongue until they had more evidence to prove it. But something about this whole situation just bothered him. "It's nothing."
A short time later, at the station, Michael hung up his phone with a tired sigh. He rubbed his eyes as if the action would make him less exhausted. He had to endure yet another sleepless night. He gathered up some folders as he prepared for his friends to arrive. Henry walked in with a haunted look in his eyes and a clenched fist. "Michael."
"What's going on?" Michael looked to him, worried. "You look like you've seen a ghost."
"I-I think I'm being followed." Henry said with a shaky breath.
"Whoa, hold on." Mike said, trying to calm his friend down. "What are you talking about? Who's following you?"
He unclenched his fist and revealed a small green device in his hand. "Someone is following me, Mike." Henry said, definitively. "That is a tracking device."
Mike froze for a moment. It definitely was a tracking device and he recognized it. It belonged to the turtles, but he couldn't let his partner know that. "Okay, it admittedly does look like some sort of tracking device, but who would follow you?"
"I don't know, the killer. Maybe he knows that I took his phone, or he knows that I'm working his case."
"Well, if he knows who's working on catching him, then why hasn't he been tracking me?"
"Did you look at your car? How do you know he's not tracking you too?" Henry was in near panic mode. "I have a family, Mike. He probably knows where I live."
"Alright. Relax." Mike took the small device and looked it over. "I understand, you have a family you have to protect. I do too, so I'm probably at risk as well. If you want off this case, then I don't blame you. Do what you have to do."
"No, no," Henry took a few deep breaths. "I can't leave you to take care of everything. You're exhausted enough as it is."
Michael rubbed at his tired eyes. "I appreciate it. Now, don't worry okay. If he was going to do anything, he would have done it by now. Just keep an eye out." he assured Henry.
Henry nodded, finally calming down. "You're right. Thanks."
"Evans, Shelton." came the authoritative voice from behind them. They both turned to see Chief Cahill standing in the doorway of his office, arms crossed and a stern look in his eyes. "My office. Now."
Michael and Henry looked to each other then hesitantly made their way to the office. Henry shut the door behind them for privacy. "What's wrong chief?" Michael asked.
Chief Cahill rubbed his temples as he sat down at his desk. "I'm going to give it to you straight. I need results."
"Chief, I can tell you now that we are doing everything we can to find this guy."
"Everything you can" is not enough." he ran a hand over his bald head then down his aging face. "I need you to do more. I have the higher ups on my back about this and the city is in a state of unrest. I need this guy taken into custody."
"We understand, Chief. We'll get this done."
"See that it does."
Henry and Michael left the office with a relieved sigh. "No pressure or anything, right?" Henry said trying to lighten the mood.
"Right." Michael's phone buzzed on his desk. Donnie's name popped up on the the screen. "I'll be right back." he snatched his phone and put it in his pocket.
"Where are you going?" Henry asked. "And who's Donatello?"
"He's an old friend of mine. We're gonna catch up." Michael easily lied.
"Oh, okay."
Mike collected his bag. "You gonna be okay?" he asked, raising an eyebrow at him.
"Yeah, yeah, I'll be fine." he waved a hand at him dismissively. "You go. Be careful, okay."
"I will." Mike headed out. He went to the back alleyway where he knew his friends armored truck would be. He banged on the back doors and they opened up. He climbed in and plopped down in one of the empty seats with a tired sigh.
"Wow, Vanessa was right. You do look like hell." Mikey teased.
"Gee, thanks." he said, annoyed. He smiled anyway then reached into his pocket to pull out the tracking device. "I think this belongs to you."
"Oh yeah, Leo did say he used one of those recently." Don took it from him and put it aside. "He said he used it so he could be led to where the latest victim was."
"Oh, well be careful with those. You got my partner all paranoid. He thinks the killer is tracking him now."
"Sorry about that." Don said sheepishly. "I'll tell him."
Michael waved the issue off. "Don't worry about it. I got him to calm down. Now, what did you find?"
Don handed the unusable phone to Mike along with the SIM card. "The phone itself was completely fried and only the SIM card survived. So Xavier just took the card and put it in his phone."
"Had your boy do it?" Mike said.
Don shrugged. "It gave him something to do."
Sudden realization as to what Don said suddenly hit him like a ton of bricks. "Wait, did you say that the insides were fried. What happened?"
"That part I'm not too sure of. Xavier suspects that someone took a taser to it.
"Intentionally?"
"Unless it's possible to do it on accident." Mikey said. "I'm gonna say yes."
Mike placed the broken phone and the SIM card in his bag. "I'll take a look at that later. What I don't understand is, if it was something as simple as removing a SIM card then why couldn't our tech guys figure this out."
"Yeah, that's something I don't get either." Don said, again holding in his thoughts and instead decided to turn his attention back to the evidence. "Anyway, it definitely was the killer's phone. Most likely not his personal phone considering there's only names of the victims in his contact list. He changed his name for every victim so unfortunately we don't have a name. The text messages do prove that he is going after people who are in relationships."
"Good to know."
"I also managed to hack into the street cams and noticed that they were definitely tampered with. Someone just put repeat footage of an empty sidewalk in place of what was actually happening. It was pretty easy to work my way around that. I found out that our killer has..."
"An accomplice. Yeah, we saw that too. He's got someone cleaning up after him by the looks of it." Mike mentioned. "Which is why we couldn't find a shred of DNA." he ran a hand down the length of his face, frustrated.
"Don't worry, we'll find this guy." Don assured, with a hand on his shoulder. "We've got your back."
"Thanks guys." Mike said with a genuine smile.
They are a step closer to finding out who it is.
Anyone wanna take a guess?
