Murray Hill || A Superhuman Tale - 1

Chapter Thirty-Five

The conversation between Tommy and Camille wrapped at a little before 3:00. After she departed, he glanced at his e-mail. Three messages had arrived from Philly.

First, the preliminary forensics report was in from the lab. He hesitated. Tommy wouldn't know the first thing about such matters and admitted it to himself. He forwarded it to Camille with a short note, asking her opinion and thanking her again for her generous offer.

Second, tracking where Amy's phone and notepad had been prior to her disappearance was a no-go. For some unknown reason, their missing friend had disabled the GPS on both. The last tower on which they had pinged was in Effingham. No news there. "Nix on Amy's social media, nothing unusual on search history," Philly had added in that e-mail.

Finally, Philly wrote that she'd brought on a new computer guru to work on digging through security video feeds from Effingham. The searches were time consuming, and finding and reviewing them kept her from other tasks.

Before Tommy could think on that issue, the buzzer on the tablet Philly provided signaled an incoming video request. He turned it on, it was Philly. Sam joined them a moment later.

"There's been activity on one of Amy's credit cards," the woman said the moment that the three were assembled. Tommy nearly jumped to his feet.

"Where?" both he and Sam said simultaneously.

"I'm not sure," she said, still trying to compose herself. "It was a series of online purchases. It isn't clear from where, but the card has been more-or-less maxed out over the last two weeks."

"Online?" Tommy had used online purchases for the last several years. "Don't card companies and vendors toe a hard line on where they'll ship online purchases?"

"It depends on the vendor," she replied, "and how pleasant and resourceful the person making the purchase is over the phone. Careful vendors will only deliver online purchases to the card's billing address. But a little charm can still get a person a long way."

"So, the deliveries may have gone anywhere," said Sam. "Well ... Phil, send me the names of the online vendors. Maybe I can make some smooth moves of my own and convince them to give up where the orders were delivered."

Philly, who, from the video feed, appeared to be pacing her office, agreed. Sam's idea was simple and good. "If that doesn't work," she said, "I know a guy. He's sort of pricey, but he's good at working the system. I think he can track that stuff down quicker than I could."

"Price doesn't matter." Again, Sam and Tommy said the words at nearly the same time.

"You two should take that on the road." Their act obviously tickled her. "This is a big break."

"In that case," said Tommy, "you'll love what Detective Thomas told me. Amy was on a no-fly list."

Silence.

After a dozen heartbeats, Sam spoke. "Well, shit. That does explain a lot." He had a look on his face Tommy couldn't decipher. "It also raises a lot of questions. Why was she on it? Who put her on it?" They were the same questions Camille had asked.

"Are we on it?" added Philly. "Are all of us on it?"

Sam took the bull by the horns. "I'll go by the airport here in Effingham this afternoon and try to catch a flight to ... I dunno, Indy. That's how it works, isn't it?"

There was no surprise that Sam knew the ins-and-outs of such things. He was a font of knowledge. And there was little doubt that Sam wanted to know if he was on the government's radar.

He thinks he's the common link, thought Tommy. "I need to think about all of this," he said.

The trio chatted for another ten minutes, hashing out details and attempting to form a plan.