“Who says I don’t?”
“Fuck off, Alex. I don’t think my sister would appreciate how much of a prick you’re being right now. Does she even know you’re here?”
“I hate to say this Tom, but your sister thinks you’re a scum-bag. If Jane knew I was here right now, she’d probably tell me to pull the trigger.”
“Yeah? Well, that’s only because I’m holding a secret over that bitch too. Maybe when you get back home you can ask Jane how many months after you two were engaged she was still fucking her ex-boyfriend.”
Tom grinned at the sound of cursing behind him as Alex suddenly slipped on the icy pavement. He turned to find his brother-in-law sprawled awkwardly on the sidewalk, his jaw clenched tightly in anger. Tom reached his hand out, but Alex roughly slapped it away. He slowly rose to his feet before gesturing for Tom to keep moving.
“I won’t even justify that with a response,” Alex said flatly, the anger evident in his voice. “Now get to the fucking point and tell me why we’re talking about love letters.”
“We’re talking about love letters because they were written by our suspected terrorist.”
Alex looked over at Tom incredulously. “And you have proof of this?”
Tom shook his head. “Come on Alex, you know I don’t have any proof, but obviously I found enough circumstantial evidence to get your attention. And you sure as fuck wouldn’t be in Flagstaff right now if you didn’t believe I was right.”
“Maybe,” Alex replied. “But you haven’t explained how you came up with this. How in the hell did you manage to make a connection between a handful of love letters and the actions of a potential international terrorist in the first place?”
Tom considered the question for a moment before shrugging his shoulders.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, Alex. The fact that I have good intuition and some serious investigative skills just doesn’t fit with your image of me, so why should I try to convince you otherwise?”
“Try me.”
“Okay… two things. Like I said, everything about the letters is strange, especially their places of origin. India, the Middle East, Africa, South America, Russia… that’s a pretty odd pattern of travel for most people. Definitely not places for the faint-of-heart. And then there’s the photos,” Tom said as he shook his head. “These weird Polaroid pictures of himself that he sends with each letter, standing in the middle of nowhere. I mean seriously, who the fuck still carries around an old Polaroid camera?”
“Wait a minute,” Alex stopped and grabbed Tom’s arm. “You’re telling me you have photos of this guy?”
“Well, yes and no. The guy was clever enough to conceal his face in every photo. But from what I could tell, he appears to be a taller-than-average, thirty-something Caucasian with dark brown hair and an athletic build.”
“I want those photos, Tom.” Alex demanded, leaning towards Tom. “Now.”
“We’ll come back to that,” Tom said, waving his hand dismissively. “Anyway, I was about to dismiss this whole thing as some kind of strange obsession by a typical stalker-type when I decided to check the locations and dates of the letters against criminal reports in the same areas, and bingo. That’s when everything started falling into place.”
The two men descended back into the old downtown and stopped once again at the corner of Aspen Avenue. Tom looked at his brother-in-law expectantly. “Where to now?”
Alex nodded towards Heritage Square. “What else?” he asked as they started walking.
“That’s about it,” Tom replied. “I could give you my notes on the homicides prior to Kaliningrad, but you’ve probably got more information on those than I do.”
“To hell with your notes, I want every fucking photo and scrap of paper this bastard has sent to this ‘acquaintance’ of yours.” Alex shot Tom a suspicious look. “And I want to talk to this woman right away.”
“Unfortunately, that’s not going to happen. My friend is protective of this woman to say the least. Not that it matters. Even if he wasn’t, she has absolutely no desire to speak to anyone about the situation. Believe me, I’ve tried. The best I can give you for now is information on the terrorist’s location the minute she gets another letter.”
“You know that’s not good enough, Tom. I need access to the evidence– and her.”
“And I’m telling you that you’re not going to get it.” Tom stopped on the sidewalk and rubbed his gloved hands together. Alex spun and faced him.