There was nothing else inside the handbag.
Lucien placed the bag back on the passenger’s seat and opened the glove compartment. Inside it he found the vehicle’s manuals, a plastic box containing the wheel-bolt key and Alicia’s cellphone. He pressed the button to wake it up and was met by a picture of a forest, the cellphone clock and a message saying, ‘use fingerprint or swipe screen to unlock’.
He swiped the screen and was immediately asked for a password.
‘Fingerprint it is,’ Lucien told himself, pressing the button to release the trunk lid.
He leaned forward on his seat and checked the garage’s parking floor. No movement anywhere.
Lucien had left just enough space for a person to fit between the rear of the Audi and the garage wall. He rounded the vehicle, checked the parking floor one more time and pulled open the trunk lid. In there, the body of Alicia Campbell lay – her neck broken, her face still showing the terrifying fear that had petrified her in place as Lucien grabbed her face with both hands, stared straight into her horrified eyes and, in one violent move, twisted her head to one side one hundred and eighty degrees, fracturing the cervical vertebrae near her skull and severing her spinal cord at the same point. With that, three things had happened to Alicia. One – since the spinal cord is the pathway between the brain and the body, her brain was separated from her body below the level of the injury, instantly paralyzing her, including her respiratory muscles. Two – consequently, she stopped breathing. Three – her body lost the ability to control her heart.
Now, one thing that Lucien knew very well was that – unlike what was portrayed in Hollywood films and kung fu movies – death from a broken neck and a severed spinal cord did not come instantly. The victim would suffer in agonizing pain anywhere up to three and a half minutes, depending on resilience and body strength. Alicia Campbell lived for another one minute and twenty-two seconds before she suffocated from respiratory failure.
Lucien had considered disposing of her body at the resting area by the highway, but quickly decided that it was too risky. The bushes around the area weren’t thick enough to properly hide a body during daylight. It would’ve been easily discovered by whoever pulled into that resting area next. Lucien could also have left her inside the Chevrolet Colorado he’d been driving, but by now every law enforcement agency in the country would be looking for that pickup truck. If it hadn’t been spotted yet, it would be in the next hour or so, maybe sooner, Lucien was very certain of that. If they found the truck, they would find her body. If they found her body, identification would come quickly and the search would jump from the Colorado to the Audi A6, which meant that Lucien would have to find another way of getting around pretty sharpish, and right then he could do without that sort of hassle. He still had to get to Louisiana, and he liked how comfortable and powerful the Audi was.
After weighing his options, Lucien had decided that his best move would be to put Alicia’s body in the trunk of her car and keep it there until he had left Knoxville. He did not intend to stick around the city for longer than an hour . . . two, max, just enough time for him to be able to buy some supplies and change his appearance. He was sure that he would find an ideal place to get rid of her body soon after he left town, but right now he needed to unlock that cellphone.
Lucien reached for Alicia’s right hand, singled out her thumb and placed it against the fingerprint reader. A second later, the cellphone screen unlocked.
First Lucien called up the ‘settings’ screen on the phone. He knew that he wouldn’t be able to change the ‘lock screen and security settings’ to keep the screen permanently unlocked without entering a password, so he did the next best thing – he changed the ‘lock automatically’ time from five seconds to half an hour. Now, as long as Lucien touched the phone screen within every thirty minutes, the phone wouldn’t lock on him and he wouldn’t need to use Alicia’s fingerprint again.
Next, Lucien called up the cellphone’s map application and searched for ‘Costume shops in downtown Knoxville’. He got three results. The closest one was less than half a mile away from where he was.
‘How about that?’
Lucien wasn’t only a master impersonator, he was also a wizard when it came to disguise. Armed with the right makeup and just a few simple props, easily obtainable in most costume shops, he was able to drastically change his appearance and make himself completely unrecognizable in a matter of minutes.
He used the screen map to check the directions to the store. Walking would be just as simple as driving, and since Lucien also needed to pick up a few random items that he wouldn’t find in the costume shop, he decided to make his way there on foot. He locked the car and set off towards the address shown on the cellphone screen.
Seven
Hunter kept his focus on Kennedy, expecting him to develop on what he had just told him, but the NCAVC director offered nothing more.
‘What are you talking about, Adrian?’ Hunter asked, his voice still composed. ‘What note?’
‘I know I have no need to explain protocol to anyone here,’ Kennedy replied. ‘You all know that once an inmate escapes, the first place that gets scrutinized to hell is that inmate’s prison cell, right? Marshals will be looking for plans of the escape, notes, drawings, letters exchanged with someone on the outside . . . any sort of clue that can point them in some sort of direction.’
Hunter’s reply was a single nod of the head.
‘Well,’ Kennedy continued, ‘Lucien’s cell has already been turned inside out and upside down, they found absolutely nothing.’
‘They wouldn’t have.’ Hunter shrugged. ‘Lucien would’ve kept whatever plan he came up with locked in his head, no matter how complex it might’ve been.’
‘Maybe,’ Kennedy accepted it. ‘But Lucien didn’t escape from his cell.’
‘Yes, I know,’ Hunter said. ‘You told us that he killed two nurses as he broke out, which obviously means that he escaped from the infirmary.’
‘That’s right,’ Kennedy agreed. ‘He was transferred to Lee Penitentiary’s infirmary yesterday afternoon – apparently due to a violent stomach bug. He wouldn’t stop vomiting.’
‘Yeah, right.’ The comment came from Garcia.
‘Anyway,’ Kennedy carried on, ‘inside his infirmary cell they did find a short note. From what I heard, Lucien left it on his pillow.’
‘On his pillow?’ Garcia asked.
‘That’s correct,’ Kennedy confirmed.
‘And that note was addressed to me?’ Hunter asked.
Kennedy gazed back at Hunter, but the nod he gave him wasn’t that convincing.
‘Well, yes,’ he replied. ‘But in a charade kind of way.’
Hunter questioned with a look.
At that exact moment, Kennedy felt his cellphone vibrate inside his pocket, but this time it vibrated only twice and in quick succession, indicating that he had received a text message.
‘Just give me a minute, will you?’ he said, as he checked his cellphone screen. ‘Yeah.’ Kennedy nodded after a couple of seconds. ‘The note is addressed to you, all right. No question about it.’ He extended his right arm, offering Hunter his cellphone. ‘Here, have a look.’