Chapter 9 Pursuit (1)

Agent Sarah Reeves stood still, arms folded across her chest, staring at the wall of flickering screens. In the dim light of the makeshift command center, her reflection merged with the cascade of data and images. The room buzzed with the low murmur of her team, their voices soft but urgent as they sifted through the ever-growing pile of leads, phone records, and surveillance footage. The cramped quarters of the retrofitted RV felt smaller by the hour, but Reeves didn't notice. Her mind was elsewhere, absorbed by the cold, methodical work of hunting down a ghost.

Her eyes, bloodshot from endless hours of scrutinizing the evidence, darted from one screen to another. Seventy-eight faces stared back at her, a mosaic of suspects, witnesses, and potential leads. One by one, they had been meticulously traced, verified, and eliminated. Each one crossed off felt like sand slipping through her fingers. All but one.

Reeves allowed herself a small, almost imperceptible sigh as she stepped closer to Harris, the young tech prodigy hunched over his workstation. His fingers flew over the keyboard with almost inhuman speed, pulling up new footage and cross-referencing the latest phone pings.

"Agent Reeves," Harris called out, his voice cutting through the low hum of the room. "I've got something on that truck driver, Larry Jennings."

Reeves' eyes narrowed. Finally, something worth pursuing. She strode over to Harris's station, her heels clicking on the metallic floor.

"Show me," she commanded, her voice sharp.

The screen flickered to life, showing a grainy image of a portly man with a salt-and-pepper beard. Larry Jennings, long-haul trucker, moving goods from coast to coast. A benign figure on the surface, but he was likely the last person to have contact with Peter Johnson before he disappeared.

"He picked up a hitchhiker," Harris explained, his voice tinged with excitement. "A middle-aged man, claimed he was recently divorced, down on his luck. Jennings said he gave him a ride and dropped him off at the edge of town, right where the surveillance cut off."

Reeves frowned as she studied the image of Jennings and the fuzzy shot of the hitchhiker climbing into the truck. The man's face was obscured by shadows, his profile nondescript, but something about the image felt… wrong. Off.

"And you're sure this hitchhiker fits the profile?" she asked, though her gut was already telling her something different. Something wasn't adding up.

Harris hesitated, scrolling through the data on his screen. "He matches what Jennings described. Middle-aged, a little disheveled, claims he's going through a divorce."

Reeves' eyes narrowed, her intuition prickling. "Did you cross-reference this man with any local records? Divorce filings in Millbrook?"

Harris blinked, momentarily caught off guard. "Uh, no, ma'am. I assumed—"

"Don't assume," Reeves snapped, cutting him off. "Check."

The room fell quiet for a few tense moments as Harris pulled up the Millbrook records. Reeves crossed her arms, pacing behind him, her mind racing. Something about this hitchhiker felt wrong. There was no trace of this man in any of the footage leading up to the incident. And a middle-aged man with no recent divorce filings in a town like Millbrook? It didn't fit. Millbrook was small enough that such an event would be on record, and Reeves had already scoured every detail of the town's residents.

"Ma'am," Harris said slowly, his voice tinged with confusion. "There's no record of any recently divorced middle-aged man in Millbrook. No one matching the description."

Reeves stopped pacing, her sharp gaze locking onto the screen.

Her gut told her this wasn't just a random hitchhiker. She knew the profile they were chasing too well—Peter Johnson, a kid with no prior record, suddenly capable of inhuman feats. He would need a disguise. And what better cover than a fabricated identity—a man who didn't exist?

Reeves leaned closer to the screen, her eyes narrowing as she studied the hitchhiker's blurred features. "This isn't a middle-aged man," she muttered to herself. "Could it be...Peter."

Harris looked up at her, surprised. "Peter? You think he's disguising himself as this hitchhiker?"

"I don't think, Harris. I know and I'm never wrong." Reeves straightened, her voice cold with certainty. "He's hiding in plain sight. Get me everything we have on this truck driver—Jennings. We need to trace every move he made after dropping Peter off."

As Harris scrambled to pull up the files, Reeves turned back to the wall of screens. All the other suspects had been verified and cleared, their alibis checking out, their stories holding up under scrutiny. But not this man. Not the so-called hitchhiker who didn't exist in any record.

Reeves' gut tightened. Peter was good. Far better than they'd anticipated. But she had been chasing ghosts her entire career, and she knew how to find them.

---

Hours blurred into days as Reeves and her team combed through terabytes of data, piecing together the puzzle one frame at a time. The command center became a hub of constant activity—agents working in shifts, cross-referencing traffic cams, ATMs, and store security footage. But it wasn't until a small electronics store came into the picture that the real break came.

The shop owner, a nervous man with darting eyes and fidgety hands, stood awkwardly as Reeves questioned him in his cluttered store. He handed over a stack of DVDs, each labeled with the dates of the past week's security footage.

"Here you go, Miss" he said, his voice wavering slightly. "All our footage from the last seven days."

Reeves took the discs, her eyes studying him carefully. "Tell me more about this customer you mentioned. The one who bought all the computer equipment."

The shop owner nodded, his hands still fidgeting nervously. "Yeah, middle-aged guy. Seemed a bit off, you know? Bought a whole bunch of tech gear. Thought he was setting up a home office or something."

Reeves raised an eyebrow. "A middle-aged man?"

The owner blinked, then shrugged. "Well, looked that way to me. Didn't say much, just paid in cash and left."

Back in the command center, Reeves loaded the security footage into the system. The team combed through hours of grainy recordings until finally, there it was: a figure walking into the store, head lowered, face turned away from the cameras. The man's clothing was baggy, meant to disguise his build, and he wore a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes.

"Pause it," Reeves ordered.

The image froze on the screen, showing the man's back as he approached the counter. Something in the way he moved, the posture—it didn't match the profile of a middle-aged man. It was subtle, but Reeves could see it.

"Look at his gait," she said, pointing to the screen. "That's not someone in his fifties. It's someone much younger, trying to move like an older man."

Harris zoomed in on the frame, enhancing the details as much as the grainy footage allowed. The more Reeves studied it, the more convinced she became.

"That's him," she whispered, more to herself than to anyone else.

---

The real breakthrough came when Harris, after days of searching, traced Peter's movements to a rundown motel on the outskirts of town.

"The Sleepy Pine Motel," Harris said, his voice cracking with excitement. "He stayed there, but the security footage is all messed up."

Reeves' eyes narrowed. "How convenient."

The Sleepy Pine Motel was a relic of a bygone era, its neon sign flickering weakly in the harsh daylight as Reeves pulled into the cracked asphalt parking lot. She could feel the anticipation coiling in her stomach as she stepped out of the car, her gun resting lightly against her side.

The motel owner was a grizzled man, his leathery skin worn from years of sun and cigarettes. He shuffled out to meet her, his rheumy eyes widening slightly at the sight of her badge.

"FBI, huh?" he rasped, squinting at her. "What's this about?"

Reeves holding up a photo of Peter. "I need information on one of your guests."

The owner squinted harder at the photo before recognition dawned. "Oh, him. Yeah, strange fella. Kept to himself mostly. Bought a bunch of computer stuff."

Reeves leaned in, her interest piqued. "Computer stuff?"

The owner nodded, seemingly oblivious to the significance of his words. "Yeah, thought he was some kinda tech whiz. Then one day, poof! Gone."

Reeves' pulse quickened. They were close. "I'll need to see your security footage," she said, her voice tight with control.

The owner shifted uncomfortably. "Funny thing about that. Cameras went on the fritz right when he checked in. Ain't worked since."

A chill ran down Reeves' spine. That was no coincidence. Her hand instinctively moved to her gun, resting on her hip. "Is that so?"