Pitch Black (14 page)

She didn’t know his boss, but nothing about Alec’s behavior said he was that type. Still, something was making these two professional-looking men sound like a couple of kids who didn’t want Dad to find out they’d been messing around with his tools in the garage.

None of your business
. Even if it were, she might feel comfortable enough with Alec to ask him about it, but his boss intimidated her. She wasn’t about to accuse this intense, professional-looking man of playing childish king-of-the-mountain turf games.

When they reached the correct floor and the door swished open, she stepped onto a carpeted floor, in a hallway lined with large-windowed offices and computer labs. On the other side of those windows, agents buzzed about and studied images projected from various computers onto large overhead screens. It was pretty much as she’d always imagined the Cyber Division would look, at least from what she’d seen on TV and in the movies.

They didn’t turn into one of those slick, glossy rooms.

Instead, they kept walking, the ambiance becoming much less techno-chic. The carpet disappeared; so did the glass-walled suites. When they finally reached their destination, it took willpower not to gawk at the antiquated, dingy the offices assigned to Blackstone and his team.

“Lily and Brandon are back and are assisting Jackie with last night’s messages,” Blackstone said to Alec as they entered. “Dean and Kyle drove up to Wilmington this morning to meet with the detectives investigating the double murder there and talk to the ME about the autopsies. They should be back soon.”

Double murder. Autopsies.

Ryan and his friend. God.

Nodding to a receptionist who offered Sam a cursory smile, Blackstone entered what appeared to be a conference room. Considering dusty boxes stood in lopsided columns from floor to ceiling in all four corners, she doubted it had been one for long.

“That for me?” a man asked, nodding toward the CPU Alec held in his arms. He was young, with spiked blond hair. His bright yellow dress shirt and trendy, pin-striped trousers weren’t what she’d expected to see in this particular government office, and his smile was infectious. “Brandon Cole,” he said as he moved past her to take the computer from Alec. “I’ll treat her like a baby, okay?”

Whether she liked it or not, her link with the outside world did have to leave her sight, at least for a while. Knowing she couldn’t be petty enough to deny law enforcement any chance at finding clues to catch the boys’ murderer, she nodded. “Okay. Here are my passwords.” She handed him the notes she’d jotted down during the drive from Baltimore. Then, frowning, she added, “No reading e-mails from anybody named Tricia, a.k.a. Delishtrish. I’ll vouch for her.”

Her friend was occasionally overdescriptive when talking about her dates. She seemed to think if Sam read about somebody else occasionally getting laid she might be more apt to want to do it herself. Sam usually hit delete after the first paragraph.

“You got it,” the young man said before he left the room, taking with him her most prized possession—including the bulk of her already contracted second book. Talk about redundant backups: She hadn’t gone with Alec today until she’d burned it to CD and a portable hard drive.

“Delish Trish who leaves loud messages?” Alec asked as he pulled a chair out and beckoned for her to take a seat. A glint of humor appeared in his eyes again, and for a moment, she thought he was laughing at her.

Feeling the quick, reassuring brush of his hand on her shoulder, she realized his light teasing was his way of trying to keep her calm and comfortable. The realization was as nice as it was unexpected. “My best friend. She’s a pain in the butt, but she’s loyal.” Swallowing, she quietly added, “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.” Glancing at the antique industrial round clock on the wall, he frowned, the hint of warmth evaporating. “We’re running out of time.”

Almost twelve-thirty. He was right.

“You ready?”

She nodded. “As I’ll ever be.”

Alec bent and reached around her, his strong arm brushing hers, pushing an open laptop in front of her. “Why don’t you log in so you’ll be ready to go once we decide exactly what you’re going to say.” As she did so, he addressed the others in the room—two women who also sat at the conference table. “Anything?”

His partner, Stokes, offered Sam a curt nod of hello. “Our boy did some driving last night. His posts came from three different servers. We’ve isolated them, so we know one was from a hotel offering free wifi, one from a small-time auto repair shop without a firewall.” Not quite meeting Sam’s eye, as if she realized how it would affect her, she admitted, “Which was on Reisterstown Road, near Druid Hill Park.”

Close
. Very close to where she lived. God, she had never thought about how close her hometown was to Delaware—where the boys had been killed. Or that the monster they were chasing could actually operate right in this area. Alec obviously thought the same thing. She saw his sudden tension and the scowl on his handsome face.

Sam closed her eyes for a moment, forcing herself to take a deep, calming breath. She lived in a large metropolitan area with an untold number of servers. Of course someone wanting to disguise his location from the FBI would be drawn to a big city. He’d headed south, that was all, and Baltimore was the first big city south of Wilmington.

Besides, almost nobody knew her real address, including many of her old friends. Her Web site was registered through a hosting service, she used a PO box for almost all her correspondence, and she had an unlisted, unpublished number.

Coincidence
.

Still, knowing the killer had ended up so physically close when he had responded to her blog—on top of the fact that he visited her site at all—didn’t exactly make her day.

“And the other location?” Blackstone asked.

“A residential neighborhood near BWI, probably some Joe Blow with an unsecured Linksys router.”

BWI Airport. South of the city. Even farther from Wilmington.
So he circled the entire beltway and then drove back to Delaware, damn it.

Sounding hopeful, Alec asked, “Was it the first one? Did he post from home, then think better of it and go out to find a more secure location?”

Sam was less hopeful. Because she did not want to think this bastard might live so close.

Agent Stokes shook her head. “Huh-uh. The third. A brand new ISP was assigned within minutes of his post.”

Sam, who had been listening quietly, talking only in her head, couldn’t help muttering, “You guys are good, taking it all the way to street level so quickly.”

Jackie Stokes shrugged. “We’ve got access most people don’t. Amazing how fast a federal warrant goes through when bodies start to fall.”

“No doubt.”

“All right, give me some good news,” said Blackstone.

“Well, the good news is, if we ever
do
have a suspect we’ll be able to prove all this through his laptop’s history. Without one, we’re shooting in the dark.”

Wyatt’s eyes narrowed. “Tell me one of those connections was in the vicinity of a surveillance camera.”

The other woman, a pretty blonde who had been busily typing on her keyboard, lifted her head. “Already on it, sir. The residential area, no go, but it’s possible he was seen by a late-night dog walker or nosy neighbor.”

Blackstone nodded. “Note the area, please.”

“Already sent the information to your BlackBerry, sir.”

He sighed, saying, “We really don’t need the sirs in this office, Lily.”

The woman stammered an apology, which her boss waved off. “Continue,” he said.

“The hotel is part of a budget chain. They might offer free wifi, but they don’t put any money into security. It is across the street from a bank ATM, though. Depending on where he parked, it could have caught something.” The blonde, Lily, didn’t sound hopeful. “And the Baltimore auto repair shop he used to send the middle post is located near an intersection with a red-light cam. I’ve already contacted the locals to get the ID of the specific camera, and can pull it up for examination.”

“Excellent.” Blackstone turned his attention back to Alec and Sam. “But it’s not enough. We’ll have to proceed with the backup plan. Are you certain you’re willing to do this?”

Sam nodded. “But we need to get going.”

“Alec, this is your show. I assume you know the best way to deal with the psyche of this unsub, so why don’t you write out the initial response.”

“All right.” Alec turned to face her. “If you had gotten up this morning and read these messages, how would you have dealt with them? Would you address the first comments first, or skip right to the ones that . . .”

“Made my blood boil?”

“Exactly.”

She thought about it. “I always give a nod to my regulars before diving into any debates.”

He sat beside her and pulled a pen from the inside pocket of his suit jacket. “Okay, you go ahead and respond to those and I’ll write down what to say to the Professor.”

She lifted a brow. “He’s a professor?”

“It’s not important. For all intents and purposes, you know him as Darwin.”

“Got it.”

Seeing the way her own fingers shook as she touched them to the unfamiliar keys, Sam closed her eyes for one moment, trying to hear her own normal, daily voice, wondering if her fear sounded as loud when she spoke as it did inside her head.

Won’t matter as long as it doesn’t come through in the writing
.

Swallowing down the nervousness, she began to type. She addressed the first few messages in one bunch, since they were all agreements with her column. A couple of other visitors had related their own horror stories, which she tackled next. She didn’t have to feign the sadness she felt for the man whose teenage daughter had run away with an abusive rapist she’d met on Facebook, or the man whose wife had been robbed and beaten when she’d met with someone she thought was selling a dining room set.

She gave a shout-out to those who begged her not to feed the troll—Darwin. Then she was finished. There was nothing to do but find something to say to the man who thought people should be allowed to be slaughtered without anyone else’s interference. “Okay,” she whispered.

“Alec?” Blackstone said. He had been watching from the end of the conference table, sitting quietly, one leg crossed over the other, his hands, fingers entwined, resting casually on his lap. She sensed the man saw quite a lot with that intense stare, but neither his pose nor his expression revealed his thoughts.

“Got it,” Alec said. He cleared his throat, glancing at Sam as if to ask her one more time if she really wanted to do this. When she nodded slightly, he lifted his notebook and read aloud the words he’d written.

She listened, thought about them, then said, “Okay, if I had decided not to blast him off the Internet, that sounds like something I might say. Might need to tweak a word or two.”

He pushed the paper over. “Fine.”

She took it, but didn’t write, waiting for a final go-ahead from the guy in charge. When Blackstone nodded once, she jotted her changes on the page, her small, neat print nearly lost in Alec’s bold, spiky handwriting.

There was a metaphor in there somewhere. She knew it. Something about her small, neat life being sucked into his big, bold one.

God, she hoped she wasn’t making a mistake.

“Go ahead, Sam.”

She began to type.

Dear Darwin . . .

Y
ou’re a first-timer,
aren’t you? Welcome, glad to have you. Can’t say I agree with your theory, but it’s a free country, right? I understand it can be frustrating that some people don’t learn from their mistakes. But do you really think the answer is to do nothing at all? Pretty harsh view, isn’t it?

Interesting comments, hope you stick around!

In his quiet office, behind a closed door, Darwin leaned back in his chair and stared at Samantha’s words. They were, he had to admit, more than he’d hoped for. He’d read them several times since they’d shown up an hour ago, searching for more—hidden messages, private meanings. Something to indicate she knew how important this interaction was.

Hope you stick around.

That said it all, didn’t it? Of course she knew.

“You never disappoint me,” he told the screen, his gaze shifting between it and her photo on the inside back cover of her book. Her beautiful face, the intelligence shining from her eyes—they weren’t a disguise for a woman with no substance. She might be naive, and foolishly kind, but she was open-minded and smart.

Smart enough to recognize a kindred spirit, even if, on the surface, their views seemed quite different.

“You had me worried for a while,” he admitted. “Keeping me waiting as you did.”

That worry had made him refresh the computer page every minute or two throughout the morning. A man not used to feeling impatient over anything, he had found the reaction disconcerting and had to leave the office for a while because he could not focus.

The delayed response had not angered him; he could never be angry at someone who took the time to evaluate all options before speaking or acting. But he couldn’t deny a moment of worry when he’d thought he was being intentionally ignored.

He would not tolerate being ignored.

Finally, she had spoken, and the weight of wondering had been lifted. It just remained to decide how—and when—to respond.

When a knock sounded, he minimized the screen. “Yes?”

His office door swung open and one of his employees entered, a subservient, wishing-to-please expression on his face. “Got a minute?”

He nodded. “Of course, Steve; you know my door is always open.”

Even though it almost never was. Not in the literal sense, anyway. But Steve wasn’t wired to think so literally. Not stupid at all, oh, no—the man was cunning. Above all, he was loyal. And these days, loyalty outweighed everything else. “What can I do for you?”

“I want to thank you for the overtime hours. I know you pulled some strings to get them for me.”