Linger: Dying is a Wild Night (A Linger Thriller Book 1) (15 page)

Matt clicked the link and the screen switched to a simple, non-flashy interface featuring several dozen rectangles in a grid on the page. Each rectangle showed tiny thumbnail images of women or couples in various stages of undress, some merely sitting in front of a computer cam while others were engaged in sexual activity of one kind or another.

“So what’s this?” Kate asked.

“It’s either a sad commentary on the state of mankind or sexual nirvana, depending on your point of view.”

He ran the cursor over one of the thumbnails, which showed what looked like a middle-aged couple. The man was seated at the computer while the woman was stretched out on the bed behind him, completely nude, and doing something rather disgusting with a liquor bottle. A banner that read
CURRENTLY OFFLINE
obscured most of the image.

“Take a closer look at these two,” Matt said.

He tapped his touchpad to take them inside the chat room of “Mike-n-Maisey.” The screen showed a large video window with a running chat module along the right side. The video window was blank except for the word
OFFLINE
.

“Here’s how it works,” Matt said. “The couple comes online and does an interactive sex show using the webcam on their computer while viewers make comments and requests in the chat window. They give tips using pre-purchased credits, and a percentage of each tip is paid to the performers. The more tips, the more you see, and the viewers are usually using their keyboards one-handed, if you catch my drift.”

Kate caught it all right. The ad for the site had spelled it out. “So it’s essentially a mutual masturbation club.”

“And people like Mike-n-Maisey can make a considerable amount of extra income for doing what comes naturally. Especially if they do private shows. Some performers work out of their own homes, while others go to special office suites where the offices are set up to look like bedrooms. The performers come in, punch a clock, and put in their eight hours.”

“You seem to know a lot about this.”

“I’m a strong believer in research.”

“Yeah,” Kate said. “That must be it. So why show me Mike-n-Maisey? Why not show me somebody who’s still online? I think I can handle it.”

“Because Mike-n-Maisey are offline for a reason.” He scrolled down the page to a profile section that featured nude photos of the couple, along with links to several of their archived videos, which could be bought for a hundred tokens each.

And now that Kate saw them clearly, she recognized them, largely due to the bedroom they were posing in—one she’d been inside a number of times in the last few days. The man wore sunglasses and the woman was sporting a cheap black wig, but it was obvious to Kate who they really were.

“Christ,” she said. “Thad and Chelsea Branford.”

“Sharing their unbridled passion with a thousand and one neck beards who can’t get a date on Saturday night. You ask me, it’s like watching your parents do it. Who wants to see that?”

“Apparently someone does.”

Kate thought about all the sex toys they’d found in Chelsea Branford’s nightstand and the reason for them was clear. They were props for the webcam show, broadcast from their own bedroom. The question was, why hadn’t her team found any indication of this until now?

“Okay, Mr. Research, so how do these performers set something like this up?”

“Easy,” he said. “You sign up on the chat site and use their broadcasting software to stream from your computer. You could even do it from a laptop with a built-in webcam and microphone. Set it on your dresser facing the bed and you’re good to go.”

They hadn’t found anything unusual on the Branford home computer, so maybe Thad and Chelsea had used a laptop that had also gone missing. If so, it seemed the killer was amassing quite a collection of hardware.

Kate glanced around the room at all the computer parts. “So why hasn’t anyone come forward about this? You’d think with all the people watching, somebody’s bound to’ve recognized these two from the initial news coverage.”

Matt shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. You have to realize that this cam stuff gets broadcast all over the world by thousands of couples, and most of the people who watch it would never make the connection. And don’t forget that anyone participating in chat porn probably isn’t all that anxious to talk about it.”

“Small wonder,” Kate said. “There was no indication that the Branfords were even involved in this kind of thing. How hard would it be to hide?”

“Not hard at all. And considering all the wackos out there, it’s a smart move. They could’ve used a private internet company to mask their identities and paid for the service with gift cards.”

“Gift cards?”

“The kind you can pick up at a supermarket or a big box department store for cash. The gift card code gets transferred to the Internet service and you’re completely anonymous. And if they wanted to keep their extracurricular activity off their tax returns, there’s a dozen different ways to make that happen.”

Kate sighed. “I feel like an infant when it comes to this stuff.”

“Most cops are. Which is why guys like me are gainfully employed.” He gestured to the screen. “But we aren’t done yet. Mr. and Mrs. Branford are only the tip of this particular iceberg.”

Kate waited as Matt punched a few more keys and the view on the TV screen switched to another chat room with a blank video screen marked
OFFLINE
.

“Meet Barely-Legal-Barbi. Who, as it turns out, isn’t legal at all.”

He scrolled down the page to the profile section which featured photos of a beautiful dark-haired girl posing provocatively in a Catholic schoolgirl uniform. She looked older than sixteen—but not by much.

Bree Branford.

“It gets worse,” Matt said. “One of her archived videos shows her doing the dirty with Chucho on the back seat of that low rider. I didn’t see any sign of it on the Latin Prowlers site, but I’m guessing they would have added it sooner or later. And I have to assume she lied about her age.”

Kate’s stomach went sour.

Why would Bree feel the need to do such a thing?

For money? Attention?

Or had she been coerced into it? The victim of a couple of warped parents?

Kate had seen worse in her career, so the idea wasn’t that far-fetched.

But the hidden cell phone suggested that the Branfords knew nothing about Bree’s involvement with Chucho, and Kate wondered how the two had met. Was it by happenstance? Had Chucho and Emilio discovered that one of their cam couples had a beautiful daughter and sought her out? Or had Bree found out what her parents were up to and decided to follow in their footsteps?

With all of the participants dead, Kate doubted she’d ever know the answer to this. But no matter how it had happened, Bree Branford was a working girl—an
underage
working girl—and the thought of that sickened Kate.

She suspected that, in the course of her work, Bree had encountered the wrong customer. A customer who was lured into an extortion trap by two people who had shared secret phone calls, and soon found himself in a compromising situation with a girl who was barely old enough to drive.

A situation that only multiple murders and a cover-up could repair.

And according to a strange little boy who could see and feel what others couldn’t, that customer was
someone Kate knew
…

“I
S THERE ANY WAY
to identify the people who logged into Bree’s chatroom?”

Matt chuckled. “Doubtful. These places don’t usually keep permanent logs, and even if they did, we’re talking thousands of chatters a week. It would be pretty tough to narrow it down to a few suspects.”

“The Latin Lovers had a pretty extensive network of websites. Are these
all
clones?”

“Looks like just the Latin Prowlers site, but I’d have to dig a little deeper to be sure.”

“So would that mean that the computer stolen from the Soriano apartment was only one of their servers?”

Matt nodded. “It’s likely that with the amount of traffic we’re talking about, each website has its own. Normally they’d all be in one location, but with these guys it’s hard to say. I’m not sure why they operated the Prowlers site out of their apartment.”

Kate looked at the photos of Bree posing in her schoolgirl outfit and studied the room surrounding her. Except for the bright purple bedspread and matching curtains behind the bed, the place had less character than a doctor’s office.

“That’s definitely not Bree’s bedroom. You think she could’ve been working out of one of those office suites you mentioned?”

“That’s what it looks like, but it’s a lot harder to hide your age up close and personal, so she would’ve had to jump through some hoops to convince them she was legal.”

“Or maybe nobody cared.”

“There’s that, too.”

“So if this office suite is out there somewhere, what are the chances there’s a server or two on the premises?”

“Pretty good, I think. But we don’t necessarily need to locate them. I could look for a way in from here and see what I find.”

“Forget it,” Kate said. “Chasing down a cloned website is one thing, but if you do any black hatting without a warrant, we may wind up regretting it. Let’s see if we can locate this office and take it from there.”

She pulled out her phone and called Linkenfeld and got no answer. She dialed again, calling Curt Clark this time, and when she had him on the line, she said, “Hey, Curt, are you still at the crime scene?”

“Yeah,” he said. “The coroner’s guys are bagging the bodies, so it looks like they’re about to wrap things up.”

“Did the techs dust that trash bunker?”

“They did, but one of them was bitching that there were a billion and one prints in there, so I don’t know how much good it’ll do.”

“Where’s Linkenfeld?”

“He left shortly after you did. Said he was headed back to the crib.”

“Why?” she asked.

“I’m not sure. He got a phone call and left.”

Kate wondered what that was all about, but had other things on her mind.

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll be checking the databases on my end, but do me a favor and search the desk and file cabinet in that bedroom office for records of any property the Sorianos may have leased. If you find anything, give me a call.”

“You got it.”

“Thanks.”

When she clicked off, Matt was fingering his touchpad.

“I just had a thought,” he said.

“Which is?”

“There’s no way to identify the majority of the chatters in Bree’s room, but a lot of performers keep a list of high tippers, guys who get a little obsessive and aren’t shy about buying and spending tokens.” He pointed. “There’s Bree’s list.”

Kate looked at the TV screen:

TOP 5 TIPPERS

Dirtydancer666 - 3,100tk

Lovetogetnasty - 2,100tk

Blowmenow - 2,000tk

Barbisloveslave - 1,400tk

Kojak - 800tk

The one calling himself Kojak was a curiosity. The name was from an old TV show that was still in reruns on cable and the Internet, about a detective whose trademark was sucking on a lollipop. Some of the local gangbangers used it as slang for any cop who crossed their path—and Kate had been one of those cops.

Hey, Kojak, I got a lollipop you can suck.

Could he be the one Christopher had told her about?

She looked at Matt. “Is there any way to track these people down?”

“We could put out an APB on frustrated husbands and socially awkward computer geeks, but that would probably keep us busy for the next couple decades.”

“Haha. Now what’s the real answer?”

“It’s a possibility, if they used a credit card to purchase the tokens, or didn’t hide their IP addresses when they logged in to the site. But again, we either go in through a back door or you have to find the server. Of course, that doesn’t guarantee that any of these creeps are your guy.”

“No,” Kate said, “but it’s a start.”

∙ ∙ ∙

She was on her way back to her office when she heard the familiar laughter of Rusty Patterson and Captain Ebersol, coming from the hallway near the elevators. She turned and started in that direction, but stopped as she reached the corner.

MacLean and Linkenfeld were with them and they were all looking mighty chummy.

Kate took a step back, hoping they hadn’t spotted her, and watched them from behind a painter’s scaffold, which had been parked in the hallway since the first days of building renovation.

She watch them interact, feeling foolish for hiding from them, but she couldn’t help wondering what was going on.

Had Rusty just made an appeal to Ebersol on MacLean’s behalf? And what about Linkenfeld? Kate thought she’d had his support, but it wasn’t looking very solid at the moment.

Rusty was smiling at MacLean, and he may have been retired, but his opinion still carried a lot of weight around the department. He had been conciliatory during his talk with Kate in the chapel, but maybe he was starting to regret his decision to pass her the baton. Maybe her meltdown in the bathroom and her failure to get along with MacLean was a sign of weakness in Rusty’s eyes.

What was worse was that MacLean had probably told them what had happened at the Soriano crime scene, and Linkenfeld had confirmed it. Kate didn’t feel she had done anything wrong, but she’d learned long ago that, warranted or not, pointing the finger at a fellow detective was never a good idea. Yet that was exactly what she’d done, true to her own impulsive nature.

It was clear she had a tin ear when it came to diplomacy, so maybe she
wasn’t
suited for this job. And after this roller coaster ride of a day—and the major mindfuck that had accompanied it—she wasn’t so sure she was suited for life in general.

A vacation home in the Keys was sounding pretty good right now.

She watched as the four men shook hands, then MacLean and Linkenfeld got on the elevator and disappeared behind its closing doors. A moment later, Ebersol said something to Rusty, patted him on the shoulder, then headed toward his office. Rusty then turned, facing her direction, and Kate ducked back, knowing exactly where he was headed next.