Terrorbyte (17 page)

“Thanks, Ellie. You're staying in the room, aren't you?”

“Yeah. Lemme get the boys up here.”

I called out to Mac and Lee. Aidan squawked over the phone, “It was necessary to holler in my ear, huh?” I ignored him and dressed. It was one thing getting flack from Lee and Sam over a sexy little evening dress, but they didn't need to know what I don't wear to bed.

Several minutes later, they thumped up the stairs. Mac knocked on the door before opening it slowly. He showed a great deal of relief at seeing me dressed, sitting on the edge of the bed, laptop perched on my knee.

“Babe?”

“Aidan is on the phone, he had a query about the Butterfly Foundation chat room.”

“Hey, Aidan!” Mac said. He sat next to me, peered at the screen and read everything I had pulled up on the SadlySandy kid.

“Aid, where you been hiding, boy?” Lee asked.

“Working mostly. Keeping away from Ellie and Mac after that fund-raising bash the publisher threw.”

“Man, you should have seen how pissed they were. If I was you, Aid, I'd be leaving the state.” Lee grinned at us. He was having fun winding up Aidan.

“Really?” Aidan actually sounded worried but I knew better.

“Hell, yes.”

I intervened with a dismissive tone, “Yes, we were pissed Aidan; lucky for you we've got bigger fish to fry. Hang on a minute. I need to show Lee something.” I beckoned to Lee to come see the screen.

Mac pulled his cell phone from his pocket and called the kid's home number. He walked out to the hallway to minimize the background noise.

I continued chatting to the occupants of the chat room. Nothing had changed with the person signed on as SadlySandy and she carried on taking part in the room. Talk about multitasking: I guess teenagers are well used to texting, chatting, talking on the phone and probably doing homework. All at once.

Mac came back. His stony expression spoke volumes.

A pang in my gut matched the ache in my head. I just knew she wasn't even online.

“Ellie, run a ping and trace on the ISP for SadlySandy. It's not her.”

I clicked the Neotrace icon and waited.

“She's okay?”

“Yes. Sandy Galen is at home with mom and dad playing a video game … that ‘Sing Star' thing.”

“Guess even the best multitasker can't play that and sit in the chat room holding several conversations.”

We watched the trace program trying to pinpoint the location of this imposter.

“Has she given her password to anyone?”

“She said not; whoever this is probably hacked it.”

I forgot Aidan was still listening until he spoke, “Is it that easy?”

“Nope,” Mac replied. “They'd need to know what they were doing.”

“Could that same person have hacked into the database and have people's personal information?”

Oh, God. Bile rose from my stomach, almost making it to my throat. I could feel the burn. Could this be how the Unsub is finding victims? Aidan didn't even know what we were working on. This was an innocent observation on his part. Was there information about me on that database? I hadn't created a profile or anything.

“Aidan, I'll call you back.” He really didn't need to hear this conversation. I wanted to go in and shut down the imposter, close the account and, if necessary, shut down the entire server. But I didn't want to leave the kids with nowhere to go for help. If I shut down the server I'd be abandoning them – just like their parents – sending them out to connect somewhere else. Somewhere they weren't monitored by caring moderators. Then the real horror kicked in: if I shut down the server they'd go somewhere this person couldn't prey upon them, or at least would have to work harder to find them.

Somewhere safe?

The thought that they weren't safe now made me feel ill.

Lee and Mac were staring at me as if I had suddenly sprouted horns.

“Can I help you both?”

They looked at each other but said nothing.

“Speak,” I commanded.

“He could have something. It's possible that this person may even be our Unsub.” Mac slung an arm around my shoulder and whispered in my ear, “You're pale. Do you need something?”

Did I need something? I needed to stop this killer. “I'm okay.”

Lee tapped my hand. “Check it out, Ellie, we're seconds off an answer.”

We all watched as the last lines filled in on the list then clicked the Registrant button. I looked at the reply to the trace on the screen. “Department of Defense, Arlington. You have got to be fuc'n joking.”

“Christ!” Lee groaned.

“Crap,” Mac muttered.

“Could the hacker have hacked the Defense Department, too?” I knew that was a million-to-one shot but, hell, could someone from inside the Defense Department hack our Foundation and pose as a child … to what end? 

Mac interrupted my mental ramble. “Nah. This has got to be coming from inside.”

I voiced my first terrifying thoughts, “Do we have our Unsub, or do we have a potential pedophile?” But wait, there's more. “Do we shut the Foundation rooms? Do we expose this immediately and publicly? Do we find who used the terminal showing on this trace, charge them
now
with hacking and hope this is our Unsub? And that something carrying the death penalty will stick?”

Lee watched the room chatter intently. “Can we see if anyone is using private messages?”

“The only ones who can use them are us. It was a safeguard to protect the kids.” Mac replied.

“Could someone change that?”

I picked up my phone and made a call, “Caine, we need a liaison inside the Department of Defense, Arlington.”

He inhaled. I heard the air rush past his teeth. “You want in the Pentagon? Oh, this had better be good.”

“This may be pertinent to our case, I need someone to go to a particular terminal and tell me who is using it. I need it now.”

“I'll get you in. Stand by.”

Caine hung up.

I watched Lee hustle from the room. It always amazed me how someone as impressive and big as him could move with such stealth. If you didn't see him go, you wouldn't hear him. Lee's six feet seven inches tall and gives the appearance of a quiet, moving wall of muscle. He wasn't someone I'd mess with if I didn't know him so well. He returned carrying papers and looking serious. He handed the papers to me with no comment. I started reading. He'd given me the comparisons we'd run on the victims. Two had the same doctor. Two had the same pharmacist – both were the Richmond cases. I read on until I came to the one thing that churned my stomach and burned my throat. All of our victims had a connection to the Butterfly Foundation. Technically, that meant they were all parents.

My mind threw out a scene to mull over. Marie's kitchen: the baby's bottle amongst the filth. Was there a baby? No one mentioned a baby. It never came up during the interviews with neighbors. There was no other evidence of a baby but for the bottle. I turned the page and read the last section. All the other victims had children; they lived with them, or the kids were with other family members and had supervised visitation. Seeing the list of names on the cold white paper made me shake. Why wasn't Marie's baby mentioned?

I looked up to find Mac and Lee watching me. Mac accurately read the expression on my face.

“We're not going back to Vale Road tonight.”

“Could there be a baby stashed there anywhere at all?” This was where Mac had to say ‘No' and believe it. Really, truly believe it.

“No. The bomb squad searched for a bomb; they would've found a baby if there was one to find.”

A wave of relief almost swamped me. The person signed on as SadlySandy was still chatting to Aidan online.

Caine called back with a contact and a meeting. We were ready to leave within five minutes and my phone went again. Unknown number. I noted the time on my phone. It was Thursday already. I had my wish: Wednesday was over. The little voice in my head said, ‘Be careful what you wish for.'

I answered with, “Conway.”

“Ma'am, this is Kelvin Nightingale at the Comms center. Nine-one-one reported a woman murdered in Reston; this fits your investigation.”

“When did the call come in?”

“Five minutes ago, 911 are still talking to the person.”

“Have emergency services been dispatched?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Remind them they are not to enter the dwelling without police. Have police verify the condition of the victim and secure the scene. We're on our way … Kelvin – address?”

I hung up and told my team we were going to Colts Neck, Reston.

I called Aidan back and asked him to monitor the chat room and to notify the moderators that we had a security breach. Until we could deal with it, I wanted everyone aware and all eyes on those kids. Aidan grumbled a fair bit about the time and needing his beauty sleep. I couldn't dispute that. He also conceded that kids' lives were more important and he'd stay in the chat room. No doubt he'll get his own back at some stage. I'll be waiting.

This time I hung up and hoped my phone would stay silent.
Enough with the bad news already!

I sat on the bed and considered our position. Mac and Lee were frozen on the spot waiting for me to say something.

“Scratch the Pentagon visit. We've got a fresh scene.” I looked at my laptop screen. “And SadlySandy is still in the room chatting to Aidan.”

“Reschedule?” Lee asked.

“Yeah. Send someone to find out whose terminal it is; I want to know who we're dealing with.”

“Not the Unsub,” Lee replied with a soft voice. “I'll call Caine.”

‘Not the Unsub' rang in my ears like a death knell. That only left ‘pedophile' in my mind. At that moment I wished I had a normal job, where people used the Internet to chat to friends, not set up kids and ruin lives. Stop! I was jumping to conclusions and going to drive myself crazy. Pearls of wisdom curled and twisted through the horror in my mind and came out as, ‘Better to light a candle than curse the darkness.' Great, my mind was tossing up things grandpa used to say. It rolled around my head a little and began to actually make sense. Damned if grandpa wasn't right; there was no sense in me getting upset about this. I'd just have to fix it A-sap.

Whoever it was in the chat room couldn't do much now we knew there was something going on. We were watching from the inside and out. Breathe, Ellie … first things first. Caine would find out who it is we need to speak to at the Pentagon, while we checked out this new murder.

Mac and I stood on the top step; water lapped at the edge of the bottom step. The weather hadn't improved in the few hours we'd been home. Our security lights played upon the watery driveway, giving it the appearance of a dirty river.

“Oh, man.” I sighed out of sheer frustration. Even the weather was against us.

Lee sloshed out to the car, water turning the legs of his jeans a dark blue halfway to his knees.

“You want I should carry you?” Mac asked, an evil glint sparked in his eye.

I sniggered. “Nah.”

“Oh, you think I can't!”

Uh-oh. “Not at all, I know you can.”

He grinned, scooped me up, and whispered, “You think we'll be home anytime soon?”

“I hope so.”

Lee coughed from the driver's seat, “Excuse me. Crime scene … fresh puzzle pieces … a-a-n-y of this sound familiar?”

I wrapped my arms around Mac's neck and slowly slid to the ground. Mac kissed me quickly and we scrambled into the car. That was why we shouldn't be on the same team: inappropriate behavior in a work situation.

“Let's get this show on the road,” he said, shutting the car door.

The sound of jet engines overhead drowned out the sirens on the ground and all other noise. I looked up as a huge plane flew over, its undercarriage lights flashing like the trees at my mother-in-law's house in mid-August. Funny I should think of that analogy. Maybe not. Maybe it's because we're overdue for an annoying interruption. He couldn't seriously want to inflict that woman on an innocent baby. She wasn't grandmother material.

We waited until the plane passed before speaking. My first comment was to Mac. “Make sure your phone's off; I have a feeling mom is gonna try calling.”

He grinned. “Yeah, me too. It's at home.”

Lee chuckled. “Good thinking, Kemo Sabe.”

And that one innocent phrase ran that damn joke back through my head all over again. There were no stars that night, just more rain.

We walked from the first available parking space, down the road and around shrubbery in the middle of the square at the end of the street. Police cars were visible, along with an ambulance. The house we wanted was one of the ones that backed onto a wooded area leading through to a main road. The perfect escape route for our Unsub. Probably how he got in without anyone noticing him.

I took a minute at the front door to clear my head, readying myself for whatever we were going to find.

Mac's hand brushed mine, our fingers briefly touching in a comforting way. Lee's hulking presence was right behind me and, next to him, a space where Sam should be. I blew out a long breath, pulled on latex gloves and disposable shoe coverings, and walked through the door Mac held open.

We were standing in the living room. The first thing I saw was a child's toy box sitting on top of a large play mat. My heart sank then hit rock bottom as I saw family photographs hanging on the walls: mom, dad and two kids. I guessed the kids were about six and twelve. The pictures were full of laughter and love.  Nice.

Mac whispered in my ear, “Don't.”

I nodded. I knew he, like me, was comparing these images with our childhood. We walked through the living room, into the dining room. From the dining room, I could easily see into the kitchen: black writing scrawled on the cabinets, blood, bourbon, our victim wearing gold ribbon. Everything as we expected it to be. An alarm bell clanged in my head. Exactly what I expected: why did that bother me so much? He had a pattern: it's as it should be.