by Elle Gray
“You could.”
“Depends on the hack and the damage you do,” I offer. “We aren’t doing any damage.”
“What we did— what you made me do— is a pretty big freaking hack, Pax.”
Brody sits in the chair in front of my desk, bouncing his leg and chewing on his thumbnail, which he only does when he’s extremely agitated and nervous.
“The government doesn’t screw around with stuff like this, man,” he sighs. “They could like, declare me a terrorist and ship me off to Gitmo or something.”
I laugh. “Relax, Brody. Take a Xanax or twelve,” I say. “They’ll never even notice we’re here.”
“And how do you know that?”
“Because there’s nobody I trust more when it comes to all things tech than you,” I tell him. “Your hacking skills are top-notch, and because your butt was on the line, I know you took twice as much care with it.”
“Cute,” he sneers. “Real cute.”
I lean back in my chair and laugh. “I’m only half kidding.”
He drops his head into his hands. “Christ, you’re the biggest dick in the world.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say the biggest in the world. But in the Puget Sound? Yeah, probably.”
We fall silent for a minute as I give Brody a minute to gather himself. He’s near hyperventilating. And I get it. What I asked him to do is risky. If he gets caught, he could be in serious trouble. Not that the lawyers our families have on retainer would let anything happen to him, but I’m sure getting arrested and hauled in would be pretty intense nonetheless.
But when it comes to computers, I don’t know anybody better than Brody. He’s like Bill Gates level computer savvy. The things he can do are scary. There is literally nobody I would have trusted more to get me into the databases I needed access to. He hacked into and built back doors into VICAP, the NCIC, and a couple of other smaller federal criminal databases that will allow me to collect and compare as much information as possible.
Going after Reuben Hayes is going to require patience and extreme attention to detail. It will also require that I have as much data at my disposal as I can possibly have. He gave me the first breadcrumb and is clearly expecting me to follow his trail. That, of course, leads to a lot of questions I don’t have the answers to, the most pertinent being: why?
Why would Hayes, who had been operating in complete anonymity for over two decades, risk it all by giving me these three victims? It makes no real sense to me. But it’s also a question I don’t need the answer to right this minute. It is a distraction. The important thing is, he gave them to me and invited me into his warped and twisted game. And I’m more than ready to play.
“I’ve never hacked a federal database,” Brody says slyly, interrupting my thoughts.
I give him a grin. “Be honest. You kinda got a rush out of it, didn’t you?”
A sly smile pulls the corners of his mouth up. “Yeah,” he says. His expression quickly sobers. “But I’m serious man; this is something we probably shouldn’t be messing around with.”
“I need access to the databases without Blake knowing about it,” I say. “And I swear to you that I will not let you get hit by the blowback if there is any. I will take all the heat. Your name will not pass my lips.”
“Like they’ll believe you hacked into their systems,” he rolls his eyes. “You can barely get your electric toothbrush to work.”
“I got your back,” I tell him. “I mean it, dude.”
He laughs nervously as I pick up the bottle of water on my desk, twist off the cap, and take a long swallow. Now that I have access to the databases I need, I can start digging up whatever dirt I need to hunt this man down. And I will hunt him down. I am going to get this guy as much for my own satisfaction and Veronica’s memory as for Blake. Maybe if I take this guy down, she can finally find some peace and lay her old ghosts to rest once and for all.
“I don’t feel great about this,” Brody says.
“You’re helping to catch a serial killer,” I tell him. “So far, he’s racked up nine bodies that we know of. He’s been killing for twenty years. If we take him down, what’s not to feel good about?”
“The whole, the Feds kicking down our door and dragging us away for hacking their database thing?”
“Relax. They’ll never know we’re in,” I say. “And if they do, like I said, I got your back.”
“All right, man. I’ll take you at your word.”
“It’s always been good enough for you before.”
“Yeah, but you never asked me to commit multiple felonies before,” he replies grimly.
“Huh. I could have sworn I had,” I chuckle but then hold his gaze for a long moment. “This is for a good cause, Brody. We’re doing a good thing. Just… trust me.”
He grins and shakes his head. “I do, man. That’s why I did it,” he says. “You need anything else?”
“Yeah actually,” I nod. “If you could build me a back door into the NSA…”
He bursts into laughter. “Screw you, man.”
He turns and leaves my office, leaving me to my work. I’ve never used these databases before, and honestly, I could use Blake’s help. But she would crap an absolute and probably literal brick if she knew I’d had Brody build me back doors into federal databases. About all I can do is give myself a crash course tutorial, so I settle in to do just that.
I walk out to the kitchen area and put on a pot of coffee. I have a feeling this is going to be a long night.
Twelve
Arrington Investigations; Downtown Seattle
“You look like crap.”
My eyes fly open, and a jolt of adrenaline surges through my body at the sound of her voice. I sit up and immediately regret the decision as a white-hot bolt of pain races up my back. I see Blake sitting in the chair across from me, her feet up on my desk, crossed at the ankles, and a sly smirk on her face.
“Christ, Blake,” I croak. “How long have you been sitting there?”
“A while,” she replies. “I would have let you sleep longer, but your snoring got to be a bit much for me.”
“Bite me,” I laugh.
I get to my feet and groan as I stretch my back, trying to work all of the stiffness out of my body.
“Judging by those wrinkled clothes and the drool puddle on your desk, I’m guessing you were here all night,” Blake notes.
I cut a quick glance at my desk but see no drool puddle, which makes me roll my eyes as Blake bursts into laughter.
“I see the FBI is still employing the brightest minds around,” I crack.
“The best and brightest.”
“Yeah, keep telling yourself that.”
She picks up a bag from the seat next to her and tosses it to me. I open it up to find a ham, cheese, and spinach croissant that smells absolutely delightful. My stomach rumbles, reminding me I forgot to eat last night. I pull it out and drop the bag into my trash can, then take a big bite of it, making a noise that sounds obscene.
“You are a godsend,” I mumble around a mouthful of food.
“Of course I am,” she replies. “Seriously, why did you sleep at your desk last night?”
“I was tired.”
“Tired of?”
“Silly questions,” I say, taking another bite.
As I chew, I try to figure out how best to tell Blake what I’ve found. I don’t want to come right out and admit that I’ve been using federal databases, but at the same time, she has to know what I uncovered. I promised her I’d loop her in, and this is huge.
She throws a balled-up napkin at me. “Don’t be a jerk,” she grins. “You avoiding somebody? Hiding from the mob? What?”
I choke down the last of my croissant and wash it down with a bottle of room temperature water. Better than nothing. I clear my throat, sitting back and staring at her for a long moment. How can I find the right words to tell her without her blowing up at me? An uncomfortable silence passes. I can’t stall on this forever.
The more I think about it, the more I think it’s inevitable. I have to tell her
“So, I spent the night doing some digging. Like a really deep dive into our guy,” I start.
“How do you even know where to look?” she interrupts. “All we have are three vics.”
“Nine. But the three he gave me seem different than the six you showed me,” I go on. “They’re not nearly so practiced or polished. He honed his method with these three and was ready to take the next step in his evolution.”
“Okay, that’s great. But you’re still not answering my question,” she says.
“I looked into the background of the three he gave us. Like I said, I did a deep dive,” I tell her. “We have the prostitute, of course. From what I could find, she had some connections to a trafficking operation that got busted shortly after her murder. I bet she was a recruiter of sorts. The construction worker was a convicted sex offender. Child predator, to be specific. And the college kid was a dealer. Sold meth to high school-aged kids.”
“Where’d you get all this?”
“I’m good at what I do,” I tell her.
I hadn’t needed the federal databases for all of that. Those were bits and pieces I’d discovered through more traditional means, like public records, court transcripts, and whatnot. The construction worker had been convicted and served eight years for exposing himself to a child in a public park. The college kid had a run-in with campus police for cooking meth in his dorm, but his folks covered it over with a hefty donation. No formal charges were ever filed, but he was put on campus probation.
All of that was good information and provided me with a little bit of context for the killings. The man obviously sees himself as a cleaner. Given the combination of the flaming cross iconography, I have to think he’s motivated by religion. Perhaps he sees himself as an avenging angel, tasked with cleansing the world of sin. Or, it’s possible religion is just an affectation, and he is simply a morally stringent man who sees evil in the sins of others.
That’s all just fine details though. The most salient conclusion I’ve drawn is that he’s a mission-oriented killer, and his mission is to rid the world of immorality. Or at least, what he decides is immorality. I feel comfortable making that determination because of what I found in my all night database binge session.
“He’s preaching to us,” I tell her.
“Like he’s on a mission from God kind of preaching?”
I shrug. “I personally think the religious angle is just window dressing. He’s a cleaner. Thinks he’s cleansing the world of sin,” I tell her. “He derives his moral righteousness either from God or some other higher power. Or it could just be something inside his own twisted mind that compels him.”
“What aren’t you telling me?” she asks, leveling an inquisitive gaze on me.
There are very few people in this world who can read me. I do my best to keep my thoughts and feelings to myself, usually wearing a carefully crafted mask of neutrality— or indifference, depending on who you ask. But Blake is one of those people who can see through it. It was the same with Veronica. She’d cut through my crap the first day we met, and that was when I knew I needed to be with her.
“I’m not sure that I should tell you,” I say.
“That means you definitely need to tell me.”
I laugh. “How do you figure?”
“Because if you’re holding out on me, it means you’ve got something good,” she insists. “Now, what is it? Give it up.”
“Promise you won’t get mad?”
“No. Of course not,” she scoffs. “Because I know if you have something good enough for you to do this song and dance with me, you probably did something shady to get it.”
I can’t keep the smile off my face or stop the laughter from trickling out. It’s funny that she knows me this well. It’s also somewhat discomforting. But really if there’s somebody, aside from Brody, I want to know me inside and out this way, it would be Blake. But that doesn’t mean I don’t need to be careful with what I say and do around her— she is still a Fed, after all. And she takes her duty very seriously.
“Let’s just say in addition to the three he gave me, along with your six; I think I’ve identified twenty-seven other potential victims,” I tell her. “Which brings our grand total of victims to thirty-six.”
Her eyes widen, and her mouth falls open. Blake is silent for a long moment, seemingly too stunned to speak. I felt the same way. There may be more out there. In fact, there probably are more out there than I’ve been able to find. But after I got comfortable navigating the databases, I was able to hone in on some specifics, and when I finally called it quits, I had gotten a total of thirty-six murder victims that had that flaming cross either on their skin, or painted at the crime scene.
“I honestly don’t know how nobody picked up on this,” I tell her. “This is a colossal mess, Blake.”
“Thirty-six,” she gasps. “How in the…”
Her voice trails off as she continues trying to wrap her mind around the enormity of what we’re dealing with. I mean, we are talking about one of the more prolific serial killers in the country’s history, and he’s gone undetected, cutting a bloody swath from one side of the nation to the other, for more than two decades. It’s unreal and represents one of the biggest failures in law enforcement I’ve ever heard of.
Blake gives herself a small shake and gathers her wits about her again. She narrows her eyes and levels a suspicious gaze on me. Here it comes. I can see an eruption the size of Krakatoa looming on the not too distant horizon. But this is bigger than me. It’s more important to get justice for the dead but to also bring in the killer than to worry about having Blake scream at me.
“How did you find these victims?” she asks.
I rub my chin, and the stubble makes a dry, scratchy sound. “I did some digging.”
“How, Pax?” she demands, her voice carrying a hard edge to it. “How were you able to identify thirty-six victims?”
“I knew what to look for?” I reply with a grin. “If you hadn’t shown me the flaming cross—”
“Cut it out, Pax. How did you do this? How did you find these victims?” she hisses. “And if you tell me it’s because you’re good at what you do, I swear to God; I’ll kick you in the balls so hard, they’ll have to remove them from your throat.”
“Wow,” I note. “In this era of heightened attention to police brutality, you—”
“Pax!”
Okay, I’ve pushed her too far. Clearly. If looks could kill, I would be dead ten times over right now. There’s no sense in putting it off any longer. It’s not like she’s going to suddenly forget. I have a feeling the next step is going to be a blowtorch and pliers to get the information out of me if I don’t tell her.
“I was poking around a few databases and—”
“What databases?” she snaps.
I purse my lips then try to give her the most charming smile I can muster. It doesn’t work. She narrows her eyes further and glares at me.
“Which databases, Pax?”
I sigh. “VICAP and the NCIC, primarily.”
She runs a hand across her face and shakes her head. She doesn’t look surprised though. Nor does she immediately go off like Vesuvius, which I find surprising. But then, maybe she’s just working up to it and is going to unleash the mother of all eruptions once she’s got a good head of steam up.
“How’d you get access to the databases?” she asks.
“I hacked the system.”
“Brody,” she groans. “I should have known.”
“What? I did—”
“Please. You can barely work your phone,” she cuts me off. “You actually think I believe you can hack something as complex as a federal database?”
“Let’s just leave Brody out of this, all right?” I ask.
“What do you think you’re doing, Pax?” she asks. “I mean, hacking a federal database? Have you lost your freaking mind?”
; “I’m trying to find a killer,” I fire back. “And to do that, I need every tool at my disposal.”
“Yeah well, those databases weren’t at your disposal.”
“Until they were.”
A flash of irritation crosses Blake’s face. “I’m not screwing around,” she says. “You could be in some serious trouble.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve got very expensive lawyers on retainer.”
She blows out an exasperated breath. “Do you take anything seriously?”
I give her an even look. “I take bringing a murderer to justice very seriously,” I say. “That’s why I did what I did.”
She opens her mouth, probably to chastise me further, but closes it again. Maybe she realizes I’m right. Or at least, she’s come to see that like me, she needs every tool available to her. Which makes me a tool.
“You need to be careful, Pax,” she says. “If they find out—”
“They won’t,” I say. “And it’s not like I’m stealing information. I’m simply running some searches.”
Blake rakes her fingers across her scalp and slides her fingers through her hair. I can see how frustrated she is with me, but I can also see that light of excitement in her eyes about having some new leads we can follow. It’s something I can relate to.
“What have you found?” she asks.
I glance pointedly at my watch. “Wow. The reading of the riot act took less than five minutes—”
“Don’t push me, Arrington,” she growls. “I can still kick your nuts up into your throat, you know. I suggest you quit while you’re ahead.”
I hold my hands up in surrender. “Fair enough,” I say. “As for what I’ve found like I said, thirty-six total possible vics. I spotted that flaming cross at all of the scenes, or on the vics. Discreet, as usual.”
“How many states are we talking about here?”
“As far as I can tell, the vast majority of his kills have been in the western states of Washington, Oregon, and California. He’s had a few in Arizona, New Mexico, and Idaho as well,” I explain. “But bear in mind, there could be more out there. More that I haven’t found yet.”