Every Crooked Path

by Steven James

  I wondered what Ferguson might have known, if he might have been murdered, or if, maybe, I was starting to see conspiracies around every corner and if his death was really just an accident after all.

  60

  Francis checked Krazle to see if Skylar was his friend yet.

  She wasn’t.

  While he was on the site, the voice came to him again: Graciousgirl4 will be online at this time of night. You can do this, get it over with, and then move on.

  What if she’s younger than eighteen? What then?

  Then nothing. You’re done with her. You move on.

  But then I would have done something wrong.

  No, she told you she was eighteen.

  He tried his best to turn away from all this, to quiet the voice that was telling him to hack in to graciousgirl4’s computer’s camera, but even as he argued against it, he found himself typing on his laptop, going through the steps to back-trace her through Krazle, to check her IP address, and to turn on the camera.

  He knew the steps.

  From his work, he was aware of what pedophiles and hebephiles sometimes did in order to watch the boys and girls during their chats, or maybe to catch them changing by turning on their phones’ or computers’ cameras around bedtime.

  Yes, he knew those things.

  It was part of his job to know them.

  It’d been a hard day. He’d received a link from that FBI agent, Patrick Bowers, that had led to thousands of images that needed to be screened and cataloged.

  It was always tough when things like that came in. But it had already led to some positive IDs of known missing children and it looked like it might possibly lead to some more as well.

  It felt like things were spinning out of control, like he was driving a car that’d hit a patch of ice. He still had his hands on the wheel, but no matter how tightly he gripped it or which direction he steered, the car was caught in a skid, his life was caught in a skid, and it was going to go where it was going to go and there was no stopping it.

  He was sliding headlong toward the ditch and had no way to steer clear of it.

  Maybe it was the stress of the day, maybe it was just the desire to get rid of the voices, but whatever it was, Francis kept going, kept typing in code.

  Don’t do this, it’s betraying her friendship. What if she’s in her pajamas or something? You shouldn’t—

  But then the time for argument was over. He was tired of the voices arguing in his head, tired of the questions, tired of the pressure pulling him in two directions at once. He wanted to be with Skylar, but he also wanted closure here.

  The line in the sand.

  The net around his feet.

  What would Skylar think?

  She won’t know. She’ll never know.

  His screen flickered for a moment as the video from the other computer came on and sharpened into focus.

  From what he could tell, the laptop must have been on a table in the dining room near where things opened up to the living room. An open bag of cheese curls lay nearby. A sofa sat in the background and a widescreen TV hung from the wall beyond it.

  No one was sitting in front of the computer, so graciousgirl4 must have stepped away for a moment.

  Then someone who was probably her dad walked through the other room, picked up the remote, and started channel-surfing on the television.

  Francis felt his chest tense up. He didn’t want her dad to see them chatting. It wasn’t smart of her to leave the chat window open like that. What if he came over and looked at some of the things they’d typed to each other in the past couple of weeks?

  You were careful. You never said anything that broke any laws or—

  I know, but we shared things with each other. Things that were just meant for the two of us.

  And when he thought of that, he felt ashamed because he wanted Skylar to know those things. He wanted her to know his secrets, to know him. A real woman. A real friend.

  Still, Francis’s chats had been meant for graciousgirl4, not for her dad, not for anyone else, so he was nervous about her computer being left out there on the table.

  As soon as she came back, he could ask her to please take her laptop into her room so they could chat in private.

  But you don’t really want to chat with her in private tonight, do you? You just clicked on here to see her. Right?

  I guess. I—

  Maybe she needs to have her computer out here. Maybe that’s the rule at their house. Maybe her dad doesn’t let her have it in her room because he wants to protect her, to make sure she doesn’t end up chatting with people she shouldn’t be chatting with—And then the next three words came, the words he didn’t ever, ever, ever want to think: people like you.

  No, I’m not like that. I’m—

  Francis hated that he was thinking these things, that he had become someone whom others might fear or want to avoid.

  Turn it off. You’ve seen enough. You shouldn’t be doing this.

  But he didn’t turn it off.

  He waited.

  The seconds ticked by as the man in the other room flipped through those channels.

  Just for another minute. She’ll return. You can see her, and then it’ll be over.

  Finally, the man landed on a channel and stayed there. It was a car chase scene through the streets of downtown New York City, which Francis recognized from living here.

  He didn’t know the movie, but he did know the city.

  His city.

  The man turned up the volume, set down the remote, picked up a bottle of beer that’d been sitting by the couch, and then approached the computer.

  No, no, no.

  He’ll see the chats! He’ll see!

  He pulled a chair up to the table, took a long drag from the bottle, then had a handful of cheese curls and began to type.

  As he did, the words came up on Francis’s computer: “Jared4life73. Where ru? Where have u been? I miss u!”

  He’s pretending to be graciousgirl4!

  That was Francis’s initial thought.

  But then the truth hit him all at once, hard and solid like a rock slamming into him—something he should have guessed, should have anticipated—maybe it was something he’d even subconsciously known but had been keeping from himself.

  This man wasn’t pretending to be graciousgirl4.

  He was graciousgirl4.

  She doesn’t exist. It’s just some guy who gets off pretending to be a teenager chatting with people like you.

  Francis felt a dip in his stomach like the ones he used to feel when he was younger and would go on roller coasters at the theme park outside Dallas and the coaster would plummet down a steep drop.

  Down and down and down. People screaming all around him. And some of them would raise their hands into the air, but Francis would always hold on. He would grip the bar or the seat in front of him as tightly as he could.

  The earth rising up toward him, picking up speed, picking up speed, and then—

  The man took another mouthful of cheese curls, then suddenly stopped chewing and stared directly at the camera.

  Swerving.

  To the side.

  A corkscrew.

  And Francis realized that he had never entered the code to turn off the camera’s light.

  The man leaned close, then narrowed his eyes and cursed vehemently before putting a hand up to cover the camera.

  Francis slammed his laptop shut.

  Heart hammering.

  Twisting.

  Turning.

  That dip in his stomach growing tighter as if he were in a free fall.

  He sat there staring at his computer like it was a foreign object, like it was something he’d never seen before.

  A mixture of shame and dread overwhelmed him.


  Shame, because he’d been so stupid, so stupid, stupid, stupid to chat with this person online and share the things he’d shared, hope the things he’d hoped with someone he didn’t even know. And also, shame because of the feelings he’d developed for her, even though he knew she was out of bounds, might have been too young, was probably too young.

  But now he found that she wasn’t even real.

  She’d never existed at all.

  In an online, anonymous world you can be anybody.

  In the real world you had to be yourself.

  And he felt dread too, yes, because of the way the man had looked into the camera.

  He feared that if there was some way for that guy to find out Jared4life73’s true identity, he might get in trouble or lose his job or something.

  But how could he know who you are? All he could see was that the light of his chat camera was on. You’re safe. You’re fine. It’s over. The Krazle profile you made up wasn’t real. There’s nothing real about any of this. You were both caught up in a fantasy world, and now it’s over and you’ve learned your lesson and what’s done is done is done. There’s nothing else to say about it and there’s nothing to worry about.

  But what if he knows how to—?

  There is no if. It’s over.

  However, just to make sure, just to make absolutely sure, Francis opened up his laptop, went back online, deleted Jared4life73’s Krazle profile and his browser’s history, then did a complete wipe of the free space on his computer to get rid of any residual file fragments and cookies that might have still been there hiding in the shadows, fragments of his past that the computer didn’t want to let go of.

  Using the skills he’d picked up over the years, he made them go away.

  Made them all go away.

  She was gone now.

  Graciousgirl4 was no longer a part of his life.

  She never was.

  She was never real.

  Move on, Francis, just move on.

  He went to bed and tried to fall asleep, tried, tried, tried, tried, tried, tried, tried, but all he could think of was the threatening look on the man’s face as he stared into the camera right before Francis closed his laptop to end the chat.

  He texted Skylar good night and when she replied, he read her text aloud to himself, over and over, to try to make it seem like she was there with him, telling him in person that she was glad he was her friend.

  61

  On his computer, Shane typed in the sixteen-digit password, and clicked through three levels of data encryption to get to the site where the Piper left him instructions, and where he could access the video of the three remaining children.

  They were still here in the city, would be until Wednesday night when everything went down.

  After that, he would be free to do whatever he wanted to with them and then post it for all the world to see with no recriminations whatsoever.

  If all went as planned.

  A sturdy chain manacled the left leg of each child to the wall of their separate rooms.

  Some nights he would watch them sleep, like he was doing right now.

  Sometimes they would awaken and cry, but for the most part, those days were over. They really didn’t weep or scream or beg so much anymore. You only scream so long. You only cry so much. Then, after that, it’s time to accept your place, accept the way things are.

  That was what Shane had done: accepted his place. Things were the way they were. It was as simple as that.

  In all that he did, he was only following his desires. That was it. He did not believe in ethics or morality or God, that there was, or had ever been, a divine being. The universe didn’t need a designer. It needed only time.

  Time.

  And chance.

  And natural laws.

  And, of course, without God there was no such thing as evil, just as there was no such thing as good. There was utility, yes. There was survival and instinct and there was pain, yes, in the natural world.

  There was pain.

  But there was no evil.

  To call something moral or immoral, good or evil, just or unjust in a godless expanse was to put a value judgment on something that was ethically neutral.

  There was no driving purpose behind evolution. An individual had no value beyond itself, no existential meaning beyond the role it played in evolution. Survival, yes, that was the result of evolution, but it was not the intent of it. Without a designer, without a god, there was no design, there was no intent.

  To act—not to rationalize—this was our role. To act and pursue the instincts evolution has given us.

  And he felt the instinct to kill.

  So Shane did not feel the need to justify his actions to himself, to the world, to God.

  He glanced at the blades he’d laid on the counter in front of him, then directed his thoughts back to the children, to the moments he would have alone with them when the Associates were done with their filming.

  No, it wasn’t just a professional interest.

  It was something a bit more personal than that.

  Living in full color.

  Using his encrypted cell, he made the call to the person he’d hired to get them into the system.

  “How’s it coming?” he asked.

  “We’ll be ready. Trust me.”

  “There’s a lot riding on this.”

  “I know. I’m moving forward. It’ll come together. Just be ready when it does.”

  He observed the knives again, specifically the one he’d used to kill Jamaal Stewart last week when they found out he was going to be sharing more with the world than he needed to be.

  I’m ready now, he thought.

  No, he didn’t want to wait, but patience carried with it its own rewards, and after the donor banquet on Wednesday night, time would be on his side.

  He hung up and went back to watching the children.

  +++

  As I was closing up my research for the night, I checked my email one last time and found a message from an unknown sender that read, “We have received your request and we would like to set up a personal meeting.”

  It’d been sent to the email address Lloyd gave me, and forwarded automatically to my account.

  There was a hyperlink at the bottom of the message.

  I copied it, went to the Dark Web, and pasted it into the browser’s search box.

  A page came up with an address in the Bronx and a message: “1:00 p.m. tomorrow. Come alone. Ask for Blake.”

  That was all.

  I looked up the address.

  A bar.

  Even though it was now after eleven, I didn’t care. I called Tobin, who must have had his phone by his side because he picked up after only one ring. I told him what I’d just found.

  “It doesn’t make sense,” I said, “not if Lloyd’s email account was anonymous like he told us it was.”

  “You mean, how would whoever sent it know that you would be in this area of the country, that you’d be able to make it to a one o’clock meeting tomorrow in New York City?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Maybe it’s just that Lloyd’s identity package wasn’t as secure or confidential as he thought. I mean, it was several years old. It could be that he wasn’t as thorough by today’s standards at hiding his tracks.”

  “That may mean they know who I am.”

  “Regardless, it’s telling you to ask for Blake. You have the chance to meet him and he’s our link to the Final Territory.”

  “And he thinks I’m the one who sent a link to over fifteen thousand images of child pornography.”

  “That is true.”

  Tobin’s words from yesterday came to mind, his suspicion that someone from law enforcement might be involved in this at some level.

 
They might have access to the Federal Digital Database.

  I wasn’t exactly sure where that left us, and after brainstorming for a few minutes and not coming up with anything specific—beyond me attending that meeting—we ended the call.

  Okay, tomorrow at one I would ask for Blake at that pub and we would see where that took us.

  As I lay back on the couch to try to get some sleep, I wondered if there was any way for these people to know who I was, and I figured that, yes, it was possible—especially if Blake had some sort of connection to law enforcement.

  First thing in the morning I had a meeting scheduled with Maria Aguirre, the OPR lawyer.

  I wasn’t about to take any chances, not when we were this close to uncovering something that might lead us to finding those three missing children and deciphering who was really behind the Final Territory.

  I knew what I had to do.

  I made my decision.

  Tomorrow morning when I met with Ms. Aguirre, I would ask her to put me on administrative leave.

  62

  Tuesday, June 19

  “What do you mean you want me to order your suspension?”

  I was in Ms. Aguirre’s office at headquarters and even though I’d been through this once already with her, it hadn’t quite sunk in.

  “I’m hoping that the man I’m going to meet after lunch today will lead us to the Final Territory.”

  “Blake.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you want to go undercover.”

  “Not exactly, but yes.”

  “Not exactly, but yes.”

  “As I said, Blake might already know I’m an agent, but if things go well with him it could lead us to the three missing children. D’Nesh said that he’d seen them, he’d met them in another location.”

  “But Blake knows you’re an agent?”

  “Well, he might. I’m not sure. I think that perhaps he, or someone he works with, might’ve been able to access the Federal Digital Database.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “Wooford was being protected by the Justice Department, so who could have gotten to him if it wasn’t someone with a connection to law enforcement?”