by Freya Barker
I mix my ingredients into a bowl and let the events of last night play out in my mind.
When he mentioned I’d have to take some time off work I got pissed and disappeared to my bedroom, where I promptly fell asleep. When I got up this morning, Radar had been stretched out on my couch, his feet hanging over the armrest.
In all truth, I’m concerned—if not plain scared—wondering if the message left on my vandalized car was only a warning. I feel cornered and out of control, which almost scares me more, and I’m taking it out on Radar.
My hands are working the chocolate chips into the dough when I glance over and see his focus is back on his laptop.
“I’m sorry.” I wait for him to look up before I add, “I’m not taking this as well as I probably should. I feel unsettled, and I’m taking it out on you.”
Whatever I expected from him, it isn’t the wide grin he aims my way.
“My mother always said she wouldn’t be yelling at me if she didn’t care.”
Guess that’s one way of looking at it. It’s not exactly a lie. I do care, more than might be healthy for me.
“Be that as it may, I was a bear.”
I watch as he gets to his feet and moves toward me. Dough is stuck to my fingers; so I lift my hands out of the way when he turns me to face him and pulls me flush to his body. Then he proceeds to kiss me soundly. It isn’t until my knees start to wobble that he lets me go.
“That kiss and those cookies you’re baking me is more than enough apology,” he says, smirking as he takes a peek in the bowl.
“Who says I’m baking these for you?” I tease, still a little breathless.
A gleam settles in his eyes as he grabs my hand and with great care licks my fingers clean, sucking each of my digits between his lips.
I’m this close to making up for all the time I wasted and strip naked right here in my kitchen, when Radar’s phone on the kitchen table starts to ring.
I turn to the sink to wash my hands and give myself a minute to cool off, while he goes to grab his phone.
“Hey, Sarah.”
Every muscle in my body tenses up hearing that name and I tune into the conversation.
Radar
“Couldn’t believe she just spilled it. This kid was still on a high.”
I’m keeping an eye on Hillary, who seems to be doing her best not to look at me as she putters around the kitchen, while listening closely to Sarah.
“Apparently our Saginaw victim, who was on the cheerleading squad and dating the school football team’s quarterback, was a relentless bully. Jenny was her favorite target.”
“Jenny?”
“Yeah…” She scoffs, “Stupid kid gave up her legal name ten minutes into the chat. I had Dimas run that name and it comes back to the same location as the IP address. It’s her.”
“And she admits she exacted revenge?”
“She says she did. Was positively giddy with it.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah. I had to be careful not to ask too many questions, which wasn’t easy, I don’t want to blow my cover. I’m pretty sure my online activities are being monitored. Have been since that Fury character messaged me. I have to be careful.”
She’s right. I look at the stack of printouts I’m still digging through to find some kind of thread to link to whoever is behind Lock&Load. She makes one wrong move and she stands to lose all the hard work she’s put in so far. It took her days to draw out any possible suspects. She’d gone down the list of online profiles, who used either of the hashtags on or around the dates of the attacks we know of, and tried to engage them in the Lock&Load chat room. It had been a long shot but one that apparently paid off.
“No alerts for spyware?”
“No, but you know as well as I do just because it can’t be detected doesn’t mean it isn’t there. I have a strong hunch about it but don’t want to go digging around and alert whoever is watching.”
“I agree. What can I do?”
“Local law enforcement is picking her up and Sanders is on his way to Saginaw to interview her himself. In the meantime, I want to dig up anything that might connect Jenny Churchill to Jeremy Loman, other than the game. Any information we find he can use in his interview. It would help if you could check social media accounts, friends they have in common, other groups, anything that might connect those two kids.”
I’m happy to be doing anything that doesn’t involve the sheets of tightly printed code that have my eyes crossed.
“I’m on it.”
“Thanks. I’ll email you what I have on the girl.”
She ends the call and I immediately log in to the various social media platforms while I wait for Sarah’s email.
Jenny Churchill isn’t that hard to find but apparently the girl uses social media as her diary, because she posts between fifteen or twenty times a day. Geeky memes and pictures of her cat alternated with what I’d consider typical angsty teenage girl posts. I’m suddenly not so sure if this is preferable to what I was doing; five minutes in and already I have the beginnings of a headache.
It’s not until a plate of freshly baked cookies is slid in front of me, I remember I’m at Hillary’s.
“You weren’t kidding,” she says with a little smile when I look up at her. “You really do get lost in your work.”
“I’m sorry,” I mumble around a giant bite of the still-warm cookie I already managed to shove in my mouth. “Just got a new lead.”
“Is that what the phone call was?” she asks, again avoiding my eyes as she starts putting things away in the kitchen.
“Yes, that was Sarah Dunn, one of the FBI agents we’ve been working with,” I explain, observing her closely.
“Ah.”
Her voice is casual but she’s trying to hide a little smile as she starts to run water on the dirty dishes in the sink. She pretends not to notice when I get up and move in behind her. I put my hands on her hips and slide them to her belly.
“Who did you think I was talking to?”
She shrugs her shoulders, meticulously scrubbing the mixing bowl.
“No idea.”
“Lady, you know you’re a shit liar, right?”
I nuzzle her neck and notice to my satisfaction she seems to lean into my touch, but only for a moment before she refocuses on the dishes.
“What’s the new lead?”
I recognize the distraction for what it is but decide not to call her on it. Instead I step away and lean my hip against the counter so I can watch her profile. I normally wouldn’t be talking about the case, but Hillary is up to her eyeballs in this one. I figure she deserves to know.
“They may have found the perp in the case in Saginaw and want me to pull some background info.”
Her eyes flit my way before returning to the sink.
“Is that normal? For you guys to be working with the FBI?”
“We rarely do, our work is more focused on security than investigation, but in this case, we were already involved when the feds came on board.” I head back to the table and sit down behind my laptop.
“Anything I can do?” she asks, wiping her hands on a towel as she sits down across from me. “If I have to stick around, I may as well make myself useful.”
“I don’t know. Are you familiar with any social media platforms?”
“I have Facebook and Twitter accounts I rarely check. I’m not a complete dud on a computer. I can get my laptop.”
Ten minutes later she’s bent over her screen, scrolling back through Jenny Churchill’s tweets. I had her open a dummy account, just in case, cautioning her not to interact with any of the posts. Last thing we need is to draw more attention to her.
Earlier this morning, Yanis called to let me know the initial attack on the guy they pulled from the river had taken place in the alley behind a convenience store downtown. Only a block from where Gina Castillo was killed.
He also warned Bree was on her way over to pick up Phil, said he didn’t want me to lea
ve Hillary alone in the apartment.
Want to bet the guy saw something? Of course there’s no way to know for sure—the man is dead—but it did reinforce the danger Hillary could well be in. Anyone with eyes on Jeff could know he saw her the morning after he was attacked, and again before he met his end.
If Jeff thought Garcia was at the shelter because Hillary called him, it wouldn’t be too far-fetched to think the perp thought the same thing.
With Hillary engrossed in her task, I quickly shoot off a message to Yanis, letting him know she’s helping me. Last thing I need is for him to find out via Rosie or something and get called on it afterward. I think I may have already earned a few strikes against me with the boss, don’t need any more on my record.
Yanis: Whatever it takes to keep her close.
“What the hell is a UniCon?” Hillary asks sometime later.
I look up from my screen.
“A convention, like Comic-Con or something. Why?”
“Just curious, apparently she went to one last June. A birthday gift from her parents. She clearly had a blast because she talks about it the rest of the summer. Have you ever been to one?”
“I may have, once or twice, many years ago,” I admit.
She grins at me, lightly shaking her head. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?”
“Every self-respecting techie, or hacker, or gamer does. It’s where you get the dirt on all the new stuff on the market.”
My own words echo in my head and I realize Hillary may have stumbled on another lead.
“Does she say where it was?” I ask, as I put UniCon and the year in my search bar.
“Dallas,” she says at the same time it appears on my screen.
UniCon, Dallas, June 26 through 28. I’m already scanning back through Jeremy’s tweets until I get to last summer’s.
“Son of a bitch,” I mumble under my breath.
“What?”
I smile at her over my screen.
“You may have just blown the top off this case.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Hillary
His arm is heavy across my middle as I try to check the time on my alarm clock.
Only half an hour has passed since I looked last. Five o’clock and I’ve barely slept, while Radar has been softly snoring since his head hit the pillow a few hours ago.
Yesterday was intense after I found the reference to that convention in Dallas. I have a completely new appreciation of how much of a time suck that kind of work can be. Radar asked me to keep looking through this girl’s posts for usable information and without realizing it, hours had gone by.
There were phone calls back and forth between Radar and the office—apparently none of these people eat or sleep much—as they pieced together a disturbing picture. My mind had trouble keeping up with them, or maybe I just had trouble wrapping my head around that kind of evil.
I was exhausted by eleven, crawled into bed, but ended up unable to do more than doze. My mind still trying to process it all.
Radar barely noticed; he’d been so wrapped up in what he was doing. This time I didn’t feel slighted in the least, though. After seeing him in action most of the day—his singular focus on catching whomever is manipulating these kids into committing horrific crimes—I discovered a whole new way to appreciate the man.
I don’t want to wake him, but my bladder needs relief, so I carefully try to slip out of bed.
“Come back…”
His sleepy mumble trails off and I freeze, until I hear his soft snore resume before I head to the bathroom. There I quickly take care of business and have a good look at my sleep-deprived face as I wash my hands. I doubt I’m going to get any sleep so may as well get up and make some coffee. I tiptoe back into the bedroom to grab some clothes—it’s chilly this morning—when I hear stirring from the bed.
“Come here, Lady.”
Radar is propped up on an elbow watching me. He looks a rumpled mess with his hair sticking out in every direction and sleep creases lining his face, but his eyes are perfectly focused.
“I didn’t mean for you to wake up. I was just gonna make some coffee.”
“Did you sleep?”
“A bit.”
Even in the semi-dark room I can see his eyebrow pull up.
“You need to sleep. Come back to bed.”
Normally I’d bristle at getting ordered around but his tone is one of caring and not control. I walk over and slip under the covers he holds up for me, letting him spoon me, surrounding me with his warmth.
“Close your eyes,” he mumbles, snuggling in my neck.
“How do you know they’re open?”
I can feel the deep rumble of his chuckle at my back.
“Lucky guess. Close them and relax.”
Easier said than done when his hands are smoothing down my stomach and his knee is pressing up between my legs. The light brush of his fingertips as he slips his hand into my panties has me draw in a sharp breath.
“Mmm,” he hums, finding me warm and slick. “Open up for me.”
He lifts his knee—spreading my legs—and rubs his long cock along my folds as his fingers work my clit. Teasing, building, and retreating until even my mind is ruled by sensation. When his other hand finds my breast and starts tugging on my nipple, I’m all out of patience.
“Fuck me already,” I growl, getting that same deep chuckle as a response.
“Thought you’d never ask,” he whispers, pulling my panties aside as he fills me all at once.
“More coffee?”
Radar startles. “Oh, yeah, sure.”
When I finally got up a little after ten, he was already busy on the computer and the phone. From what I can piece together, FBI and local law enforcement are gearing up to knock on a bunch of doors throughout the country.
There seem to be quite a few kids they’d like to talk to. All the kids had three things in common; they’re part of the Lock&Load group, they’ve used one of the numbered hashtags in the past twelve months, and all of them attended the convention in Dallas last year.
He places a hand on my arm when I top up his coffee.
“Sorry.”
I bend down and brush my lips over his.
“Don’t apologize for doing your job. I just feel so damn useless.”
“You kidding me?” he calls after me when I return the coffeepot to the kitchen. “Because of you all those pieces we were juggling are starting to fit together.”
“I mean now. I’m restless.” I grab the dishrag and start wiping down the kitchen counter, again. “There’s only so much I can do around the apartment before I start climbing the walls.”
He looks at me with a half-smile.
“Is that why you work two jobs? To stay busy?”
I can’t hold back the bark of laughter. I wish it were that simple.
“Not exactly. I told you I was raised by my grandparents?” I wait for his confirming nod before I continue. “I probably mentioned they were simple people of limited means. They died close together when I was just in my second year of college. They had a decent health plan, thank God, but had never made arrangements for their funeral. I ended up dropping out halfway through the year and worked for a year and a half to pay off their funerals.”
“Where the hell was your mother? Their daughter?”
I shrug. I’ve long ago given up the anger that weighed me down for far too long, around about the same time I gave up on the woman who gave birth to me.
“In the wind. Anyway, already long story short; I eventually went back to get my nursing degree but had to take out student loans. Five more months and I’ll be free of those. Then I can relax, maybe get a life.”
I aim a self-deprecating grin at Radar but he’s not smiling back.
Radar
I can’t say I’ve felt ashamed very often, but I feel it now.
For years I used my less than stellar childhood as an excuse for my questionable choices and behavior when I was younge
r. My mother died but I never had reason to doubt she loved me, whereas Hillary’s mom rejected and abandoned her, leaving her to take on responsibilities she was too young to shoulder.
My life was a fucking cakewalk in comparison.
“What’s wrong?”
She looks confused. I shake my head, get up, and walk over to her, taking her face in my hands.
“Nothing. You amaze me, that’s all.”
Her lips part under mine as her hands grab on to my shirt. There’s no hesitation in the way she gives herself over to me. Lord knows I don’t deserve it, but I’m falling hard for this woman. Her taste, her scent, the feel of her soft body against me is all I know in this moment.
The shrill sound of ringing penetrates, and Hillary pulls from my arms. I reluctantly let her go as she reaches for her phone.
“Hey, Chris,” she answers, after a cursory glance at her screen.
Who the fuck is Chris? I send her a questioning look to which she mouths, mechanic.
“I’m so sorry, I totally forgot. Yeah, things have been a little crazy.”
I lean against the counter and observe as she paces through the kitchen.
“I know, but I’m not sure this is the right time to look for a replacement. Maybe toward the end of the year. Thanks for keeping an eye out, though.” She nods at something the guy says, but her eyes flit my way. “I’ll try to pick it up today, otherwise maybe Monday? I appreciate it.”
“Your car?” I ask when she hangs up.
“Yeah. I was supposed to pick it up yesterday and turn in my rental. I forgot.”
“We’ll go now,” I tell her, closing my laptop and tucking my phone in my pocket.
“What about your work?”
“It can wait,” I state firmly.
Chances are, if she was supposed to drop off the rental yesterday, she’s paying out of pocket for any extra days. What I’d really like to do is buy her a new vehicle, but I have a feeling that wouldn’t go over well. Making sure she’s not out more money than necessary is the best I can do. For now.