Phish NET Stalkings

by Denise Robbins

  He stopped his typing, leaned back in the chair, and picked up the bottle. He looked at Jane over the top of it as he drank deep. He saw lines of worry edge her beautiful lips and crease her brow. Setting the beer down, he reached for her and wrapped his hand around the back of her neck. With a slight tug, her pulled her close and met her lips with his. At first she hesitated but when his tongue caressed her bottom lip, she automatically opened for him. She tasted of wine and spices. His thumb stroked the nape of her neck as he took the kiss deeper. Then he released her, pressed a kiss to the corners of her mouth, and sat up.

  “Don’t worry. If I’m right, in about fifteen minutes you will be spyware free.”

  She licked her lips and his groin stirred. “How come Carl didn’t find this spyware today? I mean, I know we have security software and it’s supposedly the latest and greatest. It should be for the fortune we spend on it.”

  “Worth every penny, I assure you. Carl may not have found it because it’s new and because it registers as a PUP.”

  “A pup?” she asked, her nose wrinkling.

  “A potentially unwanted program. PUPs are often made by legitimate corporations for some beneficial purpose, but they alter the security state of the computer on which they are installed. What you’ll notice is that the computer slows down because it is running on top of whatever applications you have running. Basically, it hides in the shadows of other programs.”

  He turned back to the keyboard and started typing, making his way to the computer’s registry. “How this one works and many other spyware and phishing applications, is that a user drafts an email sending the electronic card in it. Unbeknownst to the victim, once the email greeting card is opened, the malware—”

  “Malware?”

  “It’s short for malicious software.”

  “Okay, go ahead.”

  “Once the greeting card is opened the malware secretly installs itself on the victim’s computer. From that point on, all activities on the computer, including emails sent and received, websites visited, and passwords entered are intercepted and then sent back to the user.”

  Jane gasped and he turned to look at her.

  “That’s horrible. I don’t mean to sound stupid, but I had no idea it could be so bad. So my bank incident surely could have come from th-this mean software.”

  The corner of his mouth quirked upwards. The mean software. Too cute. “Yes. Worse is this software.” He aimed a finger at the monitor.

  Jane leaned forward and squinted at the screen. “I don’t see any software. I see a bunch of letters and funny characters.”

  His grin grew wider. “Yes, that’s the file that makes up this nasty little piece of software.”

  “Why is this software worse?”

  “This little malware also allows the user to remotely control your computer, including accessing, changing, and deleting files, and turning on web-enabled cameras.”

  She gasped. “What? You mean he could spy on me in my office and in my house? He could see me?”

  “That’s why it’s called Loverspy.”

  He glanced at Jane over his shoulder, saw the shocked expression on her face, the ghost-like paleness of her skin. Fear shot through him. “Jane? Are you all right?”

  Her hand shook as she brought it up to her neck. “H-he knows everything I’ve done, where I was going, who I was with. He could have seen me, seen us.” She swallowed.

  Her eyes darted toward the computer screen. “Can he see us now?” she asked in a quavering voice.

  “No. The light’s not on. See?” He pointed at the little indicator light of the webcam and showed her that it was not lit.

  “That explains…” She trailed off and swallowed.

  His gut clenched. “Explains what?”

  “How he showed up at various places,” she answered in a whisper.

  The fist around his insides tightened. “Who? What places?” He took Jane’s hands, and gripped them offering her reassurance that she was safe.

  “Bob.”

  “Bob?”

  “That’s the accountant. The guy who sent the email to me.”

  “Bob who? What’s Bob’s last name?” Instinctively, he reached for his pad of paper and pen.

  “Richter.”

  He scribbled the last name down. “What else? You said you’ve seen him places?”

  “Yes. He was at the Starbucks I go to all the time. I had never seen him there before and I’ve been going for years. He just showed up, stood behind me in line and approached me afterwards.”

  Cooper rubbed at the back of his neck as he got that unnerving sensation that something was beyond just hacking a computer, or corporate espionage. “Where else have you seen this Bob guy?”

  “The day I went to the flea markets, he showed up at the gas station.”

  “That seems coincidental enough.”

  “I thought so too at the time, but I had looked up the places on my computer.” She inclined her head in the direction of the laptop.

  He stilled her wringing hands by placing one of his over the top of them.

  “Why would he do those things? Did he purposely want to ruin my company? Was he mad because I turned him down for another date?”

  Hearing the note of tension and fear in her voice, he tried to soothe her. “Let’s deal with one thing at a time. First, we squash this phishing malware like the bug that it is. Then I deal with Mr. Bob.”

  THIRTY-FOUR

  “I hate to say it, sweetheart, but when I’m done cleaning your system, Carl will have to do the same thing on your network and reset everyone’s passwords again.”

  Jane groaned and rolled her eyes, but nodded. “Better than having to beg distributors and clients to forgive whatever garbage email they may receive.”

  Shortly after that, Cooper announced, “Your computer is clean.” He forwarded the email to his office PC so he could try to do a trace on the message. “If I can nail the IP address as to where it originated then perhaps we will have hardcore proof that Bob actually sent the message. Right now, I am guessing he used some web email client of the dating service so it may be more difficult to track.”

  “Why would he hack my network? It doesn’t make any sense. What if he’s done this to other women?”

  “Whoa.” Cooper ran his hands up and down her arms. “Don’t jump to conclusions. We have to prove it first.” He checked his watch and stood. “It’s getting late and I should go. I’ve got a lot of work to do.”

  “Oh, yes, the man attacking women.” Jane got to her feet and followed Cooper to the foyer. “I hope you catch him soon. Before another woman gets hurt.”

  “Me too.” He shrugged into his leather jacket. He was in the act of straightening his collar when he froze in motion. His eyes seemed to go blank.

  “Cooper?”

  When he didn’t answer, she laid a hand on his arm and spoke his name again. “Cooper?”

  “That’s it.”

  “What? What’s it?” she asked, startled by his outburst.

  “I’ve got to go. I’ll call you or come by or something.”

  He rushed out the door without a backward glance. Without a goodnight kiss. Jane stood at the door dumbfounded and shivering at his abrupt departure. When he gunned the engine to his truck and sped away from her driveway, she shut the door and engaged the locks. Rubbing her hand over her arms, she went into the kitchen, shut down the computer, and flipped off the lights.

  “Well, I know where I stand with him,” she mumbled as she inched her way up the stairs. “What do I care? I’m the one who doesn’t want to have anything to do with Cooper or a policeman.”

  After stripping out of her clothes and tossing them across the end of the chaise, she slid beneath her silk comforter and curled up on her side in the fetal position. The night was damn cold. Winter was here and the winter of her discontent had set in. She had wanted a man and found one, but the wrong one. Now he knew everything about her, about her past. Could she trust hi
m? Did she have a choice?

  She groaned and flipped over to her other side. “Stop thinking.” Closing her eyes, she breathed in deep and slowly exhaled, mentally telling herself to relax. “If he lets me down, I’ll know it and I’ll leave.”

  That would suck so much. She would hate to ditch David and Amy, and her thriving business. Walking away was better than ending up dead and buried. In the morning she would double-check her safe, make certain she had all the paperwork and credentials she needed, and pack a getaway bag. She would be prepared. Just in case.

  * * * *

  Instead of heading home for some sleep, Cooper drove in the direction of his office. The night dispatcher greeted him. “Hey, Chief.”

  “Hey, Harry. How goes it?” Harry was actually a retired beat cop who decided he needed to still work and so came back as a dispatcher and Coop was glad to have him.

  “Relatively quiet. There’s fresh coffee around the corner.”

  Knowing he would need the caffeine, Coop nodded at the older man and headed straight for the pot. After pouring a cup, he walked into his office, stripped off his jacket. After booting up the computer, he went to the property room, checked out Janette’s computer, and brought it back to his office.

  If he was right then his investigation into the Street Corner Rapist just got a new lead. He set Janette’s laptop on his desk and turned it on. He drank deep on the hot, black coffee as he waited for the computer to buzz to life.

  “Damn! I hope it’s a good one.” Cooper rubbed a hand over his face in an attempt to dislodge his fatigue. Then he drank some more coffee.

  Cooper logged onto the computer and after reviewing his notes, he used the password for Janette’s computer and logged in to it. He opened up Internet Explorer and clicked on the link to her favorites. In the list, he saw what he remembered at Jane’s. A link to Love Online.

  Leaning back in his chair, he blew out a long breath. Could this guy be using an Internet dating service to get his targets? But how would he know they were hookers?

  “Did he just ask them ‘What do you do for a living?’ and then they would answer ‘Oh, me. Well, I walk the streets and pick up men for sex and money.’” He shook his head in disbelief. How could he know? What did Jane have to do with this? She wasn’t a hooker.

  He raked both hands through his hair and groaned. He had to find out if the other hookers used the online dating service? Did they all date Bob? Or was someone who worked for Love Online and had access to everyone’s personal information behind the attacks?

  Jane wasn’t attacked on the street corner. She had been attacked in her own building.

  “Shit!”

  Was he chasing after his tail or was he really on to something? Were the investigations linked or did he just wish it were that easy?

  “Too many damned questions.” He needed answers.

  Washing his hands over his face, he finished off the cup of coffee, sat up straight. He reached for the phone and dialed Jack’s number.

  “This better be damned good,” Jack grumbled on the other side of the line.

  “I recall saying something very similar the other day,” he told Jack with a slight grin. “Get in here. I may be on to something.”

  He heard the rustle of sheets followed by Jack’s excited voice. “What? Really? What?”

  If the situation wasn’t so serious, he would have laughed at his partner’s childlike inquisition. “Remember the online dating service we found in Janette’s Internet favorites links?”

  “Yeah. Yeah yeah.”

  “We need to find out if any of the other girls attacked used that same online dating service. Hell, any online dating service for that matter, but I’m guessing they used the same one.”

  “What? That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “It does if you’re a guy who has access to that kind of information and can use it to target people.”

  “How did you come up with this notion?”

  “Jane.”

  “Jane?”

  He heard the skepticism in Jack’s voice. “I told you about someone hacking her computer and network. It was through an email sent from the online dating service.”

  “The same one as Janette’s?”

  “Love Online. I’m at the office right now and just confirmed it. Now what we need to do is to see if this is a real link. Then follow this email trail, cuz you know there is one and see if we can’t identify who sent it.”

  “Do you have an idea?”

  Coop rubbed one hand over his chin, back and forth. “The email that Jane received was supposedly from one of her dates, a guy named Bob Richter. We’ll need to check him out. He could be the culprit or he could be a patsy.”

  “What do you want me to start with?”

  He heard water running in the background and knew Jack was splashing water over his face. “Get dressed and then chase down the computers from the other victims. If they didn’t have one then they used someone’s. Ask their relatives and friends. I want to know if they used an online dating service. I want to know if they used Love Online.”

  “I’m on it. I’ll check in, or be there as soon as I get something.”

  Coop clicked off, sat back in his high-backed chair and shut his eyes for a minute, pinching the bridge of his nose. His job and field of expertise was trailing the technology lead. He had done the same thing a million and one times in the past ten years of his life. All it took was time and patience. Only he didn’t have much of either. Less of the time. This guy was attacking women almost every other night.

  “Was that part of his pattern?” Did something set him off on those days? Were those the only days he could get away from home or work?

  He sat up, rested his elbows on his desk and rubbed at his temples. Turning his head side to side, he heard his neck pop. He dropped his hands and shoved his shoulders back. Lacing his fingers together, he stretched them out in front of him and cracked the knuckles.

  “Time to get to work.” Opening up his internal email, he pulled up the message he had forwarded from Jane’s and started investigating the email headers and the IP address of the sender. He gathered as much information as he could without clicking on the link itself. He hovered his mouse over the link to the electronic greeting card link and saw the URL or web address as to where the user would be taken in the status bar. It appeared to be going to the real Love Online website.

  “So either Bob or someone else used the Love Online system. Or someone at Love Online used their system.” Either way, Love Online was involved. He had to find out how and the easiest way of doing that would be to be a client.

  “Oh, yeah.” He could pass himself off as a twenty-something woman, especially online. In the morning, he would contact the company and try to chase down the owners and find out who Janette and Jane had connected with, who they had actually dated.

  In the meantime, he could open an account as a female looking for love. A thought struck him. If he accessed Janette’s and Jane’s dating service profiles he might be able to tell what the guy was attracted to. If Jack turned up the information on the other attack victim then he could verify their profiles were similar and mimic theirs in his.

  “Now for a name.” Who would he be? “Hmm.” He rubbed his hand over his chin. After a few seconds, an idea came to mind and a crooked grin slid across his lips. “CiCi. Of course,” he said with a laugh and began typing, building a profile of a woman looking for love online.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  After a fitful night sleep, Jane awoke before her alarm went off, before the sun came up, and before her mind was functioning on full cycles. Instead of lying in the bed and trying to get more sleep that would not come, she rose, dressed in a pair of yoga pants, fleece sweatshirt, and Nike Free running shoes. Grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge in her bedroom closet, she went to the spare bedroom that she used as her workout room and began her daily routine on the treadmill.

  She was halfway through her workout when her phone
rang. Jane ignored it. It rang again. “It’s too damn early for anyone to be calling.” Then remembering the way Cooper rushed out last night, she thought it could be him calling with some information. She punched the stop button on the treadmill, hurried down the hall to the bedroom, and pushed the Talk button on her cell phone. “Hello?”

  “Jane, it’s me, Cooper.”

  Like she didn’t know his voice by now. “Yes?”

  “I need your account information for the online dating service.”

  “What?” Was he crazy?

  “I’m sorry for disturbing you so early in the morning, but I need your permission to access your Love Online account and to look at your profile.”

  Jane pressed her free hand to her forehead. “Why? I don’t want you in my personal information.” Mortified, she closed her eyes and sat down on the edge of the unmade bed. She didn’t want him seeing her dating preferences, her likes and dislikes.

  “Jane, I’m not trying to pry into your business.”

  “Ha! That’s all you’ve done since the moment we met. It’s what you did last night. Now you want to go into my personal dating habits. Well, there aren’t any to go into. Now if you’ll excuse me.”

  She heard him swear on the other end of the line. “Don’t hang up! Listen. Please. It’s for a case. I think your hacker may be using Love Online to target women.”

  She sucked in a sharp breath. “What? Who? Why?”

  “I wish I could answer but until I have details, facts, and proof, I can’t say anything because it could jeopardize the case.”

  “But it’s my case.”

  “It may be related,” he said, emphasis on may. “Please. I need your help and your permission. I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t have to.”

  In the back of her mind she wondered if that meant he wouldn’t ask if he thought he could do it without her finding out. He was former FBI cybercrime. He could probably get into her account without her telling him anything. She scowled at the phone then put it back to her ear and spoke. “Fine.”