1st Case

by James Patterson

  “What’s wrong with your voice?” I asked. “Do you have a cold?”

  “I’m not alone,” she whispered.

  “Ohh!”

  For a second, I was happy. At least one of us was getting laid again.

  But that’s when I heard a depressingly familiar snore in the background. It was the same half pig, half buzz saw drone that had kept me awake through the thin walls of Ashdown House on way too many nights before.

  Darren.

  “Seriously?” I said. “You know there are three hundred thousand men in the city of Boston alone, right? Not just one.”

  “I know, I know,” she said. “It kind of just happened, somewhere after the tequila shooters at Lolita. Can we talk about it later?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Or not. Whatever.”

  “Are you all right?” she asked. “I can go in the other room.”

  My mind was racing with all kinds of things, but nothing I wanted to say out loud. For starters, Darren was a piece of gutter scum, and A.A.’s taste for him truly baffled me. But more than that, if I was being honest, I felt betrayed. Just not in a way that I could see putting out there on the table for discussion. Not right now, anyway. Maybe never.

  “I’m fine,” I told her. “I should have texted. I’ll catch you later, okay? Have a good night.”

  “Angela?” she said.

  I pretended not to hear her. A.A. was free to make all the stupid, horny mistakes she wanted. God knows I’d made a few of my own. But that didn’t mean I had to sit there chatting away while that human error she called an ex-boyfriend slept in the bed next to her. Thanks, but no thanks.

  As soon as I hung up, I got a text from her.

  Don’t be mad. Please?

  I’m not mad, I wrote back.

  I didn’t intend to say anything else. It was more like my thumbs had little minds of their own and just kept going.

  But you deserve better and you know it, I wrote.

  Then I turned my phone all the way off and got back to work.

  CHAPTER 30

  OVER THE NEXT several days, my life fell into a pattern. I’d leave for the office in the morning and stay until a reasonable hour. Then I’d clock out and pick up some dinner on the way to Eve’s. I knew what she liked: anything Pan-Asian or Mexican, veg-and-protein salads, veggie pizza. It was all like the grownup version of the junk I ate in college. Once a computer jockey, always a jockey, I guess.

  I also knew she had enough sensitive information under her roof that she didn’t much care for delivery guys coming to the door. Part of showing up for work with Eve was about knowing the rules and not giving her any reason to think I might be compromising her security. It was a small price to pay for getting access to a system as cutting-edge as hers was.

  After dinner, I’d park myself at her desk and work as long as I could on the app, usually all night. Eventually, my static analysis—reading code—gave way to dynamic analysis, which is basically putting the program into action. That’s where I could really put the app through its paces. I’d send myself modified copies and then track what it did in real time, always looking for some clue about how to trace this thing back to its original source.

  As long as I kept it inside Eve’s network, there was no way of being detected, which was key. It wasn’t just Keats I needed to hide this little project from. It was also whoever else might be watching, given the chance.

  For that matter, it was entirely possible that my work was redundant to whatever Keats’s team was doing. In fact, I’d have been shocked if they weren’t breaking down and analyzing this app in the same way as me. But the thing was, I didn’t get to know. Ever since Keats had dropped me from the investigation, I was completely in the dark about what he or anyone else over there was up to.

  So I was more than a little surprised when all of that changed again, about a week later.

  It was early on a Tuesday morning. I was just wrapping up another marathon session when I got a call from Keats out of the blue.

  “Where are you?” he asked.

  “I’m at Eve’s,” I said. “I was just about to leave for the office. Why?”

  “We’ve got a bead on something at Boston Latin School,” he said. “I’m heading over there now.”

  I could hear in his voice that this wasn’t just any lead. Something specific had happened. I could only hope nobody had died.

  “The truth is, you were a big help at the last high school,” Keats went on. “I want you to ride along, just in case we can use you.”

  “Seriously?” I said. “I thought I was in time-out, or whatever.”

  “See, one of the cool things about this job is that I don’t have to explain myself to you,” he said. Even now, he was a little adorable. I couldn’t help noticing. “Can you be at Beacon and Arlington in fifteen minutes? I’ll pick you up.”

  I checked the clock. It was five after eight. The city was going to be packed with rush hour traffic, but I knew how to hack this one, too.

  “Do you have room for a bike in the back of your car?”

  “Yeah, why?” Keats asked.

  “Then I’ll be there in ten,” I told him, and hung up on my way out the door.

  CHAPTER 31

  EVERYTHING WAS MOVING fast now. Including me.

  I barely checked the lights as I flew up Fourth Street out of South Boston. Sure enough, the roads were clogged and I was passing traffic at a good clip. It had been 8:06 when I hung up with Keats. I wanted to be in sight of him by 8:16, if only to start the day by kicking a little ass. It’s not unusual in Boston to hit maybe twenty miles an hour on my bike, but for a couple of straightaways, anyway, I was definitely north of that number.

  My mind was flying, too. I had a million questions about this new incident and how it fit into the larger picture. Considering where we were headed, this had to be something about a prospective victim. A high school girl like Gwen Petty.

  God willing, this one was still alive.

  Once I passed under I-93, I took a right on Tremont, where everything opened up with wider streets and fewer buildings. I put my head down and pedaled into the wind, while my thoughts churned just as hard.

  I wasn’t going to tell Billy about how I’d been spending my nights. Not until I had something constructive to share. I didn’t want to lie to him, but I didn’t want to say too much without a good reason, either. Not until all that moonlighting actually led to something worth sharing—

  “Watch where you’re going, asshole!” someone screamed to the tune of their own car horn. I wasn’t sure if they were yelling at me or someone else, but I had just swerved onto Charles Street at the last second. The city’s been working toward more bike lanes for years now, without much progress. The motto of the road in Boston might as well be God Bless and Good Luck. I dodged another right-hooking truck, went around his left side, and kept going.

  From there, it was a straight shot to the Public Garden, where Keats was picking me up. I ignored the burn in my legs and powered on. It was the fastest I’d ever biked in the city. And if I was being honest, part of that was about making sure Billy couldn’t give me shit for anything when I got there. This was my chance to be taken seriously again, and I wanted everything to go perfectly.

  Then again, I always do.

  By the time I was flying through the park, it felt like all the joggers, walkers, and other traffic were moving in slow motion around me. I goosed a yellow light to catch a left onto Beacon and saw Keats just up ahead, parked illegally on the opposite side. His flashers were on and his hatch was already up.

  I checked over my shoulder, crossed both lanes in a fast diagonal, and hopped off my bike at a run.

  “What time is it?” I asked.

  “Eight sixteen,” he said. “You’re late.”

  “I’m exactly on time,” I said. I hoisted the bike into the back of the car and he slammed the hatch.

  “If I’m waiting, you’re late,” he told me, with just a hint of sarcasm. Then we jum
ped in on either side and Keats accelerated away from the curb, heading west.

  No slowing down now.

  CHAPTER 32

  “THERE’S A FILE on the seat,” Billy told me. “Take a look and tell me what you see.”

  It was an ordinary manila folder with a red strip reading CLASSIFIED across the subject tab. Even there, I knew I was in new territory. Nobody had handed me a classified anything since I started at the Bureau, much less a case file like this one. I could feel myself getting drawn more and more deeply into this case, even as we hurried toward that high school. It may or may not have been an actual turning point for me, professionally, but it sure felt that way. Some part of me didn’t even want to open that folder—didn’t want to know about another victim, another murder, another piece of darkness, just waiting to seep into my brain.

  At the same time, some other part of me was beyond anxious to know exactly what was about to happen and, for that matter, what had happened to put this new twist into motion.

  So it was with something like the definition of mixed feelings that I flipped open the file and started reading.

  A laser-printed school picture of a teenage girl was clipped to the top of the packet inside. She was white, with dirty-looking dreads set off by two big ladybug barrettes.

  “Nigella Wilbur,” Keats said. I flipped past the school pic and to the report that lay underneath. “She’s been using the app for just over a week. We found all that”—he stabbed with one finger at whatever was inside the file—“forty-five minutes ago.”

  “Please tell me she’s still alive,” I said.

  Keats’s mouth constricted into a tight line. I guess that was the question of the hour. It was like a lateral move for my nerves. Nothing had been confirmed or denied yet, but there were still plenty of possibilities for a worst-case scenario here.

  Or rather, another worst-case scenario.

  My hands were shaking by the time I started flipping through the rest of the material in that file. I told myself it was because I’d been biking without gloves, but that wasn’t it. I could see that the next several pages were a transcript of text messages and conversation fragments, just like the ones I’d found for Gwen Petty.

  Behind those pages were printouts of several images, presumably camera snaps sent back and forth between Nigella Wilbur and whoever this person was coming after her.

  The pictures themselves were all over the map, from innocently playful and flirty sorts of poses all the way up to stuff that was explicitly hard-core. They were the kind of images that could get a man arrested, assuming Nigella Wilbur was as young as she looked. My heart was already breaking for her, just knowing the kind of trap this girl had wandered into.

  I took a deep breath, clenched my fists against the shaking, and started to read.

  What’s up?

  Meeeee

  I just smoked some skunky weeeeeed

  Congratulations.

  For what?

  Sounds like fun.

  Oh

  yeah it is

  Are you alone?

  Hangon

  Now i am.

  Where are you tonight?

  Friends house

  Where you?

  I’m outside watching you through the window.

  ?!?!?!?!?

  Haha. Just kidding.

  Jeezus …

  Scared me.

  Don’t be scared. I’m friendly.

  I know

  But weed makes me parnoid

  In that case—I lied.

  I really am watching you through the window.

  Take your shirt off for me.

  Very funy

  —————

  I’ll bet people say you’re different all the time.

  What do you mean?

  Different??

  Good different.

  Awesome different.

  But I’ll bet not everybody thinks so.

  Why you say that?

  Just a hunch.

  Well your right

  But screw everybody

  No … screw me. :P

  You have a 1 track mind

  Guys always think with their dix

  You say that like it’s a bad thing.

  Don’t put words in my mouth

  Ha. Too easy.

  I’m not even touching that

  :-))

  —————

  Can I see a pic?

  If you’re good

  You don’t think I’ve been good?

  No.

  I mean yes

  You have

  So?

  Here

  Nice!

  More!

  Like this?

  MORE

  Last one

  (0) (0) !!!!

  That’s what I’m talking about

  That’s all you get for now

  Here something for you.

  Fair is fair.

  Holy shit, dude!

  Did you really just take that on the street???

  Nobody saw

  It’s all good

  I’ll visit your ass in jail

  :-)

  —————

  Guess what?

  I just bought a half ounce of the best green you’ll ever smoke.

  Awesome

  And I share …

  wow. Super subtle.

  I see what you’re doing.

  You’re supposed to see.

  Let’s get together. Pretty please?

  Maybe

  Does that mean probably? Or probably not?

  It means maybe

  Don’t tease me.

  You luv it

  True.

  I’m so into you it’s not even funny.

  —————

  I wasn’t kidding on Tuesday. I really do want to meet you.

  You ready for me?

  Maybe tomorrow

  Really?

  Let me think about it, k?

  Just say yes.

  Tell me why i should

  yes is a world

  & in this world of yes lives,

  skillfully curled,

  all worlds

  I don’t even know what you just said

  It’s a poem.

  Oh

  I’m getting a F in English

  I’ll give you an F in whatever you want

  day-um …!!

  So is that a yes?

  That’s a probably

  Got to go …

  already late for skoooool

  talk later?

  CHAPTER 33

  I LOOKED UP at Keats from the pages on my lap.

  “The Cummings poem,” I said. “It’s the same one he sent Gwen Petty. ‘Love Is a Place.’”

  “Good memory,” Keats said.

  I didn’t even bother asking how they’d found this, because I knew he wouldn’t tell me. It had to be some kind of targeted SMS search, but that meant scanning an unfathomable mountain of raw data. Then again, I had no idea how deep the resources went on this thing. In terms of the FBI, I was the smallest possible cog in a machine that was bigger, and reached further, than I’d probably ever know in my entire career. For all I knew, they had some kind of mega team working this thing from every angle, and from any number of locations around the world.

  That’s one of the upsides of cyberforensics. A significant amount of the work can happen from just about anywhere. Though of course that cuts both ways. The bad guys are just as mobile as the good ones, and that makes them harder to find, if they know what they’re doing.

  So it was possible that the Bureau had found these text strings, like some kind of needle in a haystack, through sheer workforce numbers. But on the other hand, they may have just gotten astronomically lucky. It happens all the time. The number of high-achieving coders who take credit for their own good luck as if it were something they built from the ground up is … well, impossible to know. But it’s a big number.

  And speaking of teams, Kea
ts had a local crew already on-site by the time we pulled up in front of Boston Latin. Half a dozen personnel were gathered outside. I recognized three agents from the field office, including Adam Obaje, who was just coming out through the school’s main entrance.

  We got out of the car and met them all halfway. Keats didn’t stop me from joining in as we huddled there on the sidewalk.

  “So?” he asked.

  Obaje’s expression was dark. “She was in homeroom but didn’t show up for first period,” he said.

  “Goddamnit!”

  “Ten minutes earlier and we would have had her. She’s not answering her phone, either.”

  “I’m not losing this girl,” Keats said. “I want at least one agent on every floor inside, right now. Parker, get some crime techs here, just in case, and I want cruisers on every corner, checking cars. What about the family?”

  “Contacted,” Obaje said. “Everyone’s fine, and the mom’s on her way here, but she’s coming from Attleboro.”

  As far as I knew, all of the previous murders had gone down in private family homes. But clearly, Keats wasn’t taking any chances.

  “Where do you want me?” I asked.

  “Take this.” He handed me a radio on the fly. “I want you thinking like a high school girl. Where would she go?”

  I started to answer, but he’d already turned to head inside. There was no time for chitchat with the intern. I was just an extra pair of eyes, at best, and a second later I was standing alone on the school steps. I wasn’t even sure if I’d just gotten folded further into this thing or shut out of it.

  But I did have some idea about where to look.

  Based on what I’d read in the file, Nigella Wilbur didn’t much like school, loved weed, and wasn’t afraid of taking risks, either. That’s what had gotten her onto our radar in the first place. Opening the app was a risk in and of itself, whether or not she knew it; but then on top of that, I had the distinct impression that a little bit of danger wasn’t such a bad thing to Nigella.

  When I was in high school, I was fairly straight and narrow, but I did know plenty of girls like her. And I knew a little something about how they operated. My first thought was that Nigella might have gone out for a little wake-and-bake to help her face the day. And to do that, she’d need to be outside.