Killerbyte (byte Series Book 1)

by Cat Connor

  “Yeah, you really did,” Lee and I replied together. Kurt frowned as if he’d missed something.

  “So what are we doing?” Lee said.

  “Kurt is running a program to hack his way into a site we think may contain a journal written by the Unsub, and I am reading the other information he left on what used to be our group site.”

  “This Boyd fella, right?”

  “Yeah.” Mac looked as if he was going to say something else then stopped, frowning at the screen, “What do you suppose this means? It’s part of a thread but it’s been cut and pasted into his own notes ... ‘I don’t need to pretend I have a superpower, I am invisible always have been. The original invisible man. One day she will notice me.’”

  “Sounds like we could be on the right track,” I said, sliding down in the chair and wondering if anyone would ever offer us coffee.

  Caine strode into the room speaking, “I have two agents from the Richmond office talking to Grandma Vanderguard now. I got a call back from them saying Boyd has stayed at his grandmother’s, and there is a computer in his bedroom. Grandma was very helpful and let them nosy about a bit. They found a journal on his dressing table. He lived with Grandma during High School, didn’t get on with his father.” He twitched.

  Caine’s phone rang. He frowned at the display. “Check this out, Ellie. This is a picture on Grandma’s mantelpiece.”

  He passed me the phone. You gotta love technology and pxt capable phones. I couldn’t quite believe what I was seeing. It didn’t matter how hard I squinted at the small screen, it still made zero sense. “What the fuck?”

  “That’s a picture of Boyd and his girlfriend.” Caine’s twitch was the most dramatic I had ever seen. He was doing his own special version of an all-out delighted grin.

  “That’s me!” I said. At that point, Mac grabbed the phone from me to look then passed it to Kurt and Lee.

  “Yeah,” Caine replied. “It was on display. We don’t need a warrant to see displayed photographs. What’s even better is Grandma has loaned us the photograph, and I had someone pick up your yearbook, Ellie. We have compared the handwriting with several of the poems found on the bodies. We have a positive match even though that sample was twelve years old.”

  They sure weren’t mucking around!

  Gone are the days when investigations take forever. The computer age makes everything more accessible and easier. “Did Richmond field office do the analysis?”

  “They did. The samples will be sent to the Questioned Documents Lab tomorrow for confirmation, but we have a match.”

  “I doubt they’ll turn down a warrant request now. I have a call into the District Attorney. She is talking to a judge as we speak.”

  “Do you get the feeling this guy never expected to be caught?”

  “If Mac hadn’t seen your yearbook we wouldn’t even have him as a suspect. I doubt he ever considered he’d be caught.” Caine’s phone rang. He answered it as he walked away from us and paced by the far wall, then came back to us. “Ellie, did you ever date Charles Boyd?”

  “No.”

  He turned his attention back to the call. I still couldn’t believe this moron had a photograph of me on his grandma’s mantle.

  His girlfriend? Not in this lifetime!

  Mac, Lee, and Kurt found the picture amusing. I was less amused, more disgusted and creeped out.

  He told his Grandma I was his girlfriend. Freak!

  Caine’s phone rang yet again and when he’d finished he sat down next to Owen. They conversed then he made an announcement. “The warrant has arrived on the scene, complete with the District Attorney, who will stay for the search. All evidence will be brought here accompanied by the DA.”

  Owen nodded. Caine continued, “Boyd still hasn’t been located, but we believe he may still be in the hospital.”

  I didn’t want him still in the building. “Dad?”

  “We have FBI and military police guarding your father. Sam has briefed Mac’s dad. He has also been armed.”

  “Can we move Dad?”

  “We’re looking into it, Ellie, waiting on a doctor’s report to see if he’s stable enough, if so we can use military medivac to fly him to Langley Air force Base”

  “Does Dad know?”

  “He knows we would like to move him for security reasons. He is reluctant and would like to discuss it with you.”

  He would be reluctant. He would be worried about Aidan and me, and then there was Mom. He had no idea about his wife.

  Owen sat up straighter in her chair; her shoulders almost touched Caine’s. “If you would like to go to your father, Ellie, I can have Kurt and Lee provide escort for you. We have a wheelchair available.”

  Escort me? It’s not as if Mac would let me go anywhere without him. There won’t be a wheelchair.

  “Thanks, but that’s not necessary. I can manage.” Nothing and nobody would get past Mac. I didn’t need anyone else running interference.

  Caine shook his head. Owen pursed her lips. She wasn’t so perfect after all. Her lipstick had worn off in patches.

  Caine’s mouth became a no-nonsense straight line. His jaw squared as he choked out his favorite phrase, “Not in this lifetime!”

  I almost smiled but suppressed the urge.

  “You and Mac are in danger. You will not go anywhere alone until this prick is sitting in front of me in handcuffs.” He almost cut me with his sharp glance.

  Uh huh, no telling how many times Boyd could photograph me without my knowledge. My skin crawled as it dawned on me just how much he had invaded my privacy and how deluded he was.

  I’m okay. We’ll all be okay.

  Kurt said, “It’s done. I got in to this site. He kept a detailed diary. Looks like after each kill he wrote up his notes. And he’s been sharing the details with other freaks on the site.”

  “Is there anything identifying him as Charles Boyd?” Caine asked, tapping his fingers on the tabletop.

  “No. Let’s hope his own computer will show us a link. There is no way anyone but the Unsub could know these details. His record-keeping is meticulous, right down to the exact position of the bodies when discovered,” Kurt said. “He knew Roy Matheson was DEA before he killed him. There are photographs on here.”

  “Photographs?” Caine sounded interested.

  The thought of more pictures made me shudder.

  “Before and after shots, the first pictures are of Karen Midlow. They’re all dated. I’m downloading everything.” Kurt leaned back, away from the screen he’d been hunched over. “I found photographs of Special Agent Kilby, there is a description of where his body is and an address.”

  “Where?” Caine asked, with his phone poised ready to issue retrieval instructions.

  “Boyd left Agent Kilby in a public toilet two blocks away from a McDonald’s drive-thru. Looks like he dumped him in a hurry, he mentioned he didn’t write a poem or display him properly.”

  Caine issued the instructions to the team who were conducting a scene investigation at the drive-thru we’d used.

  I stood up and stretched, working some of the tension from my muscles. I felt like a taut spring.

  A massage would be wonderful. Coffee would be superb.

  “Anything about Karen in that journal? In particular why he held onto her so long before dumping her?”

  Kurt scrolled for a few minutes. “Midlow is the key. She was the first kill. If we can understand why he killed her, then the rest will fall into place.” He looked across the room at me. “He’s uploading to this journal within minutes of these acts. It’s possible he was in a car not far from those dumpsters writing his sick little entry and posting it to the web from his car.”

  “He was watching?”

  “I think so. Or at least for a little bit, he describes the look on your face as you climbed out of the dumpster. He also says he kept her body at his grandmother’s in the garden shed, inside an old wooden chest. Looks like it was lined with heavy black plastic. I found
more pictures.”

  “There was some heavy plastic in the dumpster. Why did he dump her when he did?”

  “This guy is so proud of himself, he wrote everything down. He followed Aidan to the Salvation Army store, which gave him the idea of dumping Karen. He’d set up Aidan, knew you would want to see what he dropped off, and all he had to do was remove the boxes Aidan left then place the body.”

  “And to think I overlooked this scheming killer at High School. What was I thinking?”

  The thought of a cigarette was now heavenly. I leaned against a wall and stretched some more. I felt eyes on me. It was unnerving. Mac, Kurt, and Lee were watching me.

  “What?”

  “You all right?” Mac’s smooth voice stirred all manner of feelings inside me.

  “I’m okay. Just a touch antsy is all.”

  Mac walked towards me. I felt my temperature rise as he neared. My back was against the wall. Mac’s hands rested on either side of my head as he whispered, “You sure?”

  My voice croaked as I replied, “I’m okay.”

  Kurt coughed.

  “What?” I could see him from the corner of my eye.

  It’s one thing to be watching me but why is he grinning like a fool?

  “You two are so into each other.” His smile resounded in his voice. “Get a room.”

  I dragged my eyes from Mac’s and glowered at Kurt. “Get back to work and tell my why Karen Midlow was his first!”

  Kurt grinned and said, “I’m working on it. Let’s get some coffee in here.”

  Finally, something I wanted to hear!

  “I’ll go on down to the cafeteria and get us some coffee, anyone want anything else?”

  Caine spoke, “Just call down and get Sam to bring it all back.” I heard an inflection in his voice that suggested he didn’t want any of us leaving the room.

  “Good plan.” Lee punched in Sam’s number.

  “Sandwiches, Lee ... roast beef would be good,” Mac said. He hadn’t moved and I could feel my skin burning.

  Lee’s eyes rolled skyward as he fielded what I suspected were complaints from Sam. After a short discussion Lee told us Sam would be coming up with coffee and sandwiches.

  Sam enlisted the help of an orderly and arrived in record time bearing trays of coffee and sandwiches. He stayed for a few minutes before excusing himself but not before speaking to Mac. I overheard three words that made me smile. “Five card stud.”

  I chuckled to myself. Our fathers were fleecing Sam. Bet they did more poker playing and drinking than they ever did fishing and hunting on their weekends away.

  Thirty

  Ring Of Fire

  Ilooked at the date on the screen of my phone. Our days all had blurred into one. It was Wednesday, five o’clock in the morning. I drained my coffee cup and observed Mac puzzling over something. He spoke to Caine, “Walk me through this, will you?”

  “What exactly?” Caine pulled a chair out and sat opposite us.

  “What do these lab people do?”

  I silenced my tongue before it could comment and share my latest insane notion triggered by Mac’s question. I let the whole lab people thing settle. Despite myself, my mind conjured up yellow Labradors in white coats. They retrieved evidence and dropped it at Caine’s feet. Tails wagged frantically and drool dripped, as they anticipated a doggy treat.

  Stop it dammit!

  “They do what we ask them to do,” Caine replied.

  Mac grinned. “This Boyd person is a lab technician, yes?”

  I wished he’d stop saying Lab. I wished I didn’t think such odd things.

  “Yes.” Caine used his patient training voice.

  “So his role is what?”

  “The role of lab personnel is a supporting role, but an important part of the investigation process. We investigate crimes, we find evidence, and it’s then documented, photographed and sent to the lab for testing,” Caine paused for breath then continued his explanation. “For example, very basically ... we may find a handgun we think was used in a crime and have a bullet from a body we think came from that gun so both are sent to the ballistics lab. We ask if a bullet was fired by a particular weapon, and they tell us.”

  “Okay.”

  “They don’t concern themselves with whose gun it is, that’s our job. They just tell us if there’s a match. We investigate the crime, they support the investigation or not as the case may be.”

  “What’s their role in this case?”

  “Same as always, the field investigators take evidence at the direction of the scene commander which is then taken to the lab. The lab tells us if it’s relevant and hopefully can offer us a narrower field of inquiry, or suggest an avenue from the discoveries they have made, or confirm what we suspect happened,” Caine said.

  “Boyd was in the field this time, yes?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I don’t remember seeing him.”

  “Why would you? They don’t take statements. They come in and do their jobs. They’re the guys and gals on their hands and knees with a pair of tweezers, cotton swabs and a spray bottle of luminol.”

  I watched Mac; his facial expressions fascinated me, and I knew once he started chewing his bottom lip, he was in serious thought mode.

  He stopped chewing his lip. “Question.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “When Ellie was attacked at my home ... was Boyd at that scene also?”

  I knew where he was going with this. If Boyd was the one who attacked me, he would have had very fresh deep scratches somewhere obvious, possibly his face or neck. Someone may have noticed.

  Caine pulled a laptop closer and typed, bringing up a list of everyone at that scene. “He’s not on this list. One sec.” He typed again then paused, his eyes narrowed to small slits. “He was on call and unable to be reached. He produced a medical certificate stating that he was receiving attention for an injury at the time of the call.”

  “Don’t suppose it says what type of injury?” Now I was interested and pleased the whole dog scenario had stopped.

  “No.”

  “And there was no reason to investigate that further?”

  “None whatsoever. He was part of a forensic team put together for this case and had zero connection to you, as far as we knew.”

  “How many crime scenes did he attend?” Curiosity chose my questions for me, with about as much finesse as a wolf going after a fresh blood.

  Caine typed again, leaned back, and stared at the screen, “Information isn’t available.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  He gave me a long cold look. “I don’t know. What do I look like – the help desk?”

  “No, that would be Mac.” It occurred to me that it had been eerily quiet in the printer phone call department since we’d left Fairfax.

  I should block more numbers.

  Kurt took a break from reading; it was Lee’s turn to see first-hand how Boyd’s sick mind worked.

  Lee grumbled something from our end of the table. Caine, who speaks fluent grumble, answered him, “Just give me a brief synopsis.”

  Mac and I listened in silence as Lee cleared his throat and said, “I found a documented reason why he wanted Mac and Ellie together. It was here inside this delightful online journal.” Lee paused before sharing. “‘Once everyone else is disposed of’– his words – ‘Ellie and Mac will have cemented their relationship. Aidan will be arrested, as no other suspect could have known so much about Ellie.’ He rambles on a bit here then this ... ‘Once faced with multiple murder charges, my forensic evidence will help secure those convictions and ultimately he will end up on death row. Ellie, devastated by his guilt, will leave the Bureau.’ Boyd writes that six months after Aidan’s incarceration he plans to kill Mac. The next section is headed ‘The final blow. Ellie will be alone, destroyed. I shall swoop in.’ He says here he plans to kill her slowly over time. His last comment in this thing is ‘Do you see me now, bitch?’”

  “Sick
fuck!” Mac growled.

  “Why?” I still don’t get it, why is he doing this.

  Mac rolled his eyes at me. “Why is he a sick fuck?”

  I grinned and adopted a condescending tone, “You’re so pretty.”

  Mac chuckled. “You are such a smartass.”

  “It’s all part of my intrinsic charm,” I said, trying not to laugh at Mac. “So why is he doing this?”

  Owen’s lilting voice carried across the room, “I have a theory on that, Ellie.”

  I had forgotten Owen was there again; it’s amazing what you can block out when you want to. I was all ears.

  Executive Assistant Director Owen has a theory! Someone should record this for posterity.

  Mac’s hand landed on my thigh, and he applied slight pressure and whispered, “Listen and be nice.” His tone implied it was a difficult thing for me to do.

  For a split second, I wondered if my thoughts had somehow escaped from my mouth. Caine didn’t glare at me so they couldn’t have.

  “I’ve been doing some digging while we waited,” Owen said.

  Gosh, I hope she didn’t chip a nail or get dirt on her hands.

  Mac’s fingers squeezed my thigh again.

  Maybe Mac could hear my thoughts.

  “I found some information from your senior year in High School. I have spoken to several of your teachers and your old Principal. I also have your school records, Vanderguard’s and Karen Brown’s.”

  Oh great!

  I took a breath, about to make a comment when Mac’s hand applied more warning pressure.

  Ancient history revisited … yes, this is how I want to spend time. It wasn’t fun the first time around. I doubt it’ll be a blast this time either.

  “And?”

  “There was a complaint against Tommy Vanderguard made by Karen Brown.”

  I searched my difficult and uncooperative memory banks but couldn’t recall it. “What about?”

  “Stalking. He had been following you and Karen.”

  Ohhh that!

  “And that’s it? He seems to have perfected his stalking technique since our school days.”

  “There’s more. Every prize you took senior year, he came second.”

  I shrugged. I didn’t know that. Why would I care? High School was only a means to an end. The end was escape from home.