Fireflies: A Katie Bell Mystery (book 1)

by BG Archer

  He nodded, popping his ice cream spoon back in his mouth.

  They continued to walk around for the better part of an hour, till it was close to ten and Katie could feel the returning weariness of a long day beginning to press at the edges of her eyes as it always did when she was ready for a break.

  She hugged her father and let him walk her back to her car, which she had parked across the street from the Italian restaurant, in a local bar’s parking lot.

  Arthur stopped in his tracks as she unlocked the Toyota, because of who he saw exiting the bar.

  He was twenty pounds heavier than when Arthur had last seen him, but Dimitri Markovic was good at leaving an impression on anybody he actually came into contact with. Dimitri was with another man that looked like he was in his mid twenties, and also like trouble. He had a shaved head and held himself the way someone who had military experience would.

  After 9/11 when the FBI was basically one hundred percent focused on terrorism, Arthur had been loaned out to the crime devision, and that was where he had run into Dimitri. At the time Dimitri had been a heavy hitter for the Russian mob. He had specialized in making people disappear as well as high profile robberies, like banks and high-end jewelry stores. When Arthur had finally gone back to his department, Dimitri had fled back to whatever dark hole he normally lived in.

  Arthur tapped Katie on the shoulder and pointed at the passenger side of her Camry.

  "I'm going with you for a second," he said.

  Katie looked at her father for a moment, clearly confused until she saw the look in his eyes.

  She didn't know what had suddenly changed, but Katie knew when it was time to do as her father told her to.

  Katie got in and unlocked the passenger door and he slipped in. She put the keys in the ignition and Arthur put his arm on her wrist, stopping her from starting the engine.

  "Not yet. Look at me like we're talking about something," he said keeping his eyes on his daughter.

  "Okay, but you want me to be looking at something else?"

  Katie may still not fully understand what was going on, but she knew how to play catch up with him fast.

  “See the guy leaving the bar? The one who looks like a total thug?"

  His daughter's eyes flicker away before returning to him.

  "Yep.”

  "They're currently talking by a Nissan Z.”

  "Any chance you can get your phone out and take a picture of them?"

  "Not without the flash going off and drawing some serious attention.”

  "Can you read the license plate?"

  "Yeah."

  "Good, write it down for me."

  Katie did, and texted it to her father.

  "There you go."

  "Thanks. You can drive me to my car, I'm one block over."

  As they drove out of the parking lot and passed Dimitri and the unknown man, Arthur raised his BlackBerry to the window took a picture with the flash turned off.

  The picture wouldn't win any awards, but it was enough (he hoped) to run through facial recognition software back at the office.

  Katie parked her car in front of her dad's but left the engine running.

  "You wanna tell me what that was all about?"

  He shrugged. "Just a hunch."

  “That's all you’re giving me?"

  He smiled and nodded. "At the moment, honey, yeah."

  "Okay, Daddy. Thanks for dinner."

  She kissed him on the cheek and let him get out of the car and head to his own.

  Her phone chirped, a text from Gideon.

  What r you up to?

  She was unimpressed by the shorthand of “are” but impressed he at least spelled out you.

  Driving back from the city, why?

  She texted as she drove, a habit she knew was awful, but frankly Katie firmly believed that as long as one hand was on the wheel and her eyes were on the road she was fine. The iPhone keyboard was a little harder to text without looking, but she managed well.

  She had never been in a car accident. Aside from the rare time in the previous year where she had had one drink, (and one drink only) Katie also never drank and drove.

  She was feeling slightly annoyed her father had not given her more to go on with the strange behavior, that frankly having grown up with him was not that strange at all. But keeping information from her still irritated Katie to no end. Though dinner and dessert had been delicious, and it was very good to see him.

  The question of course was did she want a second portion of dessert tonight? She was certainly tempted, though Tiffany and her had discussed watching a movie…

  Katie chose a second dessert.

  "You want anything? I've got beer and wine," Gideon offered, but she shook her head no.

  "I'm good, thank you. Usually you invite the girl back after the party, not just on a random night.”

  “Usually the party doesn’t end in a murder,” he said, moving into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator.

  Katie followed him. Another thought occurred to Gideon and he looked back at her.

  “You have a usually?” he asked as he pulled out a bottle of Heineken and popped the top off.

  Katie looked at him for a long moment in silence as he took a sip from the beer and made his way over to her, his face mere inches from her.

  He raised an eyebrow.

  "Yes?"

  "Thanks for having me over."

  "Thanks for coming," he said, before taking another sip.

  Katie wanted to kiss him, and under different circumstances would have just reached out and kissed him, but this was all still new territory for her.

  It didn't make Katie uncomfortable, rather she was just fascinated by it all, curiosity of this new kind of dynamic was at least part of the fun.

  "You wanna see my bedroom?"

  She nodded.

  He led her, one hand taking hers and the other still holding the frosted green beer bottle, down the wooden hallway.

  An hour later she rolled off of him in the bed. It was a large queen that was far more comfortable than her bed and equally wonderful to lie on her back on (though she had found that out several times over the course of the previous hour).

  Katie was hot, sore, and her annoyance at her father had long since passed her mind. She was also thirsty.

  She looked at Gideon who currently had his eyes closed and kissed his cheek.

  "Do you mind if I get some water?”

  His eyes popped open. "How rude of me, let me get it."

  "I can get it."

  "No, don't let me be a douche-bag"

  She smiled and shrugged.

  "Okay."

  He got up and left the bedroom.

  Katie closed her eyes and felt her heartbeat begin to slow down to a less cardiovascular rhythm, and enjoyed how relaxed she felt.

  The sex had been better than the first two times, though since she was actually fully sober this time it was much easier to go over it in her head. Gideon was an absolute beast in the bed, but also very compassionate and listened well. The whole experience was incredibly satisfying. He returned, still slick with sweat and absolutely gorgeous naked, and smiled before handing her the glass of water.

  Katie drank it in three long gulps. She set the glass down on the night stand. She looked at Gideon. He was still naked, clearly comfortable in his own skin. It was nice, because as much as she had her share of insecurities, at the end of the day, Katie felt pretty comfortable in her skin as well.

  Gideon was sitting on the bed next to her, his eyes half closed. Katie moved to him and his eyes opened more. This time it felt right with her kissing him first.

  He didn’t seem to mind in the slightest.

  23

  10:14AM Monday, Oct 8th

  Arthur was off that day and stopped at his favorite food kart for a smoothie before heading back home.

  When he arrived he found something he was looking for but did not expect to see so soon. His image search had been
completed on the blurry photo he had taken of the man with Dimitri Markovic.

  The advantage of being one of the bosses was that he could still easily log into the FBI database on his home computer, and unlike a lot of his peers around his age, his computer skills were not lacking. As far as Arthur was concerned, it was just another very important skill set to have in the tool kit of fighting crime. Relying on the younger agents to do it seemed both lazy and borderline incompetent. Arthur prided himself on having neither of those traits.

  The face was a seventy-five percent match, but Arthur knew it was a correct ID as soon as he saw the face. Vincent Whyte. Twenty-nine, he'd served five years in a maximum security prison up north for a bank robbery where he'd killed three people, including a security guard.

  Arthur’s instincts about him had been right too. He had been an Army ranger and had served one tour in Afghanistan and one in Iraq during the initial invasion in 2003. He’d been dishonorably discharged for what was titled “aggressive force.”

  Once he was released from the military, he soon began his life of crime, and apparently he had been quite good at it. The reason he had been released early was the prosecutor that had tried his case had been convicted of taking bribes eighteen months prior, and his cases for the past six years had been thrown out.

  Whyte had only gotten caught because the driver had been busted two months later for drug possession and ratted him out. Whyte had been suspected of a half a dozen other robberies including several high tech office buildings and an art gallery. In prison he was suspected to have killed two gang members and was considered both respected and feared. He generally kept to himself but when triggered was very much a loose cannon.

  The computer had made another interesting connection. There was a five-point connection between Corey Cox and Vincent Whyte. They had served together and there was known communication between them well after Whyte had left the military. Certainly something to pass on to Agent Pilsner.

  Arthur read all the files on Vincent Whyte carefully and saved them to his hard drive before printing them as well. His desktop (A twoyear-old twenty-seven-inch iMac) was located in the study downstairs. On one wall of the study were two bookcases filled with both reference books and his favorite classics. On the opposite wall was a giant corkboard that currently had all the relevant files on the closed case pinned up. He added a picture of Vincent Whyte next to a picture of Dimitri Markovic on the board and stepped back, looking at it all.

  Katie didn't look at the thumb drive till Tuesday evening. Tiffany was out at the gym swimming. The whole school was officially (and unofficially) in mourning over Dan Reedman's death. It had only taken forty-eight hours for it to appear that he had been perhaps the greatest person anyone at the school had ever met. Ever.

  Katie rolled her eyes and kept her thoughts to herself. Untimely deaths always caused people to act like this, especially so when they were a bit of a celebrity. Though she didn't know the man, she doubted he was quite that saintly. He played college football for God sakes. What Katie did care about was finding out exactly why he had been murdered in such a brutal fashion. She cared especially considering there were at present no clear suspects. Under normal circumstances she would have no way of knowing that, but during Katie's trip the previous afternoon to the police department it became very obvious. Unlike her peers that had been interviewed, she knew her way around a law enforcement building and was not intimidated by someone who carried a gun. It was clear they were just as baffled by why as she was, and as each day went by she was beginning to have a growing gut feeling that this was not a usual murder.

  Which led her to be very mindful and careful before she plugged in the thumb drive, because while it could just as easily be some porn or songs, Katie doubted it.

  Her instincts were right.

  It was just after seven when she plugged the silver drive into the side of her Sony VAIO laptop, and after a few seconds of the drive waking up, she could see an icon on her desktop that simply read Project Eight. She double clicked on the thumb drive and again it took her computer a second before a password screen popped up. She considered for a moment and then punched in password, 12345, and a series of the twenty-five most common passwords used, all of which Katie had saved conveniently in a word doc she had pulled off the web back in high school.

  None of them worked.

  Katie tried to copy the contents to her computer, but it wouldn't allow her to do that either.

  Next Katie tried running a decryption program she had gotten from her father. It wasn't professional grade, but anything relatively weak would be broken within an hour or so. She watched the progress bar beginning to trudge along and opened a can of Red Bull. She had already gone through two four packs at the store and now in week three was on her third. She sipped it while getting caught up on her psychology class reading, (her third time reading through that particular chapter). Forty-five minutes later her computer chimed and Katie got up from her bed to check the status bar. Disk error, unable to break encryption, the screen prompt read.

  Katie frowned. That had never happened before. Very few people came up with decent passwords, and to have a civilian have a password her program couldn't break was extremely unlikely.

  Katie wasn't the biggest computer geek, but she downplayed how much she knew. Arthur always had programing and cyber protection books around, and she had developed a habit of reading what he left laying around.

  There had been more than one occasion in high school when she had used the password breaking software in not what would be considered a completely legal manner. But it had always been (at least this is what Katie told herself) justified. She never abused it.

  One thing was for certain though, if her program couldn't break the encryption, the police department wouldn't be able to either. Katie considered for a moment going to her father, but knew that he would be too pissed that she was tampering with a police investigation to actually be of help.

  There was a third option. She could talk to other non-law-enforcement experts in the field. Or as the media liked to call them, hackers.

  Her favorite and best resource was her old computer lab partner from high school, Finn Anderson. He was currently taking the quarter off to explore Thailand. She jumped on Facebook and checked his page. He had updated recently with pictures of him with various girls.

  The computer chimed again. He had actually just logged on.

  She brought up messenger and thought for a moment, fingers over the keyboard as she considered what she wanted to say.

  How's your extended vacation treating you?

  Finn responded almost instantly. Katie always considered that perhaps he had had a bit of a crush on her but aside from the occasional flirting they had remained platonic.

  I'm loving every second of it, though the current hangover is making me the opposite of productive. How's school treating you?

  It's okay, but I could use some advice. Let's say I needed a fellow expert in the circles you run online, would you have anyone local for me to contact.

  All business with you, what, no time for foreplay? Despite herself, Katie smiled. At least traveling wasn't changing Finn too much.

  I'm a girl on a schedule. She responded, her fingers making the familiar clickety-clack on the keyboard.

  Fair enough. She waited. I've got a name for you. I’ll message them and they'll get in contact with you.

  When?

  Soon. Gotta go, someone’s distracting me with a backrub. You would like it here, so much sun it's lovely. Drinks are fantastic too.

  Thanks. I’ll consider it.

  He signed off seconds later, and Katie went back to her actual homework.

  24

  10:30AM Monday, October 22nd

  Katie looked at the paper with a B staring back at her and cursed under her breath. It was her essay that the professor had given her, on global imperialism of all things, and she had written it in two hours with an extra hour for edits. She had bee
n relatively impressed with her work, and had expected as usual an A. However, that was not the case, and Katie was irritated about it. More than irritated, she was actually furious.

  She stuffed the paper in her backpack and trudged away from class.

  Katie checked her phone and found that she had a new friend request from a girl named Stacy Glass, as well as a message from her.

  A mutual friend told me that we should be in contact with each other. What do you think of meeting up sometime in the next two hours and getting coffee?

  Katie messaged back and recommended the coffee shop. By the time she got back to her room and dropped off her backpack, she had already received a response from Stacy confirming that was agreeable.

  Katie took the paper out of her backpack and dropped it on top of her computer face up. On the one hand, she didn't like having such a basic class push her, on the other hand, she did like being singled out and worked with, and her professor was clearly razor sharp. She liked that. A challenge was always a good thing especially when it came to her education, especially when that was what she was there for. Perhaps these four years would be more educational than she thought, and not quite so easy.

  3:47PM

  Katie ordered a latte at the shop and took a seat outside. The sky was overcast and looking precariously close to developing a wet complexion. Katie liked her green Army jacket she was wearing and didn't really want to shed it to just her neon pink thermal she was wearing underneath.

  Katie felt Stacy behind her before she saw her. The other girl hovered behind her for a moment before moving into her peripheral vision and taking a seat across from Katie.

  She was tall and beautiful in a type of viking-warrior-woman way. Stacy had dark brown hair and fierce green eyes. They were cat like the way they flickered. She wore a dark blue scarf wrapped around a black pea coat and dark chestnut knee-high boots, and white fingerless gloves. She had a laptop in one hand and a metal water bottle in her other.