Fireflies: A Katie Bell Mystery (book 1)

by BG Archer

  She said, “Nice to meet you, Katie.”

  “Likewise."

  "So ,I've heard you require some tech support?”

  "It's a possibility, but desecration and sensitivity is important around … this."

  Katie held up the thumb drive.

  Stacy took the thumb drive and set it between them on the coffee table. She set her 11-inch MacBook Air down in front of her and opened it up, before plugging in the drive.

  Stacy's eyes skimmed over her screen and she typed quickly, her fingers moving like she had had classical training as a pianist.

  “Good protection," Stacy murmured, and tapped a few more keys.

  "I ran a program," Katie said, looking at the taller woman.

  "Crack It or Keyless?"

  "Crack It."

  "Useful for basic stuff, but whoever wrote this program took their time. There's a lot of personality and flare to this thing," Stacy said, as she continued to type.

  "Well, can you?" Katie inquired.

  Stacy looked up for the first time since she had slipped the thumb drive into the side of the Air.

  "Can I what?"

  "Crack it?"

  Stacy brow furrowed, like she was insulted by the question. "Of course I can. But it could take some time."

  "How long?"

  Stacy considered. "Give me a week."

  "Okay. And how much?"

  Stacy shrugged. "For data mining I usually charge about a hundred, but the thing is, you were referred to by a good mutual friend, so this time it's on the house. Buy me a tea when we meet, say same time next week?"

  Katie nodded. "That works for me."

  "Good."

  "One last thing, make sure you don't lose that. The data as far as I know only exists on that."

  Stacy took a sip of her tea and looked at her screen.

  "This isn't yours, is it?"

  "Let's just say it fell into my hands. I feel obligated to find out what's on it. It's important."

  Stacy nodded. "I'll keep that in mind."

  Arthur was eating a roast beef sandwich from his favorite Italian bistro at his desk when Agent Fields knocked on his door.

  "You're going to want to see this," she said.

  "See what?"

  She entered the room and made her way to his side of the desk.

  "Mind if I pull something up?"

  He shook his head.

  She leaned over the desk and brought up a website on his computer screen. It had a random and nonsensical address that Arthur recognized as a Russian hosted website. Online sickos loved it because it was all about cults of death, a major fan site for currently living serial killers, pedophiles, and anything else that made them only edgy. A good deal of it was harmless and just angry men posting, but the agency monitored it closely because every so often they got real leads from people boasting.

  Fields quickly scrolled through one of the sub-forums and brought up a thread about the cult of Snow.

  Arthur noted with some disgust that there were over five hundred posts about him. Worse, all of them were positive, talking about the amazingness of the man, his brilliance. Fields scrolled back two pages till she found what she was looking for, a short video clip uploaded from another video hosting site. She clicked play.

  As soon as the frame began to move through a familiar broken-down garage, Arthur felt that familiar sense of dread. He knew that it was going to pan on a very alive and tied up Tori Watson who was drugged and out of it strapped to the hood of her own car.

  The cameraman hovered over her as she struggled for a good ten seconds, before the video ended.

  Tori was not yet cut, but that video was made mere moments before she started to be.

  The next post was from the same user and it simply said in all caps LOOK AT WHAT I DID.

  Fields opened her mouth to say something, but Arthur silenced her by simply pressing play again, watching it through once more, and then again one last time before turning to his colleague.

  "When?"

  "Posted last night. Tech’s already established that the user is based in the country, though aside from those two posts the user hasn't written anything online. In fact they registered with the site last week, but we can't trace them."

  "Why not?"

  “You want the short answer or the longer technical answer.”

  Arthur looked down at his sandwich. “I mean, this is a really good sandwich, but the video already kind of ruined my appetite. I’ll take longer and technical.”

  “They're going through at least a dozen proxies and I have a feeling are using a burner.”

  "Meaning?"

  “They picked up a new laptop from a box store. They only used the computer for the task at hand and probably uploaded it from a coffee shop or motel. They still covered their tracks though, using enough proxies the tech guys will take another day to track down a general location, and that could still be a five-mile radius or so."

  "So what do you think this means?"

  Fields swallowed. "This was posted last night. They are sending us a message."

  "Would your assessment of the situation indicate that this could be the second part of a team? Perhaps Seaborn was working with someone else?"

  "That would be my first guess. Either that or…”

  "Or he was set up.”

  “That's a disturbing thought."

  Arthur shrugged. "We're dealing with serial killers. Is there anything about any of this that's not disturbing?”

  "You raise a good point."

  "Just like to bring a little perspective when I can."

  "Oh you brought some perspective all right. I hope when I've been an agent as long as you have I'm not this cynical."

  Arthur nodded. "For your sake, I very much hope you're right."

  Fields was about to leave when Arthur thought of something and turned her attention back on her boss.

  “We could find out what the video was shot with.”

  He didn’t track her for a second. “What do you mean?”

  "I mean Tech can run a trace if it was shot with a low definition camera or something similar to that. We know she had a Droid Razor, let's see if the killer shot it on that. It would make sense of why the phone hasn’t shown up.”

  “Good. Make it happen.”

  Katie rolled away from him considering the series of choices that had led her to that moment. Luke leaned over and kissed her shoulder, an old habit she used to love but currently made her cringe.

  It was the day following her delivery of the thumb drive to Stacy, and after not hearing from Gideon all week and him promptly ignoring her in class, Luke's frequent calling and the memory of what he felt like had gotten the better of Katie's judgment. She knew exactly what she was getting with him, even if she was aware that was selfish of her.

  What she couldn't stand was that it felt like a classic case of two steps forward and three steps back. This year was about the new, not the old, and everything about them meeting to discuss his latest painting. (A pastel redraw of a private picture he had taken of her, shirtless but her front covered in a sheet, the picture from behind showing her naked back with the white sheet draping her butt.)

  Normally that kind of thing wouldn't bother her too much, she was human and had needs just like anyone else. Sex was important to Katie, it allowed her to be vulnerable without having to actually talk about anything, something she couldn't stand most of the time. But using Luke as a crutch, especially now that it was over and he was doing what he always did when it was over, which was snuggle, just made her want to jump out of her skin. She didn't want to just lay there, because the truth of the matter was her mind was already on the chapter five she wanted to re-read, and more importantly, on the thumb drive.

  It was after midnight when Katie returned to the dorm, sneaking into her room quietly as she expected Tiffany to be asleep. Instead, she found her friend marking up the very paper her professor had made remarks on earlier in the week.

>   "What are you doing?" Katie asked, her tone far more defensive than she had intended.

  The natural blonde looked up, clearly startled by her roommate's appearance, so engrossed in the task at hand.

  "I just was looking over your essay. Pretty good. Whoever this professor is though, he's awesome."

  Katie tilted her head a little to the side but moved forward. "How so?"

  "This essay is well written, anyone else would have given it an A, but this guy, he's pushing you. I have got to take a class with him."

  Katie took a seat at her desk directly across from Tiffany and folded her legs unconsciously.

  "Tiffany, what are you majoring in?"

  Tiffany got a far away look on her face and smiled a little, clearly caught up in what could only be a dream. "English. All the way. I'd like to minor in creative writing too. Of course there's a certain precedent for me to go into the family business, but for my undergrad that's what I want to do. This is my four years, you know? If they're going to send me all the way out here."

  Katie nodded. She got it.

  "What about you?"

  "Probably pre-med, that's what my mom majored in."

  "That's awesome, but is that what you want to major in?"

  Katie thought about it for a moment. "I guess so. Never really thought about it that way. For now it's just general ed. I have enough on my plate…"

  “I think we all do after the Green Leafs party. I know it’s been almost a month…”

  “But?”

  “I can't get the image of Dan Reedman burning out of my head. It's such a shame too, he was such a stud and a star. Even if the rumors about him were true."

  Katie looked at her friend. "Rumors?"

  “He was a bit of a man whore. Such a shame too, his girlfriend Amelia seemed pretty nice at the party. I saw her downstairs totally wasted right before…” Tiffany shuddered. “You know he was suspected of doping at some point last summer? No proof, but there's certainly suspicion. Maybe that’s what got him killed. I mean have you heard anything from the police? I bet they are just as stumped as the rest of us are.“

  "If he did he was stupid to do so. They always get caught."

  Tiffany shook her head. “Not if you’re well connected. Darling, some of the things I’ve heard and seen at my father’s work parties … besides, there's always another drug. I should know, Dad’s got stock in several pharmaceutical companies. I took a tour last fall for a report. It was a huge place, like some secret base in a spy movie."

  Tiffany yawned and got up and grabbed her toiletry kit. She blew Katie a kiss before leaving their room to go get ready for bed, leaving Katie to consider the new information about Dan.

  Katie turned to her computer, waking it up. She did a quick search online for Dan Reedman, or more importantly on his family, and found several things worth making note of. They were upper middle class, but his father had been laid off in the past six months from his job. Dan had been on a full ride, but his grades, to put it generously, were average at best. The whole family was riding on the son turning pro. That kind of pressure could easily have turned someone with natural talent onto something that in the long run was stupid, especially if the short term was so important.

  What Katie wanted to do was go tell the detectives, until she remembered that she couldn't really without getting herself in a great deal of trouble. She had after all stolen evidence and tampered with an ongoing investigation. Not to mention her own father would be pissed.

  It was worth it to continue to investigate on her own. But first she had the chapter to re-read.

  Her phone vibrated in her cargo pants pocket. A text from Gideon, asking what she was up to.

  Katie's thumbs hovered over the keyboard for a long moment before she clicked the phone, blacking the screen. She would deal with him later, though she was happy he had finally texted her, even if it was a booty call. She was fine with that. Gideon may not have been quite as familiar as Luke, but there were different benefits when it came to sleeping with him. There was the fun of something new, and so far it had been good. Being with Gideon was simple. When she was with him, there were none of the complications of sleeping with her long-time ex. At the moment, simplicity was the most important thing to Katie.

  25

  10:36AM Monday, October 29th

  "This is much better, Miss Bell," Professor Browning said handing her back the paper. He was wearing forest green corduroys today and a checkered blue shirt tucked in with a silver tie, and had a dark brown suit coat jacket on the back of his chair.

  It was the following Monday and this time around he had actually just asked from her what the rest of the class had been assigned. It was a very simple two-page research paper on electoral college math. How it worked and why it had been formed.

  Katie had written almost an identical paper her junior year of high school, but for the principle of the exercise she had actually spent two whole hours researching the paper and another two writing the damned thing.

  Now, three days after she had handed it in she was very satisfied with the shiny red A on her paper.

  Her phone whispered to her silently in her coat pocket and she checked it. Gideon again. She had texted with him on a regular basis since last week but had yet to see him in person, she decided that as a little reward to herself she would change that.

  After class, Gideon had wanted to meet at the coffee shop. To Katie’s surprise, he did not greet her as warmly as she had expected.

  "It's been a while," Katie said taking a seat across from him.

  "Sorry, I’ve been taking on more obligations than I know what to do with," Gideon said, taking a sip of his tea.

  She arched an eyebrow. "How so?"

  "I'm a reporter for the Tidings, I don't think I've mentioned that."

  Katie shifted where she was sitting, leaning back a little. “You did, but you were drinking.”

  The Tidings was the school paper and journalism was one of the few respected departments at the school. SCU was known for it.

  "As you know, I helped try to resuscitate Dan, but obviously that didn’t work out.”

  Katie didn't say anything. Gideon correctly assumed it was a sign for him to continue.

  "Now I was pretty focused on just him, but did you see anything that might be useful? There was a brief bio, but we are still reeling from the whole incident and since the police are continuing to just do their thing…"

  "You want to know if I saw anything suspicious."

  "Yeah."

  "Maybe."

  "What do you mean maybe?"

  "I mean if I did see something shouldn't I just report it to the police?”

  "I'm assuming you did. I want to know for my own reasons."

  "You mean for the paper?"

  "Right."

  She considered Gideon for a moment.

  "You didn't like him did you?"

  "I didn't know him. At least not personally.”

  "Not answering the question," Katie said, smiling.

  Gideon grinned back, leaning across the table a little, a twinkle in his eye.

  "No, I suppose I didn’t, did I?"

  "Why should I share information with you if you won't with me? I'm just saying…"

  "I know a few people I like that didn't like him. It's not politically correct to try to dig up dirt but considering what happened to him was so … so brutal, it's definitely not just time to memorialize him as some savior. Well, at the moment it is, but while other people at the paper do that…"

  "You're going to try to figure out what happened."

  “Bingo.”

  It was Katie's turn to pause. The question was, did she really want to share everything with her bed buddy? On some gut level, she trusted Gideon. Of course she found him charming enough to sleep with, but that was still very different than actual trust. Trust was … bigger. Heavier. A responsibility. Katie knew than on some level, Gideon would always come through.

  Still, it was
enough for her to tell him about the man.

  She spoke in short declarative sentences, and he listened intently, with the kind of attention that men his age usually only employed when they were watching sports, playing video games or thinking they would get laid.

  Katie left out the detail about the thumb drive, just as she had with the detectives and her father. There was no need to incriminate herself. She still wasn’t entirely sure why she had grabbed the drive. Getting caught up in matters that didn’t directly concern her was an old bad habit, but being outright self destructive was not.

  After Katie finished, she waited for him to say something but instead he just shook his head and looked out the window of the shop.

  "So what do you think?"

  "It seems like this mysterious figure has just as much motive as anyone else, especially if he was talking to Dan with a raised voice."

  "It wasn't overly obvious or anything, but clearly, something was up. I'm not sure what, but I didn't like it, it's like something was in the air and there was nothing he could do to stop it."

  “Well, it turned out you were right." Gideon said.

  “Yeah, no kidding.”

  Tiffany had texted Katie during her meeting with Gideon, letting her know she was going to be out for the evening. Apparently she had a date with the football player Duncan Stokes she had met at the infamous party. Katie and Gideon made their way back to her dorm room and promptly ripped each other’s clothes off and for the first time, Katie felt fully in charge. It was just as good as the other times, or perhaps even better.

  She stayed on top for the first two rounds and enjoyed gripping his hair (he had great hair), as she rode Gideon, before he rolled over and pushed her face into the pillow. He was not particularly soft that third and final round, but Katie was warmed up and didn't want him to be, and enjoyed Gideon being aggressive.

  After as they lay there she had the strongest craving for a cigarette but skipped it so she could check her email. Still nothing from Stacy.