Pitch Black

by Parrish, Leslie

  It wasn’t the first time Lily had heard snide comments from others in the bureau. Wyatt had burned bridges and made enemies by blowing the whistle on some of his colleagues. The evidence tampering and manipulation had run deep, from the forensics lab all the way up to the deputy director’s office, and a whole lot of heads had rolled. The friends of those heads placed the blame squarely on Blackstone, who’d done nothing more than the right thing.

  “Why do you ask? Hoping to nose in the way you did the last time, with Satan’s Playground?” The retort didn’t come from Lily, but from Brandon, who had obviously been listening. Double damn.

  “Cole,” Anspaugh said with a brief nod.

  “I’m not sure you guys have thanked us enough for handing that case to you on a platter.”

  Anspaugh’s body stiffened; he hadn’t liked taking somebody else’s leftovers, especially since the cyber playground had been belly-up before he’d gotten hold of the case. “Good thing you didn’t keep it yourselves. You mighta cost another teenager her head.”

  Direct hit. Brandon’s eyes narrowed behind his wire-framed glasses. Lily instinctively put a hand on his arm, though she felt the sting of the accusation, too. Because it was true. They hadn’t found the Reaper in time to save the last young woman who’d crossed his path. Her body had been found in the Pennsylvania woods a few days after her kidnapping.

  “We were just leaving,” she said.

  “Yeah, right. Let’s hit it, Tiger Lily,” Brandon muttered, snapping his gum as if he were trying to save his own tongue from being bitten off.

  Anspaugh, pleased with himself for inspiring a reaction, turned his attention back to her. “You should stick around. We’re getting somewhere. It’s been a long trail, but we’re close to isolating Lovesprettyboys. We know his general vicinity; now we’re zoning in on his real identity.”

  Lily had longed for that day for months. But now, she had another case to work. Her team needed her, and she wouldn’t have the time to help anyone else until the Professor was captured. “Keep me posted, okay? I’d like to hear how it pans out.”

  His Cro-Magnon brow furrowed in confusion. Lily didn’t wait for him to ask why she was acting as if she had only an impartial interest. Her hand still gripping Brandon’s arm, she tugged him toward the exit, not releasing him until they’d left the room.

  “Asshole,” Brandon snapped.

  “Yes.”

  “Acting like Wyatt should hide and pretend he’s not even around anymore.”

  “That’s exactly what some people want.”

  Wyatt Blackstone had gone from rising superstar to ostracized outcast. After he’d blown the whistle and received public commendations, he had quietly been shoved into the Cyber Division. Handed a Cyber Action Team nobody thought would succeed, he’d been expected to keep his mouth shut and put in his time for the next twenty years until his retirement, never to be heard from again.

  Fortunately her new boss wasn’t wired that way. He was given a job to do, and by God, he was going to do it.

  “He should have gotten recognition after the Reaper case. Not to mention support and resources for the team.” Brandon sounded as frustrated as Lily felt when the subject came up.

  He was absolutely right. But it hadn’t happened. Oh, they’d gotten credit for solving it, but the investigation hadn’t been deemed entirely successful. The team had known someone was going to be killed and had known how it would happen, yet they still hadn’t been able to prevent it. Plus, once they had identified him, the perpetrator had leaped out of the hands of justice by leaping into his own noose.

  “So what’s with you and Anspaugh?” Brandon asked as they walked down the corridor. “You cheating on me? Messing around with somebody else’s hard drive?”

  She laughed softly. Brandon was hot, but he was also young, probably no more than twenty-five or -six. Not to mention a player. Their relationship was strictly platonic, meaning she could appreciate his hotness without actually being burned and enjoy his playfulness without being played.

  “Seriously. What’s up?”

  “I’ve been lending a hand now and then on the Lovesprettyboys investigation.”

  His trendy glasses couldn’t conceal the sympathetic look in his eyes. Brandon knew Lily’s story; everyone on the team did, except the new guy, Lambert. “I see.”

  Immediately defensive, she explained, “I asked Wyatt if I could work it on my own time before we caught the Reaper.”

  She should have known Brandon wouldn’t leave it alone. One brow arched in frank disbelief. “And he said yes?”

  Catching her bottom lip between her teeth, she hesitated before replying, “Yes. He did.”

  He pressed harder. “Recently? Even after the site went dark and the investigation turned to the users of it, not the owners?”

  She didn’t answer. Here was where it got particularly sticky.

  “I get it. And begging forgiveness is easier than asking permission?”

  “Something like that.” She didn’t ask Brandon to cover for her. She wasn’t totally sure she’d done anything wrong, but just in case, she wasn’t about to drag him into it with her.

  “Okay. I guess you know what you’re doing. Please, though, don’t let it get to you.” His handsome face growing more serious, he added, “If it starts to get in your head, promise me you’ll walk away.”

  A laugh, small and bitter, escaped her mouth. “Oh, my friend, you don’t even want to know the kinds of things that go on in my head.”

  She began walking again, telling him without words the subject was closed. Though Lily appreciated his warning, and knew it came from a good place, she was far beyond being warned. He hadn’t worn her shoes, lived what she’d lived. Few people had or ever would in their lifetime.

  I’m doing okay. As long as I have the job, I’m fine.

  Yeah. The job. It kept her moving forward, one foot at a time, one case at a time, one scumbag at a time.

  There would be more than that someday. There had to be. They said after every nightmare came another dawn, and Lily Fletcher believed it.

  She had to. Because God help her if it wasn’t true.

  Sixteen and dead.

  Sixteen and murdered.

  Sam couldn’t speak for a moment after the FBI special agent in her kitchen broke the news. In fact, she couldn’t quite breathe. Or hear. Or think.

  Rising from her chair, she walked as if in a daze to the sink. She leaned over it, turned on the faucet, and splashed cold water on her face, needing to clear her head and get a grip on her emotions. Sam kept her back to the man whose professional expression had not entirely hidden his sympathy. He knew she had barely known Ryan Smith. Yet he also knew she was devastated by his death. Which said either that the man had very good intuition, or that Sam was very bad at disguising her feelings.

  “Are you all right?” he asked from behind her.

  Sam nodded, saying nothing as she grabbed a paper towel and dried her face. The cold water had snapped her out of her moment of shock, though she didn’t turn around right away. She wanted a little more time, a second or two to pretend she had merely imagined a nice young kid she knew had been murdered.

  Then she remembered something. “Wilmington.” She spun around. “I saw a story blurb online about missing Delaware teens found in a frozen pond.”

  He nodded once, confirming the suspicion.

  She shuddered. What a horrible way to die. “How can you be so sure he didn’t fall through the ice? How do you know he was murdered?”

  “Trust me.”

  Two words she never wanted to hear coming out of a man’s mouth again. “I don’t even know you.”

  “I mean, trust me when I say there is no way it was an accident.” His jaw flexing, he bit out a reluctant explanation. “They were bound.”

  She closed her eyes briefly as her stomach churned and her throat tightened.

  “They,” she mumbled, acknowledging the rest of it. “Were they random victims? Or
was the other boy someone Ryan knew?”

  “His best friend.”

  Two teenage boys. This was more awful by the moment. “His friend—not the friend he was writing to ask me about? Not the one who was being taken in by an e-mail scheme?”

  Agent Lambert nodded, his sympathy still evident. And suddenly she realized why he was here. Why he was asking these questions. Why he had come to her. It was more than the fact that they’d exchanged a few e-mails. Much more.

  “My God. Were they killed by whoever was trying to scam him?”

  He didn’t answer her question, countering with several of his own. “Is there anything else you can remember about your interactions with Ryan Smith? Did he mention even in passing where he might be headed that night or who he was meeting?”

  “That night?” she asked, gulping as she realized the hits hadn’t stopped coming. “The night he IM’d me?”

  “Yes.”

  She shuffled to her chair and sank onto it. Like most people, Sam read the news; she was aware awful things happened to people every single day. She’d been touched by tragedy herself, with the accidental death of her father when she’d been only eleven.

  But these were just kids. Nice, friendly kids whose only crimes had been gullibility and loyalty. Kids who’d ended up on the bottom of a frozen lake, never to go to their senior prom or set off for college or meet the right girl and get married. All that possibility—gone.

  And if she hadn’t gone out for a loaf of bread, a gallon of milk, and some damned ice cream, and had been home to answer Ryan Smith’s instant message, they might be alive today.

  “There’s nothing you could have done,” Lambert said. He moved behind her, but she didn’t turn around, not even when he dropped a hand onto her shoulder and gently squeezed.

  It was the first intimate touch she had received from a man in almost a year.

  Even Uncle Nate—her late father’s partner in the force, whom her mother leaned on for everything except romance—did nothing more than shake her hand when they saw each other. As if he recognized the mental barricade she had erected between herself and any man.

  This man hadn’t seen that barricade. And Sam found herself going very still, trying to decide how she felt about it.

  When she’d pictured being touched again by a male of the species, she’d had typical divorcée daydreams. Running into her ex and his skank-ho with Josh Duhamel on one arm and Johnny Depp on the other. That would be good. Not this. Not comfort from a complete stranger.

  But then, never in her darkest dreams had she envisioned getting caught up in a double murder investigation, or that her heart would feel on the verge of breaking over a sweet teenager she barely knew.

  “You can’t blame yourself,” the agent said, his hand still heavy and warm on her shoulder. “The scam was convincing. I think the other boy would have gone no matter what you said, and Ryan would have tagged along with him. They had that kind of friendship.”

  She nodded, appreciating the words, knowing they could be true. She had Tricia, her own through-thick-or-thin friend, and they would do anything for each other. So maybe her being home and trying to talk Ryan out of going with his buddy by IM wouldn’t have changed a thing.

  But maybe it would have.

  “You okay?”

  Sam tore her thoughts off the dark imaginings of the boys’ final moments and became more aware of the pressure of his strong hand on her shoulder. It didn’t feel threatening or inappropriate. This man was a stranger, however. Besides, she had spent the last several months telling herself she would never lean on another man again.

  Still, the small bit of human connection felt nice. Very nice.

  Before she could say a word, a sharp knock intruded from the front of the apartment. It was repeated a split second later, the impatience of the person audible in the hard punctuation of knuckle on wood.

  Agent Lambert stepped away. Looking up, Sam saw a quick frown cross his face and knew he regretted stepping out of professional bounds, even if only for a moment. Sam couldn’t bring herself to regret it, though. The quieting touch had existed long enough for her to swallow down her emotions and stop herself from bursting into tears at the utter senselessness of Ryan Smith’s murder.

  “I’m sure that’s my partner.”

  “I would bet she’s going to be in a bad mood,” Sam said, glad for the distraction. “No way did she get off without a ticket.”

  “We’re law enforcement on official business. He might have made her jump through a hoop or two, but there’s no way she got cited.”

  Maybe. But those hoops had probably reached his not-petite partner’s chin.

  Leaving the kitchen, she went to the door and opened it. The attractive female FBI agent wore a scowl and her lips were thin. “Special Agent Jackie Stokes,” she said, sticking out her hand. “Sorry for the disruption.”

  Sam shook it, liking the other woman’s strong grip, not to mention the look of intelligence in her brown eyes. Sam suspected the gruff Agent Stokes was an excellent foil for her too-handsome-for-his-own-good partner. Stokes could undoubtedly intimidate a suspect with her clipped tone and hard stare. Just by virtue of his looks, Lambert could probably say please and have any woman ready to spill her guts about anything he asked.

  Except her. She was immune to anything resembling charm. She’d had an inoculation the size of a two-liter bottle of Coke injected into her veins courtesy of her ex-husband. Masculine charm was no threat to her at all.

  But niceness, like the comforting drop of a hand on a shoulder? Well, with too much of that she could be in trouble.

  “I’ve filled Mrs. Dalton in on our investigation,” Agent Lambert said. He’d followed Sam into the living room, which seemed to shrink around the three of them.

  Sam had liked the confined space after her divorce, liked having almost no cleaning to do, no monstrous, five-thousand-square-foot house to take care of anymore. That, however, was before she’d realized she’d be entertaining FBI agents in her dinky city apartment.

  “Coffee?” she asked Agent Stokes, who had removed her long overcoat and shivered lightly. The woman nodded once.

  Going to pour her a cup, Sam half listened from the kitchen as the male FBI agent filled his colleague in on what he’d learned since his arrival. Special Agent Stokes appeared as interested in the bogus-check angle as he had been, and even more in the instant messages.

  Sam’s fingers tightened on the stoneware mug when she thought of Ryan’s desperate IMs that had gone unread. But she forced the emotion away, knowing there was no time to deal with it now. Later, when she was alone, she’d let herself dwell on the regret. On the guilt. Now, though, she needed to try to gain momentary absolution from the guilt in any way she could—starting by doing anything possible to help solve the boys’ murder.

  By the time Sam returned, holding the steaming cup, the two agents were seated on her sofa, poring over an open folder and flipping through pages made yellow with sticky notes and file tabs. In their excitement, they’d shoved her clean laundry out of the way. It sat on the cushion beside Alec Lambert.

  Perfect. Considering there was a plain, serviceable white bra sticking out of the pile, she couldn’t say that made her day. And she didn’t even want to think about whether either agent had read the front of the pink nightshirt that read, GRADUATE OF THE SCHOOL OF ALL MEN SUCK, a divorce gift from Tricia.

  So stop living like a slob. She would. Starting the minute these two left. Which, judging by their intense conversation, they didn’t seem in any hurry to do.

  “If Jason deposited the check, we’ll be able to find who sent it to him,” Stokes was saying, animated and visibly energized by the idea.

  Sam grunted, and both pairs of eyes shifted in her direction.

  Feeling intrusive, even though they’d made themselves at home on her couch and her laundry, she murmured, “The check would be fake. Fake name, fake account, coming from nowhere, going nowhere.” When they merely stared, she
added, “I guess it’s possible he left a fingerprint; you guys would know more about that than I would. But from the sound of it, this killer’s not stupid, so I can’t picture him being so careless.”

  “He’s not,” Agent Lambert muttered, sounding frustrated.

  Almost wishing she’d kept her mouth shut, Sam quickly said, “Look, forget it; go after the check angle. I could be wrong; maybe he’s not as good at check fraud as most of these lowlifes are.”

  “It’s that common?” Lambert asked, though, as a cyber crimes expert, he should know.

  Sam laughed bitterly. “You wouldn’t believe how common. I could paper my ex’s house with the fake certified checks passed via Craigslist sales alone. There are warnings everywhere on the site, but people still fall for the ‘My secretary sent you a check for a thousand dollars more than the asking price by mistake. Please cash it and wire me back the difference’ line.”

  “Sure.” Stokes appeared familiar with the scheme. “Then they cash it, send back the money, the check bounces, and the bank comes after them to repay it.”

  “Exactly. If there was a good way to stop the fraud and trace the criminals who perpetrate it, you FBI types would be all over it already and would have a way to catch this murderer.”

  The two FBI types exchanged a quick look, obviously hearing her icy tone. Sam couldn’t help it. The FBI had never been her biggest fan, even though they were on the same side, and, frankly, the feeling was mutual. They’d been no help to her family three years ago, when everything had gone so wrong.

  Maybe she should thank them, though. If not for the callousness of the agents she’d gone to for help when her grandmother had been taken in by some ruthless Internet con men, Sam might not ever have launched her new career. She might not have become an Internet vigilante, the author of a best-selling book. And might not have been able to afford to tell Samuel to shove his alimony money the same place he’d shoved his broken marriage vows.

  Not that she wouldn’t happily trade it all to have her grandmother alive and well today.