by Mary Stone
Parrish nodded and glanced down to a piece of paper in his hand. “Well, based on what Mr. O’Connelly brought us, and based on the fact that he found these leads in the middle of a circle of wealthy aristocrats, the knee-jerk assumption would be that he’s a middle-aged man.”
Noah lifted an eyebrow. “But you don’t think he is?”
As Parrish’s eyes met his, he shook his head. “No, I don’t. The world is a different place than it was twenty years ago. These days, there are plenty of rich kids around. Trust fund babies or self-made YouTube stars, either way. There are more of them around than there used to be. Based on the way the killer acted in that video, I don’t think he’s been doing this for long.”
Max turned to the Supervisory Special Agent. “What makes you think he’s not a middle-aged man who just recently discovered the joys of murder?”
Biting his tongue to stave off a sudden sarcastic chortle at the SAC’s candid observation, Noah sipped his can of soda.
Aiden’s expression didn’t change at the challenge. “Serial killers don’t make it to middle age without leaving a trail of bodies behind them. They might just kill animals in that time, but they don’t pick up and start killing human beings at age fifty-something without a history of violence. Our killer is wealthy, white, probably between twenty and thirty. Lives in the city, but not near the area where he’s been poaching his victims.”
“We are dealing with a serial killer, then?” Max asked.
Parrish nodded. “In my opinion, yes. We’re definitely dealing with a serial killer. I considered that the videos might have been more of a sick business venture, but even if that’s how he rationalizes it to himself, he’s a serial killer at heart.”
Miquel Vasquez lifted a hand. “Isn’t there a way to track the payments back to the guy who made the videos? If this is a business venture for him, wouldn’t we be able to follow the money?”
Aiden was shaking his head before Miguel finished. “No. On any website like this, the sellers only accept payment in the form of cryptocurrency. Bitcoins, digital gift cards, things like that. They’re all untraceable. Agent Welford couldn’t make it to this briefing, but she and another agent in Cyber Crimes are chasing down any lead they can find from this site.”
Noah drummed his fingers against the tabletop.
Technology had cracked plenty of cases for them so far, including the Heidi Presley case. But unless they supplemented their technological expertise with good detective work, they wouldn’t get far this time around.
So far, the killer hadn’t left them a series of clues like Presley had.
He stopped drumming his fingers and returned his attention to Max and Aiden. “Maybe it’s time we take a break from the digital trail and see what we can find in person.”
Max’s gray eyes turned curious. “All right, Dalton. I’m listening.”
Leaning back in his chair, Noah spread his hands. “We’ve still got Ryan O’Connelly in that hotel, right? He’s been helping Cyber Crimes monitor that website since he arrived a week ago, and he’s sending any leads he finds directly to them. This is a good strategy, don’t get me wrong. But maybe it’s time he reaches out to the people who told him the rumor in the first place.”
After an approving glance, Winter nodded. “Even if Ryan doesn’t think his contact in that circle knows the gritty details, they might know more than they think. Just because they don’t think it’s useful doesn’t mean it won’t be useful for us.”
Max inclined his chin in Winter’s direction. “That’s good thinking, Agent Black, Agent Dalton. You two go to where Ryan’s staying and hash out a plan. Report back to me with it later this afternoon, and we’ll get this rolling as quickly as we can. Preferably before this sick bastard kidnaps another girl.”
Noah and Winter had called ahead to let Agent Sun Ming know that they planned to stop by to talk to Ryan, but he was still surprised when the door swung open before they even reached it.
Sun’s dark eyes flicked from him to Winter as she held open the door. “Agent Black, Agent Dalton. Afternoon. If it’s all right with you, I’m going to take a walk around the block while you talk to Ryan. It’s beautiful outside, and I’ve been cooped up in here all day.”
With a nod, Noah managed a half-smile. “Sounds good. We’ll be here.”
Though he expected the shorter woman to merely leave the room without another word, she returned the pleasant look. “Thank you. I’ll be back shortly.”
Noah had to fight to keep his eyes from widening. He didn’t interact with Sun often, but in all his previous discussions with her, the take no prisoners attitude had been plain to see.
Then again, the woman had been shot. Not only had she been shot, but she’d been front and center for the mass shooting massacre that had been planned and carried out by Kent Strickland and Tyler Haldane. And sure, Noah had seen combat, but the mass murder of innocent civilians in a shopping mall was far different.
As Noah and Winter stepped out of the short hall and into the suite, Ryan O’Connelly’s blue eyes snapped up from the screen of his laptop.
“Agents.” He pushed himself to stand and extended a hand. “It’s been a few days. How’s the investigation going?”
Shrugging, Noah accepted the handshake. “We’ve got some information compiled on a possible profile for the killer, but we haven’t found anything solid yet.”
“Actually.” Winter took a seat on the arm of the couch. “We were hoping you could help us with that. We’ve been keeping an eye on the forum activity lately, and we appreciate your help with that part of it. But we’ve hit a digital wall, and now we need to go back to the source to see if we can find a new lead.”
A flicker of trepidation passed over Ryan’s face. “Go back to the source? Do you mean you want me to wear a wire and go talk to the people I heard this rumor from?”
Winter’s expression was calm, but resolute. “Yes, that’s exactly what we’re thinking.”
As he returned to his seat, Ryan combed a hand through his dark hair. “That makes good sense, Agents. But I need to ask you something too.”
Noah moved to stand beside Winter. “Okay. Shoot.”
“Look, I was serious when I said I came here because I wanted to help you find this sick bastard. And I still do want to help you find him. But it’s been a week, and I still haven’t heard a word from your US Attorney. I’m not expecting to get off scot-free for everything that happened with Presley, but I need something.”
He couldn’t fault Ryan for the need to know what his future held. In some capacity, Noah had expected the question. Before he and Winter left for the hotel, they had stopped to double-check with Max about the status of the agreement with the federal prosecutor.
Slowly, Noah nodded. “That’s understandable. We talked to SAC Osbourne about it before we headed over here. He has a meeting with the US Attorney to talk about charge reductions scheduled for some time tomorrow. It’s in the evening, I think.”
“Yeah, evening,” Winter confirmed.
As Ryan sank down onto the couch, the shadows beneath his eyes were more pronounced.
Noah moved to sit at the edge of a nearby armchair. “I get that’s not what you wanted to hear, or at least that’s not what I would have wanted to hear if I was in your position, but we’re doing the best we can. We know you’re here for a good reason, and believe me, Osbourne will make sure that gets across to the US Attorney.”
A slight smile brushed Winter’s face. “He’s right. SAC Osbourne is a force to be reckoned with. Plus,” she paused to hold out her hands, “there’s no doubt that doing this will put you even further in the prosecutor’s good graces.”
The silence that descended over the room was as stifling as the humidity on a summer afternoon in Texas.
As much as Noah wanted to blurt out a list of reasons to motivate Ryan to commit to his role in the investigation, he knew the man needed time to think. A federal agent blabbing about all the ways he could suck up to th
e US Attorney wasn’t conducive to a moment of solipsism.
When Ryan finally dipped his chin in a slow nod, the shadow of anxiety had given way to determination. “Okay. They do dinner parties every Thursday, and my contact is usually the hostess. I’ll reach out to her and check to see if they’re having one tomorrow evening.”
As much as Noah wanted to feel a wave of relief at the agreement, the tension in his shoulders did not so much as lessen.
Though he was a lifelong thief and con man, Ryan O’Connelly wasn’t a bad man. Getting him to agree to wear a discrete wire to poke around a group of shady aristocrats was the easy part.
He had a sneaking suspicion they’d only just discovered the tip of the iceberg. For the time being, Noah was glad Ryan was on their side.
15
The family owned restaurant had a certain quaint charm, but the place was a far cry from the establishments to which I’d become accustomed over the years.
My father might have been an asshole, but the man knew good food.
Ever since my sister and I were little, we’d been catered to at eateries so exclusive that the majority of the public would never even get the chance to step inside. With the steep price came quality, and that quality was difficult to sacrifice after I’d honed my palette.
But tonight, I wasn’t at the homey Mexican restaurant for food.
I’d only purchased a meal to make sure I didn’t stand out. Beside the plate of nachos, I’d cracked open a notebook and a textbook to pretend I was focused on work for a group project in one of my classes.
The course was relevant to my major, unlike the last class that I’d been in with Caroline Peters. Though she’d caught my eye last semester, I hadn’t been sure what to do about the intrigue.
Now, six months later, I knew exactly what to do. And thanks to a group project, I had the opening for which I’d been searching.
Caroline and I had sat beside one another since the beginning of the semester, and in the last couple weeks, I’d begun to interact with her more frequently. It started when I leaned over to whisper a sarcastic comment to her, and from there, the conversations became more regular.
When the start date for the group project had rolled around, Caroline was quick to ask if we could partner up for it.
“Hey, Cameron!”
I’d seen her approach, but I pretended to pull my attention away from the text as I flashed her a disarming smile. Though she had expected me, I didn’t see any reason to make myself stand out like I was some sort of creep.
“Caroline, hey. What’s up?”
With a little shrug, she grabbed my water glass to pour a refill from the decanter in her other hand. “You know, just work. The daily grind. Are you working on our group project?”
As I accepted the freshly filled glass, I pushed the notebook and text to the edge of the table so she could see. “Yeah, I was just jotting down some notes so I could start getting organized for it. I talked to Peyton after class today, and she said she was going to get started on it tonight too. She’s going to email us with what she gets done, so I figure I’ll do the same.”
Even in the dim light, her golden hair seemed to shimmer as she tucked a piece behind her ear. Her crystal blue eyes shifted from me and then to the book as she hunched over to read the writing.
There had been nothing sexual about any of the women I’d taken captive and killed, but that was as much because those girls were prostitutes as anything.
I’d had plenty of girls since I started college. Being the wealthy, attractive son of a powerful judge did wonders for a person’s social circle.
But no matter how kinky the sex was with consenting partners, there had always been a missing element. An itch I hadn’t known how to scratch.
As Caroline’s bright eyes turned back to me, however, I was sure I’d just figured out how to scratch that persistent itch. Even in the red polo shirt with the restaurant’s logo embroidered on the left side, she was beautiful.
I was done with the whores.
Caroline would be mine, and then I would make sure she never belonged to another soul.
Ryan’s vacant stare was fixed in the general direction of the flickering television screen. The episode was a rerun, but that wasn’t the reason Ryan had stopped paying attention.
He had never doubted Agent Black and Agent Dalton’s sincerity. He’d never even doubted the sincerity of their boss, Max Osbourne. And in another life, he and Bobby Weyrick could have been good friends.
As best as Ryan could tell, all the agents—even Sun Ming—were good people.
He was sure they would do whatever was in their power to ensure the US Attorney followed through with their end of the legal deal.
However, he couldn’t help but wonder what aspects of the legal system were in their power.
As a show of good faith, Ryan hadn’t asked for his own lawyer. Then again, his mistrust for lawyers was a large part of his motivation for waiving the right to counsel. He’d rather take his chances alone than cast his fate into the hands of a shifty attorney.
Even if every federal agent with whom he’d interacted put forth their best effort to sway the US Attorney, the decision was ultimately in the hands of another lawyer.
After a week, he was no closer to cracking the secret to the sophisticated device attached to his ankle. If he’d been able to peruse the internet, he might have found a remedy by now, but he suspected the laptop he’d been given was outfitted with a keylogger—a type of virus that recorded each keystroke and sent it back to the installer.
He doubted the FBI would be naïve enough to trust someone like Ryan with a computer that couldn’t be traced.
Sure, he could grab a pair of scissors and hack away at the strap around his ankle. But the second he cut into the device, an emergency signal would emit to advise the FBI that the monitor had been damaged. Even if he ran as far and as fast as he could manage, he doubted he’d get out of this damn room before they caught up to him.
No, he told himself.
If he cut and ran, he would put Lillian and the kids at risk. A risk that was entirely unnecessary.
Not to mention, by now, the bureau needed him almost as badly as he needed them to forgive his past sins. If the FBI barreled into the midst of the aristocratic circle that Ryan had infiltrated, the killer would slink back into the shadows.
An undercover FBI agent was also out of the question.
The ties that the members had to one another ran deep, and Ryan had only weaseled his way in because he’d stolen from the right people in the past. He’d conned his way in, and he doubted the bureau could replicate the feat without ringing the group’s alarm bells.
If Ryan didn’t help those women, then who would?
The bureau couldn’t pull someone off the street to accomplish the task for them. Whether or not they wanted to admit it, they needed him.
Pushing past the moment of anxiety, he straightened in his seat at the edge of the couch and leaned forward to open the laptop. Though he’d checked the seedy forum a few hours ago, he intended to visit the page now for an entirely different reason—for a reminder.
A reminder that he had made the right decision.
Doing the right thing hardly ever means doing the easy thing. In his mind, the words had been spoken in Lil’s voice. The observation had been her senior quote in high school.
Though Bobby Weyrick’s eyes flicked up, he made no comment before he returned his attention to his phone.
After a few taps and a couple passcodes, Ryan arrived at the forum.
The layout was basic, and the appearance reminded him of the internet back in the nineties. Whoever had designed the page must have been inspired by old Yahoo GeoCities websites.
As he scrolled down, he expected links to the unsettling videos of the women in captivity just as he’d seen a hundred times before.
When he reached the body of the post, however, his eyes went wide.
“Oh, shit,” he muttered unde
r his breath.
There were three new links. All three were labeled as image files, and Ryan’s stomach sank.
Bobby’s gaze snapped over to him. “What?”
Ryan held his breath as he pulled up the first image. He expected gore or any number of gruesome torture techniques, but the image was unassuming.
From where she’d been photographed on a sidewalk, a young woman’s puzzled expression was fixed on her phone.
Her blonde hair was pulled away from her face in a ponytail, and her outfit was comprised of a red polo and a pair of dark skinny jeans and flats. She looked confused in the first photo, but not frightened.
In the next two, her expression trended in a neutral direction.
The pictures themselves might have seemed innocuous enough, but the comments below the links were anything but.
One offered a sum of cash for the young woman, another listed out a handful of disgusting sex acts they’d like to perform on her, another asked when the photographer planned to post her video, and so on. The English was broken in several of the posts, and the occasional comment in Russian confirmed Ryan’s suspicions that the stalker had reached an international audience.
Finally, Ryan glanced to Bobby Weyrick.
He pointed at the screen like he had been asked to select a perpetrator out of a lineup. “You should see this.”
16
The legwork of their case had been constant—interviewing family members, friends, exes, and anything in between—and though Winter was glad to have a night to rest her tired brain, her thoughts invariably drifted to her little brother.
To the cryptic messages he’d written on the walls of their old family house, to the equally cryptic email that had led her there in the first place, and of course, to the gruesome sight of the mutilated rats.