First Girl Gone: An absolutely addictive crime thriller with a twist (Detective Charlotte Winters Book 1)

by L. T. Vargus

  Heaving a sigh, Charlie listened to her voicemail. All of the calls were from last night, and most of them were Zoe, trying to get in touch to notify her about Frank. But there was also one message from Will.

  “Charlie, it’s Will. Zoe called and told me what happened… about your uncle. I just wanted to see how you’re doing. I… I’m sorry. About everything. Please call me.”

  Charlie held the phone in her hand for several seconds, debating whether or not she should call him. She dialed Zoe instead.

  “I’m so glad you called,” Zoe said after three rings. “I’ve been worrying about you all morning. How’s Frank?”

  “Not great. I haven’t even been able to see him yet, except for through a pane of glass.”

  Zoe groaned.

  “Are you still at the hospital?”

  “No. I came to feed his cat, but I’m heading back to the hospital later.” Charlie peeked over the counter to watch Marlowe lick the last morsels of food from the bowl.

  “I’m gonna try to make it out there myself after work.”

  “I know that would mean a lot to him,” Charlie said. “So what’s going on with the case? Did they search the barn?”

  “They did.”

  “And they found the… well… the feet?”

  “Right where you said they’d be.”

  “And?”

  There was a pause and then a rustling sound as Zoe sighed into the receiver.

  “And they arrested Gibbs.”

  Charlie fell quiet for a few seconds. Her pulse throbbed in her ears.

  “I see.”

  “The DA charged him with murder. They’re searching the whole property right now, tearing it up, looking for any sign of Kara Dawkins, dead or alive.”

  “Zoe, I told you someone planted that evidence,” Charlie said, then suddenly wondered if she had indeed mentioned that part. She didn’t remember much of the phone call after Zoe had broken the news about Frank. But no, she was certain she’d emphasized that point.

  “I know that, but look… it was already complicated enough, explaining that I got an anonymous tip on my personal cell phone. And I think you’re forgetting, I’m a lowly street cop, not a detective. No one here cares what I think. Sheriff Brown is up for re-election this year. He wants an open and shut case. The last thing he wants is this dangling over his head while he’s campaigning.”

  “It’s not right,” Charlie said. She wanted to say more, but the words wouldn’t come. The pulsing in her ears seemed to grow louder.

  “Charlie, this isn’t—”

  Charlie cut her off.

  “Zoe, did you see the house?”

  “No, I wasn’t assigned to the search.”

  Charlie took a deep breath. The calmer she sounded, the more Zoe would have to take her seriously.

  “It was a mess. Cluttered with all sorts of junk. I don’t think Gibbs owns a vacuum or a broom or has ever heard of housework. But everything about the feet was neat. The way they were wrapped. Someone had wiped up the dust in the area, for crying out loud. The scene was staged.”

  “I hear you, but—” Zoe said, but Charlie interrupted. She wasn’t going to accept any “buts” right now.

  “What about the fact that the killer has been sending me emails since the beginning of all of this? There wasn’t a computer in Gibbs’ house. He still has VHS tapes, Zoe. Tapes. Leroy Gibbs has probably never sent an email in his life. There’s no way he knows how to spoof an email address.”

  “I was there when they formally arrested him. Helped catalogue his personal belongings. He doesn’t own a cell phone. Can you imagine? How is that even possible?”

  Charlie gripped the phone tighter in her fist, praying that Zoe was on the path of listening to reason.

  “It can’t be him. None of it fits. Gibbs is not the guy.”

  Silence stretched out over the line. Charlie crossed her fingers.

  “Bring me proof. Figure out who’s sending you the emails, and I’ll take it to the sheriff.”

  As Charlie ended the call, Marlowe strode over and wound around her ankle. She stooped to scratch the top of the cat’s head.

  Figure out who was sending the emails, Charlie thought to herself. Easier said than done, considering the police had already tried and failed on that front.

  “What would Frank do in my shoes?” she asked the cat as she stroked the velveteen fur just behind his ears.

  Marlowe didn’t answer, but Frank did. Charlie stood. He’d told her what he’d do with the emails, back when she’d gotten the first one with the clue about following the White Rabbit.

  “The technology stuff is all over my head, but I got a computer guy you could talk to,” he’d said. “Ask for Mason, and tell him Frank sent you.”

  Charlie swiped her keys from where she’d dropped them on the counter and dashed for the door.

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  Charlie stood for a moment in front of the huge industrial building, staring up at the sign out front. She’d assumed the dispensary was merely inside the former warehouse, perhaps one of many small shops. Now that she was here, it appeared—at least from the outside—that the dispensary occupied the entire space. The name of the place stretched from one side of the industrial facade to the other in bold white letters: Dank of America.

  The front doors swooshed aside and Charlie found herself in a small anteroom. Behind a thick wall of glass—bulletproof, most likely—a man sat behind a desk.

  “Good afternoon, ma’am. Have you visited us before?”

  “No.”

  “OK. If you could just slide your ID through the slot there.”

  Charlie removed her driver’s license and passed it through the small notch in the glass.

  The man put her ID through a scanner, tapped a few buttons on his computer screen, and handed it back.

  There was a subtle hiss as the inner doors of the dispensary swept open, and Charlie couldn’t help but feel impressed by the level of professionalism. A dedicated security guard? Bulletproof glass? She’d been expecting something rinky-dink, a dim place lit with black lights that reeked of patchouli. Velvet posters on the wall and novelty bongs on the shelves. This seemed like a serious operation.

  “You’re all set.”

  “Thanks,” Charlie said.

  Stepping through the next set of doors, her wonder only increased. The interior brick walls had been painted white, giving the place a sleek, modern look. There was a row of what looked like old card catalogue cabinets from a library behind one counter. The other end of the space was set up like a small café, with the edibles displayed in glass bakery cases and apothecary candy jars. It was entirely more high-end than what she would have expected from a marijuana dispensary, especially one located on Salem Island.

  Charlie approached the counter, where a woman with bright pink hair and a name tag that read, “Janice!” greeted her.

  “What can I help you with today?”

  “I’m looking for Mason?” Still stunned at the slickness of the place, it came out as half-question.

  “One second,” the woman said.

  She slid a phone from a black apron at her waist and tapped at the screen.

  “He should be right out.”

  A moment later, a man with black-framed glasses and dark hair stepped out from a door set in the back wall.

  “Charlie Winters,” he said. “I’d heard you were back in town.”

  “Hello, Mason.”

  Mason Resnik had been in the same class as Charlie and Allie all the way from second grade through graduation. He was so good with computers, even back then, that the school district had hired him to do tech support while he was still a sophomore. She remembered him getting called out of English lit more than once to troubleshoot for the principal.

  He leaned his elbows on the counter.

  “What’s brought you to my humble establishment today? Business or pleasure?”

  “Business, actually.”

  “Wo
rking for Frank, I hear.”

  “Yeah. I have a computer-related mystery I could use some help with.”

  “Why don’t you come back to my office?” he said, gesturing that she should follow him.

  He came around the counter and led her down a hallway. They passed a bank of windows on one side that looked out on a warehouse area. The huge space had been converted into a massive grow room—literally a forest of marijuana. At least half a dozen employees worked among the plants, all of them wearing lab coats, masks, and hair nets.

  “Holy shit,” Charlie said.

  Mason turned and flashed a smile.

  “What do you think of my empire?”

  “You’ve come a long way from carving a bong out of a block of Cheddar cheese.”

  “I forgot about that,” he said, chuckling.

  His office was up a flight of open stairs that led to a second-floor loft space with exposed concrete walls and black steel beams. The entire back wall was glass. Through the paned window in Mason’s office, Charlie watched a barge float past, being pushed upriver by a tugboat.

  “Let’s see what you’ve got,” Mason said, pointing to an open spot on his desk.

  “Someone sent me a couple of weird anonymous emails. I didn’t take the first one that seriously, but… well, things have changed.”

  Charlie got out her laptop and opened the first anonymous email.

  Wheeling closer, Mason studied the screen.

  “‘Follow the white rabbit. Find her,’” he said, reading the first message aloud. “Kind of creepy.”

  “Just wait,” she said, pointing to the second email.

  Charlie watched his eyes dart back and forth as he read.

  “A mysterious package? This is some real James Bond shit. What was it?”

  Chewing her lip, Charlie looked at him sideways.

  “A body.”

  “Like a dead body?”

  She nodded.

  He leaned back in his chair, eyebrows just about touching his hairline.

  “Whoa,” he said, and just when it looked like he was going to say something else, he said it again. “Whoa.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I was going to ask what had changed to make you suddenly take these so seriously, but I guess I have my answer.”

  He gestured toward the laptop.

  “May I?”

  Charlie scooted it over to him.

  “The police took a look and declared it a dead end, but… I guess I was hoping you might find something they didn’t.” Charlie pointed at the header of the email. “See here, how it looks like I sent the email to myself?”

  “Spoofed,” Mason said. “It’s pretty common with scammers these days. They can do it with phone numbers, email addresses… an easy way to cover their tracks.”

  “Is there a way to find out who really sent it?”

  “Let’s see.” Mason bent closer to the computer, fingers flying over the keyboard. “Well, the good news is that this isn’t a very elaborate spoof attempt. You can see the original sender right here.”

  He pointed at a foreign email address on the screen, a Gmail address made up of a string of apparently random characters.

  “And the bad news?” Charlie asked.

  “The bad news is that you can’t really trace Gmail addresses. The IP address just comes back as a Google server.”

  “I was afraid of that,” she said. “So there’s no way to find out who sent it?”

  “Well, we could…” He started to type again, then paused, frowning. “Is your computer always this laggy?”

  Charlie crossed her arms.

  “No, but it has been kind of funky the last day or so.”

  Mason worked quickly, opening windows, typing commands. He was so fast that Charlie could barely keep track of what he was doing.

  After a few moments, he stopped abruptly and asked, “Do you have kids?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Well, if you had kids, it might be a reason for you to install a keylogger on your computer.”

  “A keylogger?”

  “Yeah, it’s a program—spyware, basically—that keeps track of every keystroke. Everything you type, every password, everything—it logs it and sends it on to another computer.”

  “Right. I know what a keylogger is. But I didn’t install it.”

  Mason tapped a finger against one of the icons on her computer screen.

  “Well, whoever did messed up. Usually the programs have a way of hiding themselves from the user. Only the person who installed it has the password to access it. If this had been installed correctly, I probably wouldn’t have been able to spot it. Not without a lot of digging.”

  “I think I already know what the answer is, but is there any way to figure out who installed it?” Charlie asked.

  “Well, parents sometimes install it to monitor their kids’ internet activity. Spouses might use it to spy on their significant other. Employers use it to find out what kind of personal browsing their employees are doing on the company computers. Criminals generally want to try to steal passwords and credit card information. Which one would best apply to you?”

  “None. It sure as hell wasn’t my mother. I don’t have a significant other. Frank is technically my employer, but you know how he is. Even if he wanted to spy on me for some reason, he gets confused checking his email. And I don’t know any criminals who would have had access to my computer, unless…”

  Mason waited for her to go on, both eyebrows raised.

  “What if it’s the same person who’s been sending the emails? What if the killer installed it so he could keep tabs on the investigation? Know where I was looking?”

  Charlie’s mind latched onto the idea, spun it around, considering every angle. It would explain why he’d been able to pivot so quickly once they’d ruled Robbie Turner out. If the killer was spying on her, he would have known he’d need to provide a new scapegoat. That was why he’d dumped the body that pointed to Gibbs as a suspect and planted the evidence on the Gibbs property. It all fit.

  “Can you think of any times your computer would have been accessible?” Mason asked. “That might narrow it down.”

  “Yeah.”

  “When?”

  “All the damn time. I have it in the office with me every day. The front door is open for anyone to come in. Any time I run upstairs for a cup of coffee or something, someone could slip in and out. And I’d have no idea.”

  “Well, I can try to remove it,” Mason said. “It should only take a few minutes.”

  Mason’s fingers moved to the keyboard again, but Charlie held up a hand to stop him.

  “Wait.” The plan formed in her head almost instantly. She could sense it there, a throb in her subconscious that occurred a beat before it came spilling out into her mind fully formed. “Don’t remove it.”

  “Are you sure? They can literally see everything you type. Take screenshots. Some of them even let the hacker record audio.”

  Finalizing each step in her head, Charlie nodded.

  “I’m sure. I have a plan.”

  If the killer was logging everything she typed, maybe she could use that to smoke him out.

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  Charlie sat at her desk, the infected laptop screen staring back at her. She brought her hands forward as though to rest them in the customary spot, fingers splayed over the home row of the keyboard—but then she retracted them just as quickly. Crossing her forearms over her chest, she watched the computer out of the corner of her eye.

  Why was she so reluctant to touch the thing? Was she afraid of it?

  Her entire plan hinged on using the damn laptop, and the keylogger was the linchpin to the scheme. But she couldn’t help it. The whole thing gave her the creeps. The idea that someone had come in here, invaded her space, installed spyware on her computer while she was away, and logged every single keystroke since. She shuddered just thinking about it, that vulnerable feeling crawling over her skin like pinpr
icks.

  Her head swiveled to take in the room around her. She suddenly became quite conscious of the windows, the open blinds showing a clear view of the street, where anyone might look in on her. Just sitting near the glowing laptop screen made her feel like someone was watching her now.

  She rose from her seat and closed the blinds. Shadows swelled to fill the room.

  That felt better. Sort of.

  That must be one of her phobias, she realized—to be watched without knowing about it. Rather ironic, considering her profession. Another perfect setup for an Allie insult that wouldn’t come.

  Charlie’s eyes went to the screen again. She’d gone to see Zoe and set the rest of the plan in motion. All she had to do now was this last part.

  She settled back in her desk chair. This time her hands didn’t hesitate. She rested her palms alongside the touchpad, and her fingers hammered the keys now, typing a fast string of nonsense letters into the open text file before backspacing over all of them. That seemed to break the spell, the malevolent machine before her dying back to a normal laptop again.

  She took a breath. She was just typing an email to Zoe, something she’d probably done a hundred times before without thinking about it. That was all. If it so happened this particular email was the bait in a trap, well…

  The letters popped up on the screen as the keys clattered beneath her fingertips.

  Zoe,

  I found something in the Amber Spadafore/Kara Dawkins case. Something big.

  I know this sounds paranoid, but I have reason to believe that someone has been listening in on my phone calls somehow. I’m worried that your office may likewise be compromised, so it’s best if we talk in person. Somewhere safe. We need to proceed with absolute caution.

  Meet me at the gazebo in the center of Ramsett Park tonight at 9 p.m.

  Charlie

  She looked over the email. It sounded a little cloak-and-dagger, but she worried that if she wasn’t fairly obvious about it, the killer wouldn’t take the lure. She needed him to be at the park.