Too Close to Home (3 page)

“Coincidence?”

Connor shrugged. “Maybe, but I don’t buy it. There’s got to be a connection somewhere. All six have access to money, but there’s been no kind of ransom demand. Weird. But if you look at all the evidence, the information we’ve gathered, they’re not girls who found out they were pregnant and decided to run away. At least it doesn’t seem like it. But what’s the link?”

“The first girl, Amanda Sheridan. She was sixteen years old, blonde, blue eyes.”

“Right.”

“The second girl. Bethany Whitehouse. Brown hair, fair skin, brown eyes.”

“Polar opposites. The only thing they have in common is their age and they’re Caucasian. They went to rival high schools.”

“The third girl, the one we just found. Leslie Sanders, eighteen, green eyes, blonde hair, Caucasian.”

Connor shook his head. “Then the guy went off the mark and snatched Sydney Carter, who has red hair, fair skin, and freckles.”

“But still a teen. He isn’t going by how they look, like hair color or skin color. There’s something else. It’s possible it’s the age factor. They’re easy to access, innocent, trusting, or if they’re suspicious at first, he’s charming enough to put them at ease.”

“The next two girls, Veronica Batson and Julienna Harris. They’re both black.”

“It’s enough to make me crazy. The girls aren’t taken for ransom. They’re all pretty, attractive girls. Human trafficking? Sex trade? Then when they get pregnant, they’re no longer useful? But where are the babies? Sold on the black market? I may be grabbing at straws, but it’s because I don’t have anything else to grab.”

Connor slammed the locker and walked over to the sink to splash cold water on his face. In the mirror, Connor watched Andrew nod, then pinch the bridge of his nose for a brief moment. “I don’t know,” his partner muttered, “it hurts my head after a while to think about it, and yet I find I can’t think of much anything else. Angie’s ready to join the force just to be able to see me once in a while. And I’m about ready to let her. You talk to Jenna this morning?”

Connor winced. “No, not yet.” He glanced at his watch. 8:15. Too late. “She’s at school already. Her grandmother would have dropped her off about twenty minutes ago.”

“Don’t let this case kill your relationship with her, Connor.”

“I don’t plan to.”

“Did you make it to church this weekend?”

Connor shot Andrew a look that was half irritated, half amused. “You ask me that every Monday morning. What? You think the answer’s going to change?”

“God’s in the miracle business,” Andrew drawled and shrugged. “You never know.”

“Well, it’ll take more than a miracle to get me in church,” Connor muttered under his breath—just loud enough for Andrew to catch it.

“You know, Jenna might benefit from going to church. Angie and I would be glad to have her come with us even if you’re not interested.”

“Aw, man, are you going to start beating on that dead horse again? You know how I feel about church.”

“Okay, if not church, what about God? Do you really want Jenna thinking it’s all right to ignore God?”

Connor slapped a hand against the sink. “No, I don’t want her thinking that, Andrew, but what do I tell her, how do I make her go to church when I don’t even know what I believe about God?”

Andrew blew out a sigh. “I don’t know, partner, but you’ve got to do something. Jenna’s not a little girl anymore, and she’s going to follow in your spiritual footsteps. It’s your job as her dad to guide her—”

Connor held up a hand. “Enough.” He shot his friend a glare and bit his tongue against the desire to tell Andrew in no uncertain terms to back off.

And Andrew could read body language pretty well. He walked over and gave Connor another slap on the back before heading for the door. “I’m going home for a couple of hours of sleep— and to reassure Angie she’s still married to me. I guess I won’t even bother suggesting you head home.”

Connor grimaced. “Thanks, partner.”

Andrew shook his head and left without another word.

After Connor finished in the bathroom, he headed for his desk.

An officer stopped him. “Hey, Connor?”

“Yeah?”

“You know that piece of paper from the dead girl’s pocket? Jake’s got something for you.”

Fatigue momentarily forgotten, Connor’s senses leapt into alert mode. “What?”

“Don’t know, I was just told to pass the message on if I saw you before you checked your messages.” The young officer nodded toward the blinking red light on Connor’s phone.

“Thanks.”

Connor closed the distance to his desk and reached for his handset. Ignoring the message light, he dialed Jake’s extension.

“Jake Hollister.”

“What’d you find on Leslie Sanders?”

“Hey, Connor. I’m fine, thanks so much for asking. And how’s your morning going?”

“Sorry, man.”

“’S all right. I’m just messing with you.” Jake became all business. “Yeah, we found a piece of paper with an Instant Message conversation between the screen names TIME4FUN and SEASANDS4EVR. Gimme your fax number so I don’t have to look it up and I’ll send you a copy. The elevator’s broken again and I’m not walking over there.”

Connor rattled off the number, thanked the man, and hung up. He grabbed his coffee and headed to stake out the fax machine, still wondering what he was going to do about Jenna.

3

Samantha Cash loved her job as a computer forensics expert with the FBI. And hated it. As an agent, she got to be in the field occasionally, so she made sure she kept her skills honed with drills and practice; as a computer expert, she also got called on to catch the criminals by using her intellect.

Chasing bad guys gave her a thrill no roller-coaster ride could match. Yet knowing what they’d done to their victims made her sick, and the fact that she was a necessary entity in a world gone mad grieved her. However, each time she assisted in putting one of the bad guys away behind bars, a measure of peace returned to her soul. If only she could find the one—

Don’t go there, Sam.
She dragged her weary body out of the car and waved at the driver, her friend and sometimes partner, Tom Jackson. “Thanks for the ride. See you next time.”

“That was good work, Sam. You’re a genius.”

Sam heard the fatigue in his deep voice and it matched her own. She could only manage a weak smile as she studied his good-looking features. Tall, with bright green eyes and a strong chin. She felt sibling affection for him, but knew he had the females after him wherever he went. Not for the first time, she wondered why she didn’t feel anything romantic for the guy. Ignoring her internal questions, she nodded. “Yeah, you too.”

Concern pulled his blond brows down. “Get some rest.”

“That’s the plan. My beeper’s off for the next twelve hours.” Speaking of which—Sam reached down and flicked the button that would shut off the palm-sized device. “Bye, Tom. Be careful driving home. You’re as worn out as I am.”

“I’ll be careful. I gotta get to my other job.”

Tom was former FBI. An ex-agent who’d decided he liked marching to his own drummer instead of following someone else’s beat. Now, he hired out his skills to the highest bidder. Because of his previous work with the FBI, he often still worked for them, just as contract labor. He also teamed up with Sam when the need arose. As far as partners went, Tom was a good one.

“No way,” she protested. “You need rest, my friend.”

“Got bills to pay.”

“Ugh, don’t I know it. All right, see you later.”

He drove off and Sam turned to trudge up the three steps to her first-floor apartment. Turning the key in the lock, she shoved open the door and stepped into the silent cavern that she called “home.” Four white walls, a fireplace, and the musty smell of closed-up space greeted her.

Since she rarely spent any time here, she didn’t bother to keep anything living that might expire during one of her many absences, and much to her mother’s chagrin, decorating didn’t rate high on her priority list.

She never had anyone over as the only people she could really call friends were co-workers—and when they were together, they were working. Sam merely used the apartment to crash and grab the occasional meal—and sometimes veg out in front of the television before moving on to the next crime.

She glanced at the clock on the wall over her fireplace and groaned.

Four in the morning. Was it Monday or Tuesday? Maybe it was Wednesday. No, definitely early Monday morning—she’d missed church again yesterday. Why couldn’t the bad guys keep normal hours? She sighed at the silly thought. Exhausted to the point of being physically sick, she knew it was time for some sleep.

Sam ignored the blinking light on her answering machine, glanced at the caller ID box, and grimaced. Her mother. Not up to twenty questions, she didn’t even bother listening to the message.

Walking past the efficiency kitchen on her right, she headed straight down the short hallway to her bedroom located at the end.

Sam kicked off her sandals and fell across the queen-sized mattress. Her body appreciated the soft comfort; unfortunately, her brain refused to power down. Images from the past fourteen hours clicked and whirred through her mind.

Knowing better than to fight it, Sam let herself process it. At two o’clock yesterday afternoon, she had received a call about a parent who discovered several days ago that his twelve-year-old son had been chatting online with a possible predator. The father asked his son about it, and the boy admitted that he was friends with the person who went by SK8BRDR as his screen name.

Then his son had failed to show up for supper.

The father, desperate to figure out where his child was, had gone online and found one email detailing a meeting between SK8BRDR and the boy. The father had immediately called the police who in turn had called in Samantha to find more evidence on the home computer as to who this SK8BRDR person was.

Sam’s job as an FBI computer forensics expert had been to find every possible IM and email on the computer. She’d found them and been disgusted by the blatant sexual messages. While she gathered the evidence from the computer, the police had arrived at the scene in time to rescue the boy from the thirty-six-year-old man who had duct tape and a knife in the trunk of his car.

Now, SK8BRDR was in custody, the boy was safe, and Sam was home. Watching the clock, longing for sleep, but still processing.

Fortunately, this potential victim had an astute dad who knew what to do. Unfortunately, a lot of Sam’s cases didn’t end so happily.

Drowsiness set in. Samantha felt herself relaxing. Finally. She looked at the clock. Five-thirty already. Ugh. She considered taking a hot bath, but couldn’t muster the energy necessary for the task. Instead, she shut her eyes praying to dream of a world where innocence was cherished, not stalked.

Just as her eyes closed, her phone rang.

“It’s got to be the computers.”

Connor slapped the IM fax down on the desk beside Andrew. “What?”

Connor could barely contain his excitement. “The link. Somehow, the deaths of these three girls and the girls who are still missing are related to their computers.”

“How do you figure?” Andrew frowned.

Connor pushed aside a mound of papers and edged his rear onto a corner of the desk while Andrew leaned back in his squeaky chair. “I had an idea, so I pulled all six files and compared the description of each girl’s room and the layout of the house. Four out of the six had computers in their bedrooms. The three dead girls are three of the four who had the computer in the bedroom. The other two girls had access to a computer that was either in a family room or the den or whatnot.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean anything. I mean we went over the computers in detail, checking email accounts, files, documents, everything the girls did on those computers was examined thoroughly.”

“Right, but we weren’t looking for a link between the computers themselves, just between the victims. But what if their internet activity is related, like they visited the same websites, chatted with the same people? I think we need to pull in an expert and see if we can nail something that shows some kind of common denominator here.”

“Guess we could talk to the captain about it.”

“I already did. He said to go for it. Even gave me the name of an FBI agent who’s supposed to be some kind of genius with computers. Samantha Cash.”

Andrew raised a red-tinged brow and nodded. “Yeah, I know Samantha. She and her sister, Jamie, go to my church. Angie’s done some ladies Bible studies with Samantha. So, what does the IM say?”

Connor laid it on the desk. “Jake said it was almost illegible. It had obviously been folded and unfolded numerous times, parts of it were torn. It was practically falling apart. Thanks to modern science, he was able to reconstruct it.” His eyes followed the words as Andrew read aloud:

TIME4FUN: Aw. Come on send me a pic.

SEASANDS4EVER: 4 Real?

SEASANDS4EVER: Why?

TIME4FUN: Cuz, I know this guy that’s hiring models and if you wanna break into the business, you gotta know people. And I know someone. IF you look as good as you say you do.

SEASANDS4EVER: I do. And I even have a portfolio already made up. Just haven’t had any luck yet.

TIME4FUN: Well, Babe, that’s where I come in. I act as your agent, see?

SEASANDS4EVER: Okay, hang on a sec.

SEASANDS4EVER: Okay, I sent it. You get it?

TIME4FUN: Got it. And yeah, you’ve got real potential. I think we can work something out. When do you want to meet?

SEASANDS4EVER: Are you serious?

TIME4FUN: Babe, I don’t have time to play. Time is money. Of course I’m serious.

SEASANDS4EVER: I don’t know. How do I know you’re not some perv?

TIME4FUN: Ha. I guess you’re just going to have to trust me on that one. Okay, I’m going to give you a phone number. (864) 555-1234. Give me a call and we’ll set something up. You can bring a friend with you if you’re not comfortable meeting with me by yourself. We’ll even meet in a public place the first time. Lots of people around and you can check me out.

SEASANDS4EVER: COOL!