Her Dark Web Defender

by Dana Nussio

  He was never going to get out of Level 26.

  Cory rested the controller on the desktop as he dragged his feet off the desk. He was just too distracted to play. He had to do something to fill the time, though. His four-hour shift at the grocery store wasn’t until after lunch, and he was already too hyped up to sit still.

  On his desktop, he clicked open a folder he’d placed there a week before, and a list of links appeared on the screen. He clicked on the first.

  Bodies of 2 local teens discovered

  His stomach roiled as it did each time he read the articles. If only he could stop looking at them. Or thinking about it. Or remembering.

  He set his elbows on the desk and lowered his head into the cradle of his hands. Even with his eyes closed, he could still see it. Blood made him queasy, and there’d been so much of it. He hadn’t even been able to drag them far from the bike path where they’d met, so their bodies were discovered the next morning. He’d only brought that pocketknife in case she needed convincing to get in the van with him.

  “Why did you have to lie?”

  He automatically looked over his shoulder though, as usual, he was alone in his basement apartment. It had been an accident. It was all FUNNY GAL’s fault. Make that “Sienna.” She was supposed to have been fourteen. Not eighteen. And she sure as heck wasn’t supposed to bring a friend with her. Was their meeting a joke to her? She was supposed to be his betrothed, his princess, and she’d been a dragon instead.

  He closed the file and then the folder, his finger poised to the delete the whole thing. But he couldn’t. Instead, he launched a browser and typed the beginning of a website address for one of his favorite chat rooms. The full name showed up in the results box below. Obviously, he’d visited there a lot.

  Of course, he needed to avoid chat rooms right now. He should be lying low and staying off the Internet. At least for a while. One of those articles had even mentioned that the girl had been in contact with “men” online. Men? Not just him? His hands curled into fists, his nails digging into his palms.

  No, he wouldn’t visit the chats while the police were sniffing around. Anyway, time always slipped away from him when he played online, and he’d promised Mom he would keep his job this time. That was the deal he’d made so she would agree to keep paying his rent. He’d given someone else his word that he would stay out of trouble, and he’d already broken that promise.

  He moved his mouse in a circular pattern on the mouse pad and then let the arrow hover over the link. His decision came with a click.

  And he was there again, that wonderful place where multiple conversations moved at a rapid clip. Introductions were made, connections formed, and screen names vanished with the lure of private chats.

  Cory wiped his sweaty upper lip with the back of his hand as he scrolled through comments. There were so many lonely girls, just waiting to be his special friends. Still, he needed to be patient to find the perfect one.

  He’d be more careful this time. Courting was a delicate process, after all. But with such sweetness ahead, how could he not continue the search for a princess with whom to share his castle home?

  He clicked on the dialogue box. Then he typed the line that could be the beginning of something wonderful: Hi!

  * * *

  A knock on the outside of his cubicle brought Tony’s head around with a jerk that made his neck ache. His vision was already blurry from hours of fruitless searches through some of the more popular Dark Web sites. He’d buried himself in his work to get that earlier conversation with Kelly out of his thoughts, and he’d almost succeeded. Until now.

  The woman he’d been trying not to think about stepped into the doorway, her hands shoved into her uniform pockets.

  “May I help you?”

  He was proud of himself that he’d sounded almost civil, especially when he’d hoped not to have to face her again for the rest of the day.

  “Sorry to interrupt you, but—”

  “But you’re finished reading about all the other cases that aren’t the one we’re investigating?” So much for being nice.

  She frowned. “I have finished that, but Special Agent Dawson wants me to observe you putting out regular text communication in the chat rooms.”

  “Why? Haven’t you ever done a chat before?”

  “As a matter of fact, I haven’t.”

  His next brusque comment died on his lips. Why couldn’t he stop baiting her? She was doing her job, just as he was trying to do.

  “Fine.”

  He gestured toward his guest chair though the last thing he needed was to be close to her again. He’d been trying to get the scent of her shampoo—light, flowery and carefree—out of his head all afternoon.

  “How about instead of observing, we give you a chance to practice? I’ll make my comments verbally, and you can type your responses on my keyboard.”

  “Sounds okay.”

  He stood and slid by her to grab the seat she’d used earlier. She took his place in front of a blank word-processing document.

  “Would your friends say you’re pretty?” he asked.

  She blinked several times. He had to hold back a smile. Of course, they would. Not to say so would have made them liars.

  Finally, she started typing.

  I don’t know. I guess so. They probably would say I have a cute face.

  “Are you trying to say you’re a bigger person? Would anyone say that about you?” he asked.

  I’m bigger than some of my friends, I guess.

  He had to remind himself that she was creating a fictional character since the woman sitting next to him looked perfect to him. Too perfect.

  “You’re probably just curvier. They’re jealous,” he managed to say.

  How can you say that? You haven’t even seen me.

  “We could fix that. You could send me a picture. I’m already sure you’re real pretty.”

  But I hate my braces.

  At the second reminder that their conversation had been only role playing, he sat taller in his seat. He’d given her easy questions, and he couldn’t explain why. Was it because of that compassion in her eyes after he’d explained the photos on his board? Did he believe she was too tender-hearted for this work and felt compelled to shield her? What business did he have trying to protect anyone from this world when he hadn’t been able to shelter himself?

  Instead of continuing the mock conversation, he reached for the keyboard and slowly pulled it to him.

  “Why are you doing that?”

  “You’ll do fine. You’re a natural. At least for the easy stuff.”

  “I really was a thirteen-year-old girl once. An awkward, misunderstood and, yes, larger teenager. I was in the public speaking club. Not the cheerleading squad.”

  She’d surprised him. People rarely did that anymore. Kelly Roberts wasn’t who he’d expected her to be, from her biography or from her knockout good looks. He knew better than to prejudge people, anyway. That was how the wolves fit in among the unsuspecting sheep in their investigations.

  “Some things happened, and I ate for comfort and gained some weight,” she added when he didn’t respond right away.

  “Looks like you figured things out.” Immediately, he wanted to take that back. It sounded as if he’d been watching her, and he had. Now they both knew it.

  She cleared her throat and pointed to the screen again. “If the conversations online are like that, they sound so benign.”

  Relieved that she’d redirected the conversation back to their work, where it belonged, Tony went with it.

  “They start that way, but they can escalate quickly. A chat where a guy tells his victim that he understands why she’s mad at her parents over her curfew quickly turns to demands for intimate photos.”

  “That’s awful.”

  “That doesn’t b
egin to cover how bad it gets. How are you going to be able to handle—”

  “I meant for you.”

  He came to his feet as if something had pushed him out of the chair, and he moved to the doorway of his own cubicle. Just like earlier, her compassion for him unsettled him. Why was she being so kind when he’d been rude to her? Worse than that, he was beginning to like her. He wasn’t there to make friends. He had to finish the case so he could be transferred. He needed to remember that.

  “I mean you have to read and listen to this stuff every day,” she continued, as if she realized she’d struck a nerve. “How do you bear it? Do you turn it off when you get home?”

  “It’s my job.”

  He would’ve said it was as simple as that, but nothing about his decision to leave the task force had been simple. Could he really desert the vulnerable people he helped, and if he could, what kind of agent was he? What kind of human being?

  “And mine,” she said with a nod. “Do you really think our victims were communicating online with their killer?”

  “Possibly. But they were connecting with a few different people, so someone might know something.”

  She stood up from his desk. “I’m ready to do my part to help find Sienna and Madison’s killer or killers. I’ve already said this case is personal for me.”

  “You need to stop telling people that, or you won’t get to stay on the case.” He still didn’t buy the reason she’d said it was important to her, but he didn’t tell her that. “If you can’t separate yourself from it, you won’t be of any help to us.”

  “I can. Separate myself, that is.”

  “We’ll see.”

  Kelly scooted behind him and started back to her own desk. He stood at the doorway, watching her. Near the nameplate that had been added to the bracket outside her cubicle wall, she stopped.

  “And Agent Lazzaro, thanks for all your help.”

  “Don’t thank me. If I was thinking about your well-being, I would tell you to get out of here right now.”

  Chapter 4

  Kelly couldn’t remember ever being so exhausted as she tromped inside her apartment and dumped her heavy purse on the floor by the door. It was still daylight outside. She barely recognized the place, with light streaming in between the blind slats and dust motes waltzing toward her coffee table. Usually working afternoons did that to a person. Even on her days off, she was too busy catching up on errands to notice.

  Now she was too...something else. Tired. Keyed up. Annoyed. Anything but intrigued by some jaded FBI agent.

  After locking the door, she crossed into her bedroom, already unbuttoning her shirt. Her uniform had nearly smothered her all afternoon in that stifling office, but she hadn’t even loosened her tie. Special Agent Lazzaro would have perceived that as weakness. She’d refused to give him the chance after all the potshots he’d lobbed at her.

  Now she couldn’t shed the layers fast enough. If only yanking on her old cross-country shorts and pulling on a sports bra and tank top could help her put the day’s events out of her mind. Even after she’d worked with him all day, Tony still didn’t want her to be there.

  Of all his rude comments, the last one kept replaying in her thoughts. If I was thinking about your well-being... Had he been trying to tell her what the assignment had done to him? After the way he’d treated her today, she shouldn’t care, but she couldn’t help it. He seemed miserable there, which made no sense.

  Her cell phone rang, and for once, she considered letting it go to voice mail. Her couch was calling her, as well. But guilt won as it always did, and she hurried to the door and dug around in her purse until her fingers connected with it. She refused to acknowledge that blip of disappointment at seeing Nick Sanchez’s name on the screen.

  Had she hoped Tony—make that Special Agent Lazzaro—would call to say he was sorry? Even if he had her number, which he wouldn’t, he didn’t seem like the type of guy who ever apologized. Anyway, if the Brighton Post’s current calendar model was calling her, there had to be an emergency. She tapped the button to accept the call.

  “Is everything all right, Nick?”

  “Sure. It’s fine.”

  “Then why are you calling?”

  “You try to do something nice for a person and—”

  “Nice? How?” Had they missed her so much at the post that they were resorting to phone pranks?

  “I only wanted to see how your first day with the task force went.”

  “Oh. Okay, I guess.”

  “And how was it to drive a desk instead of a patrol car?”

  He chuckled this time. Someone else laughed in the background.

  “Dion Carson, is that you? Are you two together, even on your day off?”

  The laughter became a chorus.

  “Can we help it if we’re the two coolest people around?” Dion asked.

  “Yeah, can we?” Nick piped.

  “I hate to interrupt your mutual-admiration society, but is there a point to this call? Other than to torture me?”

  Nick harrumphed. “We were going to tell you that we’re standing right outside your building, with pizzas, but since you’re being so unwelcoming—”

  “Did you say pizzas?”

  She pushed the buzzer to allow them inside and threw open her apartment door. Footsteps pounded on the stairs, and then they both appeared in her open doorway. Nick had a pizza in each hand, and Dion carried two-liter pop bottles under both arms.

  Dion shook his head and tsk-tsked. “Now is that a way for a woman to let someone inside her place? You don’t know who could be out there.”

  “But I already knew—”

  Both men laughed again, and she gave them a dirty look. These were her friends, the closest people to her in the world. She would take a bullet for any of them, but sometimes—like now—she wanted to pistol-whip them instead.

  “You missed us. Admit it,” Nick said with his perfect, toothy grin.

  Kelly shook her head. Though she couldn’t have found two more attractive males to show up in her living room—one tawny skinned with dimples, the other with sepia skin and sultry eyes—neither Nick nor Dion had ever been swooning material for her. But the barely-still-thirtysomething Italian-American she’d met earlier, the one with crinkles around his eyes and a five o’clock shadow before noon? She couldn’t allow herself to think about that guy.

  “Earth to Kelly.” Nick lifted and lowered the boxes a few times. “Where do you want me to put these?”

  “Anywhere is fine.”

  She followed his gaze around the room. There were only three places where guests could put a pizza that didn’t involve getting crumbs in her bed: her dinette with two chairs, the coffee table or the living room floor. Nick went for the coffee table, pausing to note the scratches before setting the warm boxes directly on the wood.

  Kelly could admit that the place wasn’t fancy. More like minimalism on steroids. It was like the task force office she’d spent the day in. Necessities and nothing more. Would Tony have something to say about that, too?

  She pushed the thought aside and hurried to the kitchen for plates, napkins and cups.

  Soon the three of them sat shoulder to shoulder on the cramped sofa, munching pizza and sipping pop in the awkward silence.

  Dion set his plate on top of the box. “So really, how was your first day?”

  “I told you it was okay.” Sitting between them, she could feel their skeptical glances coming from both sides. “All right, it stank. It was like starting all over as a brand-new trooper.”

  “I bet it did stink.” Nick took another bite and then talked around it. “It’s hard working with cops from different agencies, when everyone’s as cocky as you are.”

  “Are the cowboys from the FBI treating you like a rookie?” Dion asked.

  Having just grabbed anot
her piece of pizza, she took an angry bite. “Just one. Special Agent Lazzaro. You’d think he’d never met a female police officer before. Mansplained like I was an idiot. He thinks he knows danger when he’s probably not been more than ten feet away from a computer screen his whole career.”

  “That so?”

  Dion had opened the pizza box again, but he stopped without lifting a slice. She glanced from one police officer to the other.

  “What?”

  Nick leaned forward so he and Dion could exchange a look. “I think she doth protest too much.”

  “This...Lazzaro,” Dion said, “is he a sexy Valentino type?”

  Kelly came to her feet. “He’s just another jerk male officer. You two would probably be fast friends with him. Is everything a big joke for you guys?”

  “Do you know us?” Nick asked.

  Both men burst out laughing.

  “Really, we did come by to offer some support.” Dion finally picked up the slice of pizza he’d been going for before.

  “Well, thanks.”

  Nick, who’d already devoured three slices, set his plate aside. “You headed over to Casey’s Diner later?”

  She shook her head. “I’m beat. Are you going? Don’t you realize how pitiful that looks that you still meet up with the rest of the troopers on your days off?”

  “What’s your point?” Nick said, grinning.

  Dion tapped his watch. “You probably can’t stay out late, anyway, now that you’re on the day shift.”

  Kelly didn’t bother telling him she wouldn’t necessarily be working days for this assignment. She’d been told she would be clocking a lot of overtime hours until they found some leads.

  If she told them, they would be razzing her about being with Lazzaro day in and day out. She was worrying enough about that situation. How was she supposed to be of any help in tracking Sienna’s and Madison’s killer when all she could think about was the special agent who wanted her out of his world?

  * * *

  Tony had just enough time to throw his keys on his counter, pull a beer from the refrigerator and pop the tab before his doorbell rang. One glance at the clock on the microwave and he grimaced. He’d forgotten. He wasn’t in the mood to entertain.