Phish NET Stalkings

by Denise Robbins

  He cleared his throat. “So how exactly did you leave behind Cleopatra Jane West?”

  Tiny daggers shot from dark brown eyes and her lips pursed. “Better question. How did you find my real name? I know David didn’t tell you that much. How did you know?”

  He shrugged and sat back. “I’m good.”

  Jane rolled her eyes heavenward.

  “Okay, okay. Because of my job and my contacts, I have access to computer systems that the average individual does not. Because of what you almost let slip and what David had shared I had enough information to determine who your mother was and who you were.”

  “That’s it?” she asked, her heart pounding inside her chest. “That’s all it took?” Tension and nausea knotted in her stomach. It was that easy. Had she been fooling herself all these years?

  “Hey,” he whispered in her ear as his arms entwined her waist and he pulled her back against him.

  She hadn’t even seen or heard him move from the stool, but now his strong arms and body wrapped her in a blanket of protection. She wanted to curl up in it, trust it, him. For a brief second she closed her eyes and let herself soak in the warmth of his body and the safe shield he offered.

  “I simply worked my way backwards using the information I already knew. Whoever you think is after you only knows the beginning. They don’t know who you are now. It’s like a puzzle. You have to have all the pieces in order to put it together, otherwise, you find yourself spinning your wheels trying to create a picture that will never be finished. Do you know what I mean? Do you understand?”

  Jane nodded and opened her eyes. She did understand, but it did nothing to reassure her.

  “I’m here, Jane. I’m not going anywhere. I will protect you.” He gave her another squeeze then released her. The loss of contact made her whimper in silent despair. How she wanted to believe that, believe him.

  With gentle hands on her shoulders, he turned her around to look at him. “You can trust me.” He pressed warm, firm lips to hers and she started to melt into him until the sound of bubbling sauce caught her attention.

  She stepped back and he let her go. She moved to the stove, and picking up the bamboo spoon stirred the sauce. Her back to him, she heard Cooper move back to the other side of the counter, slide out the stool, and sit. In the relative silence, she heard the click clacking on the keyboard.

  What the hell, she mused, she might as well answer his question. “Granny Pearl.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Lowering the temperature on the sauce, she turned, leaned one hip against the counter, and picked up her glass of wine. After taking a gulp of liquid courage, she faced Cooper and answered his question. “Granny Pearl gave me the new identity papers.” She swallowed, took another sip of the wine and continued. “Granny Pearl had this house put in my name and inside the closet there was a safe in the floor. In the safe, Granny put new identity papers and all the other documents and credentials I would need to start a new life, including money.”

  The thought of what Pearl had done for her and how she lost her life protecting hers brought unshed tears to her eyes. She swiped at them and spoke some more. “This place was a tiny shack, or close to it, when I first moved here. Granny’s first husband, Oscar East who had passed many years before, owned this place and left it to Granny upon his death. In the eight years I lived with Pearl, we came here every once in a great while and just relaxed. We would pack up her gigantic boat of a car, drive here, and could pretend we didn’t have a care in the world. Pretend we were on a real vacation.”

  She could see Granny’s smile as they sat in front of the fireplace and popped popcorn the old-fashioned way with a skillet over the flames. She pictured her sitting on the back porch in a rocking chair they had picked up at a garage sale, knitting a hat, a scarf, or a blanket. In her mind, she heard the creak of the old wood planks as the chair rocked back and forth. She smiled at the memory.

  “You don’t know why someone went after you even after your mother was dead?”

  Jane shook her head. “Not a clue.”

  “Your mother didn’t leave a note, a safety deposit box, some little memento?”

  “I was too young at the time to comprehend anything other than my mother was dead. Granny Pearl retrieved the contents of my mother’s safety deposit box. Apparently, she had confided something to Granny, but she never told me. The only thing I knew is that Granny had become my guardian and that we were on the run from the cops.”

  “You said you saw a badge. What else did you see?”

  She frowned, furrowed her brow and brought forward the image of the two goons who accosted and killed Granny Pearl. As she did, she described the two men to Cooper.

  “What does a tattoo parlor have to do with this? You mentioned visiting a tattoo parlor this morning.”

  She had forgotten about that. She worried the inside of her bottom lip. In for a penny, in for a pound. She might as well tell him. “I had a dream last night and I remembered a tattoo. On the inside of one of the goon’s arms.”

  “So you went to a tattoo parlor? Why?”

  She took another sip of her wine, set the glass on the counter. “I wanted to find out if it was unique. Maybe the guy that owns the parlor could tell me who did the artwork. I don’t know.” Jane met his curious gaze. “I’m desperate. If I can somehow identify the tattoo and the artist maybe I can find out who the artwork was made for.”

  The stunned look on Cooper’s face, the slacked jaw and wide eyes said she had talked too much. When he shut his mouth again, his jaw muscles clenched beneath his golden skin and his eyes narrowed. “You were trying to be a detective. Trying to do my job. Going after a supposed killer.”

  She watched as his nostrils flared and he inhaled then exhaled slowly.

  “What the hell were you thinking?” he bellowed.

  “I was thinking I want to catch a killer,” she yelled back, her own ire hitting the red zone. “Not a supposed killer, you asshole! A real, live, flesh and blood man of evil. Someone who murdered the only family I have ever had in front of my eyes!” She pointed at her eyes for emphasis. “I was there,” she ground out through clenched teeth. “I saw it.”

  Cooper wiped a hand down his face and the red flush of anger disappeared from his cheeks. He blew out a long breath. “I’m sorry.” He came around the counter.

  “Don’t.” She held out her arms in front of her as he reached to touch her.

  He took a step in retreat, raked both hands through his hair. “I’m sorry. It’s just… It’s just that the thought of you chasing after a killer scares the hell out of me. You could get hurt. You could get dead.”

  “You do it.”

  The short chuckle that rumbled in his chest surprised her. “I’m a trained law enforcement professional, you nitwit.” He stepped to her. “You’re an organic herbalist who makes cosmetics. My job is to find the bad guys. Yours is to make people look and feel better.”

  She would have laughed at the insaneness of the remark, but he was right. She wasn’t an investigator. But he was a cop.

  He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Yes, I am a police officer. I’m a good one. Admit it. You believe me. You trust me,” he whispered, his forehead pressed against hers.

  Moment of truth, he thought. Would she go so far as to admit she trusted him?

  THIRTY-THREE

  The quiet in the room was deafening. He silently begged her to tell him, give him the words he longed to hear.

  “The tattoo was of a hawk in mid-flight with its wings partially spread out. In the hawk’s beak, it held a tarantula, with eight bristly legs and a stack of red eyes.”

  She shuddered in his arms and he ran his hands up and down them offering comfort and warmth. He guessed that was a close as he was going to get her to admit that she trusted him. At least it was something, he thought, and dropped his hands, stepped back.

  “How is a tattoo parlor owner going to identify the killer?”

  “He’s not
. He is going to identify the tattoo artist. Apparently, an ink artist has a signature just like a painter, like Monet or Fragonard. They have a style.”

  “Yeah, but Jane, this didn’t happen here. It didn’t happen in the next town over. It occurred in another state. It occurred years ago.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said, her tone defensive. “If I can identify the artist then I can find out if it was a one of a kind or a mass image. If it was a custom piece of art then maybe the artist will remember the person he inked the tattoo on.”

  Begrudgingly, he admitted she had a decent train of thought. What she described sounded feasible even if it was a long shot. But, chasing down a long shot could pay off.

  Cooper leaned back against the counter, picked up his glass of wine and took a drink. “What else do you remember?”

  While she turned on a pot of water to boil Jane told him what she could recall. As she relayed the details in vivid description, it was as if she pulled the images to the front of her mind and replayed them in her head. He could not imagine being an eight-year old girl hiding in a closet and then coming out to find your mother was dead. He could imagine the screams and the nightmares.

  “Hand me that jar of pasta, will you?”

  She aimed a finger in the direction of the counter closest to him. Putting down his pad and pen that he had automatically started taking notes in, he reached for the heavy clear glass jar and handed it to her.

  “That’s funny looking spaghetti,” he commented. The color of it was rather dark compared to golden color he was used to seeing.

  He heard her soft chuckle as she reached into the jar and extracted a handful of uncooked noodles.

  “It’s organic wheat cappelini.”

  “Oh,” he said with a frown creasing his brow.

  “It will be good. Trust me.”

  He shrugged and picked up his pen and paper. “Do you remember what your mother was working on when she died?”

  Jane halted in the stirring of the boiling noodles. The confused gaze in her brown eyes gave him pause, but he asked again.

  “I realize you were only eight at the time, but children are astute and usually know more than their parents believe. Maybe it had to do with a case she was investigating.”

  “She was a computer forensics specialist. She worked on multiple cases simultaneously.”

  “Do you recall if there was one case that was bigger, more important than any other?”

  She closed her eyes as if trying to remember something that happened a long time ago. Then she opened her eyes and the corner of her lips turned down. “I don’t remember anything, but Mom didn’t always talk about work. I think she was afraid some of the things would frighten me.”

  Smart woman, he thought. He could look into her mother’s investigations.

  Jane turned back to her sauce and pasta.

  “What’s the name of the tattoo parlor?”

  “Blue Heron,” she rattled off before spinning on him.

  If not for the heat of the stove, she would have frozen him with her cold, narrow-eyed gaze. He gave a mock shudder and grinned. He wasn’t a detective for nothing. He knew how to get answers and information from the worst of them. And yes, he had every intention on following up with the proprietor of Blue Heron. The last thing he wanted was Jane, or any civilian, doing his job. If she were determined to find out who murdered her mother and surrogate grandmother then he would be the one to investigate it, not her.

  He slapped his notebook shut and pocketed it just in time to take the pot of boiling spaghetti from Jane’s hands and dump it into a strainer for her. Returning the hot pot to the stove, he watched as she poured the pasta into a large serving bowl, carefully ladled the red sauce on top and mixed it. She saved some of the sauce and transferred that into a gravy bowl so they had extra sauce. He carried both dishes to the table as Jane reached back into the refrigerator and brought out the feta cheese.

  “For the top,” she said as she took a seat next to him. “It adds a little more zing to the sauce.”

  He waited for Jane to finish dipping them both a dish of pasta a la moi then followed her example of adding a little more sauce and topping it off with a heaping spoon of feta cheese. He lifted his fork, twirled it around the tines a few times and took a health bit.

  Heaven was the first word that ran through his mind. “This is damn good.”

  “Don’t sound so surprised.”

  “I’m not. I’m not. I’m just amazed that I’ve never had a pasta sauce taste so damn hot and zesty at the same time. My compliments to the cook,” he said and took another bite.

  * * * *

  After the meal, Cooper helped Jane clear the table and rinse the dishes then load them into the dishwasher. Wiping his hands together, he suggested he turn his attention to her computer.

  “I still say it was some type of phishing scam that you got hit with. Are you certain you haven’t clicked on any unknown email messages by mistake?” he asked as he picked up the laptop and carried it over to the table where Jane still sat finishing her glass of wine. “It could even have been an email from someone you know and you clicked one of those silly greeting card links. Those are notorious for phishing applications.”

  He saw the glass of red wine pause halfway to her lips then Jane set it carefully down on the table.

  “That’s it, isn’t it? You received an electronic greeting card.”

  Jane’s head jerked around as if she’d been struck. She stared at him in wide-eyed horror. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out before she clamped her lips together and dropped her head to stare at the ground.

  He set the computer down and took the seat next to Jane. He turned his chair at an angle so he could see her. Reaching out, he cupped her chin in his hand and lifted it until her gaze, dark as molasses met his. “You remembered something? Some email.”

  She pressed her lips together then nodded.

  “You don’t want to tell me.”

  She inclined her head and shut her eyelids for a brief second before she opened them again. He saw anguish in the lines around the corners of her eyes. She was embarrassed.

  “What?” he asked. “It can’t be that bad.”

  She moaned as if in agony then murmured something he could not decipher.

  Dropping his hand from her face, he asked, “What did you say? It wasn’t clear.”

  “Online dating service,” she mumbled then sank her face in her hands.

  “An online dating service?” That surprised him. Jane was beautiful, vibrant, interesting. Why would she need an online dating service? Then he remembered Jack had suggested the same thing to him, and that Jack himself had even used one.

  “Did you bring any of them back to your place?” he asked.

  She gasped and her face turned a rosy hue of embarrassment beneath her fingers.

  “No!” she cried out. “Only one guy brought me home and dropped me off at the front steps.”

  “Did he try to come inside? Did he want more than you were willing to give?” His jaw clenched at the thought of some other man touching her.

  “No.” She swiped at her face, brushed hair away from her face. “He didn’t even try. It wasn’t like that.”

  “Was the guy gay?” Cooper asked.

  “Oh my gosh!” Jane flopped back in her chair and groaned. “The only man I’ve been physically involved with is you. I haven’t even been out on another date or used that service since…since I met you.”

  His heart beat fast. He felt relieved and ecstatic at the same time.

  He cleared his throat. “Uh, well, who decided to cancel any next dates? You or the men?”

  She didn’t answer that right away so Cooper turned and deliberately faced Jane head on. “Did you cancel the next dates or did the men?”

  With flushed cheeks she answered. “I-I did.”

  “Why? Were they perverts or something?”

  “N-no,” she protested. “We just weren’t compatible.”r />
  “They were boring,” he added.

  She shrugged as if in agreement with his summation. “The last guy was some kind of accountant who has been using the online dating service for quite a while.”

  “Did one of the men send you the email from the online dating service? Or did the dating service?”

  “The last guy. The accountant. He emailed an electronic card through his dating service account I guess because when I first opened it I thought it had come from the company.”

  “What did it say? Do you still have the message?”

  “Uh, I don’t remember. I deleted it.”

  “Did you clear out your trash bin?” Cooper didn’t wait for her to answer. Instead, he swiveled in his seat and opened up her email program. Once there, he clicked the deleted items folder and scanned the messages.

  “Hey! You can’t go through my email. That’s personal stuff.” She slapped at his hands and tried to take the computer from him.

  He paused, glanced over his shoulder and shot her a quelling look. “Do you want this hacker caught, or do you want to keep fighting fires and lose business?”

  She plopped in her chair and blew air at her wayward bangs. “Well, when you put it like that.”

  “Good.” He turned back to the computer.

  “What is the name of the dating service?”

  “Love Online.”

  Love Online? Where had he heard that name before? He ran it through his mind and was unable to come up with an answer when he located the email message. Double-clicking the message, he opened it up and saw the greeting card link.

  Aiming a finger at the screen, he asked Jane, “Is this the message?”

  She bobbed her head in confirmation.

  “I still keep abreast of the latest findings in cybercrime, and I’m betting this is the handiwork of a program called Loverspy.”

  “Loverspy?” Jane got up, went to the mini fridge and pulled out two bottles of beer. After opening them, she set one in front of him. “I don’t know about you but I need a drink.”