Killer Score (The Irish Garda Files Book 2)

by Melinda Colt

She gazed up at him, and his heart contracted. Her eyes didn’t have the sparkle of amethyst now; they held the sadness of a moody, cloudy, lavender sky.

  “I can’t believe anyone would hate me that much. I feel lost, Evan. I have no idea where to go from here. I’m glad my instincts were right, and Jack Dunhill isn’t a killer. However, that means the real killer is out there, maybe hunting for another victim. If only we knew who was next… If only there was a way to lure him out of hiding.”

  Evan’s jaw tightened. He pushed her slightly away from him, still holding her shoulder firmly. “You mean use yourself as bait? Out of the question. We couldn’t do that, not even if we wanted to. We wouldn’t know where to start.”

  Fierce and scary determination flashed in her eyes. “Oh, aye we do. I can create a profile on that dating website. That might draw his attention.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Evan’s face darkened, as Chelsea knew it would. She had thought about this all the way to the Garda station. Before he could say anything, she laid her palms over his chest.

  “Listen to me,” she said, beginning her carefully rehearsed speech. “I can’t have another death on my conscience. I know I’m not to blame, but if there’s anything I can do to help you catch this psychopath before he finds another victim, I have to do it for my own peace of mind.”

  Evan shook his head. “Trust me, Chelsea, it wouldn’t work. This guy would read through the bait. Like you said, he’s watching you, probably monitors your computer. He would know exactly what we’re trying to do, and just laugh his ass off at our inept attempts to draw him into the light.”

  Chelsea listened, saw the reasoning behind his words. As they penetrated her mind, a particular phrase stuck with her. Evan said the killer was probably monitoring her computer. Would that also mean he’d hacked into her system, accessed her personal data? She felt the blood drain away from her face as she mentally revised the information she kept on her laptop—her passwords, bank account, social media, some patient information, her diary… The thought that a killer might have read her most intimate thoughts, knew her deepest fears, filled her with dread. For a moment, she thought she might be sick, but inhaled deeply through her mouth a few times.

  “What’s wrong?” Evan asked, rubbing her shoulders gently. “Don’t you feel well?”

  She shook her head and sat down on a chair.

  Evan knelt beside her, a worried frown on his face.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked again. “Do you need a glass of water? Cola?”

  “No, don’t worry. I’m okay, I just… It’s something you said…”

  She squared her shoulders, getting a grip on her self-control. She needed to make sense in order for him to understand what she meant.

  “When you said the killer is probably monitoring my laptop, my online activity, it occurred to me he might have hacked into my laptop and accessed my personal files. Is it—”

  She moistened her lips nervously. After reading that article about him that morning, she still had issues looking him in the eyes. Finally, she did.

  “Is it hard to do that, Evan? Is it possible for a skilled hacker to just enter someone’s computer and make themselves at home?”

  His lips parted as though he was about to answer, and then he stopped. He watched her intently, as though he was trying to read her mind. As though he knew that she knew. After a few tense moments, he got to his feet slowly and sat on the chair next to her, still holding her gaze.

  “It’s not easy, but it’s not impossible either.” His voice was cautious, almost probing. “Hacking can be a useful skill. It depends on how and why you use it.”

  “How did you use it?” The question was out before Chelsea realized she intended to speak. However, since she had, she raised her chin slightly, waiting.

  “How did you know I did? Did you do more research on me? That information is classified.”

  “It seems that it’s not. I didn’t do any research on you. In fact, information about you seems to be dumped into my lap.”

  She stopped dead, at the same time he leaned forward.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  Her breathing was fast and shallow. Why hadn’t she seen it? It wasn’t a coincidence she kept learning shady things about Evan. Someone made sure she did. Someone made sure those emails got into her inbox every time she got closer to Evan. The sender played with her mind, enjoyed having her run hot and cold, thinking he might change her opinion about the man she was falling for.

  “Just answer my question first, and then I’ll answer yours,” she said quickly, suddenly feeling adrenaline pump through her veins. “I know you were a black hat hacker—whatever that is. I know you were arrested when you were seventeen, and then the FBI recruited you because of your skills. Is it true?”

  He darted a gaze toward the door, then looked back at her. His eyes were steady on hers, direct and clear.

  “Actually, I was a gray hat hacker. The difference is that a black hat violates computer security for personal gain or some other malicious purpose, while a gray hat may violate laws or typical ethical standards, but without any malicious intent or for any financial gain. I hacked the FBI servers because I figured it was the easiest way to get their attention and get a job with the Bureau. It worked.”

  She stared disbelievingly at his crooked half-smile. After a few seconds she started laughing.

  “You’re crazy. I may not be the epitome of conventionality, but you’re… just out there. How did you even get an idea like that?”

  He shrugged, the smile still hovering on his lips. “Teenagers do a lot of crazy stuff. I’ve always been a smartass, and in the end my plan worked. I made sure the FBI found me. They did keep me in juvenile detention for a few days to teach me a lesson. But in the end, I’d proven myself to be valuable to them, so they offered me a job in their computer security division. The rest, as they say, is history.” He refocused his attention on her. “So how did you find out?”

  “Just like I found out about the Robin Hoods. I received an email containing a news article about this.”

  Evan’s eyes narrowed. “This was never in the news.”

  “I’m beginning to figure that out.”

  “Where did the email come from?”

  “Supposedly from an American online publication I never subscribed to, and I’d never received emails from them before, until the article about you and the Robin Hoods affair.”

  As their eyes met, Chelsea knew they were thinking the same thing.

  “The killer sent those to you,” Evan said, his voice dangerously low.

  “The same thing occurred to me just now. He’s toying with me, toying with my mind. That photo of Kieran and me I didn’t remember posting on social media… The killer could have posted it, couldn’t he?”

  “If he hacked into your computer, yes.”

  Chelsea buried her face in her hands. Frustration, confusion, even fear twisted inside her. She tried to take the advice she gave to patients, to look at the bright side. She wasn’t going crazy, she wasn’t losing her mind. Someone wanted her to think that.

  She groaned when another thought struck her.

  “He must have read my diary, too.”

  “You keep a diary?” Evan asked.

  “Yeah. It’s… therapeutic. It helps me deal with PTSD, or so I thought,” she added bitterly. She refused to think of everything she’d written down, of her darkest thoughts, her hottest fantasies, everything she’d believed was safely private on her laptop. “Anyway, I might have written down some things… feelings… about you. I think the killer read that and was trying to change my opinion of you, to make me see you in a bad light by sending me those emails.”

  She swallowed, absurdly embarrassed. A schoolgirl with a crush on an older boy couldn’t have acted more ridiculously.

  He waited a beat. “Did it work?”

  “Of course not. I would never judge you, Evan. If I’ve learned something in my profession
is that we all do things we regret in life. I don’t know a lot about your past, but I know you didn’t let it define you. You strike me as a person who learned from his mistakes and bettered himself because of them. I don’t care what you did when you were merely a child. I know who you are now. I respect and appreciate the man you’ve become.”

  He reached out, took her hand and lifted it to his lips. If the timing were not so terrible, Chelsea would have melted into his arms right then. She let his fingers link with her cold ones, let his warmth seep into her for a few precious moments.

  “Thanks for that,” he said gruffly.

  He held her gaze for several heartbeats. The heat in his eyes promised her they would finish this soon, that the moment of gratifying surrender would come. There were so many things unspoken between them the air nearly crackled with tension, with longing. For one short, mad moment Chelsea just wanted to take Evan’s hand and run far away, make a fresh start someplace where no one knew either of them. Immediately she was ashamed of her thoughts, but she had to forgive herself. She was only human.

  Evan was the first to break the spell. Chelsea took comfort in the fact that he seemed reluctant to let go. When he spoke though, he was all business.

  “You do realize what this means, don’t you? If the killer sent those emails from his own computer, I could try and track him. Where’s your laptop?”

  “At your place.”

  “Let’s go get it. I can work from there. By the time we return, Nóirín and company might have processed some more evidence.”

  Back at Evan’s flat, Chelsea felt safe. He took her laptop and sat on the sofa. She did her best not to break his concentration. After showing him the emails, she went into the kitchen, took her cell phone out of her jeans’ pocket, and dialed one of her favorite restaurants. They needed food. She ordered mushroom soup, chicken parmesan, and Tiramisu for dessert. Then she went back into the living room and sat next to Evan, far enough away from him to give him space. In her mind there was a constant prayer, like a mantra: ‘Please find him. Please find the twisted individual who’s stalking me, the madman who killed two innocent women just for his own sick pleasure.’

  Kieran walked over from the kitchen and jumped up next to her on the sofa. She took him into her arms, caressing his sleek black fur, scratching him under the chin the way he liked it. He rewarded her with a low, steady purr, and she took absurd pleasure in that. From the outside this looked like a family tableau, until one dug deeper—the way Evan did now.

  Chelsea glanced at the screen of her laptop from time to time, but beyond the basics she didn’t understand a thing from the lines of coding, from the tabs Evan kept opening, then closing and opening others. His face was scrunched up in concentration, and despite the barely hidden frustration, she could tell he was enjoying this cyber-hunt. No wonder the FBI had wanted him. He was damn good at his job. She wondered why he had put cybercrime on the back burner to work homicide. Maybe he’d wanted something new, a taste of the real world, not the life seen only from behind a computer screen. Well, he’d gotten more than he’d bargained for. Chelsea knew he could handle it. He was strong, determined, freakishly smart…

  She wasn’t even surprised when he bent forward, his eyes gleaming close to the monitor.

  “Got you!” he whispered.

  Chelsea wiggled her butt on the couch until she was glued to his side. “What is it? What did you find?”

  “Just had my suspicion confirmed. These emails didn’t come from any online publication. They were sent from Dublin. And here’s who sent them.”

  He turned the laptop so she could see an avatar of a black panther, fangs bared.

  “Black Dawn.”

  “Bingo!” Evan said. “This bitch took a theme and really went with it. She has a thing for black felines.”

  “Do you have the location from where the emails were sent?”

  “I do. It’s a one-bedroom flat in Northside. Guess who owns it.”

  Chelsea held her breath. She wasn’t sure what to expect. At this point she didn’t think anything would surprise her.

  “Your old buddy, Aideen O’Bannion.” Satisfaction rang in Evan’s voice as he clicked another tab and Aideen’s photo showed up on the screen.

  Chelsea stared at it, unable to speak, unable to breathe. The tightness in her chest grew as she gaped at the photo of a woman who looked disturbingly like herself. At first she was about to tell Evan he was wrong, that this wasn’t Aideen. But those green, diabolical eyes were unmistakable.

  She swallowed with difficulty, her throat suddenly dry.

  “Are you sure?” She barely recognized her own ragged voice.

  “I’m sure she sent those fake emails, and I’m sure she sent them from this location—the flat registered in her name. The rest… We can only assume, but it’s a safe guess she killed Shannon and Jenny, and plans to kill you, too. Given more time I’ll dig deeper, get more evidence. First of all we need to pay her a visit, asap. This is her, right?”

  Chelsea nodded mechanically. Her hands were clenched so hard her fingernails dug into her palms.

  “Aye, it’s her, but she looks different. She sort of looks like… me.”

  Evan reached out and placed a large, comforting hand on her knee. That simple touch seemed to anchor her to reality, to the sense of safety he exuded.

  “She doesn’t look like you,” he said, squeezing her knee. “She’s obviously trying, though. She’s dyed her hair the same color as yours, wears it in waves like you do… Didn’t she look like this when you were in high school?”

  “No. She had short, brown hair, thick eyebrows… I see she’s worn braces. Her teeth were always slightly crooked, and I remember there was always a vampire-like quality about her when she smiled. Some classmates made fun of her and called her Dracula.”

  “I get that same vibe,” Evan said, looking at the picture. “She’s made her eyebrows thinner, like yours, even wears the same gray eye-shadow color I usually saw on you,” he said, staring back and forth between her and the photo of Aideen, drawing parallels.

  When the doorbell rang, Chelsea sprang up, startling both Kieran and Evan. Neither of them was as freaked as her though. It took her several moments to collect herself, by which time Evan had already answered the door.

  “Did you order food?” he asked, puzzled.

  Forcing herself to focus, she nodded, walked to the door and took the bags from the delivery boy. She put them on the shoe shelf and reached for her purse to pay for the food, but Evan had taken out some bills from his pocket and had given them to the youth.

  “You should have let me pay,” she said after the delivery guy left.

  “Don’t mention it. I’m starving, and so glad one of us thought about food. While we eat, tell me everything you can remember about O’Bannion.”

  He took charge, grabbing the bags of food and walking to the kitchen. Chelsea moved behind him, immersed in a state of shock mixed with numbness. She helped Evan set the table, then they both sat and began eating. She almost didn’t taste the food, engrossed in thoughts and speculations.

  “I still can’t believe it,” she said finally, her spoon halfway to her mouth. “I haven’t heard from or seen Aideen in years. What would’ve set her off now?”

  Evan shrugged, his mouth full of hot, spicy soup. He swallowed and reached for another piece of garlic bread.

  “You haven’t seen her, but obviously she’s seen you. Although I haven’t had time to dig into her life yet, she doesn’t strike me as a successful person. You are. Possibly she found out and resented that. It festered in her subconscious, and she snapped. It doesn’t take a lot to set off people who are mentally ill—you know that better than I do.”

  “I know, but… It’s one thing to read about these individuals in books, and a whole different story to have met one and have her stalk you, imitate you, and kill women who look like you.”

  “Well, interviewing her is going to be a very interesting experience. Fro
m what you’ve told me so far, she’s always manifested signs of mental illness. Do you know if she was on any medication back in high school?”

  Chelsea shook her head, chewing slowly. The chicken was creamy and salty, with a rich aroma of basil and pepper. She hadn’t realized how hungry she’d been until now.

  “I don’t know if she took medication, but I strongly doubt it. Back then, mental illness wasn’t taken as seriously as it is now—as seriously as it should be. People like her were just considered loners, weirdoes, mean, or simply unpleasant. Most classmates just stayed away from her. I doubt her parents noticed or acknowledged there was something wrong with their younger daughter.”

  “After we finish eating, I’ll do a quick search on her, see if she has an online presence using her real name.”

  “Oh, I’m sure she does. She was always starved for attention. When we were friends, she always got upset and I always felt bad when a guy checked me out and ignored her. That’s not pleasant for anyone, especially for a high school girl with a fragile ego.”

  “But you said she had a colossal opinion about herself,” Evan argued.

  “Only on the outside. She gave this impression of arrogance, of self-assurance, but inside she was plagued by insecurities. An older boy from another class said once that she was like an appendage of mine. Don’t laugh, it’s not funny,” Chelsea berated him.

  Evan pressed his fist against his mouth, unable to stifle the chuckles. “Sure it is. I imagine it wasn’t funny for her.” His smile morphed into a frown. “It couldn’t have been easy being your friend. You were gorgeous, and she wasn’t. That’s not an excuse to hate you.”

  “I’m not gorgeous, and she wasn’t ugly either. She had her assets, and she was vain about them. For instance, she had a great talent for drawing. I paint as a hobby, I’m not talented at all, but she was truly gifted. She could draw someone’s portrait in five minutes flat.”

  Evan pushed his empty plate aside, his eyes sharpening. “Art. She was an artist. That is another thing you and the women have in common.”