Robson Street was the Mecca of high-end shopping for the Vancouver elite. Alex followed Jill from store to store. Carrying bags from Salvatore Ferragamo, Louis Vuitton, and La Senza, Alex felt his credit card smoking. But then, so was his wife. With each step, he felt his mood lighten.
After depositing Jill’s booty at the hotel, they took a stroll to Gastown. The melting snow made the cobblestone streets slick, and Jill wound her arm through his as they walked by the tourist shops. Native art figured prominently in the windows of the high-end art galleries. The iconic steam clock struck seven as Alex led the way into the Water Street Café.
The smell of simmering tomatoes and garlic filled the dining room. Sipping wine and nibbling on fresh pasta and bruschetta, Alex sat back in his chair and enjoyed the comfortable silence that stretched out between them. Jill looked tired. She’d been working hard, establishing herself in her new role.
“How did the demo go?” he asked.
Jill’s look was sharp, and she took a sip of wine before answering.
“It went well. Standing room only. In fact, the demand was so high that they added a third session.”
“Well, that’s great, isn’t it?” He was puzzled by the change in her demeanor. She seemed on edge. “How is everything going at work?”
“What do you mean?” Her tone was sharp, eyes wary. “Everything is fine.”
“With Jamie’s passing, and your promotion there’s been a lot of change. Has it been weird for you?”
Jill sipped her wine, considering his question.
“It’s been okay. Most people are supportive.”
“Not all?”
Jill cocked an eyebrow.
“Some people like to play politics.”
“Meaning?” he asked, curious about the dynamics of Jill’s work life. He knew she didn’t always play well with others.
“Well, there is this one woman, Dana Evans.”
“What’s her deal?”
Jill’s grin turned conspiratorial.
“She joined the company about a month before Jamie’s death. She’s aggressive. Ambitious. Apparently she and Jamie worked together at another company. Rumor has it, they were having an affair.”
“Really? Do you think there’s any truth to the rumor?”
Jill shrugged.
“Jamie was no choirboy.”
“Aren’t interoffice affairs at the management level kind of risky?”
“Jamie had a reputation as a ladies’ man.”
Jill’s matter-of-fact statement piqued his interest, and Alex wondered what else lay beneath the assertion.
“You never mentioned that before.”
Jill’s cheeks stained pink, and her eyes met his.
“Really? I guess it didn’t seem relevant.”
“Did he ever hit on you?”
His senses on full alert, Alex saw the muscles in her neck flex ever so slightly as she swallowed.
“Well, he was tipsy at our last ship party and got a little too friendly.”
Alex’s gut clenched.
“Did you break his fingers?” Alex asked. He was only half kidding.
“Not exactly, but I made my thoughts on the topic crystal clear. After that, it was never an issue.”
Alex considered her answer. Jill was a smart, beautiful woman. If Jamie was a womanizer, of course he would have been attracted to her. In his experience, a wedding ring wasn’t even a speed bump for most commitment-phobic men, less a deterrent than a draw.
Jill’s fingers brushed her arm.
“I’m sorry I brought Jamie up. Whatever he did is in the past. Let’s not let it spoil our night.”
“You’re right,” he said, trying to shake the growing sense of discomfort he felt. Was she lying? He couldn’t tell. But before either of them could say more, his cell phone rang. Alex dug it out of his pocket. Checking the call display, he sighed and skipped the call. Glancing up, he caught the look in Jill’s eyes.
“Who was that?” she asked. Her legs were crossed, and he saw the tip of her boot swing back and forth impatiently, like a cat twitching its tail.
“It’s not important.” He hoped she would let it go. She didn’t. That wasn’t Jill’s style.
“Abby?”
Alex nodded and picked his wineglass up off of the table. He swirled the Cabernet around in his glass. Thick tears of wine rolled down into the bowl.
“She’s checking in to see if there are any updates on the case.”
“Wouldn’t you call her if you had news?”
“Sure, but everyone handles this type of situation differently. In Abby’s case, she finds it easier to call. Waiting for the phone to ring just makes her anxious.”
Jill arched her eyebrows, never shifting her gaze from his face.
“Is that all it is?”
“Yes,” he said, careful to mask the twinge of guilt he felt.
From the look on Jill’s face, it was clear she didn’t fully believe him, but for whatever reason, she let it go.
The wine worked its magic, and on the way back to the hotel, the snow fell harder, blanketing Gastown in a postcard-perfect layer of white. As they strolled back to the hotel, Alex draped his arm around Jill’s shoulders and pulled her close. He felt her stiffen, and he wondered if she was still thinking about Abby’s call.
They stopped in the hotel bar for a drink before heading back to their room. As the door closed behind them, Alex dropped the card key on the desk. Jill sat on the end of the bed to remove her boots.
Alex hunkered down in front of her. His hands ran up the length of her legs. She shivered at his touch. Slowly, gently, he removed her boots, setting them beside the bed. His lips touched hers. He felt her hand circle around his neck and tangle in his hair, and he deepened his kiss.
Jill pulled back, her breath catching in her throat.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yes,” she breathed, and kissed him again.
Placing his hand on the round firmness of her breast, he felt everything fall away. Abby. The case. Everything.
CHAPTER THIRTY SIX
Back at home in West Seattle, long after she’d made herself a quick bite to eat and straightened up the kitchen, Jill logged on to her email account from the comfortable leather armchair in the living room. The rain outside was coming down in a dense drizzle, but the cheerful fire in the hearth was doing its best to ward off the late-night chill. Molly lay on the area rug, her back edged as close to the dancing flames as possible without setting her fur on fire.
Alex was working late. The cases that had accumulated since his return from California were finally getting some much needed attention, and that suited Jill just fine. The long weekend in Vancouver had left her with some extra work on her plate, too, and she set about scanning the new items in her in-box.
Most of it was run-of-the-mill stuff. She deleted junk mail from her favorite online shopping places, notifications of upcoming training courses and conferences, software build notifications. After parsing through a couple of dozen emails, she had pruned the list to less than ten—all things that she needed to read.
The latest project status reports assured her that all major work items were on track. She’d spend some time tomorrow adding a little extra color for her boss before sending it along. Rachel sent her a notification for an internal technical discussion that she should sit in on. She paused before opening the next unread message. She didn’t recognize the address. It was from a xmail account. With an email moniker like [email protected], she figured it could only be one thing: spam. Typically this was the type of thing that her junk email filter weeded out. It was odd that this one had made it all of the way to her in-box. Her finger hovered over the Delete button for a second before she dropped her hand to her side.
Just spam, she thought again, but an uneasy feeling churned at the pit of her stomach. Unable to ignore it, she clicked on the message.
I know your secret.
An image. A single stil
l frame of her face, eyes closed, made her heart lurch. Below the image, there was a link. In the few seconds it took for the video to load, Jill’s heart stopped.
Holy shit. Peter had captured the rape on video. She could see her unconscious face slack behind Peter’s naked shoulder. She slammed the laptop screen closed and dropped it on the table as if the metal case had scorched her hands. Jumping to her feet, she started to pace.
Molly let out a soft yelp, her feet twitching as she slept. Jill watched the sleeping dog for a moment before she shifted her gaze back to the laptop. Who sent the video, and just what exactly did he know? That she was Peter’s victim, or that he was hers? If there was someone out there who knew the role she played in Peter’s untimely death, wouldn’t they have come forward by now?
As much as she wanted to, she couldn’t ignore the email. A few searches later, she realized that her video was not the only one posted to Peter’s illicit website. The videos, ten in all, featured three men who filmed their sexual exploits with a variety of women. The women did not all look like willing participants. Some looked drugged. A few were actually bound and gagged, eyes wide with horror as they were raped. Jill’s gut clenched. A wave of nausea washed over her.
Three of the videos starred Peter Young as the male stud. Four starred a man she didn’t recognize. With his bleached blond hair and dark tan she guessed he lived somewhere warm. Either that or the bastard owned a tanning salon. His large teeth flashed at the camera, and Jill stopped the video feed.
The remaining three belonged to a lithe, dark-haired man who liked to tie his victims up. Watching his videos, Jill had no doubt he liked the game. The rougher, the more painful—the better.
Who were these women, and what happened to them once they served their purpose? Did they get emails, too? Did they pay money to make their problems go away? Did they keep silent about what happened to them? Were they all like her, married women who had their own reasons for not going to the police?
Jill’s hands clenched into fists as she paced the hardwood floor. Was the sender trying to scare her? If so, he was doing a damned good job of it. She felt helpless. Exposed.
Helpless? Jill stopped pacing. No. She wasn’t helpless. There were tools she could use, reverse lookups that would provide her with more info—who he was, for starters.
Dropping back into her chair, she picked up her laptop. Choosing from a dozen email lookup tools, she typed in his email address. Seconds later the results came back. Her lips compressed in a flat line. Not surprisingly, the bastard used a fake name. The email address belonged to a Charles U Farley. She scowled, unimpressed by the flaccid attempt at wit.
Fingers drumming the keys, she studied the report. Email accounts generated from this source were largely anonymous, and the ISP was a large hosting company, so no help was to be found there. The IP address would provide more specific information. The police could get a warrant compelling the ISP to release the name of the subscriber. But she was not the police, so, short of reporting the rape to the authorities, that route was closed to her. There was another option, though.
The email lookup program she selected offered the option of providing more information on the subscriber for a small fee. All she needed to do was supply the email name for the reverse lookup. Fifteen bucks seemed like a small price to pay for a little piece of mind, so she authorized payment to her credit card and waited.
Jill’s heart jumped in her chest as she viewed the results. She still had no name, but Casanova3569 belonged to several online dating sites. After saving the results to a text file on her hard drive, a few quick searches confirmed that most of the sites were dedicated to married people hooking up online.
Casanova was looking for a woman who was married and lived in the southern US. His ideal woman fit the profile of a twenty-two-year-old yoga instructor. Yeah, well didn’t everyone’s? Jill clicked on his picture. The smiling face of a man stared up at her from his computer monitor. Her jaw clenched. She recognized him, all right. He was one of the other men featured in the sex videos on Peter’s website. Son of a bitch.
Jill drew in a long breath as she considered this information. Somehow he had figured out her identity. But how? Had Peter sent him information about her?
I know your secret.
What game was he playing? Extortion? Would he come looking for money? Was it blackmail? “Keep your mouth shut, or I’ll post this for the whole world to see?”
Jill didn’t know. Whatever the game, though, she was going to play. Just not by his rules.
Molly groaned and stretched as the fire crackled in the grate. She stole a quick glance at the clock and noted that it was past ten. Alex would be home soon.
Quickly, she listed out her next steps. First, she needed to get rid of the video. She could design a virus—a worm that would destroy the website. Viruses had become more sophisticated since she studied network security at school, but it wouldn’t be that hard. Taking down the website would prevent them from sharing the link. If the videos resided on their hard drives—well, that was a problem she couldn’t solve. Not yet, anyway.
Second, she needed to uncover Casanova’s real identity.
Did she? A new thought dawned, and for the first time since she’d seen the email in her in-box, Jill smiled.
Who he was didn’t matter. She knew how to find him. After all, Casanova was looking for an attractive married woman. And, staring at his online profile, Jill knew just where to find one.
Unfortunately for him, romance was the last thing on her mind.
CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN
The next night, Jill left Alex in front of the television watching hockey and walked the few short blocks to the Alki Bakery. She was on a mission, and she couldn’t risk Alex looking over her shoulder. Besides, whatever she did on her home network would leave an IP address that could be traced back to her. She had to remain anonymous.
Baiting the hook for Casanova should be as easy as concocting the right online persona. The tinkling of the bell rang over her head as she pushed the door open, the smell of coffee and warm croissants filling her senses.
“Jill, where have you been?” the barista asked from behind the counter. The bakery was a typical stop after her weekend runs with Molly, but with everything that had happened lately, nothing was routine.
“Crazy busy.”
“California?”
She nodded, pulling some cash from her wallet.
“I’ve made a few trips.”
“Must hate coming back to the rain. The usual?”
“Thanks, Joey.” She waited while he filled a jug with milk and the steam flowed out from the frothy liquid.
“Where’s Alex?”
“Home. Glued to the tube.”
“His loss. I have you all to myself.” He twitched his eye in an exaggerated wink. She grinned.
Joey chuckled as he served her coffee. She dumped the change into the tip jar. Balancing the saucer in her hand, she crossed the room, choosing a table in the back.
The crowd was sparse tonight. What looked to be a couple of college students were huddled in the corner, seeming more interested in each other than the iPads laid flat on the table between them. An older man sat by the window looking out into the dark night, his lined face reflected in the rain-streaked glass. A young woman hunched over a novel, fist pulling her bangs out of her eyes. Dark strands of hair poked between her clenched fingers as she read.
Jill set her cup and saucer down carefully, the creamy liquid touching the edge without sloshing over, and dropped the bag on the chair. She pulled out her laptop and placed it on the table, powering it up.
She sat and sipped her latte. It was bitter and creamy, just the way she liked it. Turning back to the screen, she thought about her profile. She needed to find the right name, the right look, the right everything to attract Casanova. She thought about the disturbing sex videos she’d seen on his website. Casanova’s women were blond, fit, with athletic builds and big breasts.
According to religious scholars, Lilith was Adam’s first wife—before Eve. Legend had it that Adam abandoned Lilith when he found out she was barren, moving on to Eve. But Lilith did not go gentle into that good night. She was said to bed demons.
Jill smiled. The irony of the cheating husband and the scorned wife seemed poetic. She entered an email address that pointed to an email account she’d set up only moments earlier.
Picking up her coffee cup, she curled her fingers around the wide bowl, savoring the heat. She thought about the cyber trail she was creating. The café had free Wi-Fiaccess. There would be no IP trail to her home network. She was using an assumed name and an anonymous email account. Casanova might be clever. But he’d need more than a passing knowledge of computers and network security to trace her.
Finally, she would need to post a picture. She frowned at the thought. She could pull down a random image from the web, someone whose face fit the profile she had created. That would be one way to handle it. But maybe she could do one better.
Opening another browser window, she entered the address for a popular social-networking site for professionals, the same one she belonged to. Logging in, she did a quick directory search and found just the face she was looking for. Dana Evans. She fit the profile perfectly. Okay, she was a little shorter and a little heavier than the woman described in the profile, but she would do nicely.
With a quick save to her hard drive, Jill placed the image in the profile and hit the Submit button. The wait cursor twirled on the computer screen as Jill waited for the file to be uploaded.
You know my secret, Casanova? Well, I know yours, too. A smile crossed her lips, and she sat back in her chair, glancing up.
Her heart jumped in her chest as she saw a man staring intently at her. His dirty, shoulder-length blond hair framed his pale face, and his blue eyes bore into hers for the briefest of seconds. He sat a few tables away, and a faint smile touched his lips as he watched her. There was something odd about the intensity of his flat blue eyes. The inexplicable metallic tang of fear filled Jill’s mouth.
Deadly Lies Page 20
