by Mary Stone
Bobby half-expected Aiden Parrish to sneer. Instead, his mouth twitched with a slight smile as he nodded. “Thank you, Agent Welford.”
“What about the IP addresses of the person who posted the videos?” Sun’s tone was as pointed as her expression.
The attitude change might have been Bobby’s imagination—after all, Sun had been irritable since she walked into the room—but he thought there was a twinge of hostility whenever she spoke after Aiden Parrish. Though Bobby had no idea of the reason for the antagonism, it became clearer and clearer with each of Sun and Aiden’s interactions that there was bad blood.
Agent Welford spread her hands as she glanced over to Sun. “The IP address was generated by a proxy server to mask the real log-in. We looked through the IP addresses of the commenters on the video, and they all used proxy servers too. It’s not all that uncommon. More often than not, when we’re dealing with people tech-savvy enough to navigate the dark web, they’re using a proxy. With something on this scale, IP addresses are usually a dead end.”
Though the movement was grudging, Sun nodded.
“We’re still looking into the posts, and we’ll continue to track down what we can while you work through the investigation on your end,” Agent Welford said.
Max stepped up to the podium as Agent Welford returned to her seat. “First order of business is to identify the victims. If any of you learn anything new that might relate to this investigation, you’re expected to relay the information to Agent Black and Agent Dalton. Otherwise, you’re all dismissed.”
When Bobby lifted his coffee for another drink, he was surprised at how light the cup had become. If I have to sift through missing persons reports all night, I’m going to need an entire pot.
He almost groaned aloud at the thought.
As Sun strode past without so much as a sideways glance in his direction, he grated his teeth. He wanted to ask her what was on her mind, but right after a briefing wasn’t the time, and the FBI field office wasn’t the place.
Ryan O’Connelly had better be good company, because this was going to be a long night.
6
When Winter stepped into the conference room the next morning to meet with Bobby Weyrick, the weariness on his face was so pronounced that it made her tired. Though Winter had received a message from one of their office’s leading forensics experts to tell her there was an update on the evidence they’d collected from her old family home in Harrisonburg, she was glad she’d decided to meet with Bobby first. If she’d waited, she would have had to wake him up.
With a light click, she closed the glass and metal door behind herself. “When’s the last time you slept?”
As he yawned, Bobby shrugged in response. “I’m not sure anymore. Honestly, I think I got more sleep when I was deployed in Afghanistan.”
Winter sat down at the circular table across from him. “Before you know it, we’ll be back to paperwork and court hearings.”
He dropped his face into one hand. “Yeah, when people stop murdering one another. I’m not holding my breath.”
At the sarcastic remark, she couldn’t help a quiet chuckle. “Are you and Autumn related? Because you sounded just like her with that comment.”
He wrinkled his nose. “Autumn Trent? The redhead? God, I hope not.”
Winter froze midway through pushing open the screen of her laptop. As she narrowed her eyes, she closed the computer and laid both hands atop the matte surface. “What does that mean?”
With a light sigh, he straightened himself. “It means that I need to go to bed because now I’m saying things that don’t make any sense. You don’t really need me to explain that, do you? It just…it came out wrong.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “I think you’d better. You’re talking about my friend, you know that, right?”
As he nodded, he rubbed his eyes with one hand. “I sure do,” he muttered. “I didn’t mean anything bad by it, okay? It’s just, she’s…” Holding out both hands, he gave her a hapless look.
“She’s what?” Winter’s voice was so flat it bordered on outright irritable.
“She’s an attractive woman, and if we were related, that’d be…” he made a face like he’d just bitten into a lemon, “that’d make me feel gross.”
Even as the laughter bubbled up in her throat, Winter couldn’t curb the outburst. As she lapsed into a fit of laughter at Bobby’s awkward explanation, the tension she’d carried since the end of the investigation of Tony Johansson—a corrupt Baltimore City narcotics detective—lifted from her shoulders.
She held up a hand to stave off any potential remarks, covering her face with the other as yet another wave of laughter threatened to roll over her. She felt punch-drunk, which might mean she could use some extra sleep too.
“I’m sorry,” she finally managed. As she paused to sniffle, she glanced over to take stock of the mix of confusion and amusement on Bobby’s face. “Sorry. It’s…it’s been a long couple of weeks, and I guess sometimes you need a little fifth grade humor to help cut through the stress.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, I understand that. On the plus side, I’m definitely more awake now.” As he flipped open a beige folder, he spun the file around to face Winter.
Like a switch had been flipped, the good humor in the room evaporated.
Winter studied the glossy printout of a zoomed-in still frame of one of the five videos. Before she turned over the page, she glanced at Bobby.
“I found two of them.” He gestured to the folder. “I printed these stills off before I left with O’Connelly last night. Took down the time that each of the videos was posted, and then I went through missing persons reports from around the same time. This young woman here, that’s the girl who was killed.”
With a grim look and a nod, Winter returned her focus to the printed information behind the blonde’s picture. “Dakota Ronsfeldt. Nineteen, lived in…” Giving her head a little shake, she looked back to Bobby, giving him an is this right stare.
“Lived in Maine,” he finished for her. “That’s why it took me so long to find her. Her older brother and sister reported her missing, but they just made the report a couple days ago. Dakota was a recovering addict, and when she relapsed, her whole family cut her off. My guess is that’s why she came to Virginia. She got popped here in Richmond for solicitation about a month ago.”
Winter turned to the next page—the missing person’s report. “How long had she been here?”
“I got ahold of her brother last night.” Bobby shrugged his shoulders as if trying to work out a knot. “He said she left Maine something like six weeks ago. She’d call them on a regular basis, usually to ask for money. When she didn’t call them for a week straight, they tried to get ahold of her. Then, when they couldn’t, they filed the report.”
Behind the missing person’s report was a printout of Dakota’s senior picture. Fall leaves of gold and red decorated the ground at her back, and her smile was wide and hopeful. What had happened between then and the time she was arrested for prostitution in Richmond, Winter suspected she’d never know.
Compressed into a few sheets of paper and an eight-by-ten photograph was the entire tragedy of the end of a young woman’s life.
Any doubts she might have had that the video was a fake could be officially laid to rest.
Swallowing back the horror that must now be faced, Winter moved the first bundle of papers aside to peer down at the next eight-by-ten. This young woman was also blonde, though she had been only seventeen at the time she was reported missing.
Bobby cleared his throat. “That’s Anastasia Mitchell. She was reported missing by her mother after she’d been gone from home for more than two weeks. That was a couple months ago, right around the time her video was posted. I got ahold of her mother this morning, and it sounds like they were a really strict household. Jehovah’s Witnesses, I think.”
Lips pursed, Winter returned Dakota’s file and closed the folder. “It took the
m two weeks to report their seventeen-year-old daughter missing? Why?”
Spreading his hands, Bobby leaned back. “I don’t know. From what the mom said, Anastasia ran off to be with a boy. The mother claimed that the boy had turned her daughter into a prostitute, and if it wasn’t for Dakota’s solicitation charge, I’d have thought she was exaggerating.”
Winter tapped a finger on the closed folder. “During the Augusto Lopez investigation, some of the killers Augusto targeted picked on working girls too.”
“So did Ted Bundy, The Green River Killer, Jeffrey Dahmer, BTK.”
Winter nodded. “Yeah, it’s a signature move among creeps who like to kill women.”
Bobby lifted a shoulder. “I hate to say it, but I think we’ve got ourselves another serial killer.”
Another serial killer.
Looking at the girl’s picture again, Winter wondered if they’d ever have the manpower to devote to a fresh look at her brother’s case.
Not if these psychopaths keep popping up, she thought bitterly.
The sooner they took this bastard off the streets, the sooner she could focus her efforts on finding Justin.
Ryan was glad the bureau had sprung for a hotel suite with a separate bedroom. He’d been advised against closing its door completely, but he was satisfied with the thin slat of light when he left it ajar. As long as Agent Sun Ming wasn’t staring at him while he shoved his face under a pillow and squeezed his eyes shut, he didn’t care.
He couldn’t blame the agents for their wariness. He’d earned the suspicion and mistrust of the entire Federal Bureau of Investigation.
At least they won’t drug me and strap a bomb around my head.
Though he still felt like a captive, the accommodations on the fifteenth story of the mid-grade hotel was much better than his time under Heidi’s thumb.
He assumed the FBI had chosen the fifteenth floor in order to make an escape more difficult for Ryan, but between the eagle-eyed agent in the next room and the sci-fi ankle monitor he’d been fitted with the day before, he doubted he could have broken free from their oversight even if he tried.
As he’d been pointedly told by the Richmond SAC, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was far more acquainted with flight risks than the Erie police had been.
Even if he made it past his vigilant babysitter and managed to ditch the high-tech ankle monitor, what then?
He didn’t doubt Max Osbourne’s conviction when he’d assured Ryan he would find him if he ran, nor did he doubt the man’s capabilities.
If Ryan made it out of the hotel, even out of the city, what did he do then? How did he keep his sister safe from her abusive ex-husband if he was constantly forced to look over his shoulder for the rest of his life?
Before he’d left the field office the day before, Agents Black and Dalton had thanked him for his help and vowed they would find the person responsible for the macabre videos.
If Ryan’s fate was in the hands of the two agents and their SAC, he would feel a bit better. But his future was in the hands of a lawyer.
Ryan had always hated lawyers.
With a muffled groan, he tightened his grip on the pillow that covered his head. He’d been so tired when he met with Agent Black and Agent Dalton, but even though he’d barely managed a couple hours of sleep since then, he couldn’t will his eyes to stay closed. No matter how hard he tried to blank his thoughts, they kept spiraling.
He’d feel better if he could at least talk to Lillian, if he could at least confirm that she was okay, but he wouldn’t risk an outreach to the person he’d tried so hard to protect. Even if the FBI had Ryan dead to rights, they didn’t have Lil.
The bureau wanted him around for the course of the investigation, but after an entire night in the company of an agent, Ryan still didn’t understand what they expected from him. He’d given them all the information he found—wasn’t that enough?
Sure, he had gained access to the portions of the dark web where the videos had been found in the first place, but he had given the bureau’s tech department the information to do the same.
Clenching and unclenching both hands, he finally lifted the pillow, rolled to his back, and took in a deep breath.
You made your choice before you even came here, he told himself.
Coming clean to the FBI was the only way to restore some semblance of normalcy to Lil, Evan, and Erin’s lives. It was the only way he could be sure the Feds wouldn’t paint a target on his sister’s back.
If he ran, Lillian would be their first stop.
Ryan flung an arm over his eyes to block out the sight of the room.
If he had a choice before, he didn’t now.
7
After Winter made copies of all Bobby Weyrick’s notes and files he’d gathered the night before, she dropped the folder off at Noah’s desk. She’d hoped he would be there, but he must have been tasked with a meeting or an errand.
As she made her way to the elevator that would take her to the cluster of offices that belonged to the forensic lab’s senior members, she felt like she was on her way to her first day of school. Though Stella Norcott had told her she’d finished her evaluation of some of the items from the house, she hadn’t elaborated. If any pertinent information had been found, Winter was sure she would have called or written a more detailed note.
A little over a week ago, Autumn had accompanied Winter to her childhood home in Harrisonburg, Virginia.
Visiting the house was a follow-up to the cryptic email Winter had received from Justin: Hey, sis. Heard you’ve been looking for me.
The FBI Cyber Crimes Division had determined that the email originated from Harrisonburg. Right away, Winter had been certain not just that the sender was her little brother, but that he’d set foot in the house that had been abandoned since their parents were killed.
Her hunch had been right.
On the drywall of the area that had once been their family’s living room, he had written: Hey, sis, you just missed me.
When Winter and Autumn had followed a foul stench upstairs, it led them to the same bedroom where Winter had found her parents’ bodies all those years ago. Written in the same substance as the message downstairs was another cryptic message: See you soon.
What that meant, Winter was still no closer to knowing. The short message had been rendered even more ominous by the pile of desecrated rat corpses in the corner of the room.
With a long exhale of breath, she shook herself from the recollection and jabbed the button for the third floor.
To hope that a few dead rats and the dust in an abandoned house would unequivocally point them in Justin’s direction was naïve, to say the least. Any time her thoughts drifted toward the realm of wishful thinking, she abruptly reigned them back into reality.
Over the past few days, she’d started to wonder if her brother even wanted to be found. Did he think he was in danger? Did he think that because Douglas Kilroy had stolen him away from his family, he was somehow responsible for the man’s crimes?
Clenching her jaw, Winter pushed aside the ridiculous questions.
He was nineteen now, not six. She was searching for a young adult, not a little boy. He may have even attended college. Either way, he was a much more complex person than he’d been in the first grade.
As the cheery ding sounded out and the silver doors slid open, she took in a steadying breath and stepped into the hall. Stella had a busy day, but she’d told Winter she was welcome to stop by the office during her lunch hour.
Stella Norcott’s door was the last in a row of three, and light from the sunny office spilled out into the dim hall. As Winter stepped into the doorway, Stella’s jade green eyes snapped up from the container of food on her desk.
With a smile, she rested her fork on the edge of the Tupperware. “Hey, Winter. How’s it going?”
Winter returned the expression to the best of her ability, but she was sure she’d failed miserably.
“I’m all right. How
are you?” The question felt perfunctory and robotic.
Shrugging, Stella set her food aside. “I’m all right too. Yeah, that about sums it up. Tired. Busy. Stressed. You know, the usual.”
As she dropped down to sit in front of the polished desk, Winter maintained her wooden smile.
Fortunately, Stella’s attention wasn’t fixed on Winter’s strained expression. With one hand, she turned the widescreen monitor to face Winter as she tapped a couple keys with the other. “The lab is chaos right now, so that’s why we aren’t in there. You know those performers who spin plates on sticks, right?”
Brushing a stray strand of hair away from her eyes, Winter nodded.
“That’s what I feel like every time I go back there. We had a couple people quit out of the blue, and then my ballistics guy, Ted, is on paternity leave.” As she dropped a hand to the top of the desk, she sighed. “I’m sorry. You aren’t here to listen to me complain about personnel issues. You’re here to talk about a case.”
For a moment, Winter’s smile didn’t feel so strained.
Sometimes, knowing there were others nearby who ran around their day to day lives with the same frenetic pace as a person on fire was enough to keep Winter from spiraling down into the realm of anxiety. Stella Norcott had always struck Winter as a woman who had her life together, but even the best and most organized men and women fell victim to the chaos every now and then.
“Here we go.”
When Winter glanced back to the forensics specialist, her eyes were on the monitor. As Winter followed her gaze, she had to fight to keep from wrinkling her nose at the gory sight. Somehow, seeing the dissected rodent displayed in high definition on a screen was more jarring than seeing a dead rat in real life.
“Oh, sorry. I guess I should have warned you before I pulled this up.” Stella’s eyes flicked over to her lunch and then to Winter before she shrugged. “I’m used to it. Animals and gore like this aren’t usually my specialty, but I see enough of it that I can watch a surgery while I eat spaghetti.”
