Pitch Black Read online

  His annoyance at his own reaction to her made him reach for something to keep that wall in place despite her warmth and her smell and the hitch in her voice when she’d asked how deep she was getting. “I still can’t believe you didn’t trust me with your CPU,” he snapped.

  “Huh?”

  He hadn’t wanted to drag her to D.C., and had tried to get her to let him take it. They needed to go through her old cache of e-mails, to see if the Professor had ever reached out to her before, perhaps under a different name. Figuring she could use a laptop to post to her message board from home, he’d planned to tell her what to say by phone.

  But she wouldn’t let her damned computer out of her sight. “If you had let me take it, you wouldn’t be sitting here freezing your fingers off in a government car with a heater that blows cold air. Don’t you own gloves?”

  “You know how socks disappear in the dryer when you’re doing laundry?”

  Startled by the subject change, he nodded.

  “Well, gloves disappear from my coat pockets. One at a time. I’m the black hole of death for winter gloves. I have a dozen of them, none that match.”

  It was almost cute that she was being intentionally flip, wanting to avoid the real issue. But considering she was already too damn beautiful, he didn’t need her to be cute as well. “Which wouldn’t matter if you’d just let me take the computer.”

  “We talked about this at my apartment. . . .”

  “Our techs know what they’re doing. They could have examined it and gotten it back to you within twenty-four hours.”

  “Big Brother equipped? No way. Besides, how am I supposed to work?”

  He ignored the spying accusation. “You have to have a laptop. A backup computer.”

  “In an apartment too small to do jumping jacks in? Why would I need one?”

  “Well, with what you do . . .”

  “I had a laptop,” she admitted grudgingly. “It had a run-in with a golf club.”

  Startled, he glanced at her. “Excuse me?”

  “Watch the road. I locked down the hard drive so it might survive a fender-bender. But I’m not sure I would if it comes flying into the back of my head.”

  He hid his amusement. And the indignation over the insult to his driving. “Golf club?”

  “Long story.”

  Damn, she was stubborn. “No backup, huh? What do you do if it breaks down?”

  “I have a local computer repair shop on speed dial, and the owner makes house calls. That thing is all I’ve got, and my life is in it. So forget about taking it out of my sight.”

  Her words sounded a little too vehement. He suspected they were true, especially judging by what he’d seen of Sam Dalton’s life.

  What the hell was he thinking, dragging this woman, who lived like a self-protective hermit, into the middle of a serial-murder investigation? “Look,” he said, realizing there was another option. Maybe not the best one, given how smart the Professor was, but it was at least a possibility. “You can still get out of this altogether. Take a vacation. You give us your passwords, fly to the Caribbean for a week or two, and we’ll take it from there.” They could study her wording, make the messages sound like they were coming from Sam the Spaminator.

  “Sorry, no way.” She glanced out the window, not meeting his gaze, and her voice lowered. “I’ve had a man speak for me. I won’t let it happen again.”

  He suddenly suspected she was talking about her ex-husband. Though he sympathized, sensing the divorce had been a bad one, he couldn’t let it go, really liking the idea of getting her out of town altogether. “So what if you’re sitting there typing? We’re going to be telling you what to say, aren’t we?”

  “Maybe. But I still maintain some kind of control. I have a say, a choice.”

  Again, that hint of emotion told him he had hit a nerve. Unable to help it, he murmured, “And it wasn’t always that way?”

  She eyed him warily, but finally admitted, “No, it wasn’t.”

  His curiosity got the better of him. “So why the Mrs.?”

  “What?”

  He’d done it now; there was no backing out. “When we met yesterday, why did you insist I call you Mrs. Dalton? You mentioned an ex. So did your loud friend who called.”

  She groaned audibly.

  “Sorry,” he said, remembering exactly what else her loud friend had said. “Forget I said anything.”

  “Will you forget you heard it?”

  “Done. But back to the point: Your ex-Mr. doesn’t sound like much of a prize.”

  “Shh. Nobody’s told him that yet,” she said, rubbing a hand over her eyes.

  “How long?”

  “A year.”

  “Married a year, or divorced a year?”

  “Married four, divorced one. I guess I haven’t gotten used to being a Ms. or a Miss. Besides, though I’m not what anybody would consider a celebrity, I am in the public eye. I’d rather people not know my marital status or anything personal about me, which is why I try to keep any of that stuff off my Web site or my bio.”

  He didn’t tell her how easily he could have found out her personal info if he’d been ass enough to do more than professional research on her.

  “I know, I know,” she said, as if reading his thoughts. “I’m not a teacher who doesn’t understand the subject matter. Someone who wants to know all there is to know about me could probably find it. I put up the basic walls, but there’s still a trail out there for anybody who cares to look.” She glanced out the window again. “Including my divorce decree.”

  Her tone ended that line of conversation, and Alec respected her wishes. Driving in silence, he maneuvered through the late-morning traffic. They’d finally exited the downtown area and had a clear shot to the highway. Baltimore and D.C. weren’t separated by much land, but when you factored in all the cars, they might as well have been on different continents.

  “So where’s your partner?” she eventually asked.

  “Back at the office working on the IP addresses from Darwin’s comments.”

  “If it were that easy, you would have caught him after he killed that help-wanted victim he pushed into the machine, wouldn’t you?”

  The victim hadn’t been pushed, though he didn’t correct Sam, not wanting to speak of it. Because that poor woman had been led like a mouse through a maze, drugged, deafened by loud machinery, blinded by darkness and what must have been extreme terror. And in her panic to escape the person who had locked her in the manufacturing warehouse where she was found, she’d stepped through a gate the Professor had left open and had fallen right into an enormous industrial hopper.

  He couldn’t imagine an uglier death.

  “No, it probably won’t be easy. But there’s a slim chance. He couldn’t possibly suspect we’d be reading your site first thing this morning, or that we’d recognize his posts so quickly. He might not have been as careful as he is when corresponding with his victims, whose communications will, he knows, be carefully examined.”

  She tilted her head back against the headrest. “I still can’t believe Ryan was killed. Lured by a scam I warned about on my site a dozen times.”

  “Well, like you said yesterday, most people think those warnings and cautionary tales are meant for others. They know the danger, but proceed right into it, figuring they’re the exception; they can’t possibly be gullible enough to be a victim.”

  “I know. Which, Jimmy says, is what makes his job so easy.”

  “Who?” he asked, surprised. Was she involved with someone? He wouldn’t have guessed it, based on how she lived, but it made sense given her obvious attractiveness.

  He tried to ignore the sudden rolling in his stomach at the thought.

  “James—Jimmy—Flynt. The con man I told you about on the phone.” Sounding almost bitter, she added, “I think he was amused by my sad efforts to save his future victims. The man has no conscience, despite lots of efforts to prove otherwise.”

  Alec shifted u
ncomfortably in his seat, not wanting to overreact the way he had the previous morning, even though he didn’t like hearing Sam call the scumbag by such a chummy first name. He also was loath to point out the obvious. Though she hadn’t connected it, her observation about Flynt sounded a lot like the current situation. The Professor might very well be feeling the same way: amused by Sam’s efforts to save his victims from their fate. It was one explanation for his reaching out to her on her blog.

  His own personal amusement.

  He only hoped that amusement led the unsub to make a mistake. They needed only one break, one moment of carelessness. Then, with any luck, they’d nail the bastard.

  Alec had called ahead to get things rolling, so, to Sam’s surprise, she wasn’t put through the Spanish Inquisition to get into the Hoover Building. Could have been because Agent Lambert’s boss, a handsome fortyish man introduced as Supervisory Special Agent Blackstone, was waiting for them when they arrived. With quiet determination, he pushed the guards to get her through as quickly as possible, something she doubted they often did for civilians.

  As she rode in the elevator with Alec and his boss, she couldn’t help comparing them. Alec’s brown hair was lighter, with golden streaks, and his eyes a soft, glittering green. A few lines beside them said he was capable of laughter. She’d gotten a glimpse or two of his smile and suspected the full throttle would be devastating.

  Blackstone was as dark as his name. Inky black hair that contrasted starkly with eyes a deep shade of blue. A hair taller, but leaner. And while he was cordial to the point of formality, nothing about him hinted at a jolly side.

  Alec was sexy in a playful way, his boss in a brainy one. Any way you looked at it, they were both attractive as hell, and she had never felt more aware of how those fifteen pounds filled out her old khakis and tight sweater. Nor of the fact that she hadn’t even had time to put a drop of makeup on.

  No more sleeping in for you.

  “We appreciate your assistance, Mrs. Dalton,” Blackstone said. “I hope we haven’t inconvenienced you too much.”

  “Ms. Dalton,” she murmured, though she cursed the impulse after the words had left her mouth. Especially when she sensed Alec Lambert’s shoulders move, as if he had silently chuckled. “I’m willing to do whatever I can to help.”

  “Except let your CPU out of your sight.”

  She cast a quick glare to the right, seeing no expression on Lambert’s face, though he’d obviously murmured the jab. She said nothing. Considering he was the one stuck carrying the big box containing the computer all the way from the car, she didn’t figure she had the right.

  “Alec, you should know I have calls in to the Behavioral Analysis Unit,” Blackstone said.

  She didn’t have to glance over at his face to see this news didn’t please Alec Lambert. She saw the way his big hands tightened on the box, clenching it so hard his fingers left indentations in the cardboard.

  “You know we have to bring them up to speed on this case.”

  “Of course.” His bland tone revealed nothing. “What was the response?”

  “They haven’t returned my calls.” Sam would have thought that a bad thing, but the impassive expression on Blackstone’s face hinted it wasn’t. In fact, she would swear his mouth was curved up the tiniest bit at the corners as he added, “It certainly isn’t our responsibility to make them respond to their messages.”

  Alec’s fingers loosened. “Nope. It sure isn’t.”

  Interesting exchange. It seemed neither man wanted the help of this other unit, which she found surprising. Then again, the big brick wall she’d run up against when she’d tried to interact with the FBI in the past told her they weren’t always as interested in solving crimes as they were in making themselves look good.

  She didn’t know his boss, but nothing about Alec’s behavior thus far said he was that type. Still, something was making these two professional-looking men sound like a couple of kids who didn’t want Dad to find out they’d been messing around with his tools in the garage.

  None of your business.

  Even if it were, she might feel comfortable enough with Alec to ask him about it, but his boss intimidated her. She’d never seen a more intense, professional-looking man in law enforcement, and she wasn’t about to accuse him of playing childish king-of-the-mountain turf games.

  When they reached the correct floor and the door swished open, Blackstone extended an arm to hold it out of the way, gesturing her out first. She stepped onto a carpeted floor, in a hallway lined with large-windowed offices and computer labs. On the other side of those windows, agents buzzed about and studied images projected from various computers onto large overhead screens. It was pretty much as she’d always imagined the Cyber Division would look, at least from what she’d seen on TV and in the movies.

  But they didn’t turn into one of those slick, glossy rooms. They kept walking, turning down corridors until she began to feel a little lost, and the ambience became decidedly less techno-chic.The carpet disappeared; so did the glass-walled suites. Greasy dust on a few of the doors hinted they hadn’t been opened in a couple of years, as if this part of the building had been abandoned.

  Not entirely, though. They finally reached their destination, and it took willpower not to gawk at how antiquated and dingy the offices assigned to Supervisory Special Agent Blackstone and his team were.

  “Lily and Brandon are back and are assisting Jackie with last night’s messages,” he said to Alec as they entered. “Dean and Kyle drove up to Wilmington this morning to meet with the detectives investigating the double murder there and talk to the ME about the autopsies. They should be back soon.”

  Double murder. Autopsies.

  Ryan and his friend. God.

  Nodding to a receptionist who offered Sam a cursory smile, Blackstone entered what appeared to be a conference room. Considering dusty boxes stood in lopsided columns from floor to ceiling in all four corners, she doubted it had been one for long.

  “That for me?” a man asked, nodding toward the CPU Alec held in his arms. He was young, with spiked blond hair. His bright yellow dress shirt and trendy, pin-striped trousers weren’t what she’d expected to see in this particular government office, and his smile was infectious. “Brandon Cole,” he said as he moved past her to take the computer from Alec. “I’ll treat her like a baby, okay?”

  Whether she liked it or not, her link with the outside world did have to leave her sight, at least for a while. Knowing she couldn’t be petty enough to deny law enforcement any chance at finding clues to catch the boys’ murderer, she nodded. “Okay. Here are my passwords.” She handed him the notes she’d jotted down during the drive from Baltimore. Then, frowning, she added, “No reading e-mails from anybody named Tricia, aka Delishtrish. I’ll vouch for her.”

  Her friend was occasionally overdescriptive when talking about her dates. She seemed to think if Sam read about somebody else occasionally getting laid, she might be more apt to want to do it herself. Sam always hit delete after the first paragraph.

  “You got it,” the young man said before he left the room, taking with him her most prized possession—including the bulk of her already contracted second book. Talk about redundant backups: She hadn’t gone with Alec today until she’d burned it to CD and a portable hard drive.

  “Delishtrish who leaves loud messages?” Alec asked as he pulled a chair out and beckoned for her to take a seat. A glint of humor appeared in his eyes again, and for a moment, she thought he was laughing at her.

  Then she felt the quick, reassuring brush of his hand on her shoulder and realized his light teasing and humor were his way of trying to keep her calm and comfortable. The realization was as nice as it was unexpected. “My best friend. She’s a pain in the butt, but she’s loyal.”

  Swallowing, she quietly added, “Thank you.”

  “Don’t mention it.” Glancing at the antique industrial round clock on the wall, he frowned, the hint of warmth evaporating. “We
’re running out of time.”

  Almost twelve thirty. He was right.

  “You ready?”

  She nodded. “As I’ll ever be.”

  Alec bent and reached around her, his strong arm brushing hers, pushing an open laptop in front of her. “Why don’t you log in so you’ll be set to go once we decide exactly what you’re going to say.” As she did so, he addressed the others in the room—two women who also sat at the conference table. “Anything?”

  His partner, Stokes, offered Sam a curt nod of hello. “Our boy did some driving last night. His posts came from three different servers. We’ve isolated them, so we know one was from a hotel offering free wifi, one from a small-time auto repair shop without a firewall.” Not quite meeting Sam’s eye, as if she realized how it would affect her, she admitted, “Which was on Reisterstown Road, near Druid Hill Park.”

  Close. Very close to where she lived. God, she had never thought about how close her hometown was to Delaware—where the boys had been killed. Or that the monster they were chasing could actually operate right in this area.

  Alec obviously thought the same thing. She saw his sudden tension and the scowl on his handsome face.

  Sam closed her eyes for a moment, forcing herself to take a deep, calming breath. She lived in a large metropolitan area with an untold number of servers. Of course someone wanting to disguise his location from the FBI would be drawn to a big city. He’d headed south, that was all, and Baltimore was the first big city south of Wilmington.

  Besides, almost nobody knew her real address, including many of her old friends. Her Web site was registered through a hosting service, she used a PO box for almost all her correspondence, and she had an unlisted, unpublished number.

  Coincidence.

  Still, knowing the killer had ended up so physically close when he had responded to her blog—on top of the fact that he visited her site at all—didn’t exactly make her day.

  “And the other location?” Blackstone asked.

  “A residential neighborhood near BWI, probably some Joe Blow with an unsecured Linksys router.”