Pitch Black Read online

  One of the detours on that road had been a glimpse at the hidden server logs, specifically, information on her own posts for the week.

  Samantha’s comments Thursday had come from a new IP address. Not merely a new ISP, which would be expected. But a completely different Internet provider than she had ever used before. One from Washington, D.C.

  His suspicions at a fever pitch, he’d dug further. It had taken two more hours of research, visits to government Web sites, law enforcement databases, and conspiracy-theory blogs, but he had finally put it all together.

  The IP she’d used to post her responses to him serviced the federal government. More specifically, the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

  Damn her. Damn them.

  He had no idea how the authorities had seized upon his Darwin comments as being of any importance, but they had. And Samantha had helped them.

  The man who had escorted her home had been an FBI agent.

  Part of him was relieved that the stranger’s relationship with Sam was not a personal one.

  Definitely not a sexual one.

  Another part truly didn’t give a fuck; he just wanted to kill them both.

  Funny, really, given all the efforts he had gone through during the night to identify his rival. For today, the truth—including the identity of the FBI agent who was working with her—had been simply handed over to him. And Alec Lambert had gone on his personal list of people whose presence in this world needed to come to an end.

  Samantha’s name was there as well.

  Patience. He had to be careful, had to use his intellect.

  Darwin had always known the day would come when he would have to deal with the deadweight dragging Samantha down. Those closest to her had no redeeming qualities, as far as he could tell, and he was already positioned to begin eliminating them.

  Now, however, he no longer wanted to free her from them in order to help her live up to her fullest potential. He wanted to hurt her. Crush her completely. Emotionally first, then physically.

  He had given the matter careful consideration before deciding his next move, knowing he had to cut her down in stages, like a charging animal being broken by a hunter. Finally, he’d come up with a way to torment her, as well as let the FBI know he was onto them. Hijacking her own blog, he had posted a very personal message this morning.

  He had known it might not hit her at first, might merely confuse her. But once she did begin to suspect, Samantha’s shock and nervousness would bring her to the very edge of terror.

  Then he would push her over it.

  Alec took her to headquarters. He didn’t give her a chance to argue; he didn’t go by her place for clothes or supplies. Anything she needed, they could get her. No way was he taking her back to the apartment where, he firmly believed, she was being stalked by a serial killer.

  Fortunately, Wyatt was in agreement. He had been every bit as worried about this morning’s Web attack, seeing it as Alec did—as a taunt to Sam, a way to say he could get to her if he wanted to. His boss had begun arranging for Sam’s protection right after Alec called him from the top of that high-rise.

  He’d also sent the damned elevator back up.

  The very second his feet hit ground level, Alec had taken off across the city to find Sam. Thank God for GPS. And thank God he’d heard the name of the restaurant where she was dining.

  “Maybe we’re all overreacting,” Sam said as Alec parked the car once they reached D.C. It wasn’t the first time she’d voiced the theory since he’d grabbed her from the restaurant.

  “No, Sam. We’re not. I told you what Lily said when she called just now. It’s not only the blog post; he left a taunting comment on the message board less than fifteen minutes ago.”

  An ugly one. He hadn’t even told her exactly what it said, though Lily’s voice kept echoing in his brain. You’re worse than the brainless sheep. How can you be smart and yet such a whore?

  No. He did not want her hearing that. She was already frightened enough without realizing this psychopath had made this extremely personal.

  “Now let’s go.”

  His thoughts, his focus, were strictly on getting her protected, then going back and finding the son of a bitch who had been watching her. They knew the Professor had been in two places in Baltimore last night: the harbor area where the operator was killed, and in the vicinity of Sam’s apartment building. Finding evidence of any vehicle or person who had been spotted at both could be exactly the lead they needed. In addition to watching Sam’s message board, Lily was also working on satellite imagery of the two locations. Wyatt and Jackie had remained on the scene of last night’s murder, but Dean and Kyle had taken the third car over to Sam’s neighborhood, looking for anyone who might have seen a strange car. Brandon, armed with Sam’s passwords and IDs, was trying to trace whoever had hacked her Web site.

  Something would break. It had to.

  He walked around to open her door but she didn’t get out. Nor did she even look up at him as she mumbled, “I told you I’ve been hacked before. How can we know for certain this is any different?”

  The beautiful woman wasn’t being difficult or sulky or stubborn. She was simply afraid, like any normal person would be in her situation.

  Alec crouched beside the car, putting a hand over hers, which were clenched together on her lap. “I know you want to believe that, and honestly? Part of me does, too.”

  Surprise softened her expression.

  “Thinking that monster knows where you live and has taken a personal interest in you scares me to death,” he admitted. “The very idea that he was out there last night, watching us . . .” He swallowed as anger rose high enough to choke him. “What if he saw us through the window? Watched me kiss you? It makes me sick.”

  Lord, how stupid had that been? Everything he’d told himself, everything he’d told her about needing to keep things strictly business, at least until the case was over, and he hadn’t been able to keep his mouth off hers for one night.

  He should regret it deeply. But until this morning, when he’d realized they were being watched, he hadn’t. How could he regret feeling the softness of her hair tangled around his fingers, the warmth of her breath, the sweetness of her mouth?

  It won’t happen again, though. Not until this case is over.

  “But—”

  “Look, I’m a believer in coincidence as much as the next guy, but we have to be realistic,” he said, cutting off her arguments. “It goes way beyond me carrying a damn box up the stairs and somebody mentioning a box twelve hours later. Even beyond him making a crude comment on the message board.”

  Though Sam eyed him curiously, he did not elaborate, instead pushing on. “Darwin was in Baltimore last night, less than ten miles from your home.”

  She blanched. He’d told her there had been another murder, nothing more.

  “So look at the big picture here.” He ticked off the truth, one point after another, needing her to believe it, if only so she kept her guard up so high nobody could climb over it. “We know a highly intelligent, highly organized serial killer reached out to communicate with you. We knew he would be cautious about responding once you directly addressed him. That he would check you out, make sure he could trust you before taking that next step of actual interaction, especially if there was something in your responses that aroused his suspicions.”

  There might have been. He just didn’t know.

  “You’ve already admitted you wouldn’t be that hard to find if somebody really looked. And he is somebody who would look.”

  “So he looked and he didn’t like what he saw.”

  “Exactly.”

  She sat with her head down, letting the truth of it fill all the doubting corners of her mind.

  He wished he didn’t have to remove that doubt. Would give anything if Sam could go on thinking ugliness like she’d seen in the past few days really wasn’t so close to her, so intricately entwined with her normal life.

  N
either of them had the luxury of denying the truth.

  “You’re right,” she finally whispered.

  She wrapped her fingers in his and let him help her from the car. Once outside, she didn’t release his hand, as if needing to keep him close. Only when they walked into the building and approached security did she let go and step away.

  A few minutes later, inside the elevator, Alec jabbed the button, watching the doors close. When they were alone, he turned to her. Pure adrenaline and worry had been driving him since the minute he’d heard her message. Now, inside a safe zone, he finally allowed himself to let it go. He also resisted the urge to put his hands on her shoulders, not sure whether he most needed to hold her close or shake her like a kid who had run out in front of a car for scaring him the way she had with that message and by then turning her phone off.

  “When am I going to be able to go home?” she asked.

  “When he’s in custody.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t believe this is happening. Why me? How in the name of God did I attract the notice of this psycho?”

  “I don’t know what drew his eye to you.” He rubbed his temple to try to ease the pounding. “It could have been anything. Ryan Smith could even have said something about you warning him before the Professor left him to die.”

  Grief visibly plunged into her, making her body quiver.

  Jackass.

  “Or he could just have been researching scams to lure his victims and found your book,” he quickly added. “Who knows why or how he first became aware of you. Once he did, though, I think I know why he stayed around.”

  “Why? What possible interest could he have in me?”

  “Didn’t you say that Flynt guy was interested in you because of the way you were trying to help the very people he liked to victimize?”

  Nodding, she murmured, “Yes, he was. I think I amused him, in a sick way. Are you saying this Darwin is the same? That he enjoys seeing my sad little efforts to help people?”

  “It’s possible. And he’s angry that you’re working with us to try to stop him.”

  Alec had another, darker thought, though he didn’t share it with her. Sam was a beautiful, intelligent woman whose personality sparkled on the pages of her book and her Web site. For all they knew, the Professor might see her as someone like himself, educated and informed, not readily deceived. But someone who’d gone to work for the “wrong” side, wanting to save the very people he wanted to kill.

  A man with an ego the size of the killer’s might relish the challenge of trying to change Sam’s mind. To educate her, perhaps, win her over to his way of thinking. His posts of Wednesday night, when he seemed to be trying to make rational arguments that contradicted her rant column, certainly leaned that way.

  Now, though, he no longer wanted to educate her. Alec greatly feared he wanted to punish her.

  “How could he know I’m working with the authorities?”

  “Because he saw you with me last night.”

  “You weren’t exactly in uniform.”

  Far from it. But the license plate on the car he had been driving would have provided a big clue. Damn, he couldn’t believe he hadn’t noticed anything suspicious. His focus had been in the wrong direction. He’d been tunnel-visioned, seeing Sam’s involvement in this only as a personality, a Web site owner, not as a person who might interest their unsub.

  “He has survived and gotten away with what he does by being very cautious and very thorough. He would have worked on it until he figured out who I was.”

  “And me working with the FBI, you think that was what made him go from wanting to be my teacher to wanting to scare the crap out of me?”

  “Yes. It angered him.”

  “So he was trying to get me back for being untrustworthy. To let me know he’s out there, watching.”

  He shifted his gaze. Darwin hadn’t called her untrustworthy; he’d called her a whore. “Right.”

  She simply nodded, as if she’d been seeking only to understand rather than reacting emotionally. Smart woman. Smart to have been afraid. Smart now to have calmed down and assessed the situation logically.

  Everything about her was so put-together. Maybe it hadn’t been when he’d first met her. There had been no missing Sam’s self-imposed isolation, the lack of confidence and the uncertainty about herself. But in the past few days, she’d thrown off those restraints. Sam had revealed herself to be exactly the kind of woman he most admired: reasonable, rational, with a lot of common sense and a quick wit.

  That she was sexy enough to stop his heart and one simple kiss had sent every ounce of his blood straight to his groin just made her even harder to resist.

  Alec managed to keep those thoughts off his face as they reached their floor and he led her to the office. Once inside, they headed straight for the team’s two IT specialists. “Lily and Brandon have been working on figuring out how the blog attack could have happened,” he said. “Knowing how he got in could help us find him.”

  “How?”

  “Let’s let them fill us in on that,” he said, feeling suddenly uncomfortable. He didn’t want to discuss some of the possibilities Lily had mentioned on the phone. Like the idea that this bastard knew so much about Sam— about her personal life—that he had been able to guess her passwords.

  “Everything okay?” Lily asked when they entered. “Are you all right, Sam?”

  “For somebody being watched by a serial killer, I guess so.”

  “It’ll be okay.” The blonde briefly touched Sam’s shoulder. “We’re not going to let anything happen to you—you have an entire team watching your back.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Can I get you something to drink?”

  “Got any Jack Daniel’s?” she said, with a humorless laugh.

  “Sorry. But I made the coffee, not Brandon,” Lily said. “So I can promise you it won’t put your heart into arrhythmia and keep you awake for ninety-six hours straight.”

  Brandon smirked. “Yeah, yeah, you just wish you had my energy.”

  “Wishing for your energy would be like wishing to live inside a tornado.”

  Beside him, Sam’s body relaxed as she listened to the pair go back and forth like siblings. The very normal-ness of their sniping seemed to bring the tension down a notch. Which was, he assumed, exactly what they had intended. Not for the first time, he realized how glad he was to have ended up here, with this particular group.

  “Coffee would be great,” Sam murmured. “Thanks.”

  “Not a problem.”

  Though Alec wanted to get right back to Baltimore, something about Sam’s expression made him stay. She might like Lily and Brandon, but she’d fixed on him as a personal ally. Someone more than a law enforcement professional trying to help her.

  Maybe because he’d kissed her breathless about twelve hours ago.

  “Okay, Cole, show us what you’ve got. And make it good,” he said.

  The younger man nodded. “You live in an apartment in Baltimore, right?”

  She nodded.

  “Security? Alarms?”

  Sam’s face paled, and she cleared her throat before answering. “It’s a good neighborhood, though not an upscale one. As secure as an older apartment building can be, I guess.” She wrapped her arms around herself as if to ward off a chill. “Certainly not the kind of place where I’d expect someone to sit outside with a pair of binoculars, trying to watch me through my windows.”

  “Is there any chance he’s been closer than that?” Brandon asked.

  Sam went very still. “What do you mean?”

  Alec had a feeling he knew where this was going, and he did not like it.

  “This wasn’t a random hack attack, and it wasn’t a dummy front page.” Brandon clicked a few keys on his keyboard and brought up a blog hosting site. “This post was made directly on your account. Whoever this was, he knew exactly which content-manager software you were using, Sam. He was logged in as an administrator.” />
  Hell.

  To his surprise, Sam took the statement with utter calm. “Figuring out the CMS wouldn’t be that difficult.”

  “No, it wouldn’t.” Brandon leaned forward, dropping his elbows onto his knees to stare intently at her. “But your ID and password—they weren’t exactly common. It’s not like you were using your dog’s name; they were random letters and numbers.”

  She looked away. “Well, not exactly random.”

  Brandon tilted his head, waiting.

  “I know, the expert who says to never use relevant dates or initials, right?” She blinked, as if her eyes had suddenly grown hot. “The initials are my late grandmother’s name. The numbers are the date she died.”

  “Ahh.” Brandon sat up straight, nodding. For some reason, he looked almost relieved, though Alec didn’t know why this was good news. As if realizing that, he looked over and explained. “Anybody who Googled Sam here . . .”

  “Would find my name in my grandmother’s obituary,” she said. “Along with her initials and date of death.”

  “You were close?”

  She nodded. “I have mentioned her on my blog on a few occasions. She, uh, was my inspiration, the reason I became Sam the Spaminator.”

  The eyes blinked again, moisture definitely in evidence. Alec somehow suspected he was finally on the verge of learning why Sam did what she did, beyond the need to take some time out of life to heal from what her ex had done to her. This crusade she was on . . . it suddenly sounded as though it had started for very personal reasons.

  “Even better,” Brandon said.

  “Why better?” Alec asked.

  “Because we already know he reads her site. If he knew she was close to her grandmother, and he was trying to figure out her passwords, it would be a logical thing to try. Especially if you’ve mentioned her as an inspiration, Sam.” Brandon nodded, as if convincing himself of what he said. “This really is good news.”

  He didn’t have to explain further. Alec got the alternative. If Sam’s relationship with her grandmother had been a closely held secret, that would imply the unsub had dug deeper into her life. Something none of them really wanted to contemplate.