coworker and office mate who had also become a friend—were at the computer forensics lab. Hoping Jason Todd’s hard drive might hold a clue to the identity of his killer, they were watching while a forensics expert ran it through ACES, the Automated Computer Examination System.
“Sorry. Guess I was muttering to myself.”
“Okay, but make sure nobody answers. You know the bureau frowns on agents who hear voices in their heads,” he said with a grin.
She managed a weak smile. “Deal.”
Usually Brandon could tease her out of her darkest moods. There was something irresistibly charming about his big green eyes and spiky bleached-blond hair. He looked more like an underwear model than an FBI cyber nerd, and she suspected, judging by some of his hacker knowledge, that he’d had a little larceny in his soul as a teenager.
“You sure you’re okay?”
She nodded. “Just a little sad for the families of those boys—Jason and Ryan.”
“Yeah, me too.”
She was also a bit uncomfortable being here. Though she trusted Brandon, she didn’t want to have to answer his inevitable questions if they ran into any of the guys she’d been working with on another case.
He said you could work on it.
Months ago, Wyatt Blackstone had told her she could offer assistance in the investigation into Satan’s Playground, the now defunct Internet world where the Reaper had aired his videos. There he had hooked up with a perverted client with the handle Lovesprettyboys who had paid to have a young boy raped and murdered for his viewing pleasure. That was the boy they’d saved. The boy who sometimes wore Zach’s face.
But while he hadn’t forbidden her to help, Blackstone hadn’t been enthusiastic about it, either, probably because he knew so much about her personal history. So she’d done it quietly, offering after-hours aid to the child-protection CAT trying to track down Lovesprettyboys and others like him.
She had no choice. Because since the moment she’d first seen the pedophile’s vicious avatar having his fun in the cyber world, she had known he had to be stopped before he could move his crimes to the real one. If he hadn’t already.
“You know this is probably a waste of time,” she said to Brandon as she glanced at the clock on her phone, wondering how much longer they would have to be here.
“I know. Unless this guy is some kind of idiot, he didn’t write from an IP address that might actually lead back to him.”
Judging from what she’d learned about their unsub in the past thirty-six hours, he most definitely wasn’t an idiot. He’d never be careless enough to use an easily traceable computer.
“Okay, I’ve isolated all the individual e-mails between Jason and this Dr. Waffi,” said the specialist, Parker, who sat before a state-of-the-art terminal. “They came from three areas: Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Trenton. I’ve been able to determine via some hidden software coding that they all came from the same computer. But the IP addresses come from a half dozen different servers, one of which, I can already tell you, is from a fast-food restaurant chain offering free wifi.”
“Playing terrorize-the-teen while scarfing a burger,” Brandon said. “Nice.”
Lily sighed. “So he packed up his laptop, cruised around to find hot spots in a tristate area, jumped online, and then moved on before writing again.”
“Looks like it,” Parker said. “As for the original message opening contact with Jason Todd, it looks like he used a ’bot net. Probably generated thousands of these ‘former finance minister’ letters, spammed them all over the place, and Jason was gullible enough to respond.”
Gullible enough. Or just a kid dreaming big.
The specialist continued going over his findings. As they’d supposed, the Professor hadn’t been stupid. He certainly wouldn’t have written from his home or work computer, and he would never have paid for Internet service at a café or a hotel, where
“Sorry. Guess I was muttering to myself.”
“Okay, but make sure nobody answers. You know the bureau frowns on agents who hear voices in their heads,” he said with a grin.
She managed a weak smile. “Deal.”
Usually Brandon could tease her out of her darkest moods. There was something irresistibly charming about his big green eyes and spiky bleached-blond hair. He looked more like an underwear model than an FBI cyber nerd, and she suspected, judging by some of his hacker knowledge, that he’d had a little larceny in his soul as a teenager.
“You sure you’re okay?”
She nodded. “Just a little sad for the families of those boys—Jason and Ryan.”
“Yeah, me too.”
She was also a bit uncomfortable being here. Though she trusted Brandon, she didn’t want to have to answer his inevitable questions if they ran into any of the guys she’d been working with on another case.
He said you could work on it.
Months ago, Wyatt Blackstone had told her she could offer assistance in the investigation into Satan’s Playground, the now defunct Internet world where the Reaper had aired his videos. There he had hooked up with a perverted client with the handle Lovesprettyboys who had paid to have a young boy raped and murdered for his viewing pleasure. That was the boy they’d saved. The boy who sometimes wore Zach’s face.
But while he hadn’t forbidden her to help, Blackstone hadn’t been enthusiastic about it, either, probably because he knew so much about her personal history. So she’d done it quietly, offering after-hours aid to the child-protection CAT trying to track down Lovesprettyboys and others like him.
She had no choice. Because since the moment she’d first seen the pedophile’s vicious avatar having his fun in the cyber world, she had known he had to be stopped before he could move his crimes to the real one. If he hadn’t already.
“You know this is probably a waste of time,” she said to Brandon as she glanced at the clock on her phone, wondering how much longer they would have to be here.
“I know. Unless this guy is some kind of idiot, he didn’t write from an IP address that might actually lead back to him.”
Judging from what she’d learned about their unsub in the past thirty-six hours, he most definitely wasn’t an idiot. He’d never be careless enough to use an easily traceable computer.
“Okay, I’ve isolated all the individual e-mails between Jason and this Dr. Waffi,” said the specialist, Parker, who sat before a state-of-the-art terminal. “They came from three areas: Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Trenton. I’ve been able to determine via some hidden software coding that they all came from the same computer. But the IP addresses come from a half dozen different servers, one of which, I can already tell you, is from a fast-food restaurant chain offering free wifi.”
“Playing terrorize-the-teen while scarfing a burger,” Brandon said. “Nice.”
Lily sighed. “So he packed up his laptop, cruised around to find hot spots in a tristate area, jumped online, and then moved on before writing again.”
“Looks like it,” Parker said. “As for the original message opening contact with Jason Todd, it looks like he used a ’bot net. Probably generated thousands of these ‘former finance minister’ letters, spammed them all over the place, and Jason was gullible enough to respond.”
Gullible enough. Or just a kid dreaming big.
The specialist continued going over his findings. As they’d supposed, the Professor hadn’t been stupid. He certainly wouldn’t have written from his home or work computer, and he would never have paid for Internet service at a café or a hotel, where
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