Fireflies: A Katie Bell Mystery (book 1) (14 page)

He didn’t seem to mind in the slightest.

A
rthur was
off that day and stopped at his favorite food kart for a smoothie before heading back home.

When he arrived he found something he was looking for but did not expect to see so soon. His image search had been completed on the blurry photo he had taken of the man with Dimitri Markovic.

The advantage of being one of the bosses was that he could still easily log into the FBI database on his home computer, and unlike a lot of his peers around his age, his computer skills were not lacking. As far as Arthur was concerned, it was just another very important skill set to have in the tool kit of fighting crime. Relying on the younger agents to do it seemed both lazy and borderline incompetent. Arthur prided himself on having neither of those traits.

T
he face was
a seventy-five percent match, but Arthur knew it was a correct ID as soon as he saw the face. Vincent Whyte. Twenty-nine, he'd served five years in a maximum security prison up north for a bank robbery where he'd killed three people, including a security guard.

Arthur’s instincts about him had been right too. He had been an Army ranger and had served one tour in Afghanistan and one in Iraq during the initial invasion in 2003. He’d been dishonorably discharged for what was titled “aggressive force.”

Once he was released from the military, he soon began his life of crime, and apparently he had been quite good at it. The reason he had been released early was the prosecutor that had tried his case had been convicted of taking bribes eighteen months prior, and his cases for the past six years had been thrown out.

Whyte had only gotten caught because the driver had been busted two months later for drug possession and ratted him out. Whyte had been suspected of a half a dozen other robberies including several high tech office buildings and an art gallery. In prison he was suspected to have killed two gang members and was considered both respected and feared. He generally kept to himself but when triggered was very much a loose cannon.

The computer had made another interesting connection. There was a five-point connection between Corey Cox and Vincent Whyte. They had served together and there was known communication between them well after Whyte had left the military. Certainly something to pass on to Agent Pilsner.

A
rthur read all
the files on Vincent Whyte carefully and saved them to his hard drive before printing them as well. His desktop (A twoyear-old twenty-seven-inch iMac) was located in the study downstairs. On one wall of the study were two bookcases filled with both reference books and his favorite classics. On the opposite wall was a giant corkboard that currently had all the relevant files on the closed case pinned up. He added a picture of Vincent Whyte next to a picture of Dimitri Markovic on the board and stepped back, looking at it all.

K
atie didn't look
at the thumb drive till Tuesday evening. Tiffany was out at the gym swimming. The whole school was officially (and unofficially) in mourning over Dan Reedman's death. It had only taken forty-eight hours for it to appear that he had been perhaps the greatest person anyone at the school had ever met. Ever.

Katie rolled her eyes and kept her thoughts to herself. Untimely deaths always caused people to act like this, especially so when they were a bit of a celebrity. Though she didn't know the man, she doubted he was quite that saintly. He played college football for God sakes. What Katie did care about was finding out exactly why he had been murdered in such a brutal fashion. She cared especially considering there were at present no clear suspects. Under normal circumstances she would have no way of knowing that, but during Katie's trip the previous afternoon to the police department it became very obvious. Unlike her peers that had been interviewed, she knew her way around a law enforcement building and was not intimidated by someone who carried a gun. It was clear they were just as baffled by why as she was, and as each day went by she was beginning to have a growing gut feeling that this was not a usual murder.

Which led her to be very mindful and careful before she plugged in the thumb drive, because while it could just as easily be some porn or songs, Katie doubted it.

Her instincts were right.

I
t was just
after seven when she plugged the silver drive into the side of her Sony VAIO laptop, and after a few seconds of the drive waking up, she could see an icon on her desktop that simply read Project Eight. She double clicked on the thumb drive and again it took her computer a second before a password screen popped up. She considered for a moment and then punched in password, 12345, and a series of the twenty-five most common passwords used, all of which Katie had saved conveniently in a word doc she had pulled off the web back in high school.

None of them worked.

Katie tried to copy the contents to her computer, but it wouldn't allow her to do that either.

Next Katie tried running a decryption program she had gotten from her father. It wasn't professional grade, but anything relatively weak would be broken within an hour or so. She watched the progress bar beginning to trudge along and opened a can of Red Bull. She had already gone through two four packs at the store and now in week three was on her third. She sipped it while getting caught up on her psychology class reading, (her third time reading through that particular chapter). Forty-five minutes later her computer chimed and Katie got up from her bed to check the status bar.
Disk error, unable to break encryption,
the screen prompt read.

Katie frowned. That had never happened before. Very few people came up with decent passwords, and to have a civilian have a password her program couldn't break was extremely unlikely.

Katie wasn't the biggest computer geek, but she downplayed how much she knew. Arthur always had programing and cyber protection books around, and she had developed a habit of reading what he left laying around.

There had been more than one occasion in high school when she had used the password breaking software in not what would be considered a completely legal manner. But it had always been (at least this is what Katie told herself) justified. She never abused it.

One thing was for certain though, if her program couldn't break the encryption, the police department wouldn't be able to either. Katie considered for a moment going to her father, but knew that he would be too pissed that she was tampering with a police investigation to actually be of help.

There was a third option. She could talk to other non-law-enforcement experts in the field. Or as the media liked to call them, hackers.

Her favorite and best resource was her old computer lab partner from high school, Finn Anderson. He was currently taking the quarter off to explore Thailand. She jumped on Facebook and checked his page. He had updated recently with pictures of him with various girls.

The computer chimed again. He had actually just logged on.

She brought up messenger and thought for a moment, fingers over the keyboard as she considered what she wanted to say.

How's your extended vacation treating you?

Finn responded almost instantly. Katie always considered that perhaps he had had a bit of a crush on her but aside from the occasional flirting they had remained platonic.

I'm loving every second of it, though the current hangover is making me the opposite of productive. How's school treating you?

It's okay, but I could use some advice. Let's say I needed a fellow expert in the circles you run online, would you have anyone local for me to contact.

All business with you, what, no time for foreplay?
Despite herself, Katie smiled. At least traveling wasn't changing Finn too much.

I'm a girl on a schedule.
She responded, her fingers making the familiar clickety-clack on the keyboard.

Fair enough
. She waited.
I've got a name for you. I’ll message them and they'll get in contact with you.

When?

Soon. Gotta go, someone’s distracting me with a backrub. You would like it here, so much sun it's lovely. Drinks are fantastic too.

Thanks. I’ll consider it.

H
e signed off seconds later
, and Katie went back to her actual homework.

K
atie looked
at the paper with a B staring back at her and cursed under her breath. It was her essay that the professor had given her, on global imperialism of all things, and she had written it in two hours with an extra hour for edits. She had been relatively impressed with her work, and had expected as usual an A. However, that was not the case, and Katie was irritated about it. More than irritated, she was actually furious.

She stuffed the paper in her backpack and trudged away from class.

Katie checked her phone and found that she had a new friend request from a girl named Stacy Glass, as well as a message from her.

A mutual friend told me that we should be in contact with each other. What do you think of meeting up sometime in the next two hours and getting coffee?

Katie messaged back and recommended the coffee shop. By the time she got back to her room and dropped off her backpack, she had already received a response from Stacy confirming that was agreeable.

Katie took the paper out of her backpack and dropped it on top of her computer face up. On the one hand, she didn't like having such a basic class push her, on the other hand, she did like being singled out and worked with, and her professor was clearly razor sharp. She liked that. A challenge was always a good thing especially when it came to her education, especially when that was what she was there for. Perhaps these four years would be more educational than she thought, and not quite so easy.

3
:47PM

Katie ordered a latte at the shop and took a seat outside. The sky was overcast and looking precariously close to developing a wet complexion. Katie liked her green Army jacket she was wearing and didn't really want to shed it to just her neon pink thermal she was wearing underneath.

Katie felt Stacy behind her before she saw her. The other girl hovered behind her for a moment before moving into her peripheral vision and taking a seat across from Katie.

She was tall and beautiful in a type of viking-warrior-woman way. Stacy had dark brown hair and fierce green eyes. They were cat like the way they flickered. She wore a dark blue scarf wrapped around a black pea coat and dark chestnut knee-high boots, and white fingerless gloves. She had a laptop in one hand and a metal water bottle in her other.

She said, “Nice to meet you, Katie.”

“Likewise."

"So ,I've heard you require some tech support?”

"It's a possibility, but desecration and sensitivity is important around … this."

Katie held up the thumb drive.

Stacy took the thumb drive and set it between them on the coffee table. She set her 11-inch MacBook Air down in front of her and opened it up, before plugging in the drive.

Stacy's eyes skimmed over her screen and she typed quickly, her fingers moving like she had had classical training as a pianist.

“Good protection," Stacy murmured, and tapped a few more keys.

"I ran a program," Katie said, looking at the taller woman.

"Crack It or Keyless?"

"Crack It."

"Useful for basic stuff, but whoever wrote this program took their time. There's a lot of personality and flare to this thing," Stacy said, as she continued to type.

"Well, can you?" Katie inquired.

Stacy looked up for the first time since she had slipped the thumb drive into the side of the Air.

"Can I what?"

"Crack it?"

Stacy brow furrowed, like she was insulted by the question. "Of course I can. But it could take some time."

"How long?"

Stacy considered. "Give me a week."

"Okay. And how much?"

Stacy shrugged. "For data mining I usually charge about a hundred, but the thing is, you were referred to by a good mutual friend, so this time it's on the house. Buy me a tea when we meet, say same time next week?"

Katie nodded. "That works for me."

"Good."

"One last thing, make sure you don't lose that. The data as far as I know only exists on that."

Stacy took a sip of her tea and looked at her screen.

"This isn't yours, is it?"

"Let's just say it fell into my hands. I feel obligated to find out what's on it. It's important."

Stacy nodded. "I'll keep that in mind."

A
rthur was eating
a roast beef sandwich from his favorite Italian bistro at his desk when Agent Fields knocked on his door.

"You're going to want to see this," she said.

"See what?"

She entered the room and made her way to his side of the desk.

"Mind if I pull something up?"

He shook his head.

She leaned over the desk and brought up a website on his computer screen. It had a random and nonsensical address that Arthur recognized as a Russian hosted website. Online sickos loved it because it was all about cults of death, a major fan site for currently living serial killers, pedophiles, and anything else that made them only edgy. A good deal of it was harmless and just angry men posting, but the agency monitored it closely because every so often they got real leads from people boasting.

Fields quickly scrolled through one of the sub-forums and brought up a thread about the cult of Snow.

Arthur noted with some disgust that there were over five hundred posts about him. Worse, all of them were positive, talking about the amazingness of the man, his brilliance. Fields scrolled back two pages till she found what she was looking for, a short video clip uploaded from another video hosting site. She clicked play.

As soon as the frame began to move through a familiar broken-down garage, Arthur felt that familiar sense of dread. He knew that it was going to pan on a very alive and tied up Tori Watson who was drugged and out of it strapped to the hood of her own car.

The cameraman hovered over her as she struggled for a good ten seconds, before the video ended.

Tori was not yet cut, but that video was made mere moments before she started to be.

The next post was from the same user and it simply said in all caps LOOK AT WHAT I DID.

Fields opened her mouth to say something, but Arthur silenced her by simply pressing play again, watching it through once more, and then again one last time before turning to his colleague.

"When?"

"Posted last night. Tech’s already established that the user is based in the country, though aside from those two posts the user hasn't written anything online. In fact they registered with the site last week, but we can't trace them."

"Why not?"

“You want the short answer or the longer technical answer.”

Arthur looked down at his sandwich. “I mean, this is a really good sandwich, but the video already kind of ruined my appetite. I’ll take longer and technical.”

“They're going through at least a dozen proxies and I have a feeling are using a burner.”

"Meaning?"

“They picked up a new laptop from a box store. They only used the computer for the task at hand and probably uploaded it from a coffee shop or motel. They still covered their tracks though, using enough proxies the tech guys will take another day to track down a general location, and that could still be a five-mile radius or so."

"So what do you think this means?"

Fields swallowed. "This was posted last night. They are sending us a message."

"Would your assessment of the situation indicate that this could be the second part of a team? Perhaps Seaborn was working with someone else?"

"That would be my first guess. Either that or…”

"Or he was set up.”

“That's a disturbing thought."

Arthur shrugged. "We're dealing with serial killers. Is there anything about any of this that's not disturbing?”

"You raise a good point."

"Just like to bring a little perspective when I can."

"Oh you brought some perspective all right. I hope when I've been an agent as long as you have I'm not this cynical."

Arthur nodded. "For your sake, I very much hope you're right."

Fields was about to leave when Arthur thought of something and turned her attention back on her boss.

“We could find out what the video was shot with.”

He didn’t track her for a second. “What do you mean?”

"I mean Tech can run a trace if it was shot with a low definition camera or something similar to that. We know she had a Droid Razor, let's see if the killer shot it on that. It would make sense of why the phone hasn’t shown up.”

“Good. Make it happen.”

K
atie rolled away
from him considering the series of choices that had led her to that moment. Luke leaned over and kissed her shoulder, an old habit she used to love but currently made her cringe.

It was the day following her delivery of the thumb drive to Stacy, and after not hearing from Gideon all week and him promptly ignoring her in class, Luke's frequent calling and the memory of what he felt like had gotten the better of Katie's judgment. She knew exactly what she was getting with him, even if she was aware that was selfish of her.

What she couldn't stand was that it felt like a classic case of two steps forward and three steps back. This year was about the new, not the old, and everything about them meeting to discuss his latest painting. (A pastel redraw of a private picture he had taken of her, shirtless but her front covered in a sheet, the picture from behind showing her naked back with the white sheet draping her butt.)

Normally that kind of thing wouldn't bother her too much, she was human and had needs just like anyone else. Sex was important to Katie, it allowed her to be vulnerable without having to actually talk about anything, something she couldn't stand most of the time. But using Luke as a crutch, especially now that it was over and he was doing what he always did when it was over, which was snuggle, just made her want to jump out of her skin. She didn't want to just lay there, because the truth of the matter was her mind was already on the chapter five she wanted to re-read, and more importantly, on the thumb drive.

I
t was
after midnight when Katie returned to the dorm, sneaking into her room quietly as she expected Tiffany to be asleep. Instead, she found her friend marking up the very paper her professor had made remarks on earlier in the week.

"What are you doing?" Katie asked, her tone far more defensive than she had intended.

The natural blonde looked up, clearly startled by her roommate's appearance, so engrossed in the task at hand.

"I just was looking over your essay. Pretty good. Whoever this professor is though, he's awesome."

Katie tilted her head a little to the side but moved forward. "How so?"

"This essay is well written, anyone else would have given it an A, but this guy, he's pushing you. I have got to take a class with him."

Katie took a seat at her desk directly across from Tiffany and folded her legs unconsciously.

"Tiffany, what are you majoring in?"

Tiffany got a far away look on her face and smiled a little, clearly caught up in what could only be a dream. "English. All the way. I'd like to minor in creative writing too. Of course there's a certain precedent for me to go into the family business, but for my undergrad that's what I want to do. This is my four years, you know? If they're going to send me all the way out here."

Katie nodded. She got it.

"What about you?"

"Probably pre-med, that's what my mom majored in."

"That's awesome, but is that what you want to major in?"

Katie thought about it for a moment. "I guess so. Never really thought about it that way. For now it's just general ed. I have enough on my plate…"

“I think we all do after the Green Leafs party. I know it’s been almost a month…”

“But?”

“I can't get the image of Dan Reedman burning out of my head. It's such a shame too, he was such a stud and a star. Even if the rumors about him were true."

Katie looked at her friend. "Rumors?"

“He was a bit of a man whore. Such a shame too, his girlfriend Amelia seemed pretty nice at the party. I saw her downstairs totally wasted right before…” Tiffany shuddered. “You know he was suspected of doping at some point last summer? No proof, but there's certainly suspicion. Maybe that’s what got him killed. I mean have you heard anything from the police? I bet they are just as stumped as the rest of us are.“

"If he did he was stupid to do so. They always get caught."

Tiffany shook her head. “Not if you’re well connected. Darling, some of the things I’ve heard and seen at my father’s work parties … besides, there's always another drug. I should know, Dad’s got stock in several pharmaceutical companies. I took a tour last fall for a report. It was a huge place, like some secret base in a spy movie."

Tiffany yawned and got up and grabbed her toiletry kit. She blew Katie a kiss before leaving their room to go get ready for bed, leaving Katie to consider the new information about Dan.

Katie turned to her computer, waking it up. She did a quick search online for Dan Reedman, or more importantly on his family, and found several things worth making note of. They were upper middle class, but his father had been laid off in the past six months from his job. Dan had been on a full ride, but his grades, to put it generously, were average at best. The whole family was riding on the son turning pro. That kind of pressure could easily have turned someone with natural talent onto something that in the long run was stupid, especially if the short term was so important.

What Katie wanted to do was go tell the detectives, until she remembered that she couldn't really without getting herself in a great deal of trouble. She had after all stolen evidence and tampered with an ongoing investigation. Not to mention her own father would be
pissed.

It was worth it to continue to investigate on her own. But first she had the chapter to re-read.

Her phone vibrated in her cargo pants pocket. A text from Gideon, asking what she was up to.

Katie's thumbs hovered over the keyboard for a long moment before she clicked the phone, blacking the screen. She would deal with him later, though she was happy he had finally texted her, even if it was a booty call. She was fine with that. Gideon may not have been quite as familiar as Luke, but there were different benefits when it came to sleeping with him. There was the fun of something new, and so far it had been good. Being with Gideon was simple. When she was with him, there were none of the complications of sleeping with her long-time ex. At the moment, simplicity was the most important thing to Katie.