Mindhunters 4 - Deadly Intent (51 page)

Macy was taken aback for a moment. Then, eyes still on the girl, she said slowly, “Well, there is one thing.” And observed that she had all three family members’ attention. “I’d like you to ask Ellie’s opinion of her tutor.”

The girl frowned, clearly at a loss. She lifted a shoulder. “He’s o—” Then she stopped. Looked from Macy to her parents. “I don’t like him. And he doesn’t like me. I don’t want to work with him anymore.”

Stephen and Althea looked nonplussed. Stephen recovered first. “Baby, all you had to do was tell us that. I would have gotten rid of him. But you wouldn’t have been working with him anymore at any rate. He’s turned in his resignation.”

The girl sent a shy smile to Macy. “I want to be just like you someday.”

“You’ll be better than me,” she responded, her throat tight. “Smarter. Braver. Stronger. I want to be more like
you
.”

“Well, we can see you’re working and don’t want to disturb you any further.” Stephen began herding his family toward the door. “Please don’t leave without stopping to speak to us. I know Ellie would like to say good-bye.”

“I won’t.”

When they were gone, she slid weakly into the chair again. Emotional scenes could be even more exhausting than the action-packed one of a night ago. Once again her attention turned to the computer. She printed all the results, lining them up to study them closely.

A familiar hammering of excitement started in her veins. Without a second thought she reached for her cell phone and dialed Raiker. “I’ve got a match.”

“On which?”

She stared at the sheets of paper again. “The same person authored both boys’ Facebook messages.” She drew a breath, unable to tear her eyes away from the results.

“And the person who sent the messages to the boys is the same one who wrote the ransom notes.”

“We appreciate your cooperation,” Agent Travis assured Nancy Elliott gravely. “We just need to ask your son a few more questions about the chat rooms he frequents.”

David Elliott’s head came up swiftly. “It’s okay, Mom. I’ll talk to them.”

She looked uncertain. “I’ll stay, too.”

“Mom.” The boy managed to imbue the word with pained adolescence. “I’ve got homework tonight, and you were going to try to cook dinner early, remember?”

“It’s all right.” Kell gave her a smile. “We won’t keep him long.”

She looked torn, but eventually she gave a jerky nod and headed into the next room, leaving them in the dining room.

“Here’s the thing.” Kell turned to the boy, all semblance of friendliness gone. They had a lot to accomplish and not much time to do it in. “We know you hang out in chat rooms. That you were probably talking to someone who didn’t turn out to be who they said they were.”

The boy shook his head so hard it threatened to fly off. “I don’t know what you guys are talking about.”

“You do, David. And if you waste our time proving it to you, your mom is going to be back in here and she’ll hear the whole sordid story. That’s okay with us.” Kell lifted his shoulders. “We’re doing you a favor here.”

David’s gaze dropped to the oak tabletop. “Okay, maybe there was someone. I thought it was a chick though. She sent pictures. She’s hot.”

“And did she ask you to send pictures back?”

He gave a jerky nod.

“How long did that go on?”

Swallowing, the kid said, “I don’t know. A few weeks. Then she started getting sort of weird and I didn’t talk to her anymore.”

“Except then you started getting messages in your Facebook account, right?” When the boy didn’t answer, Agent Travis pressed on. “And they weren’t from a girl; they were from a man.”

David grimaced. “Yeah. I mean the guy’s a freak. But he has me by the . . . uh . . .” He gave them a quick look. “He threatened to send the pictures to my mom. To post them on the school’s web page. To all my Facebook friends. He said if I blocked him, he’d do it. And if I stopped responding to his messages. I don’t want pictures of my junk sent to my mom, you know?”

“So he has nude photos of you?”

Nodding miserably in response to Kell’s question, he said, “I was getting really freaked. Somehow he figured out where I live. That’s why I thought you were here that night. Because sometimes he’d park outside and try to get me to come out to his car. He was parked outside that night for a while, too. He’d message me sometimes, saying he was out there thinking about me while he . . .” Seeming to forget he hadn’t told them any of this the first time they’d spoken to him, David lifted his head to look at them imploringly. “You guys gotta help me. I mean, that’s a crime what he’s doing, right? I’m just a kid. He’s not supposed to be trying to get me to meet him for sex and stuff.”

“No, he’s not.” Kell stood and reached for his cell phone. “And I think we have a way to make him stop.”

“We’ve got Elliott’s Facebook account information, so it was just a matter of accessing it and establishing contact with the guy.”

Raiker nodded at Dobson’s explanation. “And we can do it anywhere, from any computer. I posted a response to his last message. Let’s just hope this guy checks in with the boys he targets regularly.”

“And that he takes the bait,” Macy murmured.

Kell said, “Maybe we should double the odds by posting come-ons from both the boys’ sites.”

“Too risky. He might be suspicious if he gets two positive responses in the same day.”

Agent Travis looked at Raiker in surprise. “Uh . . . you posted the message?”

“I have more experience with pedophiles than I’d like to recall,” Raiker said grimly. “And we have the boy’s past responses to help capture the tone. I can handle this.”

“Won’t he think it’s odd that David has been out of contact and now is back on Facebook?” Macy asked.

Both Kell and Travis shook their heads. “The kid has been using his friend’s cell phone to access it. He hasn’t been away.”

“Enough chatter,” Raiker ordered, waving them away dismissively. “Get some sleep. If he takes the bait, this thing is going down tonight. Do you have things arranged with the Elliott woman?”

“Yeah, she gave it an okay,” Kell said.

The computer pinged. Adam’s attention reverted back to the screen. Then he looked up, gave a feral grin. “He took the bait. Now let’s give him some line before we reel him in.”

In the end, none of them went to sleep. Kell had tried to persuade Macy to do so until he noticed the odd looks he was getting from Travis and Raiker. Then he’d shut up, fumed in silence. It wasn’t his problem that the woman didn’t have the sense that God gave a goat. If she dropped facedown on this assignment, she’d have only herself to blame.

They passed the time playing five-card stud. Not Adam, of course. He’d been typing away in his David Elliott guise, posting numerous responses to the man online, occasionally muttering an obscenity under his breath.

Travis was showing a surprising aptitude for the poker game. But it was Macy who was cleaning up. She had most of the contents of Kell’s wallet in the pile of cash before her and she had the tender sensibilities of a loan shark.

“What’s that?” She eyed the piece of paper he’d scribbled on suspiciously. He pushed it over to her, and she picked it up. Unfolded it. And immediately blushed. “An IOU? I don’t extend credit, Burke.”

“You didn’t read carefully enough.” Although from the color climbing up her throat, she’d read his meaning fine. “I didn’t offer cash.”

She crumpled the note in her hand and deliberately turned to Travis. “Looks like it’s just between the two of us, Dan.”

“Be gentle with me.”

“Your game’s suspended for now.” Adam shoved back from the table and reached for his cane. His face was a mask of grim satisfaction. “We’ve got ourselves a meeting.”

Chapter 19

“Check the wire again. I want to be sure it’s in working order,” Adam growled.

“This is a test,” Macy said quietly.

Travis called out from the kitchen, “Loud and clear.”

“See if you can draw him out. We don’t want him clamming up when he figures out you aren’t Elliott.” If Whitman was mourning being pulled out of his bed the first night he’d gotten to sleep in it, it didn’t show. But it was the first time she’d seen the man dressed in anything other than a suit. The jeans and Broncos sweatshirt were going to take some getting used to.

“I have a feeling we’re going to know him,” Macy said quietly. “And we’ll have lots to talk about.” But if she did, she had no idea how he’d managed to circumvent the authorship matches with the written samples she’d collected.

“We’re going in at the first sign of trouble,” Adam growled. He’d assured her of that no fewer than three times already, so Macy merely nodded.

The Elliotts had vacated the house after Kell and Dan’s visit earlier that day. They were being put up in a motel nearby for the night, leaving the place to law enforcement.

The lights were off, except for penlights held by Raiker and Whitman. The trickiest part of the evening so far had been putting on a bra before leaving the estate so there’d be somewhere to attach the microphone.

They’d arrived at the house two hours before the meet was to take place. According to the message “David” had sent, he was going to slip out of the house at two A.M. His Facebook friend would be out front to meet him.

Kell appeared at her side. “Ready to do this?”

Mindful of the microphone attached under her clothes, she kept her voice nonchalant. “Yes.”

“So.” He rocked back on his heels, his face difficult to read in the darkness. “CBI has men posted all around the area. If he takes off with you in the car, the GPS bracelet you’re wearing means you’ll never be far out of reach.”

“I know.” This, too, had been gone over several times. “I’m ready.”

But in the end, it turned out she wasn’t. Because after a quick look over his shoulder, he leaned in for a quick hard kiss. The heat of it zinged along nerve endings already poised and ready. But it held an edge of frustration, as well.

“Be careful.” His voice was almost, almost normal. “I want a chance to win back that money you stole from me tonight.”

It took a moment to regain her power of speech. Several more to calm her rollicking pulse. “Won. Not stole. Won.”

He was close enough for her to make out the familiar quirk of his brow. “Semantics.”

“And we’ve got a car out front.”

Macy turned at the quiet announcement, pulling up the hood of the boy’s navy parka. She was about his height but slighter. Hopefully that difference would be difficult to make out until she was inside the car.

“If you make an ID, say the name right away.”

“Yes.” They’d need that clue if the matter turned violent. Her hand went to the knob. “Ready.”

Keeping her head down and her manner furtive, she pulled open the door and slipped outside. The wind from earlier than day had died, but the temps hovered near zero. She looked up and down the street the way she’d been instructed before approaching the car.

Her chest felt tight. She had no way of knowing where the CBI agents were stationed. Or whether they were close enough for help if she needed it. Easier not to think that way.

She tried to match her stride to that of a teenage boy’s. More of a half lope than the careful steps she’d like to take to avoid slipping on the slick pavement.

As she closed the distance to the car, she avoided the figure in the driver’s window by rounding the back of the vehicle. Coming up on the opposite front door. Keeping her head down as she pulled it open. Slid inside.

And waited.

The voice was male. Pleased and just a little breathless. “I didn’t think you’d come.”

When she recognized it, Macy’s blood ran cold. Reaching into her pocket, she said clearly, “But I knew you would.” And pointed her weapon. “Mark Alden.”

“What? What are you . . . Put that away, for God’s sake!”

The man who had been friends with Stephen Mulder since college. The man who had stood up with his baptized daughter. The one who Mulder had relied on for legal advice had betrayed him in a way that strained the imagination.

“You were her godfather,” she said rawly. Thinking of what this would do to Ellie, one more deep slice for a girl who already had so little reason to trust, had her easing off the safety.