Deep Dark (3 page)

It was good. Better than good, it was perfect.

“Oh, La-ney? Hello?”

A row of numbers appeared, then another and another.

“
Yes
.” Her feet hit the floor. “I got you, you sick son of a bitch.”

“
Laney
.”

She snapped her head up to see Tarek peering over the wall of her cubicle. “What's up?” She rolled forward and started creating a backup file.

“Are you coming with us or not?” he asked.

“Coming where?”

“The
Door
, Laney. God.”

“What's at the Door?”

Silence.

She lifted her gaze. He looked annoyed now, maybe even a little hurt, and she stopped typing.

Tarek was one of the smartest programmers at the Delphi Center. He was tall and lanky and favored slogan T-shirts. Today's said, “I'm here because you broke something.” Which tended to be true. Tarek was their fix-it man.

“You don't remember a word, do you?” he asked.

“No.”

“The Cedar Door, ten o'clock, with me and George. Alex is meeting us for darts.”

“Sorry, I'm out.” She resumed typing. “Someone's waiting on this.”

“But you said you'd come.”

She very much doubted it.

Or maybe she had. She'd say almost anything to get people to leave her alone when she was working.

“Laney, we need four people.”

She studied her list, her pulse pounding now because it was more than she'd expected. Way more. She
grabbed her cell phone and texted her contact:
Execution complete
.

“Laney, come on.”

“Man, show some respect.” Ben Lawson's disembodied voice floated over from the neighboring cube. “Can't you see she's in the zone?”

“Hey, I wasn't talking to you.” Tarek sounded ticked now, and she glanced up to see him glaring at Ben. “Whatever fed Laney's working for isn't waiting for a file
tonight
. I guarantee you he's off getting tanked or boffing his girlfriend.”

“What're you working on, anyway?” Ben looked over their shared wall, which was lined with
South Park
bobbleheads. He glanced at her screen, and his mouth fell open. “Holy shit, you cracked it?”

“Yep.”

“How?”

“
Wo ein Will eist, ist auch ein Weg
.” Where there's a will, there's a way. Ben, like Laney, had double-majored in German and computer science.

“I thought they had the firewall from hell,” he said.

“I followed the money.” A tried-and-true strategy. “They take credit-card payments, so I sent a trojan in through the payment company, then established a back door and went from there.” She made it sound easy, but it had taken three days. The trojan alone had been a bitch to create. Criminals tended to be strangely paranoid about people poking around their networks.

“What about their AV?” Ben got out of his chair and came over, keenly interested now.

“The antivirus was okay, but I used a good wrapper, so . . .”

A text landed on Laney's phone, and she picked it up.
RU kidding??

Encrypting now,
she responded.
Look for a list of IPs, ETA 10 min.

Laney skimmed the file for anything wonky, but it looked clean. Three days of work, pretty much around the clock. In moments the file would be on its way to Special Agent Maya Murray in Washington, D.C. In minutes Maya would be writing up a warrant. And a short time after that—possibly within forty-eight hours—a team of agents would swoop down on a crew that had hacked its way into an American electronics company that made webcams, nanny cams, and other Internet-enabled devices. After stealing usernames and passcodes, they'd set up an underground website called RealityKidPr0n and started streaming live footage of children's bedrooms to perverts across the globe.

Laney spent a few minutes double-checking everything. When she was finally satisfied, she hit send. Then she leaned back in her chair and heaved a sigh.

She glanced around. As always, she felt like she'd been in a time warp. She craned her neck to see over the sea of cubicles. Everyone but Ben and Dmitry had cleared out. They sat at Dmitry's computer now, probably deep into a game of
Settlers of Catan
while they waited on a scan.

Laney logged out and stretched her arms over her head. She stood up and slung her messenger bag over her shoulder, then navigated the minefield of crap that had accumulated on the floor of the lab over the past three weeks: pizza boxes, Nerf balls, several sleeping bags. The Delphi Center's cybercrime unit had recently landed a big fish client, and the past three weeks had
been a marathon of round-the-clock hacking runs as Laney's colleagues channeled their collective brainpower into ferreting out security holes in the systems of various government agencies. Laney wasn't assigned to the project, but she could appreciate the challenge.

Her phone beeped with a text, and she dug it from the pocket of her hoodie.

W00t! U rule!
Maya had texted, adding a Wonder Woman emoji.

Laney smiled. She felt sore and tired but energized now. Maybe she'd stop by the Door after all and whip Tarek's butt at darts. Or maybe she'd spend a quiet evening at home. Again. She could order takeout and catch up on TV shows. Or she could curl up in front of a movie and remind herself how relieved she was that she didn't have a life outside work.

She wandered over to Dmitry's computer to check out the game. When they weren't busy penetrating highly secure systems, her coworkers were locked in an intense competition with the computer science department at UT.

Ben cursed and jumped up from his chair. Dmitry made a strangled sound and clamped a hand over his mouth.

Laney glanced over. They weren't playing
Settlers
at all—they were on Facebook.

“Who died?” she quipped.

Ben turned around, and Laney instantly regretted the words. The look on his face stopped her in her tracks.

CHAPTER 2

Reed hated gatekeepers almost as much as he hated hands-free phones.

“I need to talk to Greg Sloan,” Reed said, flashing his ID.

The receptionist stared up at him from behind the counter, evidently flustered. He had brown eyes and freckles and wore a thin black tie that made him look at least twenty.

“Um, I'm sorry, but he's in a meeting.”

“I'm going to need you to get him out of his meeting.” Reed rested his elbow on the counter. “This is important.”

“Uh . . .” The kid's Adam's apple bobbed, and Reed could tell he'd heard about the murder and guessed why Reed was here. “I'm afraid that's not possible at the moment. Mr. Sloan's in California.”

Of course he was. Reed consulted his notepad and rattled off several more names.

“They're not here, either. Everyone's out right now.”

“When will they be back?”

“I'm not at liberty to say.”

Reed gave him a hard look.

“Tomorrow. They're on the nerd bird, San Jose to Austin, four fifteen arrival. Excuse me.” The kid held up a finger. “ChatWare Solutions. How may I help you?”

Reed stepped over to the lobby's floor-to-ceiling window to call Jay. Glancing up, he noticed the golf-ball-size security camera staring down at him from the ceiling.

“How was the autopsy?” Jay asked right away.

“Frustrating.”

“Why?”

Reed looked at the security cam again. “I'll fill you in later. What's the word on that phone dump?”

“Just got it,” Jay reported. “Looks like she made eight calls on Tuesday. Two to her friend Mindy, like we expected, and six to an Ian Phelps.”

“Who's that?”

“Don't know, but I happened to find out from the phone company that his phone number is under the same umbrella plan as April's. So I'm guessing it's someone at her office.”

“I'll look into it. What are the times of the calls?” Reed gazed out the big window. ChatWare Solutions occupied a converted loft in the trendy business district just north of the lake. It was a sunny day, and the street below was busy with lunchtime traffic.

“Let's see . . . the six calls to Phelps happened between five fifteen and eight forty
P.M
.”

“No kidding.”

“All lasted about a minute, except the last one. That was three minutes.”

Reed wrapped up with Jay and returned his attention to the receptionist, who was off the phone now but still had the microphone positioned in front of his mouth.

Reed walked over to him. “One more question. I'm looking for Ian Phelps.”

Recognition flared, and Reed waited for him to say that Phelps was in California, too. “You just missed him,” the receptionist said cheerfully. “He went to lunch.”

“Any idea where?”

“Try Francesca's downstairs. If not, maybe the sushi shop across the street?”

Reed trekked down a free-floating glass staircase and stepped from pleasantly chilled air into sweltering heat. He paused on the sidewalk and texted Jay to run a wants-and-warrants check on Phelps.

Francesca's was on the corner, a cluster of dark red umbrella tables offering relief from the sun. The parking meters nearby were occupied by Fiats, Audis, and BMWs, and Reed remembered when the same corner had been staked out by drug addicts and homeless people who frequented the soup kitchen next door. Now the place was a yoga studio.

Nearing the restaurant, Reed spotted a guy at a shaded table talking on an iPhone, and the ChatWare badge clipped to his waist proved he'd hit pay dirt. He squeezed past a jogging stroller and stood over the table until the guy looked up.

“Ian Phelps?” He showed his ID. “Detective Novak, Austin PD.”

Phelps hesitated a moment and then ended his call.

“You got a minute?” Reed pulled out a chair and sat down. Phelps glanced around before meeting Reed's gaze.

“You heard about April,” Reed stated.

A slight nod.

“You don't look surprised to see me.”

“I'm not.” Phelps glanced around again, then leaned forward slightly. He wore black pants and a light pur
ple dress shirt that looked custom-tailored. “April called me that night, so I figured you'd want to talk to me,” he said.

“What night?”

“Tuesday.” His eyebrows tipped up. “That's the night she died, right?”

Reed looked Phelps over. He had one of those carefully cultivated two-day beards, and he smelled like cologne, despite eating lunch out here in the ninety-degree heat.

Most people weren't so casual when it came to the details of a murder investigation. They tended to be distraught and tongue-tied.

Especially if they knew the victim well enough for six phone conversations in one night.

“What makes you think that?” Reed asked.

“It was in the news.”

Reed watched him for a moment and decided to change course. “I understand you and April had several conversations Tuesday evening. What'd you talk about?”

“Well, first of all, she called me.” Phelps nudged away a plate that held the remnants of a sandwich on ciabatta bread. “And I wouldn't exactly call them ‘conversations,' because I couldn't talk and I told her I had to go.”

“Six times?”

“What?”

“All six times she called, you told her you had to go?”

“Yeah, like I said, I couldn't talk. I've been slammed all week on a new project, barely time to breathe.”

Reed glanced at the plate in front of him.

“Seriously.” He sounded defensive now. “I couldn't
talk, and I told her I'd call her later, when stuff died down.”

“Did you and April usually talk after work?”

He hesitated. “Not really.”

“So what was she calling about?”

“She didn't say.”

Reed leaned back in his chair and watched him for a long moment, and again the conversation felt off. This guy didn't seem nearly uncomfortable enough for someone discussing a woman's final hours. “What was your relationship with April like?” he asked.

“We were friends.”

Reed lifted his eyebrows. “That's all?”

“Yes. I'm engaged to someone, all right? April and I were friends, no big deal. We worked a few accounts together.”

“Accounts?”

“We're on the sales side. You know, software sales?”

According to the website, the company was a leading-edge provider of mobile messaging solutions. According to the
Austin Business Journal
, they were having a shit year.

Reed's phone
dinged
with an incoming text. He ignored it for now as he studied Phelps's body language. April's parents had said their daughter didn't have a boyfriend. Her coworker had said the same, but that didn't necessarily mean anything.

“Was April having any issues with anyone that you were aware of?” Reed asked.

“No.”

“Anyone at work bothering her?”

“No. But I mean, why ask me? You should ask Mindy Stephens or someone who knew her better.”
He shifted in his chair, finally getting uncomfortable. “Look, I know what you're driving at.” He leaned closer and lowered his voice. “But you're wasting your time. I was here way late Tuesday, didn't leave till, like, two
A.M.
You can check the security tapes.” He nodded down the street, and Reed knew he was indicating the security camera perched above ChatWare's front entrance.

Reed stared at him a moment, then pulled out a business card. He had a feeling he'd be talking with Ian Phelps again, and he wanted to keep things friendly. He jotted down his cell number and handed over the card. “Thanks for your time today. Call me if you think of anything helpful.”

Phelps quickly got to his feet. “Yeah, sure.”

Reed watched him walk away, already back on his phone and looking right at home among the neighborhood regulars. Reed glanced around the café. He was out of his element. The place served five-dollar coffee, and the average patron was probably twenty-eight.

Reed's phone
dinged
again and he checked the text.

OPEN ME
. The words were followed by a link. Reed didn't recognize the number, but the area code was local. He debated a moment before taking the bait.

A photo appeared of a beautiful young woman with a cascade of auburn hair and a sultry smile. Reed frowned down at the picture. He checked the sender's number, but still it didn't ring a bell. Beneath the photo was a description, and Reed's frown deepened as he read the words.

He studied the picture, trying to reconcile the sexy red smile with the bloodless lips he'd seen during this morning's autopsy.

He couldn't. But the woman in the photograph was definitely April Abrams.

•   •   •

The volleyball court was empty, but Bellaterra's parking lot was almost full as Reed used his police emergency code to open the gate. He pulled up to April's unit and got out.

The victim's vehicle had been hauled to the crime lab, where it would remain until it could be cleared for release to the family. Reed glanced around as he approached April's door. He sliced through the scene tape and stepped inside, then donned a pair of booties and entered his name in the scene log. The CSIs had wrapped up last night, but the DA wanted to keep everything sealed for a while until the case took shape. Only one day in, and the man was already chomping at the bit to prosecute someone.

Reed stood in the foyer a moment, letting the air settle around him. A mix of smells lingered, the most notable being the Superglue that Veronica had used to fume the doorknobs. The familiar scent kicked his brain into gear as he stepped deeper into the apartment.

Walking a crime scene was something Reed did early and often. Things jumped out at him on a second or third pass, things he'd missed the first time, because death scenes had a way of being messy and chaotic, especially outdoor ones. But this scene was indoors. And uninhabited. It was a rare combination of circumstances that Reed intended to use to his advantage.

He walked through the kitchen again and looked
out at the patio. Still no cat. He pulled on a pair of gloves and went through the cabinets again. Then he tried the drawers, paying special attention to any slips of paper lying around. As he made his way into the bedroom, he called Jay.

“Sorry, I had a deposition at two,” Jay said when he picked up. “I just got out.”

“I'm at the apartment looking for passwords. Where are we on the laptop?”

“The techs tell me it's front of the line, but they ­haven't gotten to it yet. Passwords might help, though.”

“I'll let you know,” Reed said. “Hey, did you send me April's profile on this dating site?”

Pause. “She's on a dating site?”

Well, that answered that. Reed stepped into the bedroom and went straight to the dresser. He opened the small top drawers, where people tended to stash clutter.

“What, you mean like Match.com?” Jay asked.

“This one's called Mix. Looks like a smaller shop, and they're headquartered here in Austin.”

“Interesting.”

“I know. Maybe not a coincidence.”

“You mean someone sent you her profile through department email?”

“Came in on my phone. I don't recognize the number, and it traces back to Chief Aguilar, only he didn't send it.”

Jay snorted. “Someone's fucking with you, bro.”

Reed stepped into the closet and flipped on the light. Besides the basic office clothes, April's wardrobe included sheer blouses, halter tops, and microskirts, along with a collection of designer shoes that would
have made Reed's ex-wife green with envy. Not what Reed would have expected for a computer geek, which just reinforced the first thing he'd learned as a rookie detective: stereotypes amounted to shit. Criminals and victims were as quirky as everyone else, and relying on assumptions was straight-up laziness that could lead to problems down the road.

“Any idea who?” Jay asked.

“I'm running it down.” He opened a shoe box to find a pair of rhinestone-encrusted stilettos. “Anyway, call me if you find anything.”

Reed stepped out of the closet and stared at the bed. The sheets had been stripped and sent to the lab, but Reed could still picture April propped in the middle of all the pillows, maybe surfing around on her laptop or tablet before going to sleep. He walked over and opened the nightstand drawer. Beneath the chocolate bars he found a pink envelope he hadn't noticed yesterday. It contained scraps of paper showing words and email addresses.

“Gotcha,” Reed muttered, thumbing through the notes. He took an evidence envelope from his pocket and wrote out a label, then sent Jay a text telling him he'd found the passwords and reminding him to run a check on Phelps. After a last quick walk-through, he let himself out.

The heat blasted him like a hair dryer. The parking lot was congested with people returning home from work and class. A trio of women in cutoff shorts crossed the patio beside the volleyball net and exited through the wrought-iron gate, which they held open for a man coming into the complex. Reed watched them with resignation. The killer could have gained
access much the same way. Gates and fences and passcodes were no match for the primal urge to flirt.