Deep Dark (6 page)

“Okay, so . . . I take it you found gaps in their security.”

She scowled. “It was a joke. The system was wide open. They didn't need the Delphi Center—any script kiddie could have hacked them. And they did. Within a few months of Mix opening up shop, people started figuring out how to bypass the registration process but still use the site.”

“To avoid paying fees?”

“Right, that was probably the goal. But they also ended up bypassing the background check. Mix's system is set up to run names through a criminal background check and also check them against sex-­offender registries. A lot of dating sites don't bother with all that, so it's a feature that sets Mix apart. They added it to appeal to female users, hoping to gain market share. But this security gap, it's a major flaw, and the system admin didn't even know about it until a year ago, supposedly.”

“Supposedly?”

“I think they suspected a problem before that but didn't have the resources or the motivation to really fix the bugs in the system. But once the problem started to become widespread, it was a PR liability. Competition for users is fierce, and Mix makes these promises about screening people and criminal background checks and keeping your personal information private. But that's all bullshit if they don't have the security in place to back it up.”

“I assume you pointed out these problems?”

“Yes, immediately.” She swiped her hair out of her eyes and looked at him. “Well, no. That's not true. First I warned April. I'd run across her name in their database.
Then
I pointed out all the problems in a formal report.”

“What did they do about it?”

“Asked us to overhaul their security procedures, which we did. And I gave them a patch to address the specific holes I found. One of the problems was a secret back door that offered universal access. You could get anything—names, credit-card info, physical addresses—”

He frowned. “They keep physical addresses?”

“They keep home telephone numbers, which is the same thing. Takes about five seconds to trace.”

“And you think April's killer found her on this site, through this back door.”

“Or a different back door. And yes, I do. I think he found her and stalked her, maybe without her even knowing about it.” She looked at him, her dark eyes somber. “And then I think he went to her home and killed her.”

CHAPTER 5

Laney's heart was thudding now. She wasn't sure why. Maybe because she knew he was really listening.

He leaned back against the bench, watching her with that cop look designed to make people squirm. He probably used it on suspects all the time.

“You look skeptical,” she said.

“I was born skeptical.”

“You don't believe me.”

“I didn't say that.”

“Look, I investigate cybercrime. I'm an expert. And women get targeted online all the time, way more than anyone wants to believe.”

“I'm sure you're right, but that doesn't prove that's what happened here.”

She rolled her eyes. “Okay, how about you tell
me
something. How much time did your CSI spend examining the door at the crime scene? Or whatever his point of entry was?”

Reed didn't respond.

“How much?” She leaned closer.

“I don't know.”

“Take a guess.”

“Probably a lot.”

“Right. Probably a lot. Because the point of entry is important to the case.” She put her hand on his knee to
make sure she had his attention, and his gaze darted down.

“Think of April's computer as another point of entry into her life,” she said. “Maybe the most important one. I'm telling you, you should examine that, too.”

•   •   •

Reed watched her car pull away as he walked back to the building. Delaney Knox was full of contradictions. She lived in a pricey condo but drove a piece-of-shit hatchback. She was guarded about her privacy but didn't mind invading his. Her words were tough, but something in her eyes was achingly vulnerable.

The contradictions drew him in, like a puzzle he needed to solve. Who was she, exactly?

Reed stepped into the lobby and spied Jay. He immediately knew he was about to get grilled.

“Hey, you got a sec?” Jay stopped in front of him. “I didn't want to mention it in front of Hall, but I've got some thoughts on the autopsy report.”

“What about it?”

Jay glanced at the elevator, then back at Reed. “Remember that young teacher who went missing two summers ago?”

“The one down in Clarke County, yeah.”

“Olivia Hollis. You know she was bludgeoned, right? They never found out who killed her.”

“Different MO,” Reed pointed out. “She went missing, and her remains were found in the woods three months later.”

“Four. I looked up the news story. Anyway, cause of death jumped out at me,” Jay said. “And her age. And
like I said, they never arrested anyone. So, you know, just a thought.”

Reed watched him, considering it. “I know the sheriff down there. I can call him up.”

“Wouldn't hurt.” Jay looked at the window. “So who was that girl you were talking to?”

Here it came.

“Delaney Knox,” Reed said.

“The one from the Delphi Center?”

“The hacker I told you about, yeah.”

“She's hot.” Jay glanced at the window again. “You asked her out yet?”

“She's twenty-four.”

Jay lifted an eyebrow.

“I'll let you know what I hear from the sheriff.” Reed walked away. “Don't be late to that funeral.”

•   •   •

This time, the sand volleyball court was full, and Veronica admired the array of shirtless, sun-browned men as Jay pulled into a parking space.

“I'll keep this quick,” Veronica said, shoving open the door.

“Ten minutes tops,” he said. “I can't be late to this thing.”

“I know, I know.”

She grabbed her evidence kit and walked briskly up the sidewalk, ignoring the wary glances from the volleyball players. It was hard to forget about the homicide scene next door when the cops kept showing up.

“You remember the key?” Veronica dropped her kit beside the door and pulled out some shoe covers.

Jay silently produced a copy of the victim's key and unlocked the door. After tugging on his booties, he followed Veronica inside.

The apartment was dark and humid, and the scent of Superglue still hung in the air.

“Damn, you fume everything?” Jay made a face as he walked over to the scene log and entered their names.

“Just the interior doorknobs,” she said. “The cabinet pulls I dusted.”

Despite all the time she'd spent, she hadn't managed to lift a single print that didn't belong to the victim, her family, or one of her girlfriends.

“What exactly are we looking for?” Jay asked.

“Not sure. I'll let you know when I find it.” She sidestepped the bloodstains in the hallway as she made her way to the bedroom. “I just keep thinking I missed something.”

She started with the windows, checking the locking mechanisms for the umpteenth time. Then she moved to the bathroom. No sign of anyone tampering with the locks, and she doubted anyone had. Even if the perp had managed to get a window open, it would have been risky, because the bedroom windows faced a busy street.

Jay stood in the doorway watching her. “You're hung up on point of entry.”

“Yep.”

He moved aside so she could squeeze past him. He was a large man, tall and brawny, which was a big check mark in her plus column. Too bad she had a rule against cops.

“I thought we concluded she let him in,” Jay said.

“No, you concluded that.” She walked into the kitchen and crouched down beside the sliding glass door. “I'm still not convinced.”

Veronica hated sliders. In terms of boneheaded ideas, they ranked right up there with hide-a-keys. But despite how easy it would have been for the perpetrator to pop the latch on the sliding door, she couldn't find the slightest bit of evidence that he'd done so. She pulled the magnifying glass from her pocket and examined the frame for scratches. Finding none, she stepped outside and looked around. She examined the top of the fence boards for torn fabric or blood or even a wisp of lint—anything that might indicate he'd come over the fence.

“You checked all that the first time,” Jay said patiently. “I saw you with my own eyes.”

She shot him a look. “Well, he didn't walk through the wall.”

“Agreed.”

“So how'd he get inside?”

“Gee, I don't know. Maybe she let him in?”

She huffed out a breath and pushed past him into the kitchen. “Put some food in that cat bowl, would you?”

He sighed. “Where's the cat?”

“I don't know, but I'm sure he's hungry.”

Jay gave her a glare before bending down to get some food out from under the sink. Technically, she shouldn't change anything at a crime scene. But this one had already been processed, and she didn't see what it could hurt.

She returned to the front door.

This was his point of entry. She had a feeling about it.
But she couldn't swallow the idea that the victim had let him in. From the look of things, April Abrams had gone to bed alone on the night of her attack. So either someone she knew had come to the door and she'd unlocked it—possible but not likely, in Veronica's mind—or the killer had slipped in. April had heard him from the bedroom, gotten up, and confronted him in the hallway.

The second scenario felt right to Veronica. She could visualize it. It matched other elements at the scene—everything except the damn door lock.

She opened the front door once again and crouched down to study it. No marks or gouges on the wood anywhere.

Jay came up beside her, and she caught a faint whiff of his aftershave. She thought of her no-cops rule. Not that she could afford to be really picky. Her midthirties didn't offer nearly as many options as her midtwenties had. She worked hard to stay in shape, and she still looked good. But she had lines around her eyes now. And it was more effort than it used to be to keep the gray in her roots from showing.

Part of it was just life, but there was more to it, she knew. She'd spent the last decade lifting prints at crack houses and collecting blood samples from floors and swabbing semen off of children's sheets. She chose to do this job—every day and with her whole heart—but she knew her work had aged her much more than time.

She glanced up at Jay. “I know you have to go,” she said, taking out her magnifying glass again. She examined the lock face but saw no signs of a lockpick.

He stepped over the threshold and started to remove his shoe covers. “Five minutes, Ronnie. I can't show up late to a funeral.”

“I know, I know.”

She took a flashlight from her kit and shined it in the keyway. She glanced at Jay, and he was staring down at something on his shoe covers.

“What's that?” She held her hand out. “What is that dust there?”

“Beats me.” He passed the bootie to her. “Looks like glitter?”

Her heart jumped. “Damn it, I knew it!” She popped open her evidence kit and grabbed some tape.

“Knew what?”

Slowly, carefully, she used a strip of tape to lift the tiny metal shavings from the shoe cover. There were more bits of material on the ground, just beneath the lip of the threshold. She collected the material there, too, and placed everything in an evidence envelope. Then she turned her attention to the door lock. It was a typical pin-and-tumbler system, maybe a step above standard apartment-unit hardware. She tore off a new strip of tape and sealed it over the keyway, and her fingers trembled slightly from excitement.

“What's that for?” Jay asked.

“Transport to the lab. We don't want to lose anything.”

“Don't tell me you want the whole lock.”

“I want the whole door.” She smiled up at him. “And it's a good thing you're here, because I'm going to need a hand.”

•   •   •

The basement of the Clarke County Sheriff's Office smelled like pot, and Reed had no trouble identifying the source as he neared the evidence room.

“Don't you guys ever incinerate anything?” Reed asked the deputy leading him down the hall.

“'Bout twice a year.” The man shook out a key from his big ring. “That load we got now is headed to trial.”

After Reed's stop at the wellness studio failed to generate any leads, he'd driven down to Clarke County to take a look at the Olivia Hollis case. The sheriff was out, but he'd assigned Reed a deputy. Henry Krueller was short and bald and had a beer gut that hung over his utility belt, but he didn't seem to mind getting up from his desk to show Reed around.

Now they stepped up to the evidence room, which was actually a steel cage roughly forty by forty feet and ten feet tall. It had a lid on it, too, presumably to keep people from scaling the walls and helping themselves.

Evidence theft was a widespread problem that departments didn't like to talk about. Just last year, a police storage room in east Texas had been pilfered following a drug bust. Thieves had made off with sixteen kilos of coke by puncturing the plastic-wrapped bricks and emptying out the product inside, then filling the cavities with baking soda. The swap wasn't discovered until the case went to trial.

“That load there, we seized that down on I-35 back in March.” Krueller nodded at a table with a pile of marijuana bricks stacked two feet high. “Got it off an eighteen-wheeler. Made it right past the border check.”

“Fake cargo area?” Reed asked.

“Nah, hidden in the spare tires. Trial's in September, so until then we got it here under lock and key.” Krueller motioned with his head for Reed to follow him. “Come on back. It's around the corner.”

Reed followed him down a narrow passageway be­­
tween metal shelves packed tightly with banker's boxes, each labeled with a case number. Some of the cases dated back to the '70s.

They rounded a corner to find more shelves. Oversized evidence that didn't fit in the boxes lined the cinder-block wall to Reed's right. He saw hunting rifles, pool cues, a mangled bicycle, all labeled with evidence tags. In the corner was a heavy-duty gun safe. It looked like someone had tried to get into it with an ax.

“We're switching our files to digital,” Krueller said. “Haven't gotten very far back yet.” He stopped in front of a box and stooped to read the label. “Here we go. Olivia Hollis.”

“Two boxes?”

“Four.”

Reed nudged the top off a box and found it filled with manila folders. The second box contained more of the same. “Looks like this may take a while.”

“Don't be messing things up, now.” Krueller gave him a stern look. “The deputy on this one, he's very particular with the files.”

“I understand.”

“Anything you look at, put it back where you found it.”

“Will do.”

Krueller stood for a moment, watching him. He seemed reluctant to go.

“Thanks for your help,” Reed said. “Thank the sheriff for me, too, when you see him.”

“There's a worktable up front. You can set up there.” Krueller gave a stiff nod and lumbered off.