Twisted (13 page)

Whoever her intruder was, he didn’t want to be seen—at least not this time.

She acted on autopilot. No display of apprehension. No slowing her pace. She just retraced her steps to the house, went inside, and locked the door. The last was a mere precaution, since she didn’t believe she was in imminent danger. Whoever was toying with her had an agenda, and it didn’t involve grabbing her right now, if at all. He’d had ample opportunity, and he hadn’t availed himself of it. So he’d either been going for a scare tactic or playing games with her.

She didn’t know which, why, or who.

But she intended to find out.

FBI
New York Field Office

26 Federal Plaza, New York City

7:24 A.M.

Derek was drinking coffee at his desk, reading over what he and Jeff had dug up over the weekend, together with what the cops had found out. It was a long shot that whoever was torturing and killing those prostitutes was one of Lo Ma’s guys—unless he had a death wish. It had to be some sick rival gang member who was desperate to start a war between the Red Dragons and the Black Tigers. Either that, or a psycho client of Xiao Long’s brothels who had a thing for screwing and killing his prostitutes. Regardless, it wasn’t one of the Black Tigers.

C-6 believed that. The
NYPD
believed that. Now the trick was to make sure Xiao Long believed it.

Late last night, Derek had met with John Lee, who promised to get word out on the streets. The problem was that Lee’s connection was with Lo Ma’s gang members, so his credibility stopped there. Leaving damage control to him alone was a mistake. So Derek had contacted Eric Chang, another of his confidential informants, who had an in with the Red Dragons, and who was tight with someone who was tight with Jin Huang. Chang had promised to get the message to Xiao Long’s enforcer that they should be watching their backs for offenders other than Lo Ma’s people, and also checking their brothel client lists for potential suspects. Not starting a gang war that had no basis.

Now Derek was poised and waiting for the outcome.

His phone rang. He snapped it up. “Parker.”

“Hi, Derek, it’s me.”

“Sloane.” He sank back into his chair. “What can I do for you?”

“Good morning to you, too,” she answered drily. “I’m calling to follow up on our new leads.”

“Which leads?” Derek asked brusquely.

An icy silence. “The Deanna Frost leads. The ones that surfaced when you interviewed her the other day. Like what Penny was wearing—her bright red pant suit with the red-and-black-print scoop-neck shell. And the fact that she walked past Alton Auditorium, and was heading for Lake Fred for her stroll. Not to mention her upbeat frame of mind, and excitement over the upcoming seminar, both of which scream
abduction
, not suicide or vanishing act.
Those
leads. Did the Newark field office turn up anything?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

Again, Sloane got quiet, and Derek could actually feel her reining in her temper. “Has anyone done a friggin’ thing since our last conversation?” she blurted out at last. “Did the Atlantic City RA send agents over to the Stockton campus or not?”

“Yes and yes. I followed up with Anderson, and the AC office sent Tom McGraw and one other agent over to Richard Stockton—”

“Good,” Sloane interrupted. “Did anyone at Richard Stockton recognize Penny’s photo yet? Did the Bureau turn up any witnesses who might have spotted her around Lake Fred the day she disappeared?”

“It’s been just two working days since we gave them Deanna Frost’s information. Expecting something solid to have materialized by now is unrealistic, even for you.”

“You think? They could have worked over the weekend.”

Derek rolled his eyes. “Give it up, Sloane. It’s seven-thirty Monday morning. Most agents aren’t even at their desks yet.”

“You are.”

“I’m me. Not everyone keeps my insane hours. Besides, even if I pressured the agents who are assigned to this to go straight over to the campus, the administration offices don’t open till eight-thirty or nine. And the students don’t wake up until noon. So there aren’t a lot of people to talk to yet.”

“There’s the campus police. Last I heard they were open twenty-four/seven. They have incident records from last April. Maybe some of those dovetail with Penny’s disappearance. There also might be video surveillance from the security cameras—”

“I’ve considered every one of those possibilities. So has McGraw. The situation’s being handled. Give it time.”

“
Time?
Penny’s parents have been without her for a year. They’re not sure what horrible acts of violence she’s endured, or if she’s alive or dead. They have no body, no answers, and no closure. I think that constitutes special circumstances.” A pause. “Or am I barking up the wrong tree? Is this more about your ego than about this being low priority? Is this your petty way of shutting me out of the process? Because if it is, it’s not going to fly.”

“Now, why doesn’t that surprise me?”

“That’s not an answer.” Sloane sucked in an impatient breath. “Never mind. I’m heading into the city now. One of my stops is Mount Sinai. As you know, Penny’s father’s a cardiologist there, I’m meeting with both him and Penny’s mother to bring them up to speed. Unfortunately, the rest of my day’s spoken for. But tomorrow I’ll be driving back down to Richard Stockton and doing my thing—which includes lighting fires under the right asses.”

“Sloane—”

“See you around, Derek.”

John Jay College of Criminal Justice

Office of Professor Elliot Lyman

8:45 A.M.

Elliot tried for the third time to concentrate on the data he was inputting into his “loaner” computer, but to no avail. The machine was archaic, it was inferior, and it wasn’t his.

With a sound of disgust, he pushed his chair away from his desk and slumped back in it, raking both hands through his hair.

He hadn’t expected everything to snowball like this.

The cops had been in here and confiscated everything. His entire professional life had been carried out the door as nonchalantly as if they were carrying out the trash.

And they just kept asking him questions.

He practiced his answers every night, anticipating what else they could question him about. But they always seemed to find something unanticipated to throw at him. Which made him so nervous that he fell all over himself when he spoke, and he could barely meet the gazes of whichever cops were asking the questions. He knew he came across as if he were hiding something. Charm and easy verbal expression had never been his strengths.

Meanwhile, things just kept getting worse and worse. Since Cynthia’s parents had reported her missing, it was like he was caught in the middle of a bad crime drama. The latest rumor was that Cynthia’s bloody hair band had been found by the
NYPD
in a wooded area behind the building that housed the swimming pool. It had been sent off to the
DNA
lab for confirmation.

The press was everywhere. He couldn’t even go out for a sandwich without being attacked like a piece of steak in a lion’s cage.

He couldn’t breathe. He was about to implode.

There was a light knock on his semi-opened door. He swung his chair around to see who was invading his space now.

“Hey, stranger.” Sloane stepped in, glancing around to see if they were alone. “Can you spare a few minutes for a pal? I know your next class doesn’t start for an hour.” She waved a brown bag in the air. “Fresh bagels with cream cheese.”

Elliot’s relief at seeing her was blatant. “Sloane. Thank God.” He beckoned her in, then rose and walked over to shut the door behind her. “I’d be thrilled to see you even without the bagels. I’m not hungry.”

“You have to eat.” Sloane’s practiced glance swept the office, noting the dust-free rectangular spots on Elliot’s numerous tabletops that told her his PCs had been removed. Even his laptop was nowhere in sight. The only computer in the room was an outdated desktop. As for the file cabinet, it was half open and in disarray, files poking out here and there as if they’d been rifled.

The cops had clearly been here.

Picking up on her scrutiny, Elliot waved his arm agitatedly at the desktop that was clearly a substitute for his state-of-the-art workstation. “Look at that dinosaur. How can they expect me to work on it? It can’t handle any of my programs. I can’t run any of my software. And my confidential research is now public property.”

“It’s not public property,” Sloane reassured him. “It’s with the
NYPD
. Once they’ve checked it out for any leads in the Alexander case, they’ll return it.”

“Yeah, after their experts have either ripped off my work or trashed it. What ever happened to the First Amendment? They took everything, including all my servers, claiming they needed to look for artifacts of Cynthia’s e-mails, forum postings, chat sessions, and assignments from Comp 201.”

“They’re not interested in violating your rights. They’re interested in finding a kidnapper. And Cynthia’s communications with other students and faculty may point them in the right direction. The
NYPD
had a warrant. That means they convinced a judge that seizure of your equipment was justified. In addition, the warrant only authorized them to extract material related to Cynthia and Comp 201. They weren’t given carte blanche.”

“I get it. But I could have extracted what they needed without exposing my life’s work and my highly sophisticated equipment to some cretin they call a computer tech, or, worse, to one with enough brainpower to see my software’s potential and rip it off. You may trust everyone in law enforcement, but I don’t. My research is cutting-edge, and close to completion. But I haven’t unveiled it to a soul. Now I might as well have auctioned it off on eBay.”

Elliot might be overreacting, but Sloane understood why. From what she’d gleaned, he wasn’t exaggerating the scope of his work. That was why John Jay’s forensic computer department was funding his research big-time. Although modest in comparison to major universities, the budget they were giving him was large for a city college. The rest, Sloane suspected, was being subsidized by grants from law enforcement organizations, private security companies, and perhaps even the
NSA
. Elliot’s software program had the potential to provide early warning of cybercrimes in progress by discerning unusual patterns in financial data—everything from credit-card purchases and banking transactions to sophisticated money-laundering practices employed by organized criminal enterprises and terrorists. His work was significant. And it was pretty damned sensitive.

To Elliot, that made the NYPD’s actions the ultimate invasion.

Blowing out a breath, Sloane placed the bag of bagels on Elliot’s desk and shrugged out of her coat. “I’m doing Sergeant Erwin a favor today. I’ll see if, in return, he can expedite his analysis of your equipment and get it back to you
ASAP
.” She turned, giving Elliot’s forearm a gentle squeeze. “Trust me. Bob Erwin is a good man. All he’s interested in is extracting information about Cynthia, her friends, and her potential enemies.”

Sloane opened the bag and handed Elliot a bagel and cream cheese, neatly wrapped in wax paper. “Now sit down and eat.”

Elliot stared at the bagel, then sank down in his chair. “I sound like a heartless bastard,” he muttered. “The poor girl’s been kidnapped. God only knows what the wack job who took her has in mind. And here I am worrying about my research. You must think I’m as shallow as they come.”

“I think you’re human.” Sloane perched at the edge of another chair, unwrapped her bagel, and began munching. “And I think you’d better eat that bagel before I do. I was up all night working, took a three-mile run with the hounds, and then did some serious damage on the archery course. I haven’t eaten a solid meal in two days. So consider yourself forewarned.”

A hint of a grin. “Yes, ma’am.” Elliot unwrapped his breakfast and took a bite. “Thanks,” he said quietly. “For the bagel, the pep talk, and the sensitivity. I realize you drove down here because of me. You’re a good friend.”

“I have my moments.” Sloane reached over and grabbed a bottle of water from the small fridge against the office wall. “I assume you heard about Cynthia’s hair band being found?”

“Yeah, with blood on it and near it. Is that true?”

A nod. “The
DNA
results came in. The blood on the hair band and on the grass where it was found is Cynthia’s.”

Elliot leaned forward. “What about prints? Were there any others besides Cynthia’s?”

“Partials. They were smudged. The lab is seeing what they can come up with. But it doesn’t look too promising.”

“The poor kid.”

“And her poor parents.” Sloane wiped her mouth with a paper napkin. “I’m talking to Mrs. Alexander today. My fingers are crossed that she’ll say something, anything, that I can give to Bob.”

“Wouldn’t she have told him everything she knows already?”

“Everything she
realizes
she knows,” Sloane corrected. “You’d be surprised by the number of details we all store in our brains that never register in our consciousness without being prompted.”

“Yeah. I guess I would.” Elliot fiddled with the edge of the wax paper. “So it’s your job to coax out some of those details?”

“One of my jobs, yes.” Sloane resumed eating her bagel, choosing her next words carefully. “Hang tough these next few days, Elliot. Everyone’s working at maximum speed and efficiency. But until the investigation’s wrapped up, life at John Jay won’t return to normal. I saw the press converged at the edge of campus.”

“They’re vultures,” he replied bitterly.

“You don’t have to speak to them. If you’re approached by a reporter, just keep walking and say nothing. Stay holed up in here as much as possible. Teach your classes. Do whatever research you can. I’ll make sure you get your computers back quickly, so it’ll be business as usual. Just keep it together.”

Elliot was staring down at his desk. “Do you really think she’s still alive?”