Leslie Parrish - Pitch Black

Nodding to a receptionist who offered Sam a cursory smile, Blackstone entered what appeared to be a conference room. Considering dusty boxes stood in lopsided columns from floor to ceiling in all four corners, she doubted it had been one for long.

“That for me?” a man asked, nodding toward the CPU Alec held in his arms. He was young, with spiked blond hair. His bright yellow dress shirt and trendy, pin-striped trousers weren’t what she’d expected to see in this particular government office, and his smile was infectious. “Brandon Cole,” he said as he moved past her to take the computer from Alec. “I’ll treat her like a baby, okay?”

Whether she liked it or not, her link with the outside world did have to leave her sight, at least for a while. Knowing she couldn’t be petty enough to deny law enforcement any chance at finding clues to catch the boys’ murderer, she nodded. “Okay. Here are my passwords.” She handed him the notes she’d jotted down during the drive from Baltimore. Then, frowning, she added, “No reading e-mails from anybody named Tricia, aka Delishtrish. I’ll vouch for her.”

Her friend was occasionally overdescriptive when talking about her dates. She seemed to think if Sam read about somebody else occasionally getting laid, she might be more apt to want to do it herself. Sam always hit delete after the first paragraph.

“You got it,” the young man said before he left the room, taking with him her most prized possession-including the bulk of her already contracted second book. Talk about redundant backups: She hadn’t gone with Alec today until she’d burned it to CD and a portable hard drive.

“Delishtrish who leaves loud messages?” Alec asked as he pulled a chair out and beckoned for her to take a seat. A glint of humor appeared in his eyes again, and for a moment, she thought he was laughing at her.

Then she felt the quick, reassuring brush of his hand on her shoulder and realized his light teasing and humor were his way of trying to keep her calm and comfortable. The realization was as nice as it was unexpected. “My best friend. She’s a pain in the butt, but she’s loyal.”

Swallowing, she quietly added, “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.” Glancing at the antique industrial round clock on the wall, he frowned, the hint of warmth evaporating. “We’re running out of time.”

Almost twelve thirty. He was right.

“You ready?”

She nodded. “As I’ll ever be.”

Alec bent and reached around her, his strong arm brushing hers, pushing an open laptop in front of her. “Why don’t you log in so you’ll be set to go once we decide exactly what you’re going to say.” As she did so, he addressed the others in the room-two women who also sat at the conference table. “Anything?”

His partner, Stokes, offered Sam a curt nod of hello. “Our boy did some driving last night. His posts came from three different servers. We’ve isolated them, so we know one was from a hotel offering free wifi, one from a small-time auto repair shop without a firewall.” Not quite meeting Sam’s eye, as if she realized how it would affect her, she admitted, “Which was on Reisterstown Road, near Druid Hill Park.”

Close . Very close to where she lived. God, she had never thought about how close her hometown was to Delaware -where the boys had been killed. Or that the monster they were chasing could actually operate right in this area.

Alec obviously thought the same thing. She saw his sudden tension and the scowl on his handsome face.

Sam closed her eyes for a moment, forcing herself to take a deep, calming breath. She lived in a large metropolitan area with an untold number of servers. Of course someone wanting to disguise his location from the FBI would be drawn to a big city. He’d headed south, that was all, and Baltimore was the first big city south of Wilmington.

Besides, almost nobody knew her real address, including many of her old friends. Her Web site was registered through a hosting service, she used a PO box for almost all her correspondence, and she had an unlisted, unpublished number.

Coincidence .

Still, knowing the killer had ended up so physically close when he had responded to her blog-on top of the fact that he visited her site at all-didn’t exactly make her day.

“And the other location?” Blackstone asked.

“A residential neighborhood near BWI, probably some Joe Blow with an unsecured Linksys router.”

BWI Airport. South of the city. Even farther from Wilmington. So he circled the entire beltway and then drove back to Delaware, damn it.

Sounding hopeful, Alec asked, “Was it the first one? Did he post from home, then think better of it and go out to find a more secure location?”

Sam was less hopeful. Because she did not want to think this bastard might live so close.

Agent Stokes shook her head. “Uh-uh. The third. A brand new ISP was assigned within minutes of his post.”

Sam, who had been listening quietly, talking only in her head, couldn’t help muttering, “You guys are good, taking it all the way to street level so soon.”

Jackie Stokes shrugged. “We’ve got access most people don’t. Amazing how quickly a federal warrant goes through when bodies start to fall.”

“No doubt.”

“All right, give me some good news,” said Blackstone.

“Well, the good news is, if we ever do have a suspect, we’ll be able to prove all this through his laptop’s history. Without one, we’re shooting in the dark.”

Wyatt’s eyes narrowed. “Tell me one of those connections was in the vicinity of a surveillance camera.”

The other woman, a pretty blonde who had been busily typing on her keyboard, lifted her head. “Already on it, sir. The residential area, no go, but it’s possible he was seen by a late-night dog walker or nosy neighbor.”

Blackstone nodded. “Note the area, please.”

“Already sent the information to your BlackBerry, sir.”

He sighed, saying, “We really don’t need the sirs in this office, Lily.”

The woman stammered an apology, which her boss waved off. “Continue,” he said.

“The hotel is part of a budget chain. They might offer free wifi, but they don’t put any money into security. It is across the street from a bank ATM, though. Depending on where he parked, it could have caught something.” The blonde, Lily, didn’t sound hopeful. “And the Baltimore auto repair shop he used to send the middle post is located near an intersection with a red-light cam. I’ve already contacted the locals to get the ID of the specific camera, and can pull it up for examination.”

“Excellent.” Blackstone turned his attention back to Alec and Sam. “But obviously it’s not enough. So we’re going to have to proceed with the backup plan. Are you certain you’re willing to do this?”

Sam nodded. “But we need to get going.”

“Alec, this is your show. I assume you know the best way to deal with the psyche of this unsub, so why don’t you write out the initial response.”

“All right.” Alec turned to face her. “If you had gotten up this morning and read these messages, how would you have dealt with them? Would you address the first comments first, or skip right to the ones that…”

“Made my blood boil?”

“Exactly.”

She thought about it. “I always give a nod to my regulars before diving into any debates.”

He sat beside her and pulled a pen from the inside pocket of his suit jacket. “Okay, you go ahead and respond to those and I’ll write down what to say to the Professor.”

She lifted a brow. “He’s a professor?”

“It’s not important. For all intents and purposes, you know him as Darwin.”