Michael Prescott - In Dark Places

"It's clear."

"I hope so, Lieutenant. I really do."

Robin spoke up at last. "Excuse me, Chief. Aren't you forgetting something?"

Hammond turned a cold eye on her. "What would that be?"

"We did find Gray."

"And lost him."

"We tracked him down," Robin persisted. "I had an idea of where he might go. Lieutenant Wolper helped me check it out. And we were right. Isn't that what's important?"

"What's important is following proper procedure. Without organization there is chaos."

"Did you hear that in a management seminar?"

Hammond straightened his shoulders. "Under the circumstances. Dr. Cameron, I would think you'd be less concerned with LAPD policy and more concerned with the recovery of your daughter." He cocked his head at a politely quizzical angle. "Or had you forgotten about her?"

Anger lashed her. She said the first thing she could think of. "You fucking pogue."

Wolper laughed. Lewinsky looked stricken. Hammond simmered, searching for a reply, found none, and spun on his heel to stride off, pursued by his adjutant.

"Nice use of the lingo," Wolper said.

Robin sighed. "I probably just got you in more trouble."

"Oh, yeah." Wolper smiled. "But it was worth it."

Wolper drove Brand back to the arcade, where he'd left his car. Robin sat in the backseat. No one said anything. The silence between them was thick and close, almost tangible.

Her cell phone rang. Gray again? Hurriedly she dug it out of her purse. "Hello?"

"Dr. Cameron?" It wasn't Gray. It was the criminalist, Gaines. "Your daughter had set up a password to protect her e-mail cache. I brought in someone from the computer crime unit to hack into the files. It turns out she was corresponding with this man Gabe, as her diary indicated. It's not clear if she actually met him or if it was just an Internet thing."

She kept her voice low, not wanting Brand, in the front seat, to hear. "Can you find out who he is? Trace the e-mails?"

"Let me have you talk to Pete Farber. He's our computer guy."

The phone was handed over to Farber, who started in on a technical explanation without any social preamble. "We have twenty-six e-mails generated by Novell's GroupWise software. The routing info indicates that the point of origin was the Los Angeles municipal WAN." He pronounced it like ban . "The IP address assigned to the user's computer is within a range reserved for the LAPD WAN"

"Wait a minute." She lowered her voice still further. "LAPD?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"What is a WAN, exactly?"

"Wide-area network. Computers can be connected into a network of any size. If the network is smallsay, all the computers in one office or one buildingit's a local-area network, a LAN. If you start linking up LANs from different offices or buildings, you've got a WAN."

"And the LAPD has one of these WAN networks?"

"That's right. There are more than thirty-five hundred workstations in the LAPD, running the Novell NetWare operating system. Each LAPD station is a local-area net. The stations are linked together in a wide-area net, using highspeed T-one lines, mainly."

"And these e-mails were sent from within that system?"

"Right. GroupWise e-mail is used primarily for interoffice communication throughout the WAN, but the network does have Internet egress pointsmeaning it's possible for a user to send a message to someone outside the municipal net. That's what happened here."

"So just find out which user sent the e-mails"

"It's not that simple. Any user can create an e-mail account under any name. The name 'Gabe'no last nameis almost certainly an alias. The routing info tells us that the LAPD net was used, but to determine the specific workstation, we need additional information from ITA." He anticipated her question. "Information Technology Agency. The city agency that established the system."

"Then make them tell you."

"It takes time. We're trying to track down the administrator right now."

She bit back her impatience. "When you find him, will you know who sent the messages?"

"We'll know which terminal was used, that's all. It might be a terminal shared by various people."

"One way or the other, we're talking about a police officer?"

"Well amp; not necessarily a sworn officer, but someone on the LAPD system. It could be a clerical worker or, who knows, a civilian volunteer, a janitor, anybody with access to the terminal."

"But it could be a police officer?" she pressed. "The officers do use these terminals?"

"They do, yes, of course."

She thanked Farber, and when Gaines came back on the line, she asked him to keep her updated. "When we've traced the messages, you'll know," he promised.

The call was over. She put the phone back into her purse.

"What was that about?" Wolper asked from the driver's seat.

She couldn't give a truthful answer with Brand present. "A neighbor of mine. Calling to see if there's any news."

"It's better not to talk to friends and neighbors right now. You never know who'll start blabbing to the media or what they'll say."

She didn't answer. She stared at the seat in front of her, where Brand was sitting. She would never believe that Meg had been drawn to him in a personal encounter, but if he had created an Internet persona, perhaps passing himself off as a younger man amp;

She remembered Gray telling her that Mr. Cool was probably a cop. Was it Brand? She wished she'd asked how long Meg and Gabe had been exchanging e-mails. Had the relationship started before or after Brand became aware that he was likely to be selected as Robin's test subject? If it had started afterward, then maybe Brand had decided to get even with her by playing a sick game with her daughter.

She didn't quite buy it, though. Such a plan seemed too complicated, too subtle, for Sergeant Brand. Then again, she didn't really know him. And the messages had come from someone inside the LAPD.

Damn . She rubbed her head. Somehow things just kept getting worse.

"Headache?" Wolper asked. He'd been watching her in the rearview mirror.

"It's nothing."

"Not too late to take a trip to the hospital."

"No, thanks."

He shrugged. "Just asking."

At the arcade, Brand got out. "Nice to know who your friends are," he said in Wolper's direction. He glanced at Robin as she exited the backseat. "You too, Doc."

She stared back at him with cold, suspicious eyes. He walked off, not looking back. Quickly she slipped into the passenger seat beside Wolper. "Can we follow him, see where he goes?"

Wolper shook his head. "He knows my car. Under the circumstances, he'll be looking for it. I guess I should take you back to Parker Center."

She thought for a moment. "No."

"I told you, following him isn't an option."

"There's something else we can do."

"What is it?"

"We need to go to my office."

"Why? What's there?"

"The answer to my questionsmaybe."

"The chief made it pretty clear that I'm to have no further involvement in this case."

"So you won't take me there?"

"Oh, I'll take you." Wolper smiled. "I just wanted to establish what a great guy I'm being."

She smiled backher first smile in hours, she thought distantly. "Duly noted," she said.

"Then let's go."

He put the car into gear and headed east, toward the skyline.

It took Meg a long time to come back to herself. She felt as if she had gone away for a while, into a dream world of radiant peace.

She hadn't wanted to return. It was the moaning that had brought her back, a low, dismal sound like a foghorn.

She opened her eyes and found herself huddled on the bottom step of the cellar staircase, her handcuffed wrist suspended at shoulder height, her right arm wrapping her waist in a tight embrace. The flashlight still shone down from the landing, dimly illuminating the room.