Last Breath (28 page)

“Looks like you lucked into something big,” Adam said. “Wish I’d known about it.”

Eastman laughed. “You? On your salary, you couldn’t get on board a deal like this, kid.”

Kid again. “Guess you’re right.”

“But I’ll tell you what. When we have our grand opening, you’re invited.”

Eastman completed his tour of the office park. He drove through the gate, then got out and padlocked it again.

“Gotta protect my investment,” he said as he drove away. “Not that there’s any risk of vandalism. Got no neighbors except a few horse ranches a mile away or more. Anyway, the place is sealed up tight. Ten-foot perimeter fence topped with razor wire. Nobody can get in.”

“Or out,” Adam muttered, thinking of the complex for the first time not as an office park but as a huge steel cage.

“What’s that?”

“Nothing. Say, Roger, I’m developing a thirst. What do you say we stop off for adult beverages on our way home?”

“The wife’ll kill me. I’m late enough as it is.” Eastman shrugged. “What the hell. I feel like celebrating. Every time I visit that place, I see dollar signs, kid.”

Adam didn’t even mind being called kid now. He laughed along with Eastman, laughed at his locker-room jokes and his anecdotes about golf and the firm and “the wife,” who evidently had no actual name. He laughed when they shared a table at a tavern on Melrose, and he laughed when after several drinks Eastman fumbled with his coat.

“Let me help you with that, Rog,” Adam offered, still laughing as his fingers slipped into the coat pocket and closed over the ring of keys.

He found the key ring now, in his pants pocket, and fingered it for reassurance. As long as the place was locked up, C.J. was trapped. He could hunt her down. She couldn’t fight him.

Or could she? Already she’d proven more dangerous than he had expected. He’d thought it would be so easy. He’d rehearsed her death for days. He’d killed her a thousand times in his thoughts.

And always his mantra played in counterpoint to the stream of images, the mantra he recited now, through gritted teeth.

“Nobody fucks with me. Nobody makes me their bitch. Nobody—”

Another stab of pain in his knee. Damn. He wouldn’t be able to walk much farther.

To track her down, he would have to use his car.

Gader had made good on his threat to call an attorney. Around 1:30 A.M., a grim, bearded, bespectacled young man arrived at the house and ordered Rawls and Brand to leave. His client did not wish to extend further cooperation to the federal authorities until they returned with a search warrant.

“It could be an arrest warrant,” Rawls said, getting in a parting shot. Gader paled, but the attorney was unmoved.

So now, at twenty minutes before two in the morning, Rawls and Brand were speeding back to the FBI field office. Rawls was at the wheel of the sedan. Brand in the passenger seat with his notebook computer on his lap. He had pulled up a copy of the tip-off e-mail message, which he had stored on a floppy disk.

Agent Rawlz,

Something phunny going on. Do you like to watch? Say you’re Bluebeard. You have to find the key.

“Any ideas?” Rawls asked as they pulled onto 1-695.

“Maybe. I don’t see any clues to who he is. But there may be a clue to who he isn’t.”

“Translation?”

“This hackerspeak he uses—it seems kind of phony, like it’s a persona he’s putting on.”

“He isn’t a real hacker?”

“Well, he found a way inside Gader’s server. Got Bluebeard’s user name and password. He must have some skills. But it’s not who he
is
, if you get my drift. It’s not what he’s all about.”

“You’re saying he probably isn’t a teenage kid hanging out in chat rooms, bragging about his latest hack.”

“Right. He just wants to be seen that way.”

“How does that help us?”

“I wonder.” Rawls lapsed into silence as the car sped through the frigid night.

It was Brand’s comment about coincidence that had turned their attention to the anonymous e-mail message. If a visitor to the Web site had figured out what was going on, why wait until the day of the next abduction before alerting the authorities? It was almost as if the e-mail was part of a game someone was playing. But who? The killer himself? Or somebody close to him?

No way to know. But Rawls and Brand were now convinced that the tipster must not be allowed to remain anonymous.

Rawls thought about what Brand had said. The informer wasn’t a true hacker. He was only masquerading as one. Yet he’d known enough to send the e-mail through a remailing service that scrubbed off all routing information and made a trace impossible. And he’d known enough to bypass the field office’s email address in favor of Rawls’s personal account—

His personal account.

“We’ve been going at this backward,” Rawls said.

“How so?”

“It’s not the message that matters. It’s how he got it to me.”

“Sure, but we can’t trace—”

“We don’t have to. He obtained my e-mail address. Now, how would he do that? How would
you
do it?”

Brand considered the problem. “First I’d have to get your name. It’s not listed on the field office’s Web site, so I’d probably have to look in archived newspaper stories. The
Baltimore Sun
ran a story on the Myers case a few months ago. You were mentioned.”

Rawls nodded. “And identified as part of the computer crime squad.”

“He could have found that article in a database search. Okay, so he’s got the name of an agent in Baltimore who knows computers. Now he needs the e-mail account to go with it. So he searches e-mail directories—”

“Right. That’s how he got to me. And that’s how we’ll get to him.”

“Will we?”

“Those directories keep logs of searches and hits. We can find out who’s searched for my name—”

“And with any luck, the search will be linked to the searcher’s IP address. But maybe he thought of that. He might have used a public terminal or routed his search request through an anonymizer.”

“I don’t think so. If he’s just playacting as a hacker, he won’t know all the ins and outs. He’ll think he’s more anonymous on the Web than he really is.”

“Worth a shot, anyway.” Brand was already hooking his data-capable cell phone to the laptop to get online.

By the time the sedan pulled into the parking lot of the field office. Brand had searched for his partner’s name on the half-dozen largest e-mail directories. Only two listed a Noah Rawls.

In the office, Rawls got on the phone to the first directory’s technical assistance number, identifying himself as a federal agent, while Brand used his own phone line to contact the other service.

Strictly speaking, a warrant was required to force the system operator to relinquish private information to law enforcement agents. But the directory services were mainstream, commercial operations, and unlike remailers and anonymizers, they were not eager to force a confrontation with the FBI. The sysop at the first service checked his logs immediately, no questions asked.

“Sorry, sir,” he reported. “I see zero hits on the name Noah Rawls during the past three weeks. We don’t keep records longer than that.”

“Thanks anyway.” Rawls hung up, wondering if they’d reached another dead end.

Then he saw Brand scribbling on his desk blotter, and he knew they had something from the second service.

“The FBI appreciates your cooperation,” Brand said into the phone, then cradled the handset. “One hit, ten days ago. We got the IP address.”

“Trace it.”

“Will do.” Brand searched a CD-ROM containing millions of known Internet Protocol addresses. He reported that it was a dynamic IP address assigned by a major Internet service provider.

Most providers maintained huge blocks of IP addresses and assigned a new address to the user whenever he dialed in. The addresses were doled out at random, and the same user would have a different address every time he established a new connection.

Even so, the specific user could be traced, if the date and time of the connection were known.

“We’ve got the date stamp and the time stamp on the e-mail directory search,” Brand said in response to Rawls’s unvoiced question. “If the ISP will open up their logs, we’re golden.”

Brand phoned the provider and got through to the sysop. Rawls waited, wondering if they would encounter resistance. The big providers were sensitive to protecting customer privacy. Sometimes they demanded a warrant.

Then Brand covered the phone’s mouthpiece and said, “They’re cooperating.”

“Hallelujah,” Rawls breathed, and for a moment he was back inside the hot, overcrowded church in East St. Louis where his mother had dragged him every Sunday, wearing his only suit, a threadbare hand-me-down from his cousin Theo.

Praise be to God
, the congregation would announce.
Hallelujah, oh, hallelujah!

He asked himself if God was watching over him now—and over C.J. Osborn.

C.J. found Adam’s black BMW a few yards from the parking garage, near a pile of lumber blocking the entry ramp. For the first time that night, she actually felt lucky—because the door on the driver’s side had been left open. It hung ajar, inviting her inside.

A trap? More likely, Adam had been in too much of a hurry to close the door. That meant the antitheft system had never been activated.

If the key was in the ignition, she might start to believe in miracles. She slipped inside and checked.

No key. Well, she could get the car started anyway. She’d picked up a long steel screw from the roadside while doubling back to the garage. It would make an adequate prying tool. She set to work digging the screw into the ignition cylinder, trying to find purchase on the slippery metal ring.

The thought occurred to her that Adam would kill her if he knew she was scratching up his car.

Ha ha, very funny.

He really was embarrassingly proud of this set of wheels, his first tangible proof of success. She remembered how he’d dropped by her house, shortly after signing on with Brigham & Garner, just to say hello, of course. And he’d been driving his shiny new Beemer—the 325 coupe, he’d informed her—184 horsepower, audio console upgrade, sand leather interior. She had wondered why he still wanted to impress her, why it mattered to him.

She still hadn’t pried loose the cylinder. If she had a knife or a screwdriver—

Wait.

Footsteps on asphalt.

Adam was coming.

No time to get the car started. She had to take cover, hope he didn’t notice the scratch marks on the steering column.

She slipped out of the car, easing the door shut without making a sound, and scrambled behind the pile of lumber. Huddled there, breathing hard, as Adam came into view.

He was limping badly now. She’d struck him pretty hard with the plank. The muscles of his leg must have stiffened up. She hoped it hurt like hell.

He stopped by the black coupe and opened the door, sliding in. The dome light illuminated the car’s interior. She could see him clearly. His face was drawn and pale, his pretense of composure long gone.

Was he leaving? No chance. He couldn’t run away now—unless he meant to run all the way to Mexico.

Go, Adam, she urged voicelessly. You can cross the border before I find a way out of here.

She didn’t even care if he was caught. She just wanted him gone, out of her life forever.

The BMW’s engine turned over with a dull grumble.

Adam started to close the driver’s door, then hesitated, looking down at something in the car.

The scratches she’d made? No, his gaze seemed fixed on the seat. Adam ran a hand over the seat cushion, then raised his hand to the glow of the dome light.

There was something dark on his fingers.

She looked down at her own hand, invisible in the shadows, and remembered smashing the vial of tattoo ink. Her hand had been stained a bloody maroon hue. Though she’d wiped off the worst of the spill, her fingers and palm remained dark with ink.

She’d left a handprint on the BMW’s seat—a print that would show up plainly against the sand leather.

Glare.

The coupe’s headlights came on, then the high beams, flooding the whole area with light.

She scrunched down lower, hoping the lumber would hide her from the halogen beams.

The car began to turn in a slow semicircle, high beams sweeping over the lumber pile.

The fans of light swept past the spot where she lay prone in the weeds ... stopped ... then swung back.

She was pinned in the glare.

He’d seen her.

The car’s motor revved.

Run
.

The BMW screamed forward, plowing into the lumber, scattering it like kindling, but she was already up and sprinting along the side of the garage.

The coupe reversed, then swerved toward her in pursuit. She picked up her speed. Brightness flared behind her.

She reached the corner of the garage. Looking back. she flung the screw at his windshield. It cracked the glass, leaving a starburst of fractures.

Running again, legs pumping hard. Childishly she felt better. He was so proud of that stupid car.

She ran faster, and behind her the coupe turned the corner, its high beams closing in.

“Get a load of this,” Cellini said. She’d been thumbing through Gavin Treat’s journal with gloved hands while she and Walsh sat together in the mobile command post.

“A lead?” Walsh asked. He’d told her to skim the book in the hope that Treat had jotted down a reference to a hideout. So far the patrol units combing the neighborhood had found no sign of him.

“No. It’s just ... weird. His connection with C.J. Osborn. Remember how we couldn’t account for it in terms of the computer-repair scenario? Well, it turns out he didn’t make contact with her that way. He tracked her down.”

“Why? They have a prior relationship?”

“You could say that. Take a look.”

She held the journal open before Walsh. His hands weren’t gloved, and no prints had yet been lifted from the book. Ninhydrin would be used to pull any recoverable latents off the pages. Cellini, knowing this, was careful to handle the journal only by the edges.