Page 37 of Dark Angel
Styles accelerated along the highway, enjoying the way the afternoon sun turned the tops of the pines to gold. During tough cases the scenery kept him sane. He loved living in Rattlesnake Creek. He sighed. “Nope, not a word, and I can hardly ask his handler, can I? We’re dealing with it. I tried to make him feel better by holding a chicken and patting him and offering him treats, but seeing me with a chicken made him frightened of me too.”
“Hmm. That’s not good. Poor Bear.” Beth stared out the window. “I’ll start work on the laptop as soon as we get back to the office. It’s going to take some time for me to check everything, so could you follow up with the local sheriff in Serenity and see if either of the victims owned a tablet or whatever? The cops might already have them in evidence, and correlating their data will help me discover if this predator is using the internet to get to the girls.”
Placing Beth’s instructions on a list in his mind, Styles glanced at the digital clock on his dash. “We have an order of pies coming from Aunt Betty’s Café after four this afternoon. I was lucky and caught up with Dawson before he left Black Rock Falls, and then I called the diner and placed my order. Don’t mention we’re buying pies from another diner to TJ, will you? I don’t want to hurt his feelings.”
“My lips are sealed.” Beth nodded slowly. “So how are you planning on getting Lawrence Dawson to talk to us? I mean you can’t just say ‘thanks for the delivery’ and then ‘are you involved in these murders?’ or he’ll be shouting entrapment.” She gave him a critical stare. “I know you run your game close to the edge, but I figure that’s pushing it a bit too far. Maybe we come in from a different angle. It would work well with a psychopath if you asked him for his assistance. You could say we’re looking for strangers in these towns and noticed on his ad he travels around some. Ask if his work has taken him where they’ve been. If you take that line of questioning, we wouldn’t make him feel like we’re suspicious.”
Impressed, Styles nodded. “Yeah, I’ll run that through my head some. It’s a good idea. When I called him, he mentioned this would be his last run for the day, so we’ll bring him up here, thank him for taking on the delivery at short notice. Maybe even offer him a cup of coffee and put him at his ease before we start asking him questions? What do you say?”
“That sounds like a plan.” Beth sighed as they slid into the underground parking lot below their building. “I’ll sit at my desk, so it doesn’t look as if we’re ganging up on him.”
Styles climbed out of the truck and stretched. He opened the back door and unclipped Bear’s harness. “I’ll be up in five. Bear needs a potty break.”
“Okay.” Beth headed for the elevator and turned around, walking backward. “You’re a bad influence on me, Dax Styles. I’m actually looking forward to those pies.” She gave him a wave and turned toward the elevator.
Grinning, Styles headed to the grassy area around the perimeter of the building. He patted Bear on the head. He’d seen a different side to Beth today. Her stiff professional, argumentative, persona had slipped a little to display someone he could grow to like.
THIRTY-SEVEN
On entering the office, Beth dropped her things on her desk and then went straight to the windows and flung them open. She often wondered why some people had an aversion to fresh air and stood for some moments allowing the cold wind to toss around her hair. The smell of death was still stuck to the inside of her nose and breathing in the fresh pine fragrance of the forest and the scent of the snow-covered mountains cleared her head. She went to the kitchenette and put on a pot of coffee before returning to her desk. Soon the aroma of the brew filled the room and she breathed in deeply. There wasn’t anything better than the smell of coffee on a cold fall afternoon. She turned over the evidence bag on her desk containing Brooklyn Daniels’ iPad and examined it through the plastic. With care she broke the seal, noting the dust left from collecting fingerprints. Using that method was old style and she took a tissue from her drawer and wiped it clean.
It took a few seconds for her to gain access to all of Brooklyn’s social media platforms. She added in the names of the other victims and noted with interest that they were all friends. The main topic of the conversation, apart from what happened at school, was the apparent fascination with an online game. It wasn’t anything special, a simple role-playing game where the girls became witches or fairies and the boys knights or warlocks, and then there was the grand warlock and the fairy queen, which she assumed must be the coordinators, but maybe not. Everything was easily corrupted. The link between the missing girls and the game was significant. Anything that linked victims together, however seemingly random, often led to arrests.
Any online platform was easily hacked. It wasn’t just games that came under attack from cybercrime. It didn’t seem to matter how many fail-safes were included in a game for children, hackers were able to gain access. It was a honey hole for predators, who joined the game under the identity of a child and played along for sometimes months to gain a child’s trust. She shook her head in disbelief. If this was how the Pied Piper was grooming the girls, he’d managed to gain access to them through a maze of back doors. Amused by the trail he’d left behind, she smiled. The character named “The Warlock” had to be the Pied Piper. He was well hidden and very well disguised. His IP address jumped all over the world. She wondered if he’d discover her trace on his files as she scanned the lines of data. How would he feel when he realized someone like her was tracking him?
If only locating his whereabouts were as simple. Beth sighed. She couldn’t trace him, not until he went online and then it would be difficult. She didn’t have time before he struck again. It would be very soon, in the next day or so. She could almost see his moves like pieces on a chessboard. The next would be his last and he’d move to another area. It was something he did frequently. The MO fitted all of their suspects. The travel nurses worked through an agency and traveled all over. Dawson, the courier driver, established a service in surrounding towns and then moved on to set up another, leaving someone else to manage the business. It all seemed legitimate, but what an ingenious excuse to move around. It also left Dawson the opportunity to return to a comfort zone and kill again, maybe years down the track.Yes, it could be him.
The door to the office opened and Styles walked in with Sheriff Ryder behind him. Beth smiled as Bear bounded up to her, tail wagging and mouth stretched wide around his bone. She looked up as Styles came to her desk. “Is that a laptop I see in your hand?”
“It is. Sheriff Addams drove it down from Serenity. It belongs to Hailey Quinn.” Styles indicated to Ryder standing beside him with his hands resting on his belt. “You can thank Cash. He chased it down after you mentioned you were looking for it.”
Surprised by Ryder’s sudden enthusiasm, Beth smiled at him. “Thank you so much. I’m not sure how much Styles has told you about me, but I started in cybercrime. If there’s a connection between social media or any of the games the girls were playing online and the killer, I’ll hunt it down. Having two devices will give me a cross-reference on websites that might be extremely valuable.”
“My pleasure, ma’am.” Ryder tipped his hat. “I’m sorry about before. I know none of this is your fault. Seeing the girl all cut up like that made me mad, is all.”
Nodding Beth stood and went to the kitchenette. “Apology accepted. Coffee?”
“Thanks.” Ryder smiled at her. “Black.”
“We have Lawrence Dawson dropping by anytime now. He is a courier driver who runs all the way from Black Rock Falls through to Serenity and Rainbow, but he lives here. I’ve arranged for him to drop by this afternoon with a delivery of pies. It was a way of speaking to him without causing any undue suspicion.” Styles’ phone chimed a message and he peered at the screen. “Speak of the devil, that’s a message from him saying his ETA is five minutes.” He looked at Beth. “How do you want to play this?”
Beth handed them cups of coffee and poured one for herself. She leaned against the counter sipping the rich hot brew. “Why don’t you and Ryder chat casually with him? If he is a suspect in this case, he’ll be a typical psychopath and probably enjoy discussing the murders. You need to remember that they really enjoy reliving every aspect of the kills. If he’s involved, it’s likely he’ll want to know everything you’ve discovered. Feed him some information and see if he spills his guts.” She went to her desk and sat down leaning back in her chair. “I’ll sit here and pretend to be working on this laptop, but I’ll be listening to everything. I suggest you record the conversation with your phone. Try not to lead him into speaking about the murders, maybe say it’s been a bad few days. If he starts to discuss what’s been happening in town, then it’s not entrapment, is it?”
“Well, I guess we’re gonna find out.” Styles raised both eyebrows and shrugged. “As we don’t have anything at all on any of the suspects, I guess we play it by ear.” The buzzer sounded on the outside intercom, and Styles went to the screen. “Yeah, that’s Lawrence Dawson.” He pressed the intercom button. “Come on up. Take the elevator to the third floor.”
THIRTY-EIGHT
Anxious to prove her theory about Lawrence Dawson, Beth watched his progress through the security door and to the elevator on the screens. As he progressed, Styles used the controls on the security system to give him access. Moments later, Styles walked to the door and pulled it open. Dawson resembled a typical courier driver in these parts. Brown pants and a heavy matching jacket with his name in yellow on one of the pockets. When he turned around, he had the name Dawson’s Couriers across his back. He stood approximately five-ten, Caucasian, light brown hair, hazel eyes. She noticed his nails and hands were spotlessly clean, not as if he’d been moving packages around all day. Turning back to the device that Ryder had given her, she listened with interest as Styles went to work.
“Mr. Dawson, am I glad to see you.” Styles took the package and slid it onto his desk. “Long day? It’s freezing outside and I’ve just brewed a fresh pot of coffee, why don’t you join us?”
“You want me to sit down with the FBI?” Dawson appeared a little confused and looked from the sheriff to Styles and back and then shrugged. “This is the first time any of my customers have offered me a cup of coffee.” He scratched his cheek. “This is my last delivery of the day, so yeah, thanks. It will be good to get out of the cold for a time.” He took the offered chair, his attention following Styles to the kitchenette. “Black is fine.”
“I know what you mean.” Styles handed him a cup. “It’s been a very long couple of days for us too.”
Beth smiled into her coffee cup as Dawson opened up like a flower after the spring rain. She flicked a knowing glance at Styles, who kept his attention fixed on Dawson. She had underestimated Styles. His relaxed, outgoing persona would have fooled the best of them. He sure didn’t look like he was on the job.
“Terrible business about them young girls. Just terrible.” Dawson sipped his coffee eyeing them over the rim. “I was in Rainbow when they were searching for them. I don’t recall so many people living in that town, but every man and his dog were out looking for them young’uns.”
