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  “Yikes.”

  “Yes, then she reinvested as soon as the market dropped through the floor…”

  Catherine finished for her, “And then she bought in again at the new bargain basement price, because she knew the market would correct back to where it was.”

  “And can you guess what happened to that exact amount of money she made that day?”

  “I’m afraid to ask…” she said drolly, bringing the minivan to a stop at a red light.

  Jordan took advantage of the moment and opened a browser on her tablet, “Her financial records showed it was transferred to an offshore account under the name, Grace Goodale, the same day her body was discovered at Murphy Ranch.”

  “An alias?”

  “Oh for sure…” Her voice faded as she scanned a Wikipedia page and suddenly snorted, shaking her head, “and Grace Goodale was William Dudley Pelley’s mother.” The light changed and she powered down her tablet as Catherine drove through the intersection.

  “Oh great…” Catherine grumbled, concentrating on the road, “I guess I’ll be having a meeting with Bea first this morning.”

  “So her Nazi boyfriend killed her and took the profit she made on that fat-finger fuck up in the stock market.”

  Catherine sat across from Bea in her office, “And what if she and maybe her boyfriend created it in the first place?”

  “I knew we were going there!” She gestured frustratedly and picked up her phone. She punched in an extension, watching her lead technician through the glass wall of her office as he picked up his desk phone, “Hey, we need a meeting on that BS market glitch today…”

  Jordan sat at her desk, staring at Nancy Ward’s driver’s license picture on her screen, So you and your twisted Nazi boyfriend had a little digital adventure hacking Wall Street for a nice pad of cash… and that’s what got you killed? She sat back in her chair, rubbing and squeezing the muscles in the back of her neck, Well, that was a dumb fucking thing to do. Her phone rang and she snatched it from her desk as she rocked forward in the chair, “Hawkins.”

  “Agent Hawkins? Agent Falk here, I’m calling you from the field office in Los Angeles.”

  Jordan’s brows arched high on her forehead, “Why, Agent Falk, are you calling me with good news, or bad?”

  “I was told you inherited a hate crime from us by the name of one Nancy Ward?”

  “Yes…”

  “Well, as a follow up on our end, I saw your alert for a car containing melting dry ice or dead body smell…”

  “Please, Agent Falk,” she pleaded, “no suspense…”

  “I think we have one for you; a canine security unit at LAX found an Escalade abandoned in short term parking with New York plates, a rental, and the guy said when his dog passed it he sat, indicating a hit.”

  “Their dogs sniff for dead bodies?”

  “No, well, his handler said he was trained at sniffing for explosives but he had been trained as a cadaver dog first.” She heard him snort wryly, “They closed down the parking lot and half the airport thinking this car was ready to blow…” His voice faded for a moment, “I just found your email in the bureau directory, you should be getting a bunch of stuff from me in a minute.”

  “Okay…” she held the phone to her ear with one hand and clicked open her email with the other.

  “Anyway, the guard was smart enough to take some pictures with his phone through the windows of what looked like a soggy sleeping bag…”

  “Please tell me you have the car.”

  “Oh, we have more than that…”

  While he spoke, Jordan repeatedly clicked the check for new email button until Agent Falk’s email appeared in bold on the screen.

  “When the handler pointed out his dog was trained in cadaver recovery the bomb squad carefully cleared the car for explosives then hauled it in for a forensic evaluation that produced evidence of cadaver smell, melted dry ice and...” He paused for dramatic emphasis, “our evidence techs are convinced they collected epidermal tissue from the sleeping bag.”

  “Skin cells...”

  “Yep, results are pending.”

  Jordan scanned his emailed report and her heart begin to race, “This was a rental car from New York… rented by Bill Dudley?”

  Jordan could swear he was smiling when he said, “Yep.”

  “Thank you…” she said fervently, “Thank you Agent Falk… excellent work.”

  They hung up and Jordan read the report, scanning the information before opening the first attachment. It was a picture of Bill Dudley’s New York driver’s license. Leaning her elbows on her desk, she leaned forward, studying the picture of the Caucasian male with nearly shoulder length brown hair, parted down the middle, It could be him… it’s probably him. Hard to say, the video on Nancy’s phone never got a good view of his face.

  “Goddamit.”

  “So,” she asked, her voice the soul of innocence, “desperate to get out of the office?”

  “The incessant paperwork does get to me sometimes, trust me.”

  “Well,” Jordan shrugged, “thanks for volunteering to come along, Stewart, but… you know it’ll be a miracle if Schmidt is actually just sitting on his ass in his apartment.”

  He shrugged back, “You gotta’ start somewhere.”

  She had shown him Dudley/Schmidt’s apartment building via high definition satellite images, and parked in front of the building. “He’s on the fourth floor on this side; you want to wait down here at the bottom of the fire escape?”

  “It’s your case, Jordan,” he grinned, “I just came out for the fresh air.”

  She got the building manager to accompany her to Bill Dudley’s apartment and she paused before knocking on the door of apartment 4C, turning to give the older man a reassuring smile when he took a step behind her. She knocked three times and waited several long seconds before knocking again, this time calling through the door, “Bill Dudley… FBI, open the door.”

  Two doors opened further down the hall, the residents peeking out fearfully from their apartments. She saw the building manager wave at them wordlessly to shut their doors, a finger held to his lips. Jordan stepped away from the door; her hand on her weapon and knocked again, “Bill Dudley! Open the door, FBI; I need to talk to you!” She withdrew her service weapon from the paddle holster on her waist and turned to let the manager reach past her and unlock the door lock and deadbolt with his master keys. When he stepped away, she opened the door and rushed inside, semi-automatic held at the ready.

  She quickly stepped over to the open kitchen area as she scanned the small empty living room, Unless he’s hiding in the bedroom this is gonna be a complete bust… Moving quickly and silently across the thin carpet, she rushed into the bedroom, sweeping it with her eyes as she crossed directly to the bathroom, banging open the door, Dammit… The shower curtain was left pulled back, the linen shelf, such as it was, had no doors, and the sink was free standing. Jordan relaxed, noting the bare mattress as she walked back through the bedroom to the living room. All the windows are closed; this bedroom doesn’t even have a closet for him to hide in… She pulled her phone from her pocket and called Stewart,

  “He’s gone; he even stripped the sheets from the mattress in his bedroom.”

  “And took his porn too?”

  She snorted, peeking down into an open cardboard box left on the floor, “Not all of it, I can see some DVD’s in there.”

  “Did he leave anything else? I can see the scene unit coming down the street.”

  She sighed heavily as she re-holstered her weapon, “There are some boxes lying around… He has almost nothing in the way of furniture, just a table and one chair in the living room and a mattress on the floor of his bedroom.” She rotated her neck, feeling no satisfaction at the popping vertebrae, “I’ll be down as soon as the evidence unit takes over.” She signed off and noticed the building manager huddled in the doorway.

  “You know,” he stood with his hands on his hips, shaking his head, “
I have his driver’s license picture in his file here, but I couldn’t even tell you for sure if it was him. He either didn’t come here much, or he came and went when I wasn’t around.”

  “I’ll need to see that.”

  “Okay.”

  “So he was a good tenant?”

  “Yeah,” he shrugged, “quiet, always paid his rent on time.”

  Jacksonville, FL

  The doorbell rang again before he got to the door, “Joe Schmidt?”

  “Andy?’ The man held out his hand, “It’s Joseph, actually, nice to finally meet you.”

  “Hey, you’re really early, but come in…” Andy was slightly shorter and considerably heavier than Joseph was, and he tried not to be too obvious as he let his eyes sweep up and down Joseph’s more slender frame when he stepped past him.

  “I’m sorry, I left early in case there was traffic and then there wasn’t any...” He flashed him a charming smile, “I guess I was kind of excited about finally meeting you.”

  “It’s okay,” Andy closed and locked the door behind him, “Come on back with me so I can shut my office down.”

  Joseph followed him down the hall, “Oh shit,” he apologized, “I’m sorry…”

  “It’s fine… Find the place okay?”

  “Oh, yeah,” he nodded, “It was a nice direct path right to your door.”

  Andy felt a hopeful stirring between his legs and he grinned, “I’m glad I decided to do this, I’m usually happy just being a lurker in those chat rooms.” He stepped into a large room crowded with racks of servers, “Sorry about the heat,” he gestured to the windows, “since I was working in here I left the fans on low.”

  “Look, I don’t want to interrupt you if you’re doing something important.”

  “Nah,” he sat at his keyboard, “I’ll just be a minute… would you like to go back to the kitchen and get something to drink?”

  “Uh… yeah,” Joseph nodded, hooking a thumb over his shoulder, “then you’ll join me?”

  “Sure…” he smiled, and then turned back to his multiple monitors.

  Joseph stepped into the hallway and hurriedly pulled a pair of latex gloves from his jacket pocket and pulled them on as he peeked into the room. He stepped back inside and pulled a homemade garrote from his other pocket; grasping the palm-length wooden handles in his hands, he pulled the sharp wire connecting them taut, straightening it as he hurriedly crossed the room, afraid Andy would see his reflection in one of the screens. He wrapped the wire around Andy’s neck, crossed his hands behind his head, and pulled the wire tight.

  Andy’s fingers flew to his neck at the sharp burning sensation, but when he felt his own hot blood flowing over his hands, he panicked and slammed backwards in the rolling office chair and into his assailant. Joseph dragged him to the floor, and shoving his knees into his back, pulled the wire even tighter, smiling when he felt the sharp line slice through Andy’s esophagus. Panting, he relaxed his hands and stayed where he was; kneeling on Andy’s back as he bucked and convulsed. He felt a dull throb between his legs and chuckled, breathless, while he listened to the low gurgling noises issuing from the dying man’s throat.

  “If you think I’m gonna suck your cock,” he chortled in a quiet voice, “you are out of your faggot-fucking mind.”

  New York City, NY

  “Hey…”

  Jordan’s smile was quick, “Hey, hi there…”

  “No Schmidt, huh?” Catherine sat at her desk and rolled her chair out to the side so she didn’t have to peek around their monitors.

  “Nope…” Jordan clicked her mouse on the send key and slumped in her chair with a heavy sigh, “would’ve been too easy I suppose. When I called you to say Stewart and I were checking out his apartment I forgot to tell you about the car…” She filled her in on the morning’s events, forwarding her Agent Falk’s email from Los Angeles.

  Catherine opened the email and her brows arched high as she scanned the document, “They found his car?”

  “Yep,” Jordan waved limply at her screen, “and I just sent our chief medical examiner an email letting her know she’ll be getting a lot of evidential reports from her counterpart in L.A., and to please call me with the results…” She opened another document and her voice faded as she read, “And… and now that Bill Dudley’s financials have come in, uh… it’s clear Dudley is an alias too…” Her voice dripped with disdain, “In case that wasn’t already obvious to us. All the credit card receipts found in the car and that showed up on this are in Dudley’s name… including his rental agreement, ISP and Con Ed bills…”

  “No phone…” Catherine muttered, now reading the same report on her screen.

  “He probably only buys burner phones, Nancy probably got the idea for getting her burner phone from him. And as much as I’d like to be thrilled we got the car, unless we can come up with some DNA we can run through the database and magically get Dudley/Schmidt’s real identity…” She shook her head, “at this point, all we’re doing is confirming that he killed and transported Nancy to the Pacific Palisades and strung her up on that gate.”

  “And his DNA will only be in the database if he already had an arrest or conviction record somewhere?”

  “Exactly.”

  “But,” Catherine lifted a shoulder in a shrug, “at least now he can’t go home and use this identity anymore.”

  “Trust me,” Jordan snorted, “that apartment was no big loss, and if he has hacker skills of his own to create another bogus credit card with another historical Nazi name as an alias, we’ll be chasing him for awhile.”

  “And there was nothing in his apartment…”

  “No phone, no used razor or toothbrush or anything I could see that would give us some DNA,” she shrugged, “the evidence unit may come up with something, fingerprints would be nice. The place was bare, but clean… except for the boxes of porn videos.”

  Catherine wrinkled her nose, “Eew.”

  Jordan’s phone rang, “Hawkins.” Catherine watched as she stared at her screen then locked eyes with her. “Okay… okay, we’re on our way.” She said and hung up.

  Catherine’s brows arched, “To where?”

  “Jacksonville, Florida…” she shut down her workstation and stood, “That was Stewart, a hacker’s body was discovered there in his house.” She began packing her shoulder bag with her tablet and paperwork, “The word faggot was carved into his chest.” She glanced at her, “So pack up, after we meet with Stewart we need to grab Cameron…”

  “I…” Catherine stood too, feeling something she rarely if ever experienced, confusion; “But you said no field, work for me…” she made a sweeping motion with her hand, “ever… and now we’re going to a murder scene with a two year old?”

  Jordan’s hands froze on her bag and she stopped, “No…” she assured her, then shook her head in self-reproach, “I’m sorry, I meant, well… in a way; Stewart’s assistant is getting us plane tickets for tonight, we’ll fly down, have a nice night at a nice hotel… It’s a four bedroom house so it’ll take their evidence teams all night to catalogue the place top to bottom.” Catherine looked skeptical but she continued, “Then Cam will spend the morning, at least, making new friends and having fun at the daycare in the Jacksonville bureau’s field office … just like here…” She gently took Catherine’s hands in her own, “The body will be long gone, but all of the victim’s computers were left up and running, and they don’t dare turn them off until you can get there and find this guy’s passwords and transfer the works to Bea’s servers here…” She gave the hands a squeeze, “Just like at Dynamic Infrastructure, okay?”

  “Okay…” Catherine said, her voice sounding faint and uncertain as she struggled to catch up with the new itinerary. “Will we have time to go to Disneyworld?”

  Jordan snickered, “Not this time…” She suddenly cocked her head to one side, “Would you like to go there for Christmas?”

  Jacksonville, FL

  Jordan kept her voice low as
they exited the car, “Okay?”

  “Of course, Cam thinks we’re having a short vacation…” Catherine smiled, “He had fun last night at the rooftop swimming pool…”

  Jordan grinned, “It was a nice hotel…”

  “It was… and he’s having fun at the new daycare…” she slid out of the car, “and this could be interesting…” She smiled, “So of course I’m okay.” She longed to grab Jordan’s hand and tuck herself under her shoulder, Remember, she scolded silently, you’re both on the job now…

  The agent from the field office in Jacksonville met them at the door of a house Jordan privately categorized as upper middle class,

  “Agent Hawkins? Bill Brady, I’m in the hacker division at the bureau here.”

  “Agent Brady,” Jordan shook his hand, “This is my associate, Doctor Catherine Bernard…”

  “Doctor Bernard,” he shook her hand, “I understand you’ll be cracking Mister Sanford’s hard drives and uploading everything to your division in New York?”

  “Yes…” Catherine nodded as she and Jordan followed him inside. “Nice place…” she said, feeling suddenly uncomfortable in the murder victim’s home.

  “Tell me,” he turned to Jordan, “will we be allowed a copy of the victim’s hard drives if our hate crime turns out not to be related to yours?”

  Jordan detected a tone in the man’s voice, “You’ll be getting a copy of everything here regardless, Agent Brady, none of us can stop working these cases until we catch the person or persons responsible.” They had stopped in the middle of a spacious living room and she turned to him, “Isn’t that right? We all need to do our part, and Doctor Bernard is the best person for this particular job.” She gave him a thin smile.

  “Um…” Catherine felt increasingly uncomfortable at the sudden tension between them and held up her hand as though she was back in school, “He has a really nice entertainment center in here, but I don’t see any workstations.”