He ran a hand through his hair. “This man is a genius at disguise. To be honest, I don’t know if any of us would have caught on. He’s too good at the game.”
“I should have. He was right fucking there, and I missed it.”
“Stop,” Julian insisted. “Stop blaming yourself, and concentrate on finding him.”
I hung my head. He was right.
“I wonder where else he has infiltrated your life? Or Raven’s?” Marcus muttered.
Egan made a noise and sat at the computer, his fingers flying over the keys. He was muttering in Romanian, the noises harsh and furious.
“What?” I asked.
“His sealed file is downloading. But there is a connection here. One we didn’t see before.” He turned his computer so it faced us. “I kept going back to the exit he took. I’ve been on it myself. So have you. It’s close to the off-site facility The Real Connection uses.”
“But we spent days checking and rechecking the staff of both places. They all came up clean.”
“We didn’t dig deep enough.” He hit a few more keys. “We took someone at face value. Older, married, wanting to help.”
A picture of Jeff Drew that Egan had snapped when he wasn’t looking flashed on the screen.
“Think about it,” Egan stated. “The sweating, his nerves. How he didn’t want us close. A heavy body suit, prosthetics, and a skullcap. A different pair of contacts. Another set of glasses.”
“Hiding in plain sight,” Marcus mumbled.
It hit me. “His cologne. I smelled it on Andy that night I cornered him. It was fainter because we were outside, but that’s why it was familiar.”
“Yes.”
Suddenly, other pieces fell into place.
“He gave us free access because there never were any profiles to find. He back-doored into his own system to find Raven. Made what looked like a regular profile and moved in on her. He would be the only one with access to that sort of control. He wiped his own trail.”
“You said she spoke with a few men. Met a couple for coffee?”
“Yes. She said they were too aggressive. Wanted more than she was looking for. Came on too strong. She liked Andy’s gentler disposition. At least until his true nature showed.”
“I bet they were all Jeff. If we could get into her profile, I think we’d find he’d blocked any access other than his own. His aggression became too much for him to hide.”
“Are we talking split personalities?”
“No. We’re talking a stalker. Someone I think has done this before. He’s obsessed the way Zander was over Missy. He has access, obviously money, and the ability,” Marcus stated.
“And now he has her.”
“Not for long.”
“Jesus, is Deb in danger?”
Egan spoke. “We’ll get eyes on her, but I would say not. Unless he knows his cover is blown.”
“We can’t let that happen. My God, she is going to freak out when she finds out who the man she was falling for really is.”
Marcus stood. “Better now than later.” He rolled up his sleeves. “We’re going to do what we do best. Find him and get Raven back. Fast.”
“And I’m taking him out.”
No one argued.
I wouldn’t have listened if they had.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Damien
Now that we had our crumb, our information on John Allan grew quickly.
Egan and I dug in deep. Julian made use of all his contacts. Marcus assimilated all the information. Hours later, we had our profile.
“Okay,” Marcus began. “Here we go. John Allan—aka Stewart, Jeffrey, and Andy—that we know of. IQ puts him at the genius level. Wealthy family, only child. Mom died when he was young. Father never remarried. School notes indicated he got bored easily. Needed distracting all the time. That was a constant all his life. Decent kid until he hit his teens. Always into computers, games, and—” he lifted his head, meeting my gaze “—drama club.”
“Obviously kept that up.”
“Yep. So, he started with petty theft, bullying at school, bothering the girls. He was accused of lurking, being a peeping tom, stealing from the lockers of the girls he liked. He got attached easily, and they never returned his affection. He was written up several times. Kicked out of three schools. At sixteen, charges were filed for forcible confinement, uttering threats, among other things. The charges were dropped, the family of the girl who instigated the charges left town, and of course, the records were sealed since he was a juvenile. Egan found a large payout in the old bank records he dug up.”
“So, his father paid off the family, and they moved.” I surmised.
“The father paid off a lot of things.” Marcus cleared his throat. “Didn’t do him any favors.”
“Never does,” Julian inserted.
“John escalated. Hacking. Drugs. Dropped out of school. At nineteen, his father died of a heart attack. Kid became a billionaire overnight. He dropped out of sight for a while, then he disappeared. Completely off the grid. The money was gone, and so was he.” He paused and took a sip of water. “I noted one drama teacher’s notes from class stated that John had ‘the ability to lose himself so deeply into character, it was almost as if he became that person.’ I think our boy likes to be other people as much as possible.”
“So, he didn’t disappear,” I said. “He became someone else.”
“Yes.”
I rubbed my face. “How often has he done this?”
Egan grunted. “Probably more than we want to know. I’m looking at similar cases in other cities, but I need time to check them all out. I would say his obsessive tendencies reached epic proportions when he found Raven.”
“The only persona that seems constant is Jeff Drew. He pays taxes. Owns property. A decent bank account. Employees. Even has a driver’s license, although I’m certain all of them are fake and planted. He has his wealth hidden, somewhere offshore, no doubt. He certainly has the brains and knowledge to make that happen. I think if we dug deep enough, we’d find he was ‘born’ around the time John disappeared.” Marcus sighed. “But I think he only uses that as a cover. I’m sure he is out in the world under many other faces.”
“Why was he so careless with Stew’s persona?”
“You said Raven and Deb made plans the day before. He wouldn’t have much time, so he copied and pasted. Probably assumed no one would look that hard. He would have added other layers the longer the persona stayed around. He wanted to be in that coffee shop and ‘bump’ into Deb.” Marcus rubbed his chin. “Made a quick profile. Printed a few cards. Done. I think he was starting to get careless. First mistake. Second, not wiping down the car. Both have gone in our favor.”
“I thought him a bit odd. Raven disliked him. Said he gave her the creeps. I should have listened to that.”
“You can’t blame yourself. She spent time with Andy—you didn’t. On some level, her psyche knew it was him, and she was reacting. But she didn’t recognize him. That was the point. He was flaunting how close he could get to her without her knowing.”