He was surprised to see Alace’s icon was active, pulsing with color instead of being grayed-out as it would have been if she weren’t logged into the system.
“She’s either asleep at the computer, or already up.” Owen slapped his forehead, uttering a muffled, “Duh.” The reporter. Of course, Alace was up and watching, analyzing, and no doubt dissecting every word.
Words appeared on the document, the letters flowing from nothing into coherent thoughts in front of his eyes. Magic.
That segue about the Unabomber was a bit much, I thought.
Owen grinned as he typed in his reply.
Did her great-aunt even go to Berkeley? And that smirk at the end, like she was playing a cat n mouse game? Someone should tell her to keep her best cards closer to the vest.
Alace’s cursor jumped down and then sat on a new line, blinking monotonously, unmoving. After a moment, he filled the void, wondering what Alace was thinking.
Her info on Ashworth was good to hear. I worried when they just charged him with the one m. I know you said not to sweat it, but he needs to pay for everyone he killed like that.
The investigation into Ashworth had shifted from their brand of justice to what the rest of the nation expected. August had tipped off the cops about what he’d found in the house before Alace had pulled him out to help Owen. August had taken a thermal imaging infrared camera with him, one that plugs into a phone for the display, allowing for easy video recording of what was seen. Using the device, it had been easy to spot one male prostitute’s body in the basement wall, the location for the construction project that had been used to kill Ashworth’s second wife.
August had pretended to be with the contractor actively working on the new project, explaining his presence in the house and lending validity to his claims with one fell swoop.
The cops had gone in with guns drawn, hustling Ashworth out of the house and into the back seat of a cop car, complete with light bar blazing blue and red. Twenty minutes after the forensic team had entered, they’d escorted the current Mrs. Ashworth outside, taping off the whole house as an investigation scene. The first body had been one Miles Garcia, a local boy known to the police as a male prostitute.
Confirmed, her great-aunt did attend Berkeley during the period Theodore Kaczynski was on staff. Odd she’d pick that killer to use to build a connection with. We don’t deal in innocents.
Owen’s laughter spilled out and he shook his head.
Not like there’s much out there similar to us. We’re one of a kind, and I’m sticking to my story on that.
He imagined Alace fighting not to roll her eyes.
It’s early. What do you need?
True to form, she put the unknowns and unknowable behind them, deciding to focus instead on the reason he’d approached her this morning.
In a split-second decision, Owen launched the encrypted video chat software they used, grabbed his identifier from this session, and pasted it into the document, knowing she’d understand what he wanted. Sure enough, within seconds, his video window lit up with an incoming call. Owen picked up the headphones as he clicked Accept, settling them into place before the image fully resolved.
“I’ve got a lead. I need your input on my plan, and if you’re willing, we can work the mission as a team.”
“Yes. Whatever you need.” Alace answered without hesitation, her gaze drilling through the screen and into him, her annoyance that he’d suggest she might respond differently scarcely hidden. “We are a team, Owen. We have to be transparent, or all this, everything we’ve built will, at best, fall apart.” Her mouth twisted, and he stayed silent, waiting for whatever it was that pained her. “I don’t want it to fall apart. This, and yes, by extension you, matter to me. Don’t push me away again.”
“I’ll hold so tightly you won’t see a separation between us, Alace. That was—extenuating circumstances sounds like a cop-out, I know. But it involved my kids, and all I could see or hear was red.”
“Then you need to get a grip, because we know there are at least six other copies of those videos out in the wild. None have appeared on any darknet nodes, yet. That tells me the ring kept certain things private, reserving them for those most trusted members. Probably through some semblance of self-preservation, they knew their personal enacting of scenes shouldn’t be for public consumption.” The muscles next to her eyes tightened, lids lowering a fraction of an inch. “You can’t go rogue on me every time we uncover a new repository.”
“I won’t.” He hesitated, then decided to share a truth with her. “I scared myself, Alace. I was all emotion and no coherent thought, and I could have fucked things up badly. That would have only hurt my kids more. I won’t do that. I’m not going to promise, but you’ll know I’m for real by what I do over the next months. I won’t go off like that again.”
Alace was still, unmoving. He couldn’t even see her chest rise or fall with breath. He knew this wasn’t a stalled video connection. No, this was Alace thinking, weighing options, and making a decision.
“Tell me what you’ve got.” Her words came slowly, deliberately, as if she were evaluating each as they flowed from her lips.
Owen breathed deep, his jaw thrusting forward as he gritted his teeth tightly. The level of anger took him by surprise, and he forced it back, shoving it down until it wasn’t an immediate concern. Need to do my job. Blowing the air out, he reminded himself, Alace is waiting. Through the video, she offered a tiny nod, an acknowledgment of how hard this was, and why. “Donald MacLeod. He’s in Jersey, down near Philly.”
Her fingers worked the keyboard out of sight of the camera, and he did the same, pulling up his folder of information and clicking the button to share his screen. “My guy got into his financials and ran dates to ground. Around the time of the auction Shiloh and Kelly were in, he’s got some major outlay that doesn’t line up with anything going on in his life. Transfers narrowly underneath the federal alert level, but multiple.” Owen tore his gaze away from the photos of bank transactions to lock eyes with Alace. “More than enough to buy a couple of kids.”
“Any priors, official or not?” She blinked and angled her head away as if she already knew the answer to her own question.
“You know this already.” Owen’s laughter morphed into a sigh. “No official priors, not even any looks from law enforcement. But those in the know, they know him for sure. He’s got his fancy house in the suburbs, then owns a multi-building compound in upstate Pennsylvania. Plenty big enough for parties. Funny thing is, his wife and family never travel with him. I can’t even find information that the wife knows about the second property.”
“She probably does. Women hide information absolutely as well as men.” Alace gestured towards the camera in a way he took to mean she wanted control, so Owen unshared his screen. A moment later, Alace’s computer popped up on his monitor, and he moved it out of the way so he could keep the video in view. “The wife isn’t pristine.” A series of photos flashed across the screen, children in various private moments, each image shot from high above in an angle that looked like a stationary camera. “She’s got this on her computer.” Alace’s lips twitched. “My guy,” she deliberately used Owen’s language, “couldn’t get her financials, but he did drop a USB in their driveway she picked up.”