by Lora Leigh
her florist shop. At one time or the other, Keiley had lent a hand to each of these women, and yet they were whispering about her.
Max was one of the few whom Keiley doubted was joining in the gossipfest. Max generally waved gossip to the side and treated it like an amusing little joke.
By the time the meeting came to an end and Keiley had received her receipt for the booth she had rented in the charity's name, she was more than ready to head home.
Paranoia was beginning to get the best of her. She was feeling so paranoid that as she headed for the doors she came to an abrupt stop, certain she had heard something she couldn't have heard.
Ménages. The insidiously muttered word had her freezing before she whirled around, searching the small group of women behind her.
They appeared innocent, chatting among themselves, though she couldn't hear what they were saying.
Shaking her head, Keiley moved quickly from the house and to her car, certain that her own imagination at this point was making her hear things that hadn't been said.
Grimacing at her own overactive imagination, she strode quickly to her car, unlocked the door, and moved into the stifling interior before turning the key and lowering the windows.
As she drove from the Staten mansion, she was pensive. The ringing of the cell phone at her side dragged her out of her thoughts as she flipped it open and brought it to her ear.
"Hello?"
"Kei, let's take lunch in town." Max's cheerful voice came over the connection. 'Joey's mother has the kids and I can bum around all day if I want to."
Keiley grinned. "I'm game. Where do you want to meet?"
"I'm sick of the Goody Two-shoes," Max snorted. "Let's hit Casey's outside of town.
We can enjoy a beer in peace rather than having to pretend enjoy that sucky wine we'll have to stick to in town."
"Your roots are showing, Max," Keiley teased her. "Better be careful or Delia will learn your daddy worked the dockyards before he came to Scotland Neck with all that money."
"I could only get so lucky," Max retorted dryly. "Just think of all the bullshit I could get out of that way. Old Victoria Staten wouldn't harass my husband whenever I didn't sign up for her little pet orgs anymore."
The charity "orgs," or organizations. Keiley laughed in genuine amusement.
"I'll meet you there," she promised her. "If you get there first, order my beer. I'm going to need it."
"No kidding," Max agreed with her. "The place was like a school of sharks moving in for the kill. Maybe I need two beers. I'll see you in a few."
"In a few." Keiley hung up, frowning at the edge in Max's voice. Just what the hell had gotten into those damned women on the charity committee? At this rate, she wouldn't have to worry about working a booth at the festival because she would be blacklisted before she bought the supplies.
She sighed wearily. Maybe the planets or something were just out of phase. What else could explain it?
Chapter 8
"Okay, what do you have?" Mac sat down at his desk and powered up his laptop as Jethro opened his own at the side of the desk.
"Dell hasn't been able to track down anything on our playboy," Jethro said. "That boy just doesn't have what it takes to investigate sex crimes. He doesn't have a clue."
"Neither did I," Mac grunted.
"Only because you left too soon," Jethro grunted as Mac opened the P2P port between the two computers to access the information Jethro had brought with him.
"You think it's a sex crime, then?" Mac asked. That had been Mac's specialty.
"Our boy is working himself up to it."
"What makes you think I left too soon, then?" Mac asked.
"This." Jethro pulled up the information on his laptop. "What we have is a stalker that likes to play games. His female victims are the pawns, but what he's after are the knights."
"You're screwing your chess up, Jeth," Mac growled. "Women are queens, the men are the kings. Stalkers are always after the queens."
"Not in this case," Jethro said. "Were you aware that the first victim's husband was in law enforcement?"
Mac nodded. "That's how I got the case."
"Did you also know that each of the victims' husbands were or had been involved in investigations involving stalkers or sexual predator cases with a high rate of success?"
Mac leaned back in his chair and stared back at Jethro with narrowed eyes.
"I questioned her husband rather than her first. The stalking began during the period of time that her husband was involved in a similar case. She was active online. A well-respected accountant with several influential clients. We think she was targeted here." An open chat forum popped up on the computer screen. "This is the Advanced Electronics open business forum. They hire various professionals to come in to give advice to whoever pops in. Registration is minimal. Our other two victims were hit here." Another forum popped up, similar in design and intent. "And here." Yet another forum window pulled up. "From what I've been able to figure out, the three victims were the only ones who reported the stalking at the time. We had four others who didn't report it because it eventually went away."
"Were the four victims' husbands involved in similar cases?" Mac asked.
"Two of them were married. One was divorced; one was single. All with spouses, exes, or lovers in investigative fields. He played with those, though not to the same extent. Missing or moved personal articles during a span of two to four months on the unreported four as well as those reported. Then a farewell e-mail that clued them in to the fact that they were being played with. Scared the hell out of them, but when it never occurred again, they went on with their lives."
"He went further with the three who reported the stalking," Mac mused.
"Began the same, though," Jethro pointed out. "Missing and moved items. These are organized professional women. They don't just move or lose items. But suddenly they can't find a tube of lipstick, a favorite shirt, or car keys. He's found easy access into their homes, despite the fact that they were married. He finds a way to watch them or listen in.
These women, three pictures popped up, were also in the process of becoming involved in relationships with investigators. These three he began e-mailing, harassing online, and embarrassing them during their online forums."
Mac shook his head. "Embarrassing them how?"
"Personal or Professional Secrets. Intimate details of their lives and so on," Jethro reported.
Narrowing his eyes, Mac stared at the screens on the computer, flipping between the statements, pictures, and vitals of the victims and their spouses. "Each husband or boyfriend was involved in the security field. A private investigator, two cops, a security analyst, two bodyguards, and a former investigator."
"He fixated on the men's career fields," Jethro pointed out.
Mac stared at the screen thoughtfully. "The three women he fixated on strongest were the private investigator's and the two cops' wives. Men he would consider better able to protect their women. Is it a sex crime? Or is he trying to prove to himself and to these men that he's the better man? It's a power trip that goes beyond sex. He's striking at the men and punishing the women for what he considers their incompetence." Mac leaned forward as he typed in the commands that would pull up more information on the seven women. "The three who had no spouses had boyfriends, and they were the earliest occurrences. He was just stepping in here."
Mac wished he had had this information when he first started on the case three years ago. He had only started the investigation with the first victim who had been violently attacked.
"The last, fourth one he attacked just before I resigned. Her husband was a private investigator. It went on longer than the others, escalated in stages. First the missing items, then online attacks. Then the physical attack. Then he just drops out until the past six months. That's two and a half years of silence. Why?"
"Where the hell did you get this program?" Jethro was
leaning over his shoulder as Mac typed in commands. "This isn't the standard one we're using at the Bureau."
Mac's smile was smug. "Keiley fiddled with it a time or two. I normally use it for the farm, but it's applicable in damned near any field.
All I have to do is give it the commands and search criteria and it pulls from the files I command. Or—" He hit another key. "We search the Internet with the same criteria that's already been loaded in. That takes awhile, though."
Mac leaned back in his chair, frowning as Jethro moved back to the side of the desk and pulled a chair close. He could feel something niggling at the back of his mind, but couldn't bring it into focus.
His gaze went over the files pulled up at present as he minimized the program to work in the background.
"Why haven't there been any attacks from when I gave the case to Dell up until the last six months?" he questioned absently. "It's been three years."
"Maybe he moved. The attacks could have gone on elsewhere without our being aware of it."
"Possibly," he murmured. But it didn't feel right. That was the problem with this investigation to begin with. Too many things just didn't feel right once he began the investigation.
"Have you had another profile worked up on him?"
Jethro shook his head. "We only had the three instances to work on until I found the other four recently. The director wanted more information before we went back to the profiler."
"This isn't a sex crime, Jethro." Mac could feel it. It was something else, something more dangerous. "And he wouldn't just stop. He would go on, and the attacks would get worse. He wants to prove something."
"So we're looking at someone who couldn't get into the investigative field for whatever reason?"
Mac nodded. "Someone who managed to get in close to the victims. Close enough to gain access into their homes. Call Dell, have him interview these victims again. Get a list of close friends and family who could have had that access. Let's see what we get when we run the names."
"That will take awhile, too," Jethro pointed out.
There was a warning flaring in his gut that didn't make sense.
"Have him get started on it. We could get a strike early."
"I only have a few days' enforced vacation left." Jethro leaned back in his chair. "I've been considering a real vacation. I'll put in for a few weeks' leave if you can work this with me. It might give us an advantage if Dell's working the information and we follow it from here."
Mac tapped his fingers against the arm of the chair. "Do it." He finally nodded, not certain why the tingling in the back of his neck was becoming an itch. "It's going to take a couple of days for Kei's program to finish running the Internet and then we'll need a few days to clear out the extraneous junk it pulls in. When it's finished, we'll see what we have."
Mac stared at his computer, his eyes still narrowed, working through the information that had come up so far.
"I'll work up a list of questions for Dell to take with him," he told Jethro. "He's a good field agent, but he's not the best when it comes to questioning victims."
"No shit," Jethro murmured. "I hadn't had time to fully investigate all seven victims and their associations."
"You would have soon." Mac breathed out heavily. "What concerns me is the silence between my last case and six months ago. The four cases took place in the Alexandria-D.C area within a period of four years. Then nothing after that until the last three. I wonder where he went?"
"With any luck, Keiley's genius will pull that one out." Jethro nodded at Mac's computer. "Too bad we can't hook into the law enforcement databases with that baby."
"It would take years," Mac sighed. "Keiley keeps threatening to fine-tune it, but she hasn't figured out how to make it work through millions of cases amid dozens of agencies. We'll be waiting days just on Web and newspaper hits in the Virginia-Maryland area. Reach out further and you're waiting weeks and months."
"The more you narrow the criteria, the quicker it gets?" Jethro asked.
Mac nodded. "But at this point, there's not enough information to find a single common denominator other than the spouses who are in the investigative field. The amount of key words I've had to use will fill the program with junk as well. But it could give us a clue. Something else to move on."
"At this point, anything would help." Jethro shrugged. "I'll contact Dell and get him to work on the additional information. And pray he doesn't go to the director."
Mac grinned. "Dell won't go to the director. He'll just demand credit."
"He can have the credit."
Mac glanced at Jethro sharply. The edge of frustration in Jethro's voice was telling.
"You've about had it, haven't you?" he asked his friend, seeing the signs clearly.
"I stay suspended more often than I'm at my desk. It's becoming a pain in the ass."
"So stop beating the shit out of the perps," Mac suggested.
"Might as well tell me to stop breathing. Sons of bitches. We spend months, years, working to catch them and the next thing you know some wing-tipped fancy-pants lawyer has them out on a technicality. That or a witness disappears and turns up dead or suddenly information is corrupted and the bastards are back on the streets destroying lives again. It pisses me off, Mac."
Yeah, it pissed Mac off, too. It was one of the reasons he had resigned and come back to the farm. Keiley and the temptation Sinclair's Club afforded hadn't been the only reasons. They had been prevailing reasons, but there had been others.
"Cameron's firm is doing well," Mac pointed out, referring to Jethro's cousin, the investigator for Sinclair. "He's been after you for years to join him."
"I'm thinking about it." Jethro propped his feet on the desktop as he leaned back further into the chair. "The new director doesn't appreciate my unique abilities," he grunted sarcastically. "Resigning beats being fired any day of the week."
Mac shook his head. Jethro was the bad boy of the Bureau, there had never been any doubt about that.
"I saw Keiley this afternoon before she left." Jethro said, changing the subject yet again. "She was nervous as hell."
Mac felt his body clench in sudden arousal.
"Did she mention last night?"
"She didn't mention it, but she was remembering it. That was a hell of a chance you took last night."
Mac was well aware of the chances he was taking with his marriage. He didn't need Jethro to point it out to him.
"I'll take care of my marriage, Jethro," Mac sighed as he slid his chair back and rose to his feet. "See what else you can pull out of Dell. I have work to do outside."
"Need any help?" Jethro asked instead. "I'll get more out of Dell tonight after he goes home. That leaves the day pretty free."
Mac glanced at the clock. Keiley was due home anytime, unless she decided to take lunch with any of the women on the charity committee, which she sometimes she did.
Her friendship with Maxine Bright seemed to be growing, and with it, Keiley had begun settling into country life much easier than he had anticipated.
Maxine was a good woman. She and her husband, Joseph, were two of the few friends from high school Mac had kept up with over the years. Joseph had kept him up with local gossip and helped with investments enough to make certain that when he made the move home, he would have the cushion he needed to make the farm thrive.
Of course, Mac hadn't anticipated at the time that he would marry a woman whose hobby was as lucrative as Keiley's career. The woman thought it was fun to play with computer programs, where Mac tended to pull hair when he had to mess with them overmuch.
"Come on, then," he finally answered Jethro's suggestion to help with the farm work.
"I have to move some cattle and check on my favorite mare. The foal she's getting ready to throw is a potential moneymaker. I like to baby her."
"You baby all the females," Jethro grunted as he rose to his feet. "That's why they all love you."
/> "And you just wash over them like a tidal wave," Mac shot back.
"Scares the hell out of them, Jethro. That bad-boy persona needs a little adjustment here and there."
"My adjustments are fine."
"I can tell. You're currently without a steady lover. Not like you, my man."
"It's just a slump."
"Be careful, it might become a way of life."
Keiley slammed the front door, kicked her sandals to the side of the entryway, and threw her purse and briefcase on the small chair that sat to the side.
Maxine had been a fountain of information once they were well away from the women of the charity committee. And that fount was filled with small-town politics and petty jealousies. She had tried to ignore Delia's pettiness for three years, but it was now getting out of control.
Watch your back, Kei. Delia never forgave Mac for leaving town and not marrying her. She hates you. And she's determined to hurt you. I don't know what she's up to, but she's gloating and so are her little chickies that she runs with.
Insanity. Delia had married one of the richest and most influential men in the state of North Carolina, and she was still pissed off about the one who got away.
How had Delia known about the sharing Jethro and Mac had done in Virginia? Who did she know?
"Keiley?" Mac stepped from the hallway that led to the washroom and kitchen from the back of the house. "What's wrong?"
"Did you fuck her before you left all those years ago?" She suddenly snapped. "Is that why she decided to make my life hell? Because she never forgot her first fuck?"
His eyes widened as he moved closer. "Did I fuck who?"
"Delia Staten." Her hands went on her hips as she confronted him. 'And who in this little neck of the woods, Mac, knew about your and Jethro's little high jinks in Virginia?"
Surprise glittered in his eyes then. "No one here knows, Kei."
"Someone knows Mac, or they're psychic, because the latest little piece of gossip to reach Delia Staten is that you and Jethro are now sharing me."