Including one to the special agent who’d investigated her nephew’s murder.
Knowing her history, the head of the other CAT had tried to refuse her help. She’d remained calm, pointed out all the advantages. And finally, considering she was already hip-deep in the Playground and knew everything about the place, he’d relented.
She hoped they caught Lovesprettyboys soon. But if they didn’t, if he was still out there once the Reaper had been stopped, she would be part of the team going after him.
It wasn’t justice for little Zach. Or for her sister. But it was something.
“Oh, my God,” she heard Brandon mutter from the desk beside hers on Thursday morning.
She immediately swung around in her chair, wondering what had instilled that note of shock in his voice. His usually exuberant mood had disappeared earlier this week, after what had probably been their fifth eighteen-hour workday in a row. Now they were both stretched to the breaking point, frazzled and desperate to help Blackstone and the others.
“What is it?”
“I don’t believe this.”
She slid her chair over next to his, looking at his monitor, not sure she wanted to see. Fortunately, there was no hideous video of a murder on display. Just a cyber sign in Satan’s Playground. But it completely stopped her heart.
“Another one?” she whispered, utterly horrified. “Already?”
He nodded, speechless.
“My God. It hasn’t even been a week.”
“He’s out of control. Accelerating wildly.”
The Reaper was ready to kill again. His ostentatious sign outside the “town hall” where he held his auctions said he was hosting another one. In mere hours.
Lily’s stomach tightened, and she pressed her fisted hand against it, trying to will away the emotion, the revulsion. The panic.
Taking a deep breath, she got her mind back into the game. She examined the screen again, focusing on the cyber billboard. Reading it closely, she leaned in to read the small print at the bottom.
“What does that mean? That line about it being special. About getting real?” Because if the monster hadn’t been real enough already, she didn’t even want to think about the further horrors he might conjure up.
Brandon frowned, obviously puzzled by it, too. “We’d better call Wyatt.”
Lily reached for the phone on Brandon’s desk, quickly dialing their boss, who was right down the hall.
He was in their office less than sixty seconds later, pale and tense, visibly exhausted. And equally as stunned. “Something’s wrong. He’s getting sloppy and far too ambitious. He’s been careful until now; he must know we’re onto him.”
“Impossible,” Brandon said. “Lily and I have covered our tracks; they don’t know we’re watching.”
“Brandon’s right,” she said, meaning it. “We’ve been bouncing off servers all over the country, revolving IPs every single time either of us goes in. We’re piggyback ing on long-existing members, leaving no footprints that we were there. No way do they know we’re as deep inside as we are.”
That would be very deep. Brandon had been watching every move the cyber Reaper made, going back into the site’s history to trace every interaction he had with other members: who he was “friends” with, who he’d purchased things from, who his victims had been, and where he lived in that incredibly detailed imaginary world.
Lily, meanwhile, was following the spiderweb-thin thread from each auction, which she hoped would lead her to the money and its final recipient.
“He knows,” Wyatt explained, “because he knows we’re looking for the first victim’s body.”
“Someone in that town…” Lily murmured.
“Yes.”
The scrolling red line running across the bottom of the sign had been repeating itself over the past few minutes, the word special flashing out its message like a dark, evil heartbeat. Now, though, it changed.
All three of them leaned closer, reading the text. New experience! Never before witnessed! All restraints are off!
“Like the guy ever restrained himself before?” Brandon muttered.
You wanted more? You’re going to get it. For the right price, you get the how and the who. But be ready to pay; this one won’t come cheap. Qualified bidders only.
No credit.
“He’s playing. Having a great time for himself,” Brandon said. “Writing his own ads, like he’s selling some damned piece of real estate. No credit, for God’s sake.”
No credit. Lily let the words replay in her head, trying to untwist those spiderwebs that led in so many different directions, and find a clear path to the unsub.
Wyatt, who’d been standing behind them, watching and deep in thought, suddenly spun around and thrust his hand against the door, sending it flying closed with a loud crack. His hard, lean form shook, and anger consumed his handsome face. “Damn him. Damn him.”
She’d never seen him lose control. Never heard him raise his voice. Never witnessed a personal reaction from the man at all; he was always calm, reasonable, and in control. Now he looked ready to hurt someone.
“When?” he snapped.
Obviously just as shocked by their boss’s out-of-character display, Brandon kept his voice low. “He posted it at around eight a.m. our time, and said within hours.”
Lily had a thought. “We could…”
“What?”
Swallowing, still unused to this side of him, she said, “We could try to interfere with the auction, somehow disable the site temporarily to prevent it from happening.”
“Without them knowing why?”
She exchanged a quick look with Brandon, who said nothing. “We could try exploiting their security patches; they might be outdated. Or DNS poisoning.”
“Oh, that’s subtle,” Brandon said.
“We can try,” she insisted, then turned back to Wyatt, knowing he was the one who would have to be convinced. “There are ways to take it offline and make it look like just a random technical difficulty.”
“Which, even if it worked,” Brandon pointed out, “would merely postpone things.”
“Giving us a little more time to find him,” Lily argued.
Brandon nodded, conceding the point, then made another one. “He’s never let anyone choose the victim before. If the Reaper means the winner can be specific about who he wants killed, maybe we could catch him by staking out the intended victim.”
Wyatt’s jaw clenched, and his dark blue eyes glistened with frustration. “We’d never find out who it is in time. We haven’t been able to trace a single dollar to this guy going back a year and a half. You really think we’re going to be able to intercept communications between the Reaper and the winner to get the name of the victim in a matter of hours?”
Lily glanced down, murmuring, “I’m sorry.”
“Save it. We don’t have time.”
She took no offense. The man couldn’t possibly be any more stressed. She found it amazing that he was still able to function, given everything this case had done to the team. They’d put in long days; he’d put in longer ones. They’d dug deep to find creative strategies for catching this guy; he’d dug deeper. Plus Wyatt had the added strain of being jerked around on the puppet strings held by supervisors who probably wouldn’t even care that more victims would die, as long as Wyatt was humiliated.
Oh, yeah, everybody knew. And the more she worked with the man and his team, the more she resented it. Wyatt was the kind of agent everybody wanted to be, and the kind everybody wanted to work for. Including Lily.