“Is Creepie the prize?”
“Yes, he is.”
“He’s a serial killer, isn’t he?”
“Right again.”
“And he has a partner.”
“Go to the head of the class.”
“You’ve been chasing this guy for a long time, haven’t you?”
“Too long.”
Every sting was designed to catch a certain criminal or groups of criminals. The Cassandra videos had been created with the sole purpose of catching a serial killer, and he finally understood what was behind Daniels’s fury. Serial killers never stopped killing, and each wasted hour or day could result in the loss of a victim’s life.
“What kind of soda did Rusty say he wanted?” Daniels asked.
“Diet Pepsi,” he said.
She bought a Diet Pepsi and then perused the snack selections.
“What do you think he likes to eat?” she asked.
“Get him a bag of Fritos,” he said. “If he doesn’t want them, I’ll eat them.”
Daniels bought the chips, and they walked down the hall to the interrogation room. She punched a code into the keypad, and the door clicked open. Rusty sat in his chair wearing the same dead expression. Daniels placed the snacks on the table, and his demeanor changed. Ripping open the bag, he began stuffing the chips into his mouth.
“You must be hungry,” Daniels said.
“Starving. I haven’t eaten since this morning,” Rusty said.
“Here’s what I’m going to do. When we’re done, I’ll buy you a sandwich from the Subway down the street. Does that sound like a plan?”
“That works for me.”
Rusty finished the chips and washed them down with the soda. The walls of resistance had lowered, and he was ready to play ball. Rusty mistakenly believed that by cooperating, Daniels would ask a judge to go light on him, but in fact the only deal he had was the one he’d made with the devil long ago.
Daniels opened her briefcase and removed a manila envelope. Out came five photographs of the black girl who’d been hog-tied. She placed them in a row on the table so they faced their suspect.
“Let’s get started,” the FBI agent said.
Chapter 32
Trust
Daniels got a search warrant, and they set out for Inverrary Resort, where Rusty rented a one-bedroom. Lancaster was hungry, and he persuaded Daniels to pull into a McDonald’s, where he ordered a quarter pounder with cheese and a large fry.
“You sure you don’t want anything?” he asked.
“I’ll just pick at yours.” She filched a french fry and pulled out of the drive-through. “I noticed that you looked through my briefcase. Find anything of interest?”
“It wasn’t intentional. Your papers were all over the trunk, so I put them back.”
“You must have seen the background check I did on you.”
“As a matter of fact, I did.”
“You’re quite the Boy Scout with all those medals and citations,” she said.
He placed the french fries beneath her nose. She grabbed several more and stuffed them into her mouth. She couldn’t talk with her mouth full, so he pressed her.
“You knew that about me before you came to my condo this morning,” he said. “Yet you still chose to treat me like a common criminal. I’d like to know what you saw in those reports that made you think I was a bad guy.”
She chewed silently and stared at the road. He unwrapped the quarter pounder and bit into it. He offered her a bite, and she shook her head no.
“I didn’t see anything in those reports,” she said. “The red flag was the voice mail you left me. You referenced the Cassandra videos, and that was all I needed to hear to hop on a plane and come down here.”
“You mean because I’d seen them.”
She nodded. “You’ve got a stellar background, but that doesn’t mean you couldn’t be a predator. You should see some of the guys I’ve arrested. Lawyers, doctors, I even busted a circuit court judge once. They were all leading double lives. In public they were very respectable people. In private they were monsters.”
“How many guys have you busted because of those videos?”
“I’ve personally busted sixteen. Other agents around the country have also made busts. The last time I checked, the total number was over forty.”
“That’s a big haul.”
“It is. And we’re not done yet.”
“Creepie and his partner are the prize.”
“Yes, they are.”
He finished his meal. The Cassandra videos were bait, and the men that took that bait deserved no sympathy. But he still wasn’t clear on why an agent in their local office hadn’t paid him a visit, instead of Daniels doing it herself. Something in his background reports had raised a red flag that had made her personally fly here from Washington, and that bothered him.
She pulled into Inverrary Resort and parked in front of a deserted valet stand. She got out and grabbed her briefcase before they headed inside. Inverrary had once been a playground for the rich and famous, with fine dining and sprawling golf courses, but it had fallen on hard times and now rented rooms to drug addicts and assorted miscreants.
“This could be the set for a horror movie,” she said.
“Wait until you see the rooms,” he said.
“You’ve stayed here before?”
“When I was in uniform, we got called here every night.”
The desk manager was a gaunt Pakistani wearing a white dress shirt. He studied Daniels’s ID and search warrant before handing it back.
“Is Rusty in trouble?” the desk manager asked.
“He’s in a lot of trouble,” Daniels replied. “Are you friends with him?”
“We are not friends. I ask because he’s behind on his rent.”
“That’s too bad. I need to see his apartment.”
They all took a creaky elevator to the third floor and were soon standing in Rusty’s one-bedroom. The overhead light didn’t work, and Daniels drew the blinds so that sunshine flooded the interior. “I guess housecleaning isn’t included in the daily rate,” she said under her breath. The carpet was torn, the wallpaper was peeling, and a sink ran in the bathroom. The desk manager tried to turn the water off and cursed under his breath.
“I will have to call a plumber and get this fixed,” he said.
“Not so fast,” she said. “We’re going to have a look around, and then a team of FBI agents is going to pack everything up and take it away to be analyzed. I don’t want any workers in here until that’s done. Am I making myself clear?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said.
The desk manager made himself scarce. Daniels placed a call on her cell phone to the local FBI office and requested a team be sent to pack up Rusty’s things. Ending the call, she unzipped the side pocket on her briefcase and removed two pairs of white latex gloves, one of which she tossed to Lancaster.
“Put these on before you touch anything,” she said.
“Will do. What else do you have in that briefcase?”
“You’d be surprised.”
A laptop computer sat on a small desk that was bolted to the wall. Daniels pulled up the room’s only chair and powered up the laptop. The screen saver was a beach at sunrise taken from a lifeguard’s high chair, and Lancaster guessed that Rusty had taken the shot. He wasn’t going to be seeing many more of those where he was going.
Daniels tried to gain entry and was denied. The laptop was password protected.
“I know a good hacker,” he said.
“So do I,” she said.
From her briefcase she removed a black box with an electrical cord and a USB connector, and she connected the box to the back of Rusty’s laptop. Soon the device was running tens of thousands of passwords per second through the laptop. Daniels leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms in front of her chest.