According to Jack—and confirmed by Quinn—the police were still tracing the path through Drew Aldrich’s past, connecting the various dots. They had yet to identify him as the same man who’d seduced Shannon Broadhurst and fled New York State ahead of rape charges. That meant she didn’t know he was dead. We stood our best chance of getting honest information from her before she found out. We’d pay her a visit as soon as we could.
CHAPTER 29
Quinn had woken to a message from the company that owned the vehicle Aldrich’s killer had driven. The car had been rented on a corporate card at the Cleveland airport. The company provided everything they could, thinking they were helping the U.S. Marshal Service.
Speaking of Quinn’s real-world career, as I said, getting away from it wasn’t easy. Although he was technically on personal leave, he still had paperwork—e-mail, reports, and such. While he phoned with the news about the car right away, he didn’t rush up to our room, instead tending to some urgent business while I read the journal and talked to Jack.
An hour later, when Quinn came up, he had coffee for all of us. Evelyn arrived moments later. She didn’t get a “good morning” from the guys. She pretended not to notice, just walked to the armchair and waited patiently . . . for about five seconds.
“Well?” she said. “Where are we?”
I told Evelyn about the car rental lead. “The company is a dead end so far. The Internet highway is nothing but roadblocks. The company name is IPP Incorporated.”
“A shell company,” Quinn said. “That was my guess.”
I nodded. “I don’t have a lot of experience with things like that, but Quinn says a very generic name combined with no easily accessible information suggests a shell company, which doesn’t help us out at all.”
“I’ll dig some more,” Quinn said. “See if I can find it through other sources.”
“Evelyn will, too,” Jack said.
“Will I?” she said.
“Up to you. Don’t feel like helping?” He pointed at the door.
“Of course, I’d be happy to check my sources,” Evelyn said. “I would just prefer to be asked.”
Jack looked as if he wanted to say something to that, but he brought his coffee over to me instead and we returned to the journal.
As we worked on that, Quinn and Evelyn did research. Quinn’s online resources are law-enforcement based; Evelyn’s are criminal. The Internet has its share of side roads into the underworld, usually disguised and tightly guarded. Evelyn knew her way into all of them. When she searched for IPP, Inc., though, she ran into a problem: someone, somewhere really didn’t like people looking for that information.
The search triggered a computer worm, which set off an alert. She tried another search result link and got the same thing. So did a third.
“This is interesting,” she murmured.
“I think the word you want is scary,” I said. “That’s some serious tech power.”
“Which makes it interesting.” She shut down her computer and reached for her phone. “It seems I’ll need to do this the old-fashioned way.”
The old-fashioned way was also the slow way, so Jack and I decided to track down Shannon Broadhurst in the meantime. It was her first year at college, so she was staying on campus. I opted for the simple approach—go to her dorm room and knock.
The dorm was in what looked like an apartment building. There was a security desk inside the doors, and no passing it without proper access. I flashed my Department of Intrastate Regulation and Enforcement ID. It’s a lovely card really. Even has a photo of me. Very official . . . or it would be, if there was any such agency. The card is from Quinn. It’s his standard trick. There are so many damn federal agencies that unless you’re dealing with government, no one’s going to question the existence of this one, especially if you say it with enough authority. Quinn’s got that part down pat. I did a decent enough job to convince a guard who looked barely past college age himself. It helped that I wasn’t asking for access to the building. I just wanted to speak to Ms. Broadhurst.
Shannon wasn’t in her room. The guard was in the midst of taking a message when he glanced up to see a young, dark-haired woman walking in.
“Oh, that’s her now,” the guard said.
The girl looked young for her age. Maybe five foot two, barely a hundred pounds. Oversized sweatshirt. Dark hair pulled back. No makeup. When she saw us looking her way, she slowed, and I thought she might take off, but she only steeled herself and walked up to the desk with a casual, “Hey, Billy, what’s up?”
“These folks want to speak to you.”
I repeated my introduction, quickly adding, “We just need to ask you a few questions about someone you used to know.”
“Sure.” She waved a thank-you to the desk guard and led us across the lobby. “We can find a quiet place outside. Who’s it about?”
“A man you knew as James Emery.”
She stiffened and I tensed, ready for her to bolt.
“Did you catch the son of a bitch yet?” she asked finally. “Please tell me that’s why you’re here.”
She looked over and in her eyes I saw something that hit me square in the gut. A rage and a hate so familiar it was like looking in a mirror. I wanted to tell her Aldrich was dead. And I couldn’t.
“We aren’t at liberty to discuss the exact situation, but a case is being built against him, and he’s not . . . at large. I can assure you of that.”
“Good. Whatever you need from me to put him behind bars, you have it.”
We walked to the road. Jack stayed a half pace behind, but when I glanced at him, he started falling back.
“We don’t need two of us to speak to you,” I said to Shannon. “My partner’s going to head back to the car and do some paperwork.”
She only nodded, but relief flickered in her eyes. This conversation would be easier without a man listening in.
Once Jack was gone, I cleared my throat and said, “You weren’t quite as willing to help four years ago, Ms. Broadhurst.”
“Because I was a kid. A stupid kid who thought she was in love with the sleazeball who took . . .”
She trailed off. She stopped walking, looked around, then led me to sit on a raised platform around an old oak tree. After we sat down, she stayed quiet. I didn’t prod. I just waited.
After at least two minutes of silence, she said, “I wasn’t a bad kid.”
“I’m sure you weren’t. That’s why he picked you.”
She glanced over at me.
“James Emery had very specific targets. Ordinary girls. Good girls, so to speak. Not into drugs or alcohol or even boys. The shy, quiet ones, which may not have been you—”
“No, it was,” she said, bitterness edging the words. “That was exactly me.” She tugged her sweatshirt sleeves over her hands. “I found a picture of him in my stuff last year, and I wanted to throw up. He looked different in my memory, you know? It was like . . . like even when I understood what happened, how he used me, how wrong it was, I still had this image of him as this good-looking older guy that I fell for. He wasn’t really, and I know that shouldn’t matter, but it makes it even worse, as if . . .”
She trailed off and hunched her shoulders, staring out across the campus. “And that’s not what you came here to talk to me about at all. I just feel . . .” She inhaled. “Whenever it comes up, however it comes up, I feel like I have to defend myself. Explain how that could have happened so I don’t come out looking like a total loser.”