Unfortunately, a month after Pine had left for her new assignment Stark had died from a heart attack. He’d been found in his garage, slumped over in a chair, a socket wrench on the floor, apparently where it had dropped from his hand when he died.
Pine had been stunned to learn that in his will Stark had left her the title to the car. She had gone to retrieve it, and the Mustang had traveled with her to every assignment thereafter.
When she’d relocated, she’d driven it out west. Rather than keep it at her apartment when she was transferred to Shattered Rock, she’d kept it here, where it was protected from the sun and certain predators on two legs. She still had nightmares about somebody carjacking the vintage ride and then rolling it.
It was the only thing really that she had ever owned. Every time she drove it, she realized how much work had gone into restoring it. This represented two years of her life. It was the longest personal commitment she had ever made. Far longer than she had ever committed to a personal relationship.
She ran her hand along one fender and thought back to Stark, who was wise beyond his years, no doubt yearning for a daughter he would never have, until Pine had shown up for work one day only a year removed from busting her butt at Quantico.
He’d been a good friend, maybe the only true one she’d made at the Bureau, or maybe anywhere else.
He’d told her once, as they were installing the single Holley four-barrel carburetor, that the Bureau had really been his life. Except for restoring old cars.
He’d wiped his hands on an old rag, taken a sip of beer from a plastic cup, and eyed her from under tufted white brows. “Don’t make that mistake, Pine,” he’d growled. “Don’t let this be it for you.”
She’d ratcheted down the last bolt on the carb and glanced up at him.
“How do you know it was a mistake?” she’d asked.
“If you have to ask, you haven’t learned shit from this whole thing.”
As if restoring the Mustang was a whole thing other than simply putting an old car back together.
And maybe it was. And maybe Pine had gotten it. But that didn’t mean she would ever do anything about it.
She put the cover back on the car and was heading up the stairs to her office when her phone buzzed.
It was her IT buddy in Salt Lake City.
“You got anything?” she asked as she emerged in the hallway leading to her office.
“I do, but it’s strange.”
“This whole case is strange. What do you have?”
“There have been lots of people who accessed that website over the last few months. I couldn’t track them all down, but there was one that stood out.”
“Which one?”
“I recognized one of the IP addresses” was his surprising reply.
“How could you have done that?” she asked.
“Because it was yours, Atlee.”
“I know that,” she said impatiently. “I went on the site recently to check it out. So did my assistant. She’s the one who told me about it.”
“I knew that was your address from when you contacted me. But when I checked out things further, I noticed some funny lines of code in the mix, so you might want to have the FBI geek squad check your computers.”
“Why?”
“Because I think you might have been hacked.”
Chapter 14
“Coffee, Agent Pine?”
Pine had just entered her office when Blum greeted her.
The older woman was dressed, as always, in a highly professional manner. Skirt, jacket, pumps, hose, minimal jewelry, and a bit less makeup than normal.
Pine absentmindedly nodded and walked on to her office.
She closed the door, sat at her desk, and stared at her computer.
Hacked?
By who and why?
Her friend had told her something else. That whoever had done this could have easily done it remotely. In essence, taking control of her computer and making it do things the hacker wanted without ever entering the premises.
“If he’s infiltrated your computer, he can see every keystroke you perform,” her friend had told her.
Pine yanked the power cord off the computer at the same moment Blum opened the door with her cup of coffee.
“Problem?” asked Blum.
“I’ve been hacked.”
Blum raised an eyebrow and then set the coffee down in front of Pine.
“Should I pull my cord, too?”
“Probably.”
“I’ll call the support services folks in Flagstaff straightaway. They’ll send somebody up.”
“Thanks.”
“Does this have to do with the website I showed you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
Blum closed the door behind her as she left.
Pine took out her phone and studied it. Was this compromised, too?
She looked at the landline on her desk. To bug that they would have had to break into her office, or at least the telecommunications box. But that was in the underground garage in a locked room with video surveillance, courtesy of ICE’s presence here. She doubted they had accomplished that.
When the IT people came from Flagstaff she would have them check everything. Until then, Pine decided to just not call or email or text anybody from her office or her personal phone.
She left her coffee sitting on her desk and exited her office, rushing past Blum so fast the woman could only say, “Agent Pi—” before she was out the door.
She took the steps two at a time to the garage, got into her truck, and sped out into the sunshine.
There was a convenience store about three blocks away. It had something she really needed, something that was almost impossible to find anymore.
Pine pulled into a free space in front, hopped out, and made a beeline for the pay phone hanging on the outside wall next to the machine containing bags of ice. Shattered Rock actually had several public pay phones for two reasons: As hard as it was to believe, not everyone here had a mobile phone. And cell reception here could be really crappy.
She dropped in some coins and made the call.
Park Ranger Lambert picked up on the second ring.
“Hello?”
“Colson, it’s Atlee.”
“What number are you calling from?”
“Never mind. Look, has anything weird been happening on your end with respect to the Priest disappearance?”
Pine had still not told Lambert, or anyone else, that the man calling himself Benjamin Priest was not, in fact, Benjamin Priest.
“What do you mean ‘weird’?”
“Out of the ordinary. Like have you gotten any inquiries from further up the food chain?”
“No, nothing like that.”
“So, any progress on the case?”
“Cadavers turned up nothing, like I already reported. We’ve searched everywhere we can think to.”
“Will agents from your Investigative Services Branch become involved now?”
“Above my pay grade.”
Pine frowned into the phone receiver. This did not sound like the Colson Lambert she knew.
“Did Edward Priest ever send you a picture of his brother?”
“Look, Atlee, I don’t mean to be rude, but I gotta go. Stuff at the office. Talk soon.”
And he clicked off.
Pine slowly hung up the receiver. Well, he had indirectly answered her question. There was weird stuff going on, on his end.
She stuffed more change into the machine and punched in the numbers.
The phone rang and rang and then Edward Priest’s voice mail came on. The mailbox was full, so she was unable to leave a message.
Frustrated, she hung up the phone, got back into her truck, and drove off. She checked her rear and side mirrors to see if any stealth vehicle was taking an overt interest in her SUV.