She went downstairs and heard the thump of the newspaper hitting the front door as she poured a cup of coffee. Lucy rarely read the paper, but her brother Dillon was old-fashioned, maintaining a subscription to a physical newspaper rather than reading online the way Lucy and Kate preferred. The papers had stacked up in his study, and Lucy picked the Saturday morning paper off the stoop to add to the five that were already there. She couldn’t miss the small headline in the bottom right corner.American University Student Killed in Robbery
Possible drug deal gone bad. Story B-3.
She brought the paper to the kitchen table. Normally she didn’t care about drug-related crimes, but since a student from a nearby college was involved, it piqued her interest.
The story was shocking.WASH DC—In a crime all too common in DC, an American University student was gunned down at approximately 9:45 p.m. Thursday night on the 900 block of T Street.Bradley Harper Prenter, 25, had been at Club 10 prior to the murder, according to DC police. He left with a woman at approximately 9:30 p.m. According to witnesses, a man who appeared to know the woman confronted Prenter in the alley, but an eyewitness who asked to remain anonymous said that after a brief confrontation, Prenter left the alley alone. The man and woman, who authorities are looking for as possible witnesses, left in the opposite direction. Police sources would not confirm nor deny the eyewitness account.Prenter was shot at point-blank range and was missing his wallet when a couple walking their dogs found him lying next to his vehicle, a late model Porsche.Prenter was convicted of two sexual assaults in 2008 and was paroled three months ago from the Maryland Correctional Institution at Hagerstown. One DCPD officer who spoke on condition of anonymity said possible drugs were found on his person.“Our lab is testing a clear liquid packaged in small, plastic vials that were found on the deceased.”When pressed, the officer stated that the packaging was similar to how date-rape drugs such as ketamine, Liquid Ecstasy, or Rohypnol might be packaged.Police are looking for any witnesses who may have spoken to or seen Prenter at the club, or who may know the woman who was seen leaving with Prenter. Please contact DCPD Hot Tips line.
Liquid date-rape drugs. Lucy dry heaved, waves of first fiery heat then icy cold coursing through her nerve endings. Her skin turned clammy, and she stumbled as she stood and ran to the bathroom, fearing she’d get sick.
Her stomach tightened painfully, but she put her head between her legs and breathed deeply until she felt the sensation pass. She ran cold water into the sink and washed her face, drenching a paper towel and putting it on the back of her neck.
She wanted a shower, the urge to scrub herself clean almost overpowering. But she’d showered only thirty minutes ago, and she wouldn’t give in to this unnatural obsession with cleanliness. Instead, she washed her face and hands long enough for her fingers to turn red. Her stomach ached and she leaned against the counter, willing herself to pull it together.
She needed to get a grip. How could she be an FBI agent when a news article could send her into a tailspin?
Focus.
Prenter was robbed. D.C. was a violent city. How many murders last year? Two hundred? More than one every other day. One forcible rape each day. Robbery and assault was astronomical, dozens every day.
Club 10.
Why was he at Club 10 when he was supposed to be in Fairfax meeting her fictitious cyber-ego? By 9:45 when he was killed, he should have been on his way to jail. What happened?
Cody would have told her had he known, wouldn’t he? He was a D.C. cop; how could he not know?
But he didn’t work homicides specifically. He was patrol, so even if he’d heard about the robbery he’d have no reason to ask about the victim’s identity.
She had to talk to him, but she needed more information about the murder.
Lucy dressed quickly and left. She needed answers. Though it was Saturday, the morgue was still open to employees, and often the autopsy file included a copy of the police report. Having a plan settled her stomach and gave her the determination she needed to get through the rest of the day.
And, despite her alarm, she was more than happy to have something to focus on other than Roger Morton and what Kate found—or didn’t find—on his computer.
Noah Armstrong wasn’t surprised that Kate Donovan beat him to Quantico Saturday morning. She hadn’t wanted to leave last night, but he’d convinced her that if she didn’t get a couple of hours’ sleep, she’d be no good to him. By the time they had all the material transported to Quantico, logged into evidence, and processed it had been nearly two a.m. Now was not the time to cut corners. If Morton had indeed been working with a partner and that partner was setting up an illegal porn site, if they didn’t preserve the chain of evidence, some creep might walk on a technicality. Nothing they found in these files would be admissible if they screwed up the basics.
Kate understood that, even though it obviously frustrated her.
“When did you get here?” He put his briefcase down on the small worktable in the corner of the windowless cave where Kate worked. The room was large but packed with electronics and computers, some working, some not, all taking up space. Noah would go stir-crazy down here; Kate seemed in her element.
“Seven,” she replied, fixated on the screen in front of her. It was running through numbers and letters at a great speed; she couldn’t possibly be reading anything.
“What are you doing?”
“Breaking Morton’s code. It’s not a complex one; I have a program that will have it soon—it’s only been running for ten minutes. I copied the drive first, so I’m not even working off the original data in case he has a Trojan set up to erase data. But he was never that smart back then. Trask was the brains.”
“Trask?”
“Adam Scott. He went by the name Trask.”
“What about the disks?” Noah asked. “Do you want me to get started on them?”
“I set Hans up next door.”
“Dr. Hans Vigo?”
“Yeah—that’s okay, right? You said you were working with him.”
Noah didn’t have a specific problem. “You could have asked me first.”
“I should have. I’m sorry.” She glanced at him. “Really. But this case—I made a huge mistake six years ago when I was part of the plea agreement. I have to find these answers, for Lucy. I’m not taking over, and I’ll try not to step on your toes, but Hans is one of the few people I know who can view the data on multiple levels—risk assessment of the victims, legal or illegal porn, child endangerment. Plus he knows the players from the years I was tracking Adam Scott and Roger Morton before Paige was killed.”
“I understand.” He sat down in a metal chair next to Kate. “I need to follow up on something today, but I need to know for sure that I can trust you.”
She looked at him. “If you didn’t trust me, why did you let me work the data?”
“Because I heard you were the best.”
Her lips curved up slightly. “True.”
“So I need you, but I also know you have a history with Morton and a relationship with his victim. Whatever you find, I want to know. Everything.”
She nodded, but Noah couldn’t read her blank expression to discern if she would hold to their agreement. “I can tell you from looking at the physical files that he was copying disks manually onto his computer. He had a system that is very straightforward—after he viewed the disk and presumably imported it, he marked it with a code. ‘X’ is straight, soft-core porn. ‘XX’ is straight, hard-core. ‘XXX’ is violent hard-core, possibly nonconsensual. ‘WC’ is webcam, probably hidden webcam or homemade sex tapes. The ‘WC’ is rated by the fetish—up-skirt, hidden videos, et cetera. It’s become all the rage now for teenagers to record themselves having sex and post the tapes on the Internet.” She shook her head. “They really don’t understand what they’re doing with their future.”