“Let’s give her some breathing room,” Alec suggested.
Regan ignored him and thrust her hand out to the tech. She introduced herself once again. Melissa didn’t want to be bothered, but the hand was hard to ignore, since it was just inches from her face. She finally stopped typing and shook Regan’s hand.
“We were already introduced,” she muttered.
Melissa was a nervous woman. Her fingernails were bitten down to the quick. She gripped Regan’s hand tightly and then impatiently jerked her hand back.
“Now can I get on with my job?”
Regan pretended she hadn’t heard the question. “What did you mean when you said you had to get past the ‘walls’?”
Melissa looked resigned. “Whoever sent you the e-mail of Sweeney was a clever one, all right. He knows his way around computers. He’s set up barriers so no one can track it. But don’t worry. There isn’t a barrier I can’t get around.”
“Even with a piece of junk computer like mine?” Regan asked, smiling.
Melissa chuckled. “Actually, I called it a piece of crap computer, but I was exaggerating. It’s a little outdated. You ought to upgrade.”
Alec was impressed. He’d never seen Melissa smile before, and to listen to her chat it up with Regan was astonishing. With very little effort, Regan had cut through all of Hill’s barriers. Definitely impressive.
The photo of Sweeney appeared on the screen again. Melissa pointed to it and said, “That’s just how they found him.”
“I’m sorry?” Regan replied.
“I heard that’s how they found him, in his basement, hanging like that. Someone called it in, said Sweeney would be there, and he sure was. Pretty awful crime scene, I was told. Sweeney had a lot of enemies,” she thought to add. “There was a rumor he was blackmailing some dealers. Do you know why the photo was sent to you?”
“No, I don’t,” Regan answered. “It’s grotesque.”
“I’ve seen worse,” Melissa boasted.
“Like your old boyfriend?” Connelly asked.
“Up yours.”
Regan backed away from the desk and turned toward the windows so she wouldn’t have to look at the photo again. “Did anyone else get this?” she asked. “Or was I the only one-”
Melissa interrupted in a near shout. “I’m in.”
“In where?” Connelly asked. He was squatting down and peering at the blank screen when his cell phone rang. He impatiently answered it as he walked into the outer office.
“The photo was sent from a cell phone,” Melissa said. She rattled off the number as Alec pulled out his notepad again.
Color flooded Regan’s face. “Oh, my,” she whispered.
Alec heard her. “What? Oh, my, what?”
“The phone number… it’s mine.”
Chapter Eighteen
Her theory was springing leaks. If shields was indeed behind the murder of Sweeney, how did he get hold of her phone? Maybe her theory wasn’t right, after all. She was thinking about that while Detective Buchanan patiently waited for her to tell him how the photo of Sweeney had been taken with her cell phone. She wanted the answer to that question too.
“It is your phone number.”
“Yes,” she said. “But I certainly didn’t take that picture.”
Detective Connelly interrupted. “Plea bargain fell apart,” he called out as he shoved his cell phone into his pocket and headed for the door. “I’ve got ten minutes to get to the courthouse. You want me to get someone over here to help you?”
“No, I’m good,” Alec answered.
“The lieutenant wants to see you in his office as soon as you finish up here,” he added.
That news put Alec in a foul mood. The second the door closed behind Connelly, he gave Regan his full attention. “Okay, tell me about your phone.”
She assumed he wanted to know the model or the style. She didn’t remember either of those things, and so she told him about the capabilities. “It has a built-in camera,” she began. “And an extensive phone book with personal and business e-mail addresses. It’s Internet friendly,” she added with a brief smile.
“And you don’t remember where you lost it?”
She shook her head. “I thought I had left it in the car, but Henry looked, and it wasn’t there. I don’t know what happened to it.”
Henry heard what she said and rushed over to join the conversation. “That’s right. You can check with the guys in the garage. They all saw me, and I told them what I was looking for. They weren’t surprised. I mean, no offense, Regan, but you’re always leaving your phone somewhere. It’s small,” he told Alec. “And it sometimes falls out of her purse. One time I found it wedged between the seat and the console. I couldn’t find it today, though. I searched everywhere inside that car, and it wasn’t there.”
He took a protective step closer to Regan and said, “She isn’t in trouble, is she, just because someone else used her phone? You aren’t going to blame her, are you?”
The kid’s loyalty to his boss was admirable, but at the moment he was also a nuisance. “Last time I checked, losing a cell phone wasn’t a criminal offense. Don’t you have some work to do at your desk?” Alec asked.
Regan waited until Henry was out of earshot and then whispered, “He’s a worrier. He used to be much worse when he first started here. He’s getting better, but he still worries too much.”
Melissa’s loud grunt turned their attention. The woman was certainly in her element. Her fingers continued to whiz across the keyboard in a blur, and every minute or two she would let out a sigh or another crude grunt.
“Should I call and cancel the phone or report it stolen?” Henry asked from the doorway.
“No, don’t do that,” Alec said. “If we’re lucky, maybe he’ll try to contact her again.”
“He’s not going to use her phone again,” Melissa said. “He knows his way around computers, and he surely knows her phone can be tracked. The e-mail was sent five days ago, and he hasn’t sent anything else.” Her fingers suddenly stilled on the keys. “Okay, I’ve sent everything on to my computer, and I’m also printing out the picture of Sweeney to take with me. Until further notice, any e-mails she receives will automatically come to me too. That’s okay, isn’t it? I’m going to assume that’s okay.”
Regan wasn’t paying much attention. She was standing in front of the window looking down at the traffic on Michigan Avenue, her mind racing as she tried to remember the last time she used her cell phone. She knew Detective Buchanan would check with Sprint for the log of calls coming in and going out, but if she could remember now, it would save him valuable time. Since her surgery, however, the days all blended together, and she hadn’t kept track of her appointments in her PDA the way she usually did. The godawful photo of Sweeney was also disrupting concentration. She hadn’t realized a face could become so bloated, so grotesque. That image kept popping into her mind.
She didn’t hear Henry come up behind her. She jumped when he touched her shoulder.
“Sorry,” he whispered. “I didn’t mean to startle you.” He glanced over at Detective Buchanan to make sure he was still busy talking with the technician and then said, “I just wanted you to know I checked my computer again.”
“What were you checking?”
“I wanted to see if the photo of that dead man was sent to me,” he whispered. “But it wasn’t. I wish it had been. I wish it had been sent to all the e-mail addresses you had programmed into your phone. It’s not good that it was sent just to you.”