Chapter Seven

Dale had purchased the two-story brick colonial in Leesburg, or rather one of the many shell corporations he was involved with had, when he’d still been married. It didn’t matter if he was meeting with a less-than-reputable business associate or his mistress when he’d still been married, the home provided him ample privacy while not requiring a long commute.

Tonight he wasn’t headed out there for any type of meeting.

Regardless of when he’d last been there, Melanie came in every Monday afternoon to clean and accept any packages he had delivered there rather than to his condo. She’d worked for him since he bought the place. He trusted very few people, but he knew she’d never go to the authorities regardless of what was delivered to the house or by whom. He’d made it clear when he hired her that immigration officials would suddenly learn her husband was once again living in the United States if she ever drew attention to who or what showed up at the door.

Her husband was a former client he’d helped beat drug and weapon trafficking charges, although he’d been guilty as hell. The man, who had overstayed his visa by five years, had been deported following his trial. However, mere months after he’d been sent back to his home country, he’d reentered the United States illegally and was once again living with his wife and their two sons. Under no circumstances did his employee want her husband sent away again.

Since Melanie would be here today, he’d instructed Zane to deliver the items retrieved from Becca and Kassidy’s house this morning. The chances of the information he wanted actually being on any of the devices were slim, but worth a shot. Honestly, what he really hoped to find at this point was a lead as to where Kassidy had disappeared to. She and her stepsister lived together. Hopefully, she’d sent Becca an email or text message with her location. Even if she’d only sent a general location, Zane had enough associates across the country to find her. And once Zane got his hands on Kassidy, it’d be easy to get the information Dale wanted from her.

A nondescript cardboard box sat on the kitchen counter. Dale sliced through the packing tape keeping it closed. Inside he found three laptops, numerous thumb drives, a backup hard drive, and two tablets. There was no way to tell which, if any, of the items belonged to Kassidy and which ones belonged to her stepsister. Dale hoped none would be password protected, though. While he had a guy, another former client, who’d be able to crack almost any password either woman might have used, it’d be one more person he needed to get involved. Already he’d involved more than he was comfortable with.

Before he touched a single item, Dale slipped on a pair of latex gloves; even if the chances of anyone finding the devices later were virtually nonexistent, he saw no reason to leave his fingerprints on anything. Then he pulled out the laptops and headed back out. While he often connected to the unsecured Wi-Fi network in his neighborhood, he didn’t want to use it for this. Instead, he’d drive over to the busy shopping center and access the Wi-Fi from one of the fast food restaurants there.

Ten minutes later, Dale was parked in a far corner of the center’s lot. Grabbing one of the laptops off the front seat, Dale opened it and powered the device on. Immediately an icon picture of a sailboat appeared, along with a password box. Despite advice to come up with complex passwords, people still used easy-to-remember ones like their birthday or a pet’s name. He didn’t know if Becca or Kassidy had any pets, but thanks to public records and the internet he knew their birthdays. He typed in Kassidy’s birthdate first and hit Enter. When the laptop rejected it, he tried Becca’s.

A picture of the ocean filled the screen, along with at least a dozen labeled file folders. The one marked Christmas photos suggested this was Becca’s personal laptop and not one she used for work.

Unable to move the cursor with the gloves on, he tore off the latex covering his right index finger and used it to move the cursor over the system preferences icon and connected to the burger joint’s network. If Becca had her cell phone linked to this device, like so many other people, every text message she received would also show up on her computer now that it was connected to Wi-Fi. Dale clicked on the messages icon at the bottom of the screen. As he scanned through the recent text messages she’d received, he made sure not to touch any other part of the computer with his exposed finger. The less he touched, the less he needed to wipe down later.

Becca had a few incoming messages, but Kassidy’s number—or at least neither her normal cell phone number nor the one they’d been using to communicate with recently—wasn’t attached to any of them. He’d expected as much. If Kassidy was hiding or trying to avoid being found by him, she’d used a device he couldn’t trace back to her. Or at least one she thought he couldn’t trace back to her.

It didn’t take him long to read through messages from Becca’s mom and stepmom, as well as ones from her father. None of them were more than a few days old either. Unlike most people, the woman obviously deleted text messages on a regular basis. Dale reached the final few messages.

Someone broke into the house today, a message Becca sent out Saturday night read.

He scrolled to the next message. It didn’t have a name or a phone number attached to it. Instead, it had a screen ID and came from a messenger app he’d heard of but never used himself. Dale didn’t need a name to know the messages were between Kassidy and Becca. Who else would she be telling about a home invasion?

Are you okay?

Yes, just a little unnerved. I decided to have a security system installed.

Good idea.

They went through your things too. Not sure if they took anything.

I’ll worry about it when I get home. Just so you know, I’m going to use two weeks’ vacation time after the conference out here ends.

Have fun. What do you want me to do with your mail? It’s piling up.

Toss it. I’m not expecting anything important. See you soon.

The messages confirmed Kassidy had been in contact with Becca but didn’t give a clue as to where Kassidy was holed up. He’d check the rest of what the laptops contained and the items in the box at the house, because he had nothing to lose by doing so. If he didn’t turn up something useful, he’d contact Zane again, tell him to take more aggressive actions.