Page 38 of Wired Justice

Chapter Twenty-One

Sophie heldJake’s hand and reached her other one into her cargo pocket, her fingers curling around the cool pebbled grip of her Glock. The weapon felt comforting as she ran on bent knees in Jake’s body shadow, the sensor light striking them with illumination. They reached the cover of the carport, and another beam bloomed, lighting up the back door above wooden steps rising out of the carport’s cement floor.

Jake led and they sidled along the wall to the back door, scanning for any movement. Nothing broke the silence of the night but the high-pitched calling of coqui frogs from the trees in the surrounding area.

Jake tried the back door handle. “Locked.”

Sophie felt quickly around the door jamb and under the mat, and smiled as she held up a spare key.

“I didn’t think Cypher looked that bright, and now I know he isn’t,” Jake said.

Sophie unlocked the door. She stepped inside and they left it ajar, alert as they entered for any dog or other occupant. Jake signaled for them to spread out and check the house, and she went one way as he went another. They moved quickly through the rooms to check that they were clear, reconnecting in the living room.

Sophie swung in a circle, assessing. The house was decorated with mismatched castoffs. A big screen TV took up one wall in the living room, which was fronted by a lounger with built in cup holders and a heated massage feature. Pizza boxes and takeout containers, crusty with dried leftovers, littered a coffee table.

“What are we looking for exactly?” Sophie frowned.

“Anything tying Chernobiac to the disappearances. I don’t know what that would be, but hopefully, we will recognize it when we see it.”

“He’s a gamer. Anything relevant will be on his computer, most likely.” She turned and headed for a set of stairs at the back of the building leading to the second floor. She found his computer station in a bedroom that contained nothing but the desk with his monitor and a rumpled queen-sized bed. Sophie unslung her small rucksack and dug in it for the write blocker program. She sat down and plugged it into the computer’s back port to copy Chernobiac’s hard drive. She accessed her codebreaker software on a stick drive and was working on decrypting Chernobiac’s security code when Jake rejoinedher.

He held up a lumpy black plastic bag. His bulging biceps told Sophie that it was heavy. “Guess what I found in the linen closet? I think we just hit pay dirt. Literally.”

“I need a moment.” Sophie cracked the encryption and activated the write blocker. The software would make a complete copy of Chernobiac’s hard drive, but it needed fifteen minutes or more to run, depending on how much data he had. She swiveled Chernobiac’s office chair and turned back to Jake.

Her partner had set the bulky bag on the bed and untied the knot securing it. Inside, stacks of rubber-banded cash were piled like so many pairs of socks. “I’d be very interested to find out what Cypher says he did to earn all this cash.” Jake’s eyes seemed to glow with excitement. Sophie could smell it on him, a potent cologne.

“I’ll take pictures of this money, but by the time Freitan and Wong get a warrant to search the place, I feel confident that the cash will be gone.”

“Not if you text them a photo,” Jake said. “They’ll move heaven and earth to find out where this much dinero came from.”

Sophie photographed the bag of money and texted it to Freitan. She included a line of explanation: “Found this in subject’s linen closet. You might want to get a search warrant for the premises.”

“On it. Holding subject for 24 hours.”A smiley face followed. “Good job, you sexy beasts!”

Sophie decided not to mention Freitan’s joke to her partner. “They are holding Cypher for twenty-four hours. I need time for the write blocker to clone his hard drive. You might as well be thorough and search the rest of the house.”

Sophie turned back to address Cypher’s computer. She flexed her fingers over his keyboard. The keys were unpleasantly sticky.

She would be able to surf through the contents of the young man’s computer at leisure later on. To keep updated, she planted a keystroke logger program that would advise her of any new activity and send it to her in a coded message.

“I’m surprised he’s so lax with his security,” Jake said. He had returned the bag of cash to its hiding place. “You’d think the guy would be more careful with his remote location and no visible security system. I hope there’s not something we overlooked.”

“Why don’t you check?” Sophie peered at the computer screen. “The write blocker still needs another ten minutes. He has a lot of data on this unit.”

Jake disappeared. Sophie nipped into Cypher’s online activity, just to see what she could see.

As she had suspected, he was the one operating the missing persons website, though he had chosen an avatar of a blonde soccer mom to be his public admin profile. Chernobiac’s operation was crude, but clearly working well if that bag of cash and his cars were any indication . . .

Jake reappeared in the doorway. “We’ve got to go. He has a secret alarm system, and we tripped a silent alarm. I’m guessing we have minutes to move before someone gets here.”

Sophie stared at the write blocker, willing it to work faster, but it was only fifty percent done. That would have to be good enough. She closed the program, ejected the drive, and exited his rig, shutting it down manually. She used the edge of her shirt to wipe down the keyboard and desk nearby. Jake was already doing the same with a paper towel on the other areas they’d touched.

“Stay off the road in case someone comes,” Jake said. Minutes later, they were running through the woods beside the driveway, headed back to the Jeep.

A big black SUV with mirror tinting on the windows barreled silently past them, lights off, heading toward the house. They’d left the way they came in, locking the back door, but the sensor light in the garage was still on. The responders would know someone had been there.

“I don’t think those are cops. Maybe private security.” Jake had pulled his weapon, and he reached for her hand.

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