SHORTLY BEFORE DARK, Sampson dropped me off at the entrance to the alley that runs behind my house. With my trial starting up again in the morning, there were bound to be more journalists in front of my house.
There’d been other journalists gathered at the bottom of Carter Flint’s road when we left. After Sampson called the local sheriff to tell them we’d made a citizen’s arrest, we’d waited until Flint was in custody and the three animals mercifully euthanized before we helped in the search for the girls. We’d found enough disturbing evidence to put Flint behind bars or in a psychiatric institution for years but no trace of Gretchen Lindel or Delilah Franks or the four other missing women.
I used the back gate to our yard, happy for the darkness, and went in the side door. My dad and Jannie were watching a tape of her race at Hopkins. Bree was in the kitchen with Nana Mama.
“How was fishing?” my dad said.
Before I could answer, Bree called archly, “Yes, how was fishing?”
I gave my dad a chagrined look and walked to the kitchen. “You know?”
She crossed her arms. “I know everything. What were you thinking, going up there and just barging in like that?”
“That was John’s call on his own time. I just tagged along.”
She really wasn’t happy. “You said you’d be straight with me.”
I lowered my voice, said, “Straight with you? Okay, it was bad. The worst animal cruelty I’ve ever seen. I feel like I’ve been dipped in a jar of creepiness, but we stopped more animals from being tortured by that piece of shit.”
Bree struggled, her eyes searching mine, and then threw up her hands. “Go take a shower.”
Turning from the stove, Nana Mama said, “Dinner in half an hour.”
“Smells good. What is it?”
“It’s a secret.”
“I’ll be right back down,” I said. I leaned over Bree’s cold shoulder and kissed her on the cheek.
“There’s something on the table in the hall for you, Alex,” my grandmother called after me as I left the room.
In the front hall I spotted a small U.S. Postal Service mailer addressed to Dr. Cross. No return address. I opened it to find the same kind of flash drive that the fake Alden Lindel had shown me. It was inside a plastic sleeve.
“You might want to see this,” I said, waving the envelope at Bree.
We went down to my basement office. Bree put on latex gloves and plugged the drive in. A few moments later, a QuickTime App launched and showed a low-light video of a handcuffed, barefoot woman in a tattered white nightgown. She had a white hood over her head and was being led to a mossy stone wall by two guys dressed in black from shoes to hoods.
When they reached the wall, one of the men spun her around. The other yanked off the hood, revealing a gagged blond teen.
I felt sick, said, “Gretchen Lindel.”
They took off the gag. The camera pulled back to show three men about fifty feet from Gretchen. They were all hooded, all dressed in black, and all carrying AR rifles.
“Ready,” the cameraman said.
The three men shouldered their rifles.
I expected Gretchen to go to her knees and beg for mercy.
But instead, she stood tall against the stone wall and stuck her chin out at the firing squad.
“Go ahead!” she yelled at them. “I’m not afraid. You can do anything you want and I am not afraid of any of you!”
“Aim,” the cameraman said.
“You won’t do it!” Gretchen screamed. “You kill me, you don’t get to play your games anymore. You kill me—”
“Fire!”
The guns went off. In the low light, orange flames shot out of their muzzles. By the sparks the ricochets threw, the bullets hit stone inches around her head.
It broke Gretchen, who went to her knees, shaking in terror.
“Don’t,” she wept. “Don’t.”
Then the screen froze, and I heard the voice of the fake Alden Lindel say, “Next time, it’s for real, Dr. Cross. Next time every blond bitch, including little Gretchen, dies. And forget about finding me before then. I exist in the digital void, invisible, ten steps ahead of you and the FBI.”
The video ended with that same brilliant flash I’d seen the first time I’d plugged in one of his thumb drives.
“He’s definitely part of the Killingblondechicks conspiracy,” I said, thinking about Flint’s insistence that someone had hijacked his computer.
Then I thought about the fact that the fake Alden Lindel had mailed the flash drive to me rather than bringing it in person.
“He knew I’d figured him out,” I said.
How? That flash at the end of the videos kept playing in my mind until I formed a very strong suspicion.
“I think there’s a good chance he’s bugged my computer somehow,” I told Bree. “And maybe the FBI’s. That would keep him ten steps ahead of us, wouldn’t it?”
CHAPTER
76
WHEN I FINALLY got in the shower, I was no longer merely suspicious but convinced my computer had been compromised by the fake Alden Lindel. I’d called Rawlins and Batra at the FBI to alert them, but neither of them picked up the phone. I left them messages saying that I believed their system was at risk as well, and I hoped they’d call sooner rather than later.
Under the hot water, I felt sickened again at what Flint had done to those animals and at the fact that he claimed there were tens of thousands of subscribers to the websites he sold his footage to. Was that true? What possible pleasure could someone find in innocent animals suffering?
It was so beyond me that I got angry. That anger only deepened when I considered my inability to make headway in the hunt for the missing blondes, especially Gretchen Lindel. What a brave thing she’d done, standing up to those men like that, defying them.
When at last I turned my thoughts to the trial, I got angrier still, and then depressed.
Two eyewitnesses had testified that I’d shot three people without just cause. There were videos of the shootings and no sign of computer-generated imaging or anything to suggest I was being framed.
The weight of those cold, hard facts kept growing as I showered myself into a darker mood. A conspiracy had been hatched and directed at me. The conspiracy was working. The gears of justice were grinding, and I could see no path out.
I got dressed and went downstairs in a black cloud.
“Doesn’t it’s-a-secret smell incredible?” Bree said when I came back into the kitchen.
Distracted, I nodded.
Out in the great room, my dad chuckled. “I think I love it’sa-secret.”
“You will,” Nana Mama said. “Where’s that Ali?”
“Where he’s been the past four days,” Jannie said with a roll of her eyes. “Up in Dad’s old office in the attic with the door shut.”
“He’s still working on his Houdini paper?” I said. “I’ll go get him.”
“Let me,” my dad said, coming into the kitchen. “Give me some time to bond with my grandkiddo.”
Drummond disappeared. I helped Bree set the table, wondering how many more times we’d get to do this simple chore together. I opened a bottle of white wine and poured myself a generous glass.
Bree was watching me.
“One healthy one,” I said.
“You deserve two healthy ones.”
“Dinner’s on,” Nana Mama said, bringing a big iron skillet with a lid to the table. She set it on a lazy Susan. “Rice is coming. Where’s that Ali, now?”
Before I could reply, she left the kitchen and went to the bottom of the stairs. “Dinner, Ali! You don’t want dinner cold, you better come on down.”
“Two minutes,” my dad called. “He’s showing me something.”
My grandmother came back, muttering under her breath. She’d always been a stickler for us being at the table when she was ready to serve, and she had a sour expression on her face when she brought a big bowl of steaming jasmine rice in and sat down.
“Let’s say grace,” she said. “We don’t have to wait.”
When we were done thanking God for the meal, Nana Mama lifted the lid on the skillet. The smells that wafted up made me close my eyes and smile.
My grandmother said, “Tiger shrimp in fresh tomatoes, onions, garlic, and it’s-a-secret.”
“Mmm, Nana,” Jannie said after taking her first bite. “What is that?”
“That’s the secret,” she said, smiling. “Good, isn’t it, Alex?”