Gallery of the Dead

Eighty-Four

The phone on Hunter’s desk inside their temporary office on the eighth floor of the FBI building on Wilshire Boulevard rang at exactly 7:56 p.m. There was no one there except Agent Fisher, who had been working on a report for the past few hours. She dug her heels onto the floor and kicked her legs, pushing her chair away from her desk and sending it in the direction of Hunter’s.

‘Special Agent Erica Fisher,’ she said, as she answered the phone.

A second of hesitant silence.

‘Did I dial the wrong extension?’ the female voice on the other side asked.

Agent Fisher immediately recognized who the caller was — Michelle Kelly — the head of the LA FBI Cyber Crime Division.

‘Hi, Miss Kelly,’ Agent Fisher replied. ‘No, you haven’t. This is Detective Hunter’s desk, but I’m the only one in the office right now. In fact, Detectives Hunter and Garcia prefer to work from their shoebox office back at the PAB. Is there anything I can help you with? Do you have any news for us?’

‘I do,’ Michelle replied.

Those two simple words took Agent Fisher’s heart rate from resting to one-hundred-yard dash.

‘What have you got?’

‘It took us a while longer than we expected,’ Michelle began. ‘But we’ve made some progress.’

‘I’m listening.’

‘Albert Greene’s medical records were accessed via the Optum integrated information and technology platform exactly twelve days before his murder.’

‘Internally or externally?’

‘Externally,’ Michelle replied. ‘Someone hacked into the system.’

‘Can you trace it?’

‘We are working on it, but I can tell you this — whoever this guy is, he’s no amateur. He knows his way around cyberspace.’

Every hair on Agent Fisher’s body stood on end.

‘But that’s not all,’ Michelle announced. ‘Timothy Davis’s medical records were also accessed externally. Would you like to have a guess at how many days before his murder?’

‘Twelve?’ Agent Fisher’s eyes widened as she said the number.

‘Exactly, and here’s the kick — the same with Kristine Rivers’ records — accessed externally via Optum twelve days prior to her murder. Linda Parker’s records weren’t touched.’

‘The killer wouldn’t need her medical records to gather the information on her,’ Agent Fisher said.

‘Anyway,’ Michelle carried on. ‘Twelve days prior to every murder — you know what that tells us about this killer, don’t you?’

‘That he’s methodical,’ Agent Fisher replied.

‘Very,’ Michelle agreed. ‘Probably almost to the point of OCD, which would mean that he also doesn’t like to stray from routines, and that can increase our chances of tracking him down.’

‘So where are we right now with that?’

‘Crawling stages.’

‘But you’ve picked up a trail, right? I mean, finding out about the records being accessed externally and all.’

‘More like we’ve picked up a scent rather than a trail,’ Michelle clarified. ‘But yes, we do now have a starting point, and we’re going after him with everything we’ve got.’