Last Breath

7

Rawls knew he should resist the temptation to visit the site again. He had more pressing priorities. Anyway, he and Brand were nearly done for the day. The sun had long since set, and when he peered through a gap in the drapes, he saw a crescent moon, low over the horizon, gleaming on sooty piles of unmelted snow. Baltimore in January. He shook his head and tried not to think about the chill wind gusting outside, or about the Web site that was unlocked with Bluebeard’s key.

But he couldn’t help himself. His right hand, of its own accord, moved his mouse across the customized mouse pad displaying a family photo-himself, his wife Felicia, their son Philip-and guided the mouse pointer to the Internet browser icon on his screen.

He logged onto the mystery site and returned to the page containing the video stream. He had hoped that by now the bedroom would be occupied; at least he would have a better idea of what was going on. But the room remained empty.

Still sunny too. The sunlight had a slightly orange quality that suggested late afternoon. He checked his wristwatch: 6:47. Must be two or three hours earlier in the location he was observing. If the woman worked from nine to five, it might be an hour or longer before she showed up.

Move along, folks, an inner voice chided. Nothing more to see here.

Even so, he lingered at the site, his hand moving the mouse idly, letting the pointer breeze around the screen.

In a corner of the screen the arrow icon changed to a pointing finger.

Hidden link. He had stumbled on it by accident. The hypertext string had been rendered in white, making it invisible against the white background of the page.

Rawls clicked the link, and a page opened in a new window, headlined VOTE TALLY.

Below the headline were columns of figures alongside three names.

MISS NOVEMBER 76

MISS DECEMBER 54

MISS JANUARY 109

At the bottom of the page were the words Cast your ballot for the best babe of the bunch!

“Three women,” Rawls said quietly.

Brand looked up. “What’s that?”

Rawls drummed his fingers on his desk. “The Bluebeard site. There have been three women under observation. The one whose bedroom is now on display is only the latest.”

Brand got up and came around to look at his partner’s computer. “She’s Miss January, I take it.”

“Must be.”

“The most popular of them all. I’ll bet she’s a looker. She home yet?”

“No.”

“Shoot.” Brand was disappointed. “So what do you make of this?”

“I’m not sure.” Rawls studied the screen. “Judging by the number of votes tallied, I’d say the site’s password has been restricted to a couple of hundred people. The site manager probably gives out the password via e-mail after trolling for the right kind of visitors in chat rooms or newsgroups.”

“If they’ve spied on three women over a period of three months, how do you think they managed it? Peephole in the wall?”

“Could be. Or a boyfriend hides a surveillance camera inside a gift that the victim keeps in the bedroom. Or it could even be some Back Orifice type of program or some other Trojan horse on her PC.”

Back Orifice was a program capable of taking over a computer’s microphone and video camera and using them to spy on the unsuspecting user. Standard antivirus programs would detect it, but there was always the possibility of a new, undetectable variant.

“Let’s take another look at that video,” Brand said, no doubt hoping Miss January had arrived.

Rawls pressed the Back button on his browser. The bedroom was still empty, the sun on the walls still bright.

“You think the feed is real time?” Brand asked, probably thinking about the sunlight also.

“I’m betting it is. If it was a loop or a highlight reel, why show this part? An empty room?”

“Good point.” Brand sighed. “Whatever’s going on, it’s something ugly. Too bad we can’t chase it.”

“Why can’t we?”

“Hell, Noah, you know why. We got nothing here. We got a woman who may or may not be under clandestine surveillance. The only way we can know is to track her down and ask her, and how are we going to do that? I take it you already ran a route trace.”

Rawls nodded. “The server’s geographical location isn’t in the database. But it’s on a local net. Anyway, the server has to be in Baltimore.”

“Why? If the video is real time, it would mean the victim is out west-either Mountain or Pacific time zone.”

“The victim, yes. Not the site manager. He’s here in town. Has to be.” Rawls saw Brand’s blank look and added in explanation, “The tipster contacted me. He went to some trouble to get hold of my personal e-mail address. He clearly wants Baltimore on the case.”

“Which implies it’s in our jurisdiction,” Brand said. “I get it. Still, we can’t follow up. Miller will never give us the green light.” Frank Miller was the Baltimore field office’s Special Agent in Charge.

“Miller,” Rawls said slowly, “can’t control what we do in our spare time.”

“Spare time? You mean tonight?”

“Why not?”

“No way, buddy. I put in enough hours as it is, and unpaid overtime ain’t my idea of fun.”

Rawls knew this was only bluster. “Come on, Ned, you have anything better to do on a Wednesday night?”

“Sure I do.”

“Like what?” Rawls knew Brand was divorced, not seeing anybody, and all he had to go home to was a microwavable dinner and CNN.

Brand hesitated, then confirmed the obvious with a weary nod. “Good grief, as Charlie Brown used to say. I guess you got me.”

“I’m glad because I need you.”

“Great. How’s Felicia gonna feel about you missing another meal?”

“She’ll be fine,” Rawls said, hoping this was true.

“Well, damn it, if you’re on the case, so am L Have you e-mailed the sysadmin?”

“Yes, but he never returned the message. I’ll have to call him.” The phone number and e-mail address of the network system administrator were included in the data supplied by the trace route program.

“If he has any sense, he’s probably gone home for the day.”

Rawls picked up the phone. “Then I’ll track him down at home.”

“You really got a bug up your ass about this.”

“Colorfully expressed.” Rawls started dialing. “The sysadmin will give us the name and street address of the site manager. Then I say we drive over and pay the gentleman a visit.”

“And shut him down.”

Rawls nodded, thinking of Miss January and the two women before her-women whose lives, whose bodies, had been put on public display.

“Damn straight,” he said. “We shut him down.”