She read the email. The account was established from a public Internet Protocol—IP—address in New York about five years earlier. The company did not have a legal name associated with the account. And because the company didn’t require identity verification to establish the account, there was no way to know who owned it.Dammit!
The lawyers surmised, since the warrant didn’t ask about the contents of specific communications between individuals, they did not provide any specific correspondence information. All they offered was a litany of IP addresses used over the years to access the account.
Murphy ran through the six-page list of IP addresses. Either the person who used this account was purposefully bouncing email servers to make it hard to track, or this person accessed their email from around the world.
She forwarded the list to the FBI cyber forensic department and asked them to track the IP addresses. Hopefully, they could narrow down who the owner of the account was. She knew it was a long shot, but she had to try anything.
She wasn’t ready to put out an official ‘person of interest’ notice on Ethan Bond yet. Technically, she wasn’t in charge of the Peregrine Airlines explosion. Heck, it might not be terrorism at all. At this point, the FAA hadn’t made an official determination for the crash, so Murphy was running only on the conspiracies she had running around in her head. She powered down her computer and headed to bed.
Chapter Eleven
Ethan
Ethan was up at four-thirty a.m. the following day. He lay there in bed, trying to force his mind to shut down and go back to sleep, but he was awake, whether or not he liked it. He stared at the ceiling, willing himself back to sleep. He did the only thing he knew could exhaust him. He looked around and saw a box of tissues on the nightstand, grabbed a couple, and laid them next to him on the bed in the dark. He lifted his shirt and reached down into his shorts, pulling out his cock. The elastic waist of the shorts rested just below his balls. “Damn, I don’t have any lube. I guess I’ll do this the good, old-fashioned way.” He spat into his hand.
He started stroking himself. Immediately, images of the last time he’d had sex with Danny filled his head. He remembered how they had fit perfectly together as Ethan had spooned into Danny from behind. Making love with Ethan as the big spoon and Danny as the little spoon had always been their favorite position. There was something intimate about the position—maximum body contact as Ethan’s chest pressed into Danny’s back. Ethan wrapped his arm around Danny’s waist, pulling him close as he drove into him. Danny turned his head to kiss Ethan.What the hell?The face staring back at him was Blayne’s. The face hungering for Ethan’s lips was Blayne’s. Ethan’s cock exploded in his hands.
Ethan cleaned himself up and lay in the bed, still staring at the ceiling. Now, his head swam with what had just happened. Around five-thirty, he left the guest bedroom and headed for the bathroom in the hallway. He passed Blayne’s room, pausing to hear the soft, rhythmic sound of Blayne’s breath as he slept.At least one of us is still asleep.
He used the restroom, flushing the remnants of his mess. He looked at himself in the mirror and decided he might as well get a run in before Blayne was up and about.I’ll grab my cell and be on my way. Ethan realized he had never charged his phone the night before. He walked into the living room and saw the charging cable right where he’d left it the previous night, when Kira had loaned it to him. He returned to the room to charge his phone when he realized he didn’t have a USB wall charger to plug the darn thing into.
His watch had a GPS map tracking software built into it, so he at least wouldn’t get himself lost. He put on a pair of shorts, a tank top, a baseball cap and sunglasses. The sunglasses were not the giant ones from the day before but a pair of more fashionable Oakley’s. He slipped some cash into his pocket in case he picked something up while he was out.
He walked back through the living room, found a notepad on the bar separating the kitchen from the dining room slash living room area and wrote Blayne a quick note saying he’d headed out for a run and would be back soon.
Ethan slipped out of the apartment and left the front door unlocked so he could get back in. Thankfully, the sun was creeping over the horizon, so he wouldn’t be running in the dark. He walked into the parking lot and stretched for a minute to get his body warm before taking off running. He turned on the GPS part of his watch before he took off east out of the apartment complex. He found a sidewalk in a residential area adjacent to his location and decided to stick to the smooth surface. He started slowly before building into a steady pace. He pounded the sidewalk, and his heart thumped smoothly.
After running for thirty minutes, he told his watch to plot the course back to the starting point. His watch vibrated whenever it wanted him to turn the corner, so he could glance down and see what direction he needed to head. Thankfully, the entire run was through residential streets, so he had no stoplights or traffic at this early hour.
When he was almost back to Blayne’s, he noticed a small grocery store already open. He quickly noted the rest of the trip back to Blayne’s apartment and turned off the GPS so he could slip inside the grocery store.
He had a sheen of sweat over his body, so he didn’t want to spend too much time hanging out in public. A worker near the door who gave him a quick once-over greeted him. Ethan asked if they carried phone charger accessories. The young woman looked almost annoyed at having to do her job. Still, she pointed in a general direction and said, “Aisle seven,” before she went back to watching the front door.
Ethan walked through the store and found aisle seven. He searched through the accessories and found a phone charging cord and a USB wall charger combination kit, so he grabbed the plastic vacuum-sealed package off the shelf. He turned around and headed toward the checkout counter. On his way, he passed the cosmetic line, and on the end of the row was a display for hair dyes.
No? Should I? Couldn’t hurt. It would definitely help me stay low.He looked at the various kits and settled for one that had a guy on the box advertising natural blond hair.I’ve always heard blonds have more fun.
* * * *
Blayne
Blayne was an admitted non-morning person. He left his bedroom only because he smelled the enticing scent of freshly brewed coffee wafting through the house.Ethan must be up already,he thought to himself as he rolled over and looked at the clock on his nightstand.Eight-thirty. He slipped on a T-shirt before opening the door and heading into the bathroom. After relieving himself, he brushed his teeth. He noticed his fly was still open on his boxers, so he made sure the button was shut before leaving the bathroom and headed into the living room.
Blayne walked into the room and did a quick double-take because he wasn’t ready for the blond guy sitting on his couch.
“Whoa,” was all Blayne got out before Ethan looked up.
“Morning, sunshine.” Ethan looked up from the book he was reading.
Blayne stared, not sure what to say. “Morning,” Blayne mumbled. “Whatchya reading?”
“Death Nailby Robert Evans. It’s on theNew York Timesbestseller list. Saw it at the store and picked it up on a lark.”
“Cool,” Blayne said. “I haven’t read his work. I hear he’s good. Unfortunately, I don’t get much of a chance to read for pleasure these days. I have too much to read for my classes.”
“Hope you don’t mind. I picked up some coffee at the store and made a pot.”
“You’ve been…busy.”
