Long story short, it was well past daylight on the third day of their case, and their killer was in the wind.
“Look at the bright side,” Jessica said, handing her a cup of coffee.“He’s not out killing people if he’s hiding.”
“That’s a bright side,” Faith admitted, “but if he disappears, then Hayes and Cruz don’t get justice.”
“It’s a much brighter side if this guy stops.”
“Sure,” Faith said.“If he stops.”
Jessica looked away and bit her lip softly.That was a big if.The recidivism rate for murderers overall was extremely low, less than one percent, among the lowest re-offense rates of any crime.
But serial killers and spree killers were different animals.Nearly one in four multiple murderers killed again after an initial conviction.This killer hadn’t been convicted.If he escaped arrest, he might enjoy a surge in confidence.Faith was almost certain he would kill again.Maybe not now and maybe not here, but one day, they would read a story about another chaplain murdered because of this man’s hate.
“Did we get anything from the car?”Faith asked.
“About eight ounces of HydroFill,” Jessica replied.“Several pairs of vinyl gloves.Twenty dog tags.I called Chief.The dog tags match legitimate requests for information directed to the VA office.”
Faith’s ears perked up.They hadn’t followed up on that lead yet.“That could give us something.Call Cybercrimes and have them do a security sweep of the Records systems.Someone may have hacked into their records and stolen this information independent of the legitimate requests.”
Jessica perked up too.“Yeah, we’ll do that.”She grinned.“See?All hope is not lost.”
Faith roused Turk, and the trio headed back to the VA office at Myer-Henderson Hall.
Cybercrimes was already at the VA office when Faith and Jessica arrived.One agent comforted a distraught Chief while another talked to Carrie and Julie and four more pored through each computer in the office.When Faith approached, the agent talking to Chief lifted his eyebrows and said to Chief, “Give me a second, okay?”
He looked at Faith and jerked his head for them to talk privately.Faith frowned and left Jessica with Chief while she followed the agent.
When they were out of earshot, the agent stood close to Faith and said softly, “There was an attempted infiltration into David’s work computer earlier this morning.”
Faith’s blood ran cold.She had successfully put that situation out of her mind and focused entirely on the chaplain-killer case.This agent’s words brought her mind right back to the mortal danger her husband was in.
“What happened?”she asked.
“Nothing.It looks like they weren’t able to crack the firewall.They dug through his ordinary user profile, but it doesn’t look like they found anything they wanted.They were in for about five minutes, then out.”
Faith swallowed before asking her next question.“Is David okay?”
“Yeah, he’s fine.He says the guy was a wealthy client asking to fly him to Kentucky to check on a horse.”
Faith sighed and rubbed her temples.God, David was a bad liar.
“Hey, you gotta give him A for effort,” the agent said.He shifted his feet uncomfortably, and Faith prepared herself for the next question.“I’ve got an agent monitoring your computers, Special Agent Bold.Torres has Rogers and Hammerton basically assigned to be his bodyguard.I don’t mean to be an asshole, but we’re sticking our necks out.We’re happy to do that, but… can you tell us anything about what’s going on?”
Faith was too exhausted to know how to deal with this the right way.No, that wasn’t true.The right thing to do was for David to come forward officially, then back the hell off.The right thing to do was to accept that there were some things that were out of reach, even for them.
But Sierra and a dozen other dogs were being tortured, experimented on, and God knew what else.And if it was Turk, there would be no stopping Faith doing whatever she needed to put a stop to it.
She sighed.“I can tell you that it shouldn’t affect you or any of your coworkers.There are some people after David, probably because of me, and we’re trying to keep him safe while we get to the bottom of it.”
The agent bought that hook, line, and sinker.Faith was notorious for being the target of serial killers, and the fact that she was back in the field hunting them meant it was only a matter of time before another one put her in their crosshairs.He smiled and squeezed her arm.“We’ll get them.Whoever they are, they’ll end up just like West and Lillian Martin did.”
Faith’s stomach turned as she realized that their new enemy made West and Martin look like toddlers with squirt guns.God damn it, David.
She returned the agent’s smile.“Thank you.”
On the way back to the records office, the agent said, “So someone’s definitely hacking into the VA Records office.”
Faith nodded.“I figured.Can you find out who?”
