The Bait Page 3

  Jake had bought this house from the proceeds of two screenplays he’d sold. It represented his oasis, his escape from the horrors of the job, only now those horrors had followed him home in the most personal way.

  He knew as well as she did that most runaways turned up safely, but he’d take small comfort in that when the runaway was his daughter.

  She got two glasses of water and brought one out to him just as he was ending a conversation with one of Fiona’s friends. Quinn may have suggested Jake put pressure on the girlfriends, but Kyra knew from experience teenage girls could keep secrets like nobody’s business. She would’ve rather traipsed over hot coals than reveal one of the other foster girls’ plans to the caseworkers. That would go double for parents, although most of the girls she’d known in the system didn’t have parents—at least not functioning ones.

  She thrust the glass at Jake, and some of the water lapped over the lip. “Take this and sit down.”

  His eyebrows shot up as if he’d forgotten her presence. She didn’t take it personally.

  “Sit and breathe before you blast through that window.”

  “Thanks.” He started for the couch and then jerked to a stop, causing more water to slosh over the rim of the glass. “My laptop. I need my laptop.”

  Placing both hands on the small of his back, she pushed his solid frame. “Take a seat. I’ll get it.”

  She unzipped the bag he’d dropped in the foyer and pulled out the computer he toted back and forth to work. He couldn’t leave it there, as these copycat murders had been occupying his time 24/7...and now he had to worry about his daughter.

  Jake had taken her advice, but his ramrod posture and position on the edge of the couch defeated the purpose behind her order.

  Sitting beside him, she placed the laptop on the coffee table. “What are you looking up?”

  He cleared his throat and took a gulp of water. “One of Fiona’s friends admitted that Fiona had a second Instagram page under a different name, a page her mother didn’t know about.”

  “What’s the name?” Kyra nudged his arm. “Enter it.”

  Jake’s hands hovered over the keyboard, and then he let out a long breath. “Jazzy Noir.”

  “Sounds like a...” Kyra pressed her fingers against her lips.

  Jake growled as he typed the name in the search field, the whole laptop shivering beneath his furiously pounding fingers. “Like a stripper?”

  “Give the kid some credit for creativity, and Fiona didn’t invent the secret social media account. Countless teens have been using them for as long as the app’s been around.” Still Fiona held her breath as Jake found Jazzy Noir and started scrolling through the pictures.

  A couple of bikini shots had Jake clenching his jaw, but photos of crazy manicures, selfies with friends, food and even some puppies and kittens had made the cut, too.

  Jake slumped. “That’s not too bad, is it? I don’t know why she’d need a secret account for those.”

  Kyra’s gaze shifted to the side as she drummed her fingers on her knee. She knew a few reasons but hated blowing up Jake’s world even more right now.

  Whipping his head around, he grabbed her restless fingers. “What? What am I missing?”

  “On... On this site, people can also send you messages—messages that don’t appear on this page.” She jabbed her finger at one of Jazzy’s more innocuous pictures of a piece of pizza with everything on it.

  Jake’s green eyes narrowed, catlike, only more of a jungle cat’s than the cute kitties on Jazzy’s page. “Private messages from any perv who can see this page?”

  “Yeah.” As Jake began to click on the screen, she dug her fingernails into his arm. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m going to create an account for myself and send her a message.” He flexed his fingers. “Brandon Nguyen has been giving me some computer lessons. I’m gonna need them as I delve into the online worlds of copycats one and two. Might as well put them to use to find my own daughter.”

  “If you do that, you’re going to show your hand.” Her nails sank deeper into his flesh, making imprints on the tail of his tiger tattoo.

  His hands froze. “I shouldn’t let on that I know about this account?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Her friend will tell her that she blabbed to me about it.”

  “Doubt it.”

  Jake tapped the edge of the computer with the side of his thumb. “I’m not sure how that will help us find her. I believe in full transparency unless that endangers someone.”

  “Sending Fiona a message on this account is not going to help you find her, either, and when she does turn up, which I’m confident she will, knowing about this account will give you an edge.”

  “An edge? You make it sound like warfare.”

  Kyra cocked her head. “Fiona is fourteen, her parents are divorced, her mother is remarried to the man she cheated with and she just ran away from home. What would you call this?”

  Jake opened his mouth, but the doorbell interrupted him. He sprang from the couch and stepped over the coffee table in one motion.

  Closing her eyes, Kyra clasped her hands together and said a little prayer. Her lids flew open when she heard Jake utter his daughter’s name in a tone of joy, relief and anger mingled together.

  As father and daughter hugged at the door, Kyra reached over, exited Jazzy Noir’s Instagram page and snapped the laptop shut. Then she stood up, collected the glasses and floated to the kitchen.

  As Jake marched Fiona into the living room, his arm draped around her shoulders, he said, “You should’ve just told us you wanted to visit. We would’ve put you on a plane. Taking a bus all the way from Monterey into LA is not safe.”

  Kyra exited the kitchen and folded her arms, wedging one shoulder against the wall. Her eyes met Fiona’s, which she knew from Fiona’s school picture, were the same color as her father’s. Any further resemblance to the smiling girl in the school photo ended there. The long, brown hair from the picture now sported bleach-blond ends, the school uniform had been replaced with a pair of ripped jeans, a black lace crop top and black motorcycle boots.

  Fiona’s eyes flickered, and then she threw her arms around Jake. “I know. I’m sorry, Daddy. I wanted to surprise you. The trip took longer than I expected, and I thought I’d be here before school let out. When we drove from here to Monterey, it took about five hours.”

  “That’s in a car.” Jake patted Fiona’s back. “The bus always takes longer. Why’d you turn your phone off? You could’ve called and told me and your mother that you were on your way down.”

  “I just thought...” Fiona dipped her head and peeked at her father from beneath her long, dark lashes.

  “I just thought I’d surprise you...and I didn’t want you guys to stop me.”

  “Stop you?” Jake tugged on the ends of Fiona’s ombré hair. “I’m happy to see you, Fiona, but you were coming at Christmas.”

  “Was I?” Fiona’s bottom lip jutted out, and then she glanced at Kyra and sucked it back in. “I know that, but it seemed so far away and I wanted to see you now. Don’t send me back. I worked extra babysitting shifts for those Newland brat—kids to pay for the bus ticket.”

  “We’ll discuss all the details later. Did you call your mother yet?” Jake checked the phone in his hand.

  “I called her as soon as my ride turned into your driveway, Daddy.”

  Kyra cleared her throat. “Your phone was turned off. We thought your battery was dead.”

  Fiona tossed her head, flicking her hair over her shoulder in an expert move that must’ve taken a lot of practice in front of the mirror, and gave Kyra a hard stare. “It was dying. I turned it off to save the battery so I could get a ride from the bus station to my dad’s.”

  Jake held up his phone. “How come your mom hasn’t called me?”

&nb
sp; “I asked her to give me a few minutes to talk to you.”

  Kyra grabbed her purse. “I’m gonna let you two figure this out.”

  Jake finally released the hold he had on his daughter. “I’m sorry I didn’t introduce you. Kyra, this is my daughter, Fiona. Fiona, this is my...friend, Kyra Chase.”

  Fiona lifted a hand, waving her fingers with their black-tipped nails. “Hello.”

  “Nice to meet you, Fiona.” Kyra hitched her bag over her shoulder. “Now I really should get going.”

  “Thanks for all your help, Kyra.” Jake took two long strides toward her and then hesitated as he reached her.

  He probably felt Fiona’s eyes drilling holes into them, too. He took Kyra’s hand, giving it a quick squeeze. “Quinn was right. I needed you here.”

  As Kyra looked past Jake’s shoulder, she spotted Fiona already at the front door, yanking it open. “I’ll see you out.”

  The girl was anxious to get rid of her.

  “And I’m going to text your mother to let her know you made it inside the house.”

  Fiona huffed. “Where else would I go from your driveway to your front door?”

  Nodding to Jake, Kyra said, “See you tomorrow.”

  As Jake bent his head over his phone to text Tess, Kyra walked to the open front door.

  Fiona swept it wider for her and held out one slim hand for the grown-up handshake. In a bright, cheery voice, she said, “It was nice meeting you, Ms. Chase.”

  Kyra moved in and curled her fingers around Fiona’s wrist, pulling her closer for an awkward one-armed hug. Then she whispered in the girl’s ear, “You don’t fool me one bit.”

  Chapter Three

  Jake finished the text exchange with Tess, convincing her to give him some time with Fiona before Tess read their daughter the riot act over the phone. At the sound of the front door slamming, he jerked up his head.

  Fiona gave him a big smile. “Ms. Chase seems nice. She’s pretty, too.”

  “She is nice. I’m glad you like her.” Jake placed his phone on top of the closed laptop. Kyra had been right about not bringing up the Jazzy business right away.

  “You’re glad I like her, huh?” Fiona pranced across the room to the kitchen and swung open the fridge door. “Is she your girlfriend or something?”

  He’d been hoping for more time with Kyra to establish exactly what kind of relationship they had before introducing her to Fiona—that was supposed to be Christmas. Anger and alarm stirred in his gut when he thought about Fiona taking a bus into LA by herself, arriving at night, not telling anyone where she was, turning off her phone. He didn’t buy that dying phone story any more than Kyra had.

  He shoved a hand through his hair. “She’s a good friend, someone I work with.”

  Fiona slammed down the can of soda she’d taken from the fridge onto the counter. “She’s a cop?”

  “She’s a therapist and victims’ rights advocate. She’s assigned to my task force.” He pointed to the soda fizzing over onto the counter. “Make sure you clean that up.”

  “I thought you hated shrinks.” She lifted the can to her mouth and stared at him over the rim, her eyes so much like his it looked like a mirror image sometimes.

  “That’s a strong word. Who told you that?”

  “Mom. She told me you got in trouble with the department for telling off some shrink who got one of your guys off.” She slurped the soda from the top and emerged with a smile that looked too grown-up for her baby face. “Don’t worry. Mom doesn’t usually bad-mouth you—only when I remind her she’s the one who messed things up when she hooked up with Brock.”

  Jake’s heart stopped in his chest, and when it restarted each beat sent a shaft of pain to his head. How had Fiona found out all this information? He had a hard time believing Tess would tell her.

  “It—it’s true, isn’t it?” Fiona’s eyes widened in fear. Something in his face must’ve signaled that she’d gone too far.

  He said quietly, “It’s complicated, Fiona. Don’t assume you know everything from some overheard conversation or gossip, and don’t judge your mother...ever.”

  Fiona left the soda and scurried around the corner to throw herself in his arms. “I’m sorry, Daddy. I don’t, really. I just missed you.”

  He hugged her hard. “I missed you, too. Now, grab some sheets from the closet upstairs and make up the bed in your bedroom and go to sleep. I’m going to call your mother and figure out a plan.”

  An hour later, when he’d ended the call with Tess and the water had finally stopped running in the guest bathroom, he collapsed in his own bed and stared at the ceiling. He and Tess had figured out an interim plan for Fiona that would keep her in LA for at least a few weeks, but Jake had spoken to his ex with a confidence he didn’t feel.

  His daughter was not the carefree, happy-go-lucky child he remembered from their years as an intact family unit. She’d turned into a full-fledged teenager...and the thought terrified him.

  * * *

  A FEW DAYS after Fiona’s surprise arrival, with barely two minutes to catch his breath, Jake felt a guilty relief walking into the task force war room. He’d spent hours on the phone with Fiona’s mother, her teachers, her LA friends’ parents, and even more time grocery shopping and reeling off a set of rules to Fiona’s bored face.

  Catching a serial killer seemed easy in comparison.

  As soon as Jake sat down, Billy scooted his chair up to Jake’s desk and smacked a file folder down, next to his keyboard. “You must’ve been terrified.”

  “I was.”

  “Fiona’s going to stay with you awhile?”

  “A few weeks, at least. That frou-frou private school she attends in Carmel is going to allow her to do her lessons online. She has a friend here from elementary school she’s going to visit, too.”

  “You’re going to have a lot on your plate, brother.” Billy held up his hand and ticked off each of his long fingers. “This task force, your daughter...and Kyra.”

  “Thanks for reminding me.” Jake’s gaze floated to Kyra’s empty desk in the corner. He hadn’t seen Kyra at all since Fiona showed up on his doorstep. She’d had an emergency session with a client, and they’d exchanged just a few short texts. He flipped open the file Billy had deposited on his desk. “What’s this?”

  “It’s from Brandon Nguyen. He said you’d be expecting a breakdown of the chat rooms and message boards both Cannon and Fisher frequented.” Billy drilled a finger into the page on top. “Let me know if you need any help with this. I can assign a few guys from my video team.”

  Shuffling the pages of the folder, he asked, “Any luck with cameras in the area?”

  “Headlights coming from the body dump site at around midnight, but that’s it—headlights. Can’t get an angle on the car attached to the lights. It’s almost as if he knew about the camera and swerved out of the way to avoid it.”

  “Something will come up.” Jake twisted his head toward the door of the conference room at the sound of Kyra’s voice, and he caught her eye before she sat down at her computer.

  When Billy wheeled his chair back to his own desk, next to Jake’s, Jake reached for his personal cell and texted Kyra: Lunch?

  She replied immediately: Need to decompress?

  He’d admit that: Totally.

  He even sounded like Fiona now. Snorting, he pocketed his phone and delved into the file Brandon had left him. Their computer forensics team had made the discovery that both Jordy Lee Cannon, the first copycat, and Cyrus Fisher, the second killer visited some of the same chat rooms for a few TV shows and even a true-crime blog.

  The two may have communicated that way or shared information. If the task force could trace their conversations, they might find a third party and be able to track him down before he killed again. Jake would put his money on the true-crime blog. They might find a
certain sick ironic pleasure in posting on a site where others were trying to solve cases.

  He slid the piece of paper on top toward him and ran his finger down the page until he came to the website called Websleuths. Hunching over his computer, he launched a browser and entered the URL for the site.

  Inclining his head, he blinked at the rows and rows of links to murder cases, missing persons cases, cold cases. He clicked on a cold case murder in Canada and scrolled through the many messages offering tips and theories and posts with maps and sketches and articles—an entire hive of citizen detectives pouring time and effort into the case of a stranger’s murder.

  This site must have a thread for the current copycat case. It took him two minutes to find it and already hundreds of posts filled multiple screens. He glanced through a few, and then a breath hitched in his throat when he saw his name in one of the posts—several posts.

  Did he want to read those? He didn’t need a job performance review from the man on the street. He exited the thread and went to the search field. The computer geeks had given him the names that Cannon and Fisher used for this site, which they’d tracked from their computers’ IP addresses. Cannon had used Rusty and Fisher was Rocketman.

  Jake searched for Rusty first and sat back in his chair, crossing his arms as row after row of links filled his screen. There had to be a way to search for both Rusty and Rocketman at the same time. The user Rusty hadn’t even bothered to comment on any of the copycat killer message threads.

  When Billy slammed his hand against his desk, Jake jumped. He’d been lost in the message boards. He glanced at his partner, giving him a thumbs-up while he talked on the phone.

  Billy ended the call and said, “We got an ID on the second victim. Her name is Carmella Lopez. Her sister wasn’t sure Carmella was missing until she talked to Carmella’s boyfriend who said he hadn’t talked to her or seen her in days. When Carmella’s sister reported finding her car abandoned, a few blocks from the club she’d gone to, with her purse and cell phone still inside, the officer requested a picture of Carmella and recognized her right away as victim number two.”