First Girl Gone(90)

“Well, I can try to remove it,” Mason said. “It should only take a few minutes.”

Mason’s fingers moved to the keyboard again, but Charlie held up a hand to stop him.

“Wait.” The plan formed in her head almost instantly. She could sense it there, a throb in her subconscious that occurred a beat before it came spilling out into her mind fully formed. “Don’t remove it.”

“Are you sure? They can literally see everything you type. Take screenshots. Some of them even let the hacker record audio.”

Finalizing each step in her head, Charlie nodded.

“I’m sure. I have a plan.”

If the killer was logging everything she typed, maybe she could use that to smoke him out.





Chapter Seventy-Three





Charlie sat at her desk, the infected laptop screen staring back at her. She brought her hands forward as though to rest them in the customary spot, fingers splayed over the home row of the keyboard—but then she retracted them just as quickly. Crossing her forearms over her chest, she watched the computer out of the corner of her eye.

Why was she so reluctant to touch the thing? Was she afraid of it?

Her entire plan hinged on using the damn laptop, and the keylogger was the linchpin to the scheme. But she couldn’t help it. The whole thing gave her the creeps. The idea that someone had come in here, invaded her space, installed spyware on her computer while she was away, and logged every single keystroke since. She shuddered just thinking about it, that vulnerable feeling crawling over her skin like pinpricks.

Her head swiveled to take in the room around her. She suddenly became quite conscious of the windows, the open blinds showing a clear view of the street, where anyone might look in on her. Just sitting near the glowing laptop screen made her feel like someone was watching her now.

She rose from her seat and closed the blinds. Shadows swelled to fill the room.

That felt better. Sort of.

That must be one of her phobias, she realized—to be watched without knowing about it. Rather ironic, considering her profession. Another perfect setup for an Allie insult that wouldn’t come.

Charlie’s eyes went to the screen again. She’d gone to see Zoe and set the rest of the plan in motion. All she had to do now was this last part.

She settled back in her desk chair. This time her hands didn’t hesitate. She rested her palms alongside the touchpad, and her fingers hammered the keys now, typing a fast string of nonsense letters into the open text file before backspacing over all of them. That seemed to break the spell, the malevolent machine before her dying back to a normal laptop again.

She took a breath. She was just typing an email to Zoe, something she’d probably done a hundred times before without thinking about it. That was all. If it so happened this particular email was the bait in a trap, well…

The letters popped up on the screen as the keys clattered beneath her fingertips.

Zoe,



I found something in the Amber Spadafore/Kara Dawkins case. Something big.

I know this sounds paranoid, but I have reason to believe that someone has been listening in on my phone calls somehow. I’m worried that your office may likewise be compromised, so it’s best if we talk in person. Somewhere safe. We need to proceed with absolute caution.

Meet me at the gazebo in the center of Ramsett Park tonight at 9 p.m.



Charlie





She looked over the email. It sounded a little cloak-and-dagger, but she worried that if she wasn’t fairly obvious about it, the killer wouldn’t take the lure. She needed him to be at the park.

She’d considered bluffing that she knew the real identity of the killer, but that could motivate him to kill Kara Dawkins if he hadn’t already. Better to be cryptic. Tantalize. Try to draw him out of his hidey hole.

It was still something of a long shot, but as Allie had once told her, that was better than no shot.





Chapter Seventy-Four





Dusk had already faded to full dark by the time Charlie and Zoe arrived at Ramsett Park. They’d driven separately and positioned themselves at opposite ends of the L-shaped parking lot so they could keep an eye on all entrances.

Knowing her computer had been hacked, Charlie was worried her phone may be compromised as well, and she wasn’t taking any chances. She and Zoe were keeping in touch via a pair of walkie-talkies Charlie had found in the back room of the office. She vaguely remembered her and Allie playing with them as kids, concocting make-believe spy scenarios and cop-and-bandit games.

“Nothing doing over this way,” Zoe’s voice crackled.

“Same,” Charlie said back, holding the button with her thumb as she spoke. In this case, “nothing doing” meant literally nothing. Not a single car had passed Charlie’s side, and she figured the same for Zoe’s watch. That made sense to a large degree, especially on a cold night in the dead of winter such as this was. The park sat all the way on the east side of the island, not really a convenient traffic route to anywhere of import. The only people they were likely to see driving out this way were the people who lived in the immediate block or two, and maybe, just maybe, their killer. If her plan worked.

Charlie sipped hot coffee from the lid of her thermos, wanting to savor it before it cooled. Chances were they’d be here a while, she knew, and this coffee’s current temperature stood almost no chance of holding out for the duration of the stakeout. She picked up her phone, wanting to double-check the time. She knew it’d been fifteen minutes tops since she’d gotten here, but some anxious part of her needed to verify that fact with her own eyes.