Текст книги "The Naked Eye"

Автор книги: Iris Johansen

Соавторы: Roy Johansen
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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

“I … don’t have an immediate answer for that.”

“Good. Don’t search for one. Where do we start?”

“I’ll start by looking at Sheila Hunter’s call logs and phone directory.”

“You really have those things?”

“Yes. Don’t ask how. Anyway, that will give me an idea where to go next.”

Beth nodded. “I’ll head back to the hotel and grab a few hours sleep. I’ll see you back here at seven thirty tomorrow morning.”

She was probably making a mistake, Kendra thought. But if she sent Beth away, there was no telling if she would be back on her doorstep anyway. Beth could be very determined. And Beth had been right, Kendra would never put her into a position where she would be in danger.

So let her help and keep her skating around the edges?

Surely Kendra could tolerate that amount of participation if she never let Beth too close.

Maybe.

She looked away for a long moment. What the hell. “Sure. See you here.”

“Right.” Beth flashed a bigger and more brilliant smile than Kendra had ever seen from her.

Then she turned and practically flew down the stairs.

CHAPTER 6

AFTER RETURNING TO HER CONDO, Kendra spent forty-five minutes searching the recent phone numbers in Sheila Hunter’s incoming call log. She pulled together a preliminary list, separated by the known and unknown callers. Her office accounted for the vast majority of calls, followed by a man named Robert Schultz. Probably a boyfriend, judging from the length and late hours of their conversations. There were still several others that needed some follow-up, but that could wait for the morning.

She leaned back in her desk chair. Lynch’s illegal tech skill had finally come to be of some use to her. A hell of a lot more useful than anything she had been permitted to see at the crime scene, that was for sure.

Lynch. As he had done so many times before, he had swept into her life with gale force, whipped everything into a frenzy, then vanished. She had no idea when she would see him again. Days? Weeks? A year?

Why did she care? Yes, she always felt as if life took on more brilliant hues, that his mind was always in sync, that in a world where she’d opted to stand alone, she could lean on his strength … if she chose.

Not that she would choose.

It was just that life was always a little emptier when he left her. It was strange to think that she couldn’t reach out and call him when she had a thought, or needed to tap him for information or influence.

No matter. There was no doubt she could handle everything by herself without help from Lynch. She had enough to occupy her without—

GIVING UP SO SOON?

The words appeared on her laptop screen, one letter at a time, right in the middle of her document.

How the hell…?

The cursor jumped to the next line. Again, words appeared one letter at a time, as if being written by an invisible typist: SURELY YOU’RE NOT GIVING UP, KENDRA …

Of course.

She typed furiously. NOT FUNNY, TOO FAR, LYNCH.

The answer came back immediately, again in her in-progress Word document: I’M NOT WHO YOU THINK I AM.

She froze, then typed: WHO IN THE HELL IS THIS?

SOMEONE WHO’S BEEN WATCHING YOU.

She stared at the words on the screen, then typed: WATCHING ME WHERE?

EVERYWHERE. I’VE BEEN WATCHING YOU FOR A LONG TIME, KENDRA.

She instinctively glanced around, feeling that there were eyes on her at this very moment. She typed: WHO IS THIS?

TIME FOR THAT LATER.

Her mind raced. Sheila Hunter’s story had just gone online that day. Had some sicko read the story and hacked into her computer?

She was just about to type a response when more words appeared on the page: I SAW YOU AT THE MARINA TONIGHT.

Kendra went still. She typed: WHY WERE YOU THERE?

YOU KNOW WHY.

She typed: TELL ME.

FOR SHEILA HUNTER. YOU’LL BE HAPPY TO KNOW SHE WAS SCARED OUT OF HER FREAKING MIND.

Kendra’s hands shook as she moved her fingers over the keyboard. YOU KILLED HER.

MY GIFT TO YOU. DON’T PRETEND. I KNOW YOU WERE HAPPY.

She stared in disbelief at the unfolding dialogue on her computer screen: NO, THAT’S NOT TRUE. WHO IS THIS?

YOU KNOW WHO. YOU’LL NEVER BE DONE WITH ME, KENDRA.

Her breath left her.

“You’ll never be done with me, Kendra.”

Colby’s last words to her, just days before his scheduled execution.

NOW YOU KNOW.

She used her index finger to punch her reply one key at a time: COLBY.

Ten seconds went by. Then fifteen.

YOU NEVER STOPPED BELIEVING, KENDRA. TOUCHED BEYOND WORDS.

It was him.

After all these months of wondering, of watching over her shoulder … He was back.

She flexed her trembling fingers over the keyboard. Stay cool.

Detach. Concentrate.

WHY SHEILA HUNTER?

His reply was immediate: DID SHE NOT DESERVE IT?

She replied: NO. NO ONE DESERVES THAT.

Except Colby, she thought.

EXCEPT ME. THAT’S WHAT YOU WERE THINKING, WASN’T IT? I KNOW YOU, KENDRA. TOO WELL.

He did know her, she realized. All those years in prison, he was studying her, making his sick plans. She felt another surge in the pit of her stomach.

Hold it together.

She typed: THEN YOU KNOW I’VE BEEN EXPECTING YOU.

He fired back: OF COURSE. I’VE BEEN COUNTING ON IT.

She believed him. He did know her too well.

YOU NEVER DISAPPOINT, KENDRA.

She held her shaking hands over the keyboard, weighing her next move. Bold, decisive strokes were the only things that ever worked against Colby, but did she want to go this far? She finally typed: I’M THE ONE YOU WANT, COLBY. BRING IT ON. NO ONE ELSE NEEDS TO SUFFER FOR WHAT I’VE DONE TO YOU.

Long pause. Had she thrown him off balance? He finally responded: I’VE ALREADY BROUGHT THE FIGHT TO YOU, KENDRA. YOU JUST DON’T KNOW IT YET.

REALLY?

He shot back: OH, YES. I LEFT YOU A PRESENT INSIDE SHEILA HUNTER’S HOUSEBOAT.

She went still. She could only imagine what constituted a present from Eric Colby. She made herself respond: IF YOU WERE REALLY THERE, YOU WOULD KNOW I COULDN’T GET NEAR THE PLACE.

I SAW. YOU’LL JUST HAVE TO TRY HARDER, KENDRA. I HAVE FAITH IN YOU.

Before Kendra could reply, he quickly signed off: ENOUGH. YOU HAVE WORK TO DO. PLEASANT DREAMS, KENDRA. I CAN’T TELL YOU HOW MUCH I ENJOY THEM.

The document went blank. A moment later, her laptop screen went blank and the fan shut off.

She stood and backed away from the computer, still trembling.

He was back.

Her first instinct was to turn the computer back on, but she stopped herself. Best to leave the system undisturbed until she could get this thing to an expert who could figure out how in the hell Eric Colby had tapped in.

Which expert?

She wasn’t about to involve Lynch, and if she tapped the FBI forensic computer specialists, it would probably mean boxing up her laptop and shipping it to D.C. There was always a backlog for anything except national-security issues, and Colby’s future victims didn’t have the luxury of time.

Kendra stared at the laptop. She did know someone who could outgeek the FBI experts any day of the week. He was based in San Francisco, but his talents were sought after by clients all over the world. Even the Defense Department had their agents keep an eye on him because he was so valuable in protecting their sites from foreign hackers. But even if he was in the country, there’s no telling if he was available to help her.

One way to find out.

She picked up her phone and punched a number. Within seconds, her ear was blasted by blaring rap music and the sound of a boisterous crowd.

“Kendra!”

She recognized Sam Zackoff’s voice immediately even though he was shouting into the phone. The tension in her body eased slightly. It was good to be reminded that there was a happy and carefree world out there, far from the grim reality that had suddenly pummeled her.

“Sam? Where the hell are you? A dance club?”

“No, better. I’m at a video-game trade show, and one of the companies is throwing a killer party. Free booze and dozens of hot young ladies dressed like the scantily clad characters in their new game. It doesn’t get much better than this.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

“You don’t have to. You can always join me.”

“Actually, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Where in the world are you right now?”

“I’m at the E3 computer-game trade show.”

“That’s supposed to mean something to me?”

“Sorry, I forgot you’re not as big of a geek as the rest of the people in my social circle.”

“That’s a relief for me and very depressing for you.”

“The E3 show is always in L.A. I’m at the convention center downtown.”

“That’s the best news I’ve heard all day. I need to come see you.”

“It’s getting loud in here. Did you say you needed me?”

“I said I need to see you.”

“Okay, I heard you that time. You need and crave me with every fiber of your being. Got it.”

“God, you’re a geek.”

“Sorry, the connection dropped out for a second. Did you just say I was a god?”

“You wish.”

“If you really want my help, you’re not being very persuasive. What’s up?”

“My computer just got hacked, and I don’t know how. I was working on a Word file, and someone just started typing into it. They could see everything I was typing.”

“Easy peasy. A kid could do that. There are plenty of free software packages out there that can give anyone remote access to your computer. Tech-support people use them all the time to make adjustments to customers’ settings.”

“But something would still have to be installed on my laptop, right?”

“Again, child’s play. If your computer touches the Internet, all notions of security and privacy go right out the window.”

“Comforting. I wouldn’t bother you if it wasn’t urgent, Sam. This is a killer on one of my cases. I need you to look at my computer and see if there’s anything here that could possibly help me find this sicko. Could you do that?”

“Sure. You want to meet tomorrow?”

“Tonight. I’m driving down right now. This time of night, I can be in L.A. in less than two hours.”

“Whoa. I plan to be totally hammered by then.”

“I’ll take Sam Zackoff hammered over anybody else stone-cold sober any day of the week.”

“Now that’s how you get a guy to help you.”

“Where do we meet?”

He thought for a moment. “There’s an all-night diner just a couple blocks from the convention center. It’s called Riff’s. It’s on Figueroa Street. I’ll be there chugging coffee like a madman.”

“Thanks, Sam.”

“No worries. We go way back. If the only way I can touch base with you these days is to do an occasional favor, I’m here for you. I can never tell when your gratitude might overwhelm you. See you soon.”

*   *   *

ON THE HOUR-AND-FORTY-FIVE-MINUTE drive down the I-5 freeway, Kendra glanced several times at her laptop on the passenger-side floor. She almost felt it was Colby himself down there, watching her, taunting her, and plotting his next move.

As she fumbled with the car stereo’s volume knob, she realized that her hands had never fully stopped shaking since her dialogue with Colby.

Enough.

She had beaten him once, and she would do it again. As much as he liked to boast that he knew her, she knew him, too. She would use his confidence, his arrogance, against him.

You’re going down, Colby.

*   *   *

KENDRA PARKED HER CAR AND entered the narrow diner. It was a freestanding building, but was clearly designed to emulate the railroad car diners of the Northeast, with a long counter and a wedged-in row of booths. There were only two people visible at first glance—a medical worker in pink scrubs eating chili at the counter and a homeless man facedown in the last booth.

Wait. Not a homeless man, she realized as she glanced at his tousled brown hair and brown bomber jacket. That leather jacket was lambskin and very expensive.

“Wake up, Sam.”

“I’m already awake.” He didn’t lift his head or make any other move to look at her. “I’m just trying to summon the will. I wish you had called about two hours earlier.”

“Never mind. I shouldn’t have imposed. The FBI has experts who can deal with this sort of thing.”

He snorted and finally sat up with a lopsided grin. “You’re playing me, woman. If you really believed that, you wouldn’t have driven all the way down here in the middle of the freaking night.”

“You’re the best, Sam. And I’m not playing you when I say that.”

“I know you’re not. You’re the one person who has always held all my abilities in appropriate regard.”

He smiled again with that wonderfully cockeyed grin. Sam was thirty, thin, and his thick mane was everywhere no matter how long or short it was at any given time, complementing his brilliance with a distinct mad-scientist vibe.

She and Sam had a brief, stupid fling during her wild days, but they both quickly realized that romance wasn’t in the cards for them. But through all the years, he had always been there for her in a way that no lover ever had. She wouldn’t trade that kind of friend for the world.

Sam picked up the pot of coffee on the table and emptied it into his cup. He waved the empty pot at the waitress who had just emerged from the kitchen. “Keep ’em coming please. Be assured that my friend here tips insanely well.”

Kendra turned back toward the waitress. “I do. Make sure he gets anything and everything he wants.”

She sat across from Sam and put the laptop on the table between them. “Here it is. I’m not sure what you can do, but I’m hoping you can find out something that can give me some kind of trail back to him. Maybe through a software vendor or maybe an IP address … I’m not sure.”

The mere sight of her computer seemed to give him a jolt, making him more alert than the coffee had been able to do. “You never know. Even the most accomplished hackers are often terrible at covering their tracks. Let’s see what we have here.” He lifted her computer, then froze. “I thought you said you turned this off.”

“No, I said I didn’t turn it back on. It turned off by itself at the end of my and Colby’s rap session.”

He raised his eyebrows at her. “No, it didn’t.”

“What are you talking about? I saw it happen.”

“No, you saw the screen and indicator lights switch off, and you heard the fan shut down.” He ran his fingers across the laptop’s underside. “It’s still warm. It shouldn’t still feel this way, not after two hours. You were meant to think it was off, but it’s not. For all we know, your laptop’s microphone has been transmitting our entire conversation back to him.”

“Shit. What do we do?”

He quickly popped the laptop’s battery off and placed it on the table. “There. That should take care of it.”

She stared at her computer, once again feeling that eerie sensation she’d had in the car. “Why would he do that?”

“Don’t know, but maybe we can find out.” Sam reached into the worn leather satchel on the seat beside him and produced a screwdriver. He used it to remove the laptop’s back cover, then the hard drive. He pulled his own laptop from his satchel and connected Kendra’s hard drive to it via an interface cable.

As he flipped up his laptop’s lid, Kendra saw an elaborately etched cartoon version of Sam on it, with the motto BORN TO BE BAD in a fiery font.

“You’re kidding, right?”

He shrugged. “A gift from a grateful client. He’s actually very talented. If I detached the top cover and put it on eBay, I could get thousands for it.” He switched on his computer. “Let’s see what malware your nasty friend put on your computer.”

“Aren’t you afraid of infecting your own system?”

He smiled and shook his head. “Please. This thing is bulletproof. I’ve had foreign governments try to penetrate my systems and totally fall on their asses.”

Kendra had once dismissed Sam’s pronouncements as mere braggadocio, but she now knew better. As proud as Sam was of his accomplishments, she was aware of the fact that there was far more he didn’t talk about, especially where his security-sensitive clients were involved.

Sam glanced at his screen as it booted up. “The thing about firewalls I build for myself, I don’t sell or license them to anyone. That way no one knows how to crack them. Trust me, my computer has nothing to worry about.”

“So what’s happening now?”

“I’m taking an inventory of the applications on your hard drive. I hope you don’t have anything on there you don’t want me to see.”

“Like nude pictures of myself?”

“Pfft. Seen that. Old news.” He shrugged. “Maybe compromising pictures of the new man in your life.”

“There’s no new man in my life.”

“I heard you were living with someone. But if you don’t want to talk about it…”

“There’s nothing to talk about. I was staying there for my own safety. Nothing more.”

“Uh-huh. And there was nowhere else you could stay?”

“Not like that. I’m telling you, it’s like a fortress.”

“You’ve butted heads with a lot of sickos in your time. You’ve never squirreled yourself away before, even when it would have been the prudent thing to do. There must have been something about this guy that made you feel safe. Protected.”

“Yes. His house. I’ve already told you. What are you seeing on my hard drive?”

“Still scanning.” Sam regarded her for a moment. “It’s not a sign of weakness to lean on someone occasionally, Kendra. I’m actually proud of you. I wish you’d do it more often. I think you’re so determined to show that you can now stand on your own two feet that you sometimes ignore the lifelines that people throw your way.”

“If you don’t mind, I think we have more pressing things to address right now.”

“Can’t you tell? We’re multitasking. If you’d prefer, we can talk about the weather until your hard drive is finished. Or maybe how I’ve ruined you for all other men.”

“Well, that might be the truth, but it wouldn’t be in the way you’re thinking.”

“All right, the weather it is.” He glanced back at the laptop screen. “Ah. Okay. Here we go. I can see that your system has been infected by some kind of remote desktop software. As long as you had an Internet connection, he was able to see everything you were doing. And that’s how he was able to type his replies.”

“Is this software anything you can trace?”

“Don’t know. A lot of these things are traded freely on Web sites in the hacker community. But I was right about him not trying to cover his tracks. It’s almost like…”

“What?”

Sam shook his head. “It’s almost like he wants us to see what he was doing. Every line of programming code is on display here. As a matter of fact…”

He grabbed a napkin from the table dispenser and pulled a pen from his pocket. He quickly started jotting down letters, transcribing them from the screen. “Damn,” he whispered.

“What is it?”

He turned the napkin around to show her. “This isn’t programming code. It’s a message.”

“To whom?”

He tapped the napkin. “You.”

She looked down.

It read: YOU ARE WASTING TIME, KENDRA. THE ANSWER IS NOT IN LOS ANGELES.

She shivered. “What in the hell…”

“There’s more.” Sam was already writing on another napkin. He turned it around to show her.

WHAT’S A NICE GIRL LIKE YOU DOING AT THIS SEEDY DINER IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT?

Kendra quickly turned toward the row of windows facing the street. “Could he be watching us?”

“I doubt it.”

“But how do you know?”

“I don’t know. But it’s far more likely that he could have been listening to your side of our phone conversation. He may have been watching you using your built-in webcam. And even though this thing doesn’t have GPS, he could have used the Wi-Fi radio to get a pretty accurate fix on your location when you brought it here. Remember, your laptop was on and under his control until I yanked the battery.”

She felt sick. “The thought of him watching me…”

“I know.” Sam grabbed another napkin and started writing on it. “There’s one more here. I’m not sure what this one means.” He turned the napkin around.

It read: I TOLD YOU WHERE TO LOOK. THE HOUSEBOAT, KENDRA. YOU’RE WASTING TIME.

She pushed the napkin away.

“This guy knows you, Kendra. He knew you’d have the computer analyzed, so he planned ahead of time to leave these messages for you in the code.”

“Obviously.” She took a moment to stifle the tension that gripped every inch of her body. “Colby is no computer genius. I don’t believe he’s ever even owned one. He had help.”

Sam nodded. “Well, it was definitely someone who knows what he’s doing. That’s where I’d start. Known contacts with fairly sophisticated computer expertise.”

“It could have been someone he corresponded with from prison. He’s had fan letters from all over the world.”

Sam grimaced. “Fan letters?”

“Disgusting, isn’t it? He was a psychopath on death row. Yet he even had marriage proposals.”

“Well, it’s one thing to contemplate marrying a psychopath when he’s about to be put to death. I wonder if any of those women would marry him now?”

“I wouldn’t put it past them. The first order of business is to find out if he was pen pals with any computer experts. His stint on death row put him in contact with a huge network of disturbed loners.”

Sam nodded toward the screen. “It also seems pretty important to him that you visit this houseboat.”

“It was the scene of the crime. He killed a woman there last night.” She looked down at the words on the napkin she had pushed away. “A woman who did her best to make a national joke of me. The police thought it best if I stayed on the sidelines for this one.”

“Well, he really wants you to go there.”

“Which makes me want to run the other way as fast as I can.”

“The hell it does. You’re just dying to get in there.”

She started to deny it, but she stopped herself. Sam was right. Colby had known what he was doing when he dangled that carrot in front of her.

Sam pointed to her hard drive. “I hope there isn’t anything on this you want to keep.”

“Aside from every project I’ve been working on for the past year. Of course not. I back everything up and save it in the cloud.”

“Good girl.” He handed her his pen and slid a napkin over. “Now jot down your cloud storage account info and password.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes. I’m going to scan every single file you own and make sure there aren’t any nasty viruses lurking there. And you can kiss this hard drive good-bye. I’ll give it a good look, sector by sector. And I’ll see what I can do about tracing any malware I find.”

She wrote down the information and handed it to him.

“Now give me your phone.”

She handed him her phone. “You think he might have done the same thing to my phone as my computer?”

“I’ve no idea, but I’m going to find out.” He plugged her phone into his computer and did a check. “No, it’s clear.” He handed the phone back to her. “But I may ask you to let me check it occasionally just to be sure nothing has changed.”

“Anytime. And with extreme gratitude.” She tucked the phone back in her pocket. “Thanks, Sam. I knew you were the right man for the job.”

“The only man. In the meantime, it would be a good idea to find the computer geek who helped him with this. Check mail and call logs at the prison, visitor information, whatever.”

“Got it. I know he managed to obtain a cell phone in prison, so that may be the place to start.”

“Good. And there’s something even more important.”

“Yes?”

He was gazing at her soberly. “Watch your back. This isn’t just a hacker you’re dealing with here. For this guy, hacking is just a means to an end. He wants nothing more than to get in your head. It’s personal for him. I guess what I’m saying is … Don’t be afraid to grab every lifeline you can.”

*   *   *

IT WAS ONLY A COUPLE HOURS BEFORE dawn when Kendra pulled into her parking place at the condo.

She didn’t move for a moment. She could feel exhaustion dragging at every limb. She had first experienced a rush of adrenaline, then pure shock. It had been hard to comprehend the scope of Colby’s invasion into her space.

She’d felt violated.

Well, she had to comprehend it. She had known he was clever, even brilliant. She had to meet that dark, malignant brilliance and survive it. She glanced down at the place where she’d set her computer when she’d brought it to Sam.

Crazy. She felt as if the computer were still there, listening.

Good Lord, that was crazy. She was actually nervous, paranoid, feeling as if that machine might actually attack her.

Get a grip. That was the response Colby wanted from her.

She swung open the driver’s door and got out of her car.

Five minutes later, she was unlocking the door of her condo. Another five minutes, and she was crawling into her bed and turning off the lamp.

Pleasant dreams. I can’t tell you how much I enjoy them.

She went rigid. It was the first time she had even thought of those last words Colby had written. She had been too occupied with the shock of his main message.

And she’d been right to ignore them. It had just been another ploy to terrify her and make her remember a time when he was dominant, and she was weak.

Blood.

That knife shining in the moonlight.

That feeling of helpless terror.

He couldn’t know, he was guessing.

But he knew her well enough to guess that she would never forget that night, that any panicky event would make it storm back to her.

He’d probably even realized that she would not be able to assess that last sentence until she was here alone, in her room.

Block it. She needed to rest, to plan, to sleep, so that she would be able to deal with the next few days. It was only a few hours before Beth would be pounding on her door.

Sleep.

She closed her eyes determinedly.

Pleasant dreams …

I don’t hear you, Colby.

*   *   *

“YOU LOOK LIKE HELL.” BETH GAZED AT HER appraisingly. “And it took forever for you to answer my buzzer downstairs. You okay?”

“I will be after I have a shower. I had a late night.” She stepped aside and let Beth into the condo. “Twenty minutes. Get yourself coffee and orange juice.”

“Those call logs paid off?”

“You might say that they did. But not in the way you might think.” She turned and headed for the bathroom. “I’ll tell you over coffee.”

She held her face under the warm spray, letting it wash away all the cobwebs.

Not cobwebs. Blood.

Pleasant dreams.

Don’t think of it. It may have been an uneasy sleep born of terror and nightmares but she’d take it. She couldn’t control her subconscious while she was sleeping, so she’d use it to fuel her determination while awake. Just don’t let the thought of Colby get in the way while she was wide-awake and searching for him.

Instead, think of what she was going to say to Beth and how she was to handle her response.

Lord, she was tired of trying to handle everything around her. As for what she was going to say, there was no question. The truth and nothing but the truth. Beth was no child and had suffered years of oppression. If she wanted to help, Kendra would never keep her in the dark.

Kendra knew the dangers of that darkness.

*   *   *

BETH GAVE A LOW WHISTLE. “DEAR GOD, Kendra, that sounds very, very weird. And downright scary.” She had listened quietly while Kendra had related the events after Beth had left her last night. She lifted her cup to her lips. “And fascinating. I’d love to meet your Sam Zackoff. I remember you told me he helped you and Eve get me out of that hospital, but I’ve never had a chance to thank him. And I never dreamed computers could be so interesting. Of course, I was in that hospital during the years when all those high-tech high jinks were being developed.”

“I could wish these particular high jinks were a little less fascinating,” Kendra said dryly. “It was a distinctly uneasy experience.”

“I can see how it would be.” Beth reached across the table and grasped Kendra’s hand. “Sorry. The concept just interested me. It must have been terrible for you. I can imagine how it would be to see a message from a monster seemingly appear out of nowhere in front of you.” She added gently, “But now you know that you were right, that Colby is still alive. I know that doesn’t bring you satisfaction, but it should bring you vindication.”

“Hollow victory.”

“It’s a step forward. I’m trying to be optimistic.” She finished her coffee. “Now, let’s go and see what’s on that houseboat.”

Kendra’s brows rose. “I believe I mentioned that I might have a little trouble getting permission.”

“You’ll get around it.”

“I’m going to go see Griffin at the FBI and see if I can get him to use his clout to get me inside.”

“See, I told you that you’d get around it.”

“And I’m not sure that I should take you along on an errand Colby is sending me on.”

“Why not?” Beth met her gaze. “Are you afraid Colby will connect me with you? Too late. If he’s spying on you through that computer, he probably knows who and what I am to you. Right?”

She nodded. “I’m afraid that’s true. But I can keep you under the radar.”

Beth shook her head. “It would only show Colby I’m important to you if you try to hide me.”

“So much for skating around the edges. I’m sorry, Beth.”

“I’m not. I’m beginning to dislike this Colby intensely.” Her lips thinned. “That computer nonsense was really creepy.”

“I would say the murders were a good deal more intimidating.”

“Yes, but you’re far more accustomed to violence and mayhem than I am. But he was trying to scare and manipulate you with that computer message. I don’t like manipulation. I was manipulated most of my adult life while I was penned up in that hospital. I hate for anyone to try to do that to you.”

Kendra could see how that would strike Beth. She would always remember those years and fight against their happening again. Even the karate lessons and physical training in self-defense were part of that battle for control of her life. “I’m with you. But that doesn’t mean I’ve changed my mind about trying to keep you as much out of this as possible.”

“I didn’t think it would. It’s your nature. I just wanted you to realize that it was useless to go overboard in that direction by hiding me in the cellar.”

Her lips twitched. “I have no cellar.”

She waved her hand. “See, total waste of time. So now that we’ve established that, do you have something for me to do that would prove useful?”

“You can check on the executive who is paying for the houseboat where Sheila Hunter was living.” She gave her the name. “And find out whatever you can from the people where she works.”

“Got it. Anything else?”

“The computer geek who might have been tapped by Colby while he was in prison. He’s important. You can help me locate him.”

“And may I go with you to the houseboat?”

She hesitated.

Beth shook her head. “No cellar, Kendra,” she reminded softly.