was the man who seemed to hold the most power. They hadn't made a single decision unless he was there. Dez had been tortured, but they hadn't expanded on anything until Arturo was present either on day three or day eleven.
Could it really be that easy? Then there was what Dez knew about when she'd been drugged at her first F5 event. Someone had put something in her drink. She'd been with Braden and Jeff at the time. Two developers sitting with her, and her drink had been spiked. She knew Arturo was right beside her the whole time.
But why would he risk it? If Arturo was Soul_Reaper, wouldn't he have a flunky do that for him? It was how the man worked. He'd even convinced some gamer to assassinate Dez. The man had been pissed at being fired. Wait - that was it. Jason needed to find the tie between Dez and Arturo before her assault.
Hours later - he wasn't sure how many - and Jason was back to square one. There was no tie! Letting out a roar of rage, he swept the papers off his desk, watching as they fluttered to the ground. Then he kicked them.
"Fucking assholes!" he bellowed, needing to vent on something.
So he grabbed some of the papers and pulled, ripping them apart. This wasn't working! He wasn't getting anywhere, and he'd just spent how many days going in circles? This was all a waste of fucking time!
But the feet that thundered into the room didn't belong to his dog. Braden rounded the corner and grabbed Jason's arm. Jason spun, bracing for a fight, but Braden jerked back and lifted both hands.
"I am well aware that you could kick my ass," he said softly. "Just worried about you, man."
Behind him, in the hall, Crysis whined. Braden immediately stepped over to let the dog in, and Jason dropped to his knees. Crysis pushed his face right into the embrace, licking at the underside of Jason's jaw.
"I'm ok, big guy," he breathed. "Both of you, I guess."
Braden chuckled at that. "Want to talk it out?"
"I can't find the fucking tie," Jason admitted. "I get halfway through, and then I just dead-end."
Braden bent and picked up a page. "Do I want to know what this is?"
"Dez's assault," Jason said softly. "It's the people who tortured her. One of them has to be Soul Reaper."
"Why?" Braden asked. "Or are you just hoping he was there?"
"He raged on Dez's blog," Jason explained. "Someone listed out exactly what would happen, and while I don't know if that was Soul Reaper or if the guy simply adopted the habit, he knew about it. Then Dez was abducted, assaulted, and she vanished for three years. When she came back, the attacks were the same. The exact fucking same, Braden. Deviant got hit just like her blog used to. We know Soul Reaper was involved. Now it's happening again, and he posted a message himself. This pattern. This style. It's got to be him, so he had to be there!" He snagged a page from the ground with a name written on it. "I just need to figure out the last three names, and I can catch him."
Braden moved over to his computer and sat down. "Ok. Talk me through it. How would you find the identity of a suspect if all you knew were the people he associated with?"
"Online? It could be anyone," Jason grumbled.
"Then how would a real FBI agent do it?" Braden asked. "This is a cold case. We both know it. So how do we figure out who they hung out with at that time?"
"Interviews," Jason admitted. "We talk to the people around our known suspects and find out who else was in their circle."
"Then let's start looking at that online," Braden said. "Facebook goes back more than eight years. Twitter, Reddit, and all of them. Somewhere out there, these guys had profiles, and their buddies would've followed them. So, I'm down for searching. Besides, our girls are having fun, so might as well kill the time, right?"
"Start with Arturo Ganza," Jason told him. "I'll try this guy who's in jail. When we find them, we'll check for the others, and when we get a match, it'll be a starting point."
Braden nodded. "Sounds good. And if this takes a while, I know that Tim, Sam, Jeff, and Andy are all willing to do a few searches. Maybe we should give them a name?"