was covered with a message to anyone who stopped to look.
It was a letter to Jeff Andrews - Knock - and talking about his "little slut," which seemed to be Jericho. The worst part, though, was that the poster claimed he was Soul_Reaper. He said that Arturo was not and never had been the man behind the name.
"Fuck," Jason breathed.
"Yeah, so you got it," Bradley said. "This is going to fuck up the case, Jason. Reasonable doubt."
"Not necessarily," Jason said. "This is my fucking internet, and I'll be damned if this asshole is going to beat me at it."
A click of a button opened one program. A tap of the mouse activated another. Before his bare ass was even in the chair, Jason was already pulling data from the site and recording it.
"Dalton's going to call you," Jason warned his partner. "Tell him I'm on it and to reassure the prosecutors that this is a diversion. Even if it's not, Bradley, we're going to make sure it is. This site has been gone through by so many people now, and it wouldn't be hard for someone to come in behind us and hack the database. Hell, Dez already did it once! We just need to go with the theory that this is a weak attempt to discredit the case against Arturo."
"And what if it's not?" Bradley asked.
Yeah, that was the problem, because Jason wasn't getting a goddamned thing. The user who'd accessed the site was on a VPN, and hidden about as well as he could be. Not just the standard crap that anyone could do. No, this guy had taken the time to cover his tracks, and Jason had a feeling that if he took the days, weeks, or even months to follow the trail to the end, he'd come up with a burner phone or an internet cafe.
In other words, classic Soul_Reaper tricks.
"Shit," Jason breathed.
"What does that mean this time?" Bradley asked.
"It means it looks just like him!" Jason snapped. "He's just threatened every woman at F5. Fuck! When is this going to just end?!"
"I'll tell the Section Chief," Bradley assured him. "You tell Ruin, because it sounds like he's after them now."
Jason ended the call and headed back to the bedroom. Zara was still in bed, but she was no longer asleep. While he pulled on a pair of pants, she watched, those big hazel eyes looking worried.
"What's going on?" she finally asked.
Jason grabbed a shirt and pulled it on so he wouldn't need to see her face. "He's back, Zara. KoG forums have a warning, and it's calling out Knock and Jericho."
Zara sat up. "What? But the wedding!"
"I am not fuckin' missing our wedding," he assured her. "This could be a copycat, but I need to do a little work to prove that."
Once he was dressed, Jason headed back to the computer room, but Zara hopped up to follow. She snagged a pair of his pajama bottoms from the floor and her shirt from the night before, but didn't stop to put them on. Instead, she just trailed behind him, her curiosity getting the better of her.
"Why now?" she asked. "I mean, we arrested someone for it. If this is the real guy, wouldn't he let the fake one take the fall?"
"Sometimes criminals hate the idea of someone else getting credit for their shit," Jason explained as he sat down and got to work again. "That's the hard part, babe. Never can tell which version of fucked up these asshats are, you know?"
"But what made him speak up now?" she asked as she struggled to pull on clothes in the limited space behind him.
Jason glanced back to get at least a little of the view, then turned back to his work. "F5 is coming up. Maybe he's trying to scare us off? They pulled something similar with Rhaven."
"They," she repeated, picking up that word. "You don't think it's really him?"
"Zara, right now, I'm fucking hoping it's not, but I've been at this about thirty seconds, and I haven't had a coffee."
She leaned in to kiss his shoulder. "I can fix the coffee situation. What else?"
"Blow job?" He looked back at her and grinned. "I mean, since you're being so helpful."
"Can you track him down while I do that?" she teased.
"I will stop what I'm doing for that," he promised.
"Coffee first," Zara told him. "Then we'll talk about your dick and my mouth."
God, he loved her. Somehow, she'd just made his shitty morning a bit less bad.