Never Tell (Detective D.D. Warren #10) - Lisa Gardner Page 0,125
the dashboard of Phil’s car, scowled again. “Any sightings of Rocket?”
“Not yet. But the fire department is just now arriving on-site. And given it’s a college campus right before Christmas break …”
“Tons of panicked students milling about.”
“I’ll let Flora know,” Phil said.
“Really? You’re in charge of my CI now? I thought you didn’t even like her.”
“She’s had a couple of good points on this case. Plus, she’s already headed to Cambridge. Given the traffic we’re about to hit, she’ll be there way before us. And as you said”—Phil shrugged uncomfortably—“she knows what Rocket looks like. That helps.”
“Fine. Manage my CI. See if I care.” But D.D. was frowning again. They were chasing their tails. Worse, they were chasing a firebug’s arson spree. A good investigator didn’t just react to all the crimes going on around her. She got ahead of the game.
Three fire events. Evie’s home. Dick Delaney’s town house. And now a spree at the Harvard campus where Evie’s father had once worked.
What the hell had Conrad stumbled upon? Because of all their avenues of investigation, the angle that made the most sense was Conrad’s involvement with the dark web. All those years he’d spent running his own undercover operations. The level of trust and access he would’ve gained over time. The secrets he might have learned …
Since Phil was dialing Flora, D.D. did the next best thing: called Quincy. The fed picked up at the first ring.
“SSA Quincy.”
“We got more fires—a string of trash cans all over the Harvard campus.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Exactly. What have you and Keith learned?”
“Flora recommended we switch gears, see if we could use Jacob’s username, I. N. Verness, to pick up traces of Conrad’s activities on the dark web.”
“Any luck?”
“Kind of. Conrad appeared to be shopping for an assassin.”
“What?” That caught D.D. off guard.
“On the dark web, you really can buy just about anything. From human trafficking to murder for hire.”
“Conrad was taking out a hit on someone?”
“Given the depths of Conrad’s online activities, our preliminary theory is that he’s spent years posing as a ‘criminal of all trades.’ Kind of a shadowy underworld figure, dabbling in drugs, women, all sorts of unsavory activities. Leading up to his death, where he talked about having some kind of serious threat that required a serious solution. He was looking for recommendations for wet work.”
“He wanted to identify possible assassins,” D.D. said.
“Clearly.”
“Because he realized he was in trouble? That maybe someone had finally figured things out and was coming for him? Or”—she had a second idea—“the missing ex-wife. If Jules LaPage had found her, his next move would be to hire an executioner. Maybe this was Conrad’s way of trying to be one step ahead. Identify the major players, so he’d know if any of them got assigned that kind of hit.”
“Either way, Conrad was researching hired guns. Then Conrad himself was gunned down.”
“He got too close. Flora was right; he discovered something he shouldn’t have. Dammit, if Evie hadn’t shot up the laptop …” D.D. was frustrated again. She forcefully exhaled, got herself back on track.
“From a federal perspective,” Quincy began.
“By all means.”
“This is a cleanup operation. First the shooting, now all the fires. Someone is aggressively removing any and all traces of Conrad Carter and what he may have discovered.”
“But why trash-can fires?”
“I have no idea. Except firebugs are like serial killers—they can’t always control their impulses. Maybe your Rocket guy has gone from controlled burn to arson spree.”
“Meaning he won’t stop,” D.D. began.
“Until someone stops him,” Quincy finished for her.
D.D. shook her head. Just what they needed, an out-of-control fire-happy kid to go with their already-too-complicated investigation. Focus, she thought. Forget Rocket and trash-can fires. Think motive. Conrad, who’d spent years surfing the dark web. Meeting in person the people behind the cybermasks. Gaining trust. Building relationships. Year after year. What was it Keith had told Flora—the dark web was still a fundamentally human system? Real administrators who knew each other, forum managers who personally vouched for one another. And the assassin he’d been trying to hire? Maybe he’d also arranged to meet face-to-face?
“Gotta go,” D.D. announced.
“We’ll continue our work here,” Quincy said.
“Keith any good?”
“Better than I expected. Interesting.”
D.D. didn’t have a reply for that. She ended the call, nodded once at Phil, and he roared away from the curb, hurtling toward Cambridge and the next danger to the city.
Chapter 36
FLORA
I HAVE JUST EXITED THE T stop, climbing up into the slushy sidewalks and cold air of Harvard Square, when the first