Her heart beat hollowly in her chest as she heard him let out a quiet sigh. He didn’t move for several moments and Liza got the sense he was waging some internal battle. But when she opened her eyes, Reed was walking away. She tried to tell herself she was relieved, but Liza had never been a liar, not even to herself.
Reed opened the door, paused as if he might look back, might give her some parting words. But in the end, he didn’t. He walked through the door and let it close quietly behind him.
Liza walked to the bed, sinking down on it, and wrapping her arms around herself. She didn’t want Reed’s words to repeat in her head, but she couldn’t shut them out, nor could she erase the way his eyes had looked as she recounted her story, not with the disgust she’d expected, but with some version of . . . love.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“Did the tech guys say what they’d found?” Ransom asked, approaching Reed where he was waiting for him in the hall at the Cincinnati Emergency Operations Center.
“No. Only that it was in regard to Steven Sadowski’s computer.”
Ransom glanced at him sideways as they walked toward the office on the floor where the computer technician working on Steven Sadowski’s computer had asked them to meet. “I hope it’s something good.”
Good would be relative in this case, but Reed hoped it was at the very least something useful.
“Detectives Carlyle and Davies here to see Micah Dorn,” Ransom said to the secretary at the front desk.
“He’s expecting you. Go on back.”
They thanked her and walked to the lab down the short hall. When they entered, Micah glanced back, standing to greet them. “Hey, Reed. Ransom.”
“Micah. How’s it going?” Ransom asked of the tall guy who looked more like a surfer dude than a computer geek with his curly, streaked blond hair, tanned skin, and wide shoulders.
“Good. You?”
“Not bad. What you got?”
He sat down and indicated two rolling chairs that Reed and Ransom pushed over to either side of Micah, taking a seat next to him. He had Steven Sadowski’s laptop on the surface in front of him and moved a wireless mouse to click it on.
“Yeah, so we’re a little backed up down here, but I got to Sadowski’s computer yesterday. I looked in the obvious places last night, checking in the default photo directories and didn’t find anything. This morning, after scouring the hard drive more closely, I found them. He’d obfuscated the photos by changing the extension, but it was the size of the files that caught my attention. When I changed it to .jpeg, voila. A whole slew of photos came up. He actually hid them fairly well for someone who presumably doesn’t know computers.”
No shit. Reed leaned forward. “Kudos to him. What are they of?” he asked, though he was pretty damn sure he already knew.
“Naked women. It appears that the subjects are unaware of being photographed. Most of them are in what look like locker rooms and bathrooms. Some might be underage, it’s hard to tell.” He opened a folder, clicking on the first photo of a young woman, naked, about to enter a shower stall. Micah used the arrow keys to scroll quickly through the rest of the photos, all of women in various stages of undress, clearly oblivious to being watched, much less photographed.
“Sick fuck,” Ransom muttered. “Those are hospital-issued towels. See the logo?” He pointed at the screen. “He was taking lewd pictures of psych ward patients without their knowledge.” He shook his head. “Thanks, Micah. Can you transfer those to a flash drive for us?”
Micah picked one up sitting near the back of his desk, handing it to Ransom. “Already did.”
“You’re the man,” Ransom said as they both stood.
“I’m still going through his Internet history and email accounts, referencing the case information you sent,” Micah went on. “If I find anything, I’ll give you a call.”
“Great. Thanks again.”
When they walked back into the hall, Reed looked at his phone. “We’ve got a meeting with the team in twenty minutes. Let’s talk about this new info when we get there.”
“Sounds good.”
Fifteen minutes later, Reed sat alone waiting for the other detectives to arrive, including Ransom who, if he knew his partner, had probably stopped along the way for some fast food. He took a sip from his coffee, hoping the caffeine would help his focus. His mind insisted on circling and re-circling