Chapter 37
On any other day, Con would’ve resisted the urge to open up. Or maybe not have the urge at all.
But he was just so goddamn tired.
He sipped the beer in front of him.
Alex deserved to know the truth.
The videos were damning. The bar scene could be brushed off, interpreted several different ways. Some benign, some not so much. The Midnight Matinee incident could be rationalized.
The desert shoveling, well, what Con did in his own time was his business.
The make out session, however…
It would ruin both of their careers.
Marcus would claim that he used his position of authority to take advantage of a new FBI agent.
And Alex would be forever tainted.
“I guess I should start from the beginning.”
Alex sat quietly and listened, and the words came out more freely than Con would have ever expected. Had she interrupted at any point, even to ask for clarification, the spell would have been broken and Con might not have been able to start up again.
But Alex said nothing.
Did nothing.
Con started by telling his partner about the fight he’d had with his sister ten days before The Sandman’s first victim had been discovered. He told her about the video from the gas station. He mentioned the anonymous tip, the stakeout with Tate, the Arby’s delivery.
Con didn’t even gloss over the part where he’d nearly strangled Matthew Nelson Neil, screaming at him to tell him where his sister was buried.
His voice hitched a little when he spoke about hearing The Sandman’s voice reciting the audiobook. Then he mentioned the discrepancies between that version and the text version, which she herself had initially put him onto.
A secret message directed at just one person: him .
Con finished by describing the videos he’d received less than an hour ago.
The only thing he left out was his wife leaving him.
When he was done, Con felt a weight lift off his shoulders.
Or maybe that was just the next stage of fatigue.
Of grief.
Con expected her to comment on the videos first, to ask questions now, but she didn’t.
Alex just calmly drank her beer.
Licking the foam from her upper lip, she said, “That’s so sad, Con.”
It wasn’t pity in her tone or condescension. It was pure emotion.
He couldn’t count the number of times someone had said this to him, especially after the search for Val had continually come up empty.
But this was so heartfelt, so raw, so not just paying lip service, that it touched him.
Con took another hitching breath.
And then he felt cruel.
Laying this all on Alex Frost, a woman he barely knew, was wrong. The fact that she was approachable and easy to talk to didn’t give him free rein to take advantage of her kindness.
“Shit, I’m sorry,” he said, burying his face in his beer.
“Don’t be.”
Desperate to change the subject now, Con said, “What do you think of the videos I received?”
Alex nibbled her bottom lip.
Once again, she went somewhere he wasn’t expecting.
There was a lot more to Alex Frost than a pretty face.
“You said that there was someone else in the video of you in the desert?”
“Yeah, a woman.”
“Do you know who she is?”
Con shook his head.
“I thought it was you.”
Alex’s nose crinkled. Con suspected that this was one of her traits, something that she did when she was uncomfortable.
“It wasn’t me. I called a friend and went to bed after the party.”
Con couldn’t think of a reason why she would lie to him, not now, but he couldn’t turn off that part of his brain.
He detected no deception in his partner.
“I think she was taller.”
“ Hmm ,” Alex said, deep in thought. “And there was a video of us at the party last night?”
“Yeah. Of us .” He emphasized the word us .
“So, the cameras were working.”
“I guess so,” Con said, not understanding the significance.
“Con?” she said, her tone flat. “This means that whoever sent you those videos is probably the same person who murdered Martin Yeo.”
***
Going back to the FBI to investigate the origins of the videos Con had received in his email was out of the question.
Con had seen the way that the tech had looked at Marcus back at Martin Yeo’s house.
If they showed him the videos, it wouldn’t be a matter of if the sensitive content got back to the Special Agent in Charge, it was how quickly would it end up in the asshole’s hands. As an alternative, Con considered going to AA. He doubted that the mustachioed police chief had more knowledge of computers than even he did, but the man would have lackeys in the LAPD to help him out.
But while Con was fairly certain AA could be trusted, even considering the chief’s overt aspirations, Marcus’ reach was far and wide.
That left only one person he could think of.
“Dwight, how good are you with computers?” Con asked.
The reporter, once again shocked by the intrusion, looked up at him and his glasses slipped down his nose.
Dwight pushed them back up, licked his lips, and glanced at Alex. Rather than comfort him, the woman’s presence seemed to make him even more nervous.
“I’ve—I’ve been trying to reach you, A-Agent Striker,” Dwight said, once again running his tongue over his lips.
“I know.”
“Did Martin Yeo really overdose? Because I’m hearing that—”
“Dwight, I need computer help.”
The man must have read the desperation in Con’s face because his demeanor suddenly changed.
“I—I—here, come with me.”
Dwight took them to the conference room they’d met in the other day, but not before retrieving a laptop from his desk.
There, Con took over, logging into his email and opening the message that contained the video that was taken from Martin’s party.
“We need to know who sent this email,” he said. “Can you find out?”
“Don’t you have someone in the FBI who can do that for you?”
“No, I don’t.”
Rather than explain the situation, Con played the video. Beside him, he felt Alex tense.
Dwight watched all of ten seconds before nodding vigorously.
“I get it… I get it. I’ll see what I can do, but I’m no computer expert.”
“Have at it.”
Con and Alex backed away and allowed Dwight to do his thing. As the man’s fingers whipped across the keyboard in a blur, Con turned to his partner.
“If anything—”
“I know,” Alex said preemptively.
“I’m just saying that if Marcus—”
Alex repeated the statement more forcibly.
“I know.”
Con nodded. He’d expected an argument, something along the lines of, I initiated things, it’s my fault , but Alex knew better.
“ Uhh , Con?”
Their eyes darted back to Dwight.
“You find something? Did you find out who sent the email?” Alex asked.
“No—no, not yet. It’s just—you got another email. Want me to open it?”
Con glanced at the screen. He recognized the email address as the same one that had sent him the other videos.
“Go for it.”
Again, no text, just an embedded video.
Con wasn’t in this one and neither was Alex. But he’d already seen it more times than he could count.
It was the gas station security camera footage of Valerie and The Sandman.
They got to the point where Matthew Nelson Neil entered the frame before Con told Dwight to turn it off.
“I’ve seen this before.”
Dwight stopped the video.
“No, keep it running,” Alex said.
“There’s nothing else to see.” Con’s jaw was clenched.
“Just play it out,” she insisted. “Please.”
Dwight looked to him for confirmation, and Con shrugged.
Onscreen, Val left the store, and shortly after Matthew did as well. This is where Con expected the footage to end, this was where his version ended, but it kept rolling for another good thirty or forty seconds.
Several other people entered the store to pay for their gas, but Con didn’t recognize any of them.
“Hey, go back a bit,” Alex instructed. “Just after the big man leaves the store.”
Dwight obliged.
“Stop there.”
Alex pointed at the screen.
“You see that?” Her finger was aimed at the gas station window. The glass was smeared, and it warped everything outside.
Still…
“It looks like The Sandman standing out there.”
It was Dwight who made this comment, but he was just verbalizing what they were all thinking.
The reporter rewound just a little more.
“Sure does,” Alex remarked.
Con was confused. His version of this footage was truncated to when The Sandman left the gas station.
“What’s he doing?” Alex asked.
The Sandman appeared to be gesticulating with his hands. This went on for a few seconds, then the man disappeared.
“It looks like he’s talking to somebody,” Dwight remarked.
“Could he be talking to her ?”
There was no reason to specify who Alex was referring to and Con felt his heart rate double.
“No, it can’t be,” he said.
But it could be.
Whoever The Sandman was talking to was out of frame, but the timing worked. The only thing that didn’t jive with this theory was that Matthew didn’t appear agitated or upset. It seemed as if he was just having a casual conversation.
“No,” Con decided last. “No, he’s not talking to Val.”
“I don’t know. If you look at when she leaves the store and when—”
Con cut the reporter off mid-sentence, leaving no room for argument.
“It’s not her. Just focus on the other emails.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Alex open her mouth to protest and Con had a reply at the ready.
But his partner stayed mum.
“Okay, okay,” Dwight relented. He started typing again. “Looks like whoever sent the emails used a VPN. And Proton Mail is probably one of the most secure email providers out there. This DLean guy knows what he was—”
“Wait, did you say DLean ?” Alex interrupted.
“Yeah . [email protected] .”
“That’s the same username as the person who uploaded the pirated videos.”
Con felt his forehead shrink.
“I thought—I thought I told you that.”
“Hold up— hold up ,” Dwight said. He used his finger to push his glasses back up. “D Lean? As in David Lean?”
“I—I have no idea,” Alex said with a half-hearted shrug.
Dwight started typing again. He pulled up a photo of a well-dressed man with gray hair.
“Like this guy?”
“Who the fuck is that?” Con blurted.
“David Lean was an English editor turned director. He made Lawrence of Arabia and Dr. Zhivago. And…” Dwight leaned forward. A smile crept onto his lips. “Yep, he was born in 1908. DLean1908 .”
Con’s mouth fell open and he looked at Alex.
They said the name at the exact same time.
“Edward Samuelson.”