Chapter Nineteen
They hadn’t even made it back to Bree’s car and gotten back on the highway toward the cabin before she had her laptop open and was researching Dr. Craig Michalski. He was the key to all this.
She used a mobile hot spot from the burner to gather data on the drive, frustrated when it couldn’t provide her information fast enough. When they pulled up to the cabin, she went inside without a word, still carrying the laptop with one hand and typing with the other.
Tanner was smart enough to just stay out of her way.
“Sheriff Duggan is right to be worried about Michalski. About four months ago, his behavior and financial patterns changed. He started spending a lot more money and spending a lot more time away from home.”
Tanner was pacing behind her at the cabin. “That’s not necessarily a sign of guilt. Could be a midlife crisis or something equally benign.”
That was true. “But it also could be an indication that he was mentally or emotionally snapping.”
Tanner’s hands rested on her shoulders. “Do me a favor. Come at this as if you’re trying to prove Dr. Michalski is innocent rather than prove he’s guilty.”
“Why?”
He kissed the top of her head. “Because that’s what I would want someone to do for me. Plus, it might provide you a new way to look at things. Not to mention, if Michalski wanted to frame me, he could’ve done it long before now.”
Bree actually wanted to growl, but refrained. How the heck did he expect her to prove him innocent if she was trying to prove everyone else innocent, too?
“Best I can do is neutral,” she muttered. “Definitely not treating him like I think he’s innocent.”
“Fair enough.”
“Assuming that Michalski’s behavioral changes have nothing to do with the three dead bodies he had contact with and failed to mention...then what really doesn’t fall in line is Carrico.”
Tanner resumed his pacing behind her, but she kept her eyes on her computer. “You’re right,” he said. “Michalski had legitimate reason to be around all three victims, but we don’t know why he was talking to Carrico.”
She pulled back up the encoded emails Carrico had sent. “Do you think they could be working together? That Michalski is on the other end of that guerrilla email account?”
“Is there any indication that Michalski and Carrico know each other?”
Bree split her computer screen so she could see the prison guest log on one section and Michalski’s phone record on the other. She wrote a tiny program very quickly to search through both for the commonalities they were looking for.
It didn’t take long for the results. “Nothing obvious. If Michalski called him, it wasn’t with his cell, office or home phone. Three days ago was the only time he’s ever visited Carrico. No obvious phone calls or emails from Colorado Correctional.”
He shook his head. “I’ve got to believe that if the two of them were working together, Dr. Michalski would be too smart to go visit Carrico so overtly like that. Especially right in the middle of all this going down.”
She shrugged. “Or maybe it never occurred to him that we’d make the connection. It was pretty thin. But...”
“But what?” he asked, standing behind her again.
“There’s something not right about these emails Carrico sent. The ones with the cipher codes.” She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but she knew she was missing something.
“Are you sure you cracked them correctly?”
“Definitely. I just feel like I didn’t look at the source code thoroughly enough. I took the messages at face value, because it was showing me what I wanted to see—that you were innocent.” She tapped her temple. “I should know better.”
She had all this skill when it came to computers, but when it mattered most she couldn’t seem to figure out whatever it was she was missing.
Why was Dr. Michalski talking to Carrico? The others were legitimate connections, but there was no reason he should’ve been talking to Carrico.
And these emails from Carrico to whoever was on the other end of that burner email. Something was off about those, too. Carrico didn’t strike her as someone who would use a cipher to communicate. The delicate nature of the code just didn’t seem to be his style.
“It’s time for me to turn myself in,” Tanner said. Except for bouncing information off the other, he hadn’t spoken much since they got back to the cabin. He’d stood looking out the window. She’d known it was just a matter of time before those words would come out of his mouth.
“They know I’m running now,” he continued.
“Michalski, guilty or not, will sing like a canary. So they’ll up the search.
They’re going to put pressure on my family, call Noah in for questioning.
I can’t let the people I care about pay the price.
” He walked over and kissed the top of her head.
“I can’t let you pay the price. If we go back in now, there shouldn’t be many repercussions for you. ”
She sighed. If that was what he wanted to do, she would support him. But if he would just give them a little more time...and do something she knew he was going to fight.
She stood and wrapped her arms around his waist. “I know I might sound like a broken record, but before you turn yourself in, there’s one more thing I want us to try.”
“What?”
“Let’s go visit Carrico again. He’s the key to cracking this open. There’s too much about his situation—the emails, his ties to two of the victims, but not three—that’s illogical. But most important, why was Michalski there talking to him just three days ago?”
Tanner let out a harsh breath. “I can’t go inside the prison. My ID will ping law enforcement immediately and let them know I’m there. Plus, Carrico hates cops anyway. He’s not going to talk to me.”
She backed away a little bit and pointed to her chest. “But he might talk to me. I’ll go. Maybe I can figure out whatever it was we missed the first time.”
Tanner backed away, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back against the wall. She’d known he wasn’t going to like the idea.
“No,” he said. “And before you ask, it’s not because I don’t think you can do it, but because it’s not worth the risk. Your name is probably tagged in the system, too. As soon as you show them your ID, it’s going to tip off the same people as if I had done it.”
If he hadn’t liked the first part of the plan, he definitely wasn’t going to like the second. “Or... I can use the ID I had in my bug-out bag. It’s never been utilized—it’s completely clean. It definitely won’t raise any red flags.”
Tanner didn’t move from where he was standing. Those brown eyes of his were shuttered. “Still no. Carrico could be a killer. Sending you back in there does nothing but put you on his radar. Three men are already dead. I don’t want to put you at risk, too.”
She walked over until she was standing right in front of him and raised her hands until they were caressing the outside of his biceps under his Henley shirt.
“I don’t think Darin is the killer. All this played out just a little too nicely, don’t you think?”
“He’s our most likely suspect and we can’t ignore that. Just because he might have gotten someone else to do it rather than pull the trigger himself wouldn’t make him any less of a killer. I feel for him in his situation with his daughter, but that doesn’t mean I can deny the evidence we found.”
“But that evidence has holes. Like it’s leading us somewhere that’s definitely going to be a dead end.” She squeezed his arms. “If you could get in there to talk to him without letting law enforcement know where you are, would you think it was worth it to talk to Carrico one more time?”
She could almost see his teeth grinding in his jaw. “Maybe.”
“What does your gut say about Carrico?”
Tanner let out a sigh. “Fine. You’re right, okay? Right up until the point where you found those encoded emails, I was completely buying into his story. But somebody framing him and me? We’re really getting into conspiracy-theories territory here.”
“Tanner, just let me talk to him and find out what Dr. Michalski said. I’ll do it today while he’s still at Colorado Correctional and we can still get in contact with him. If he’s really about to get moved up to the max-security prison, it will be harder to get info from him there.”
She could see him struggling with the idea.
“Team, remember?” she said. “I’m not arguing with you about turning yourself in. I know you think that’s the right thing to do, and I support that. But let’s do it with as much information as possible.”
His arms came around her and jerked her to his chest. “I don’t like it, but I can’t deny what you’re saying.”
Thank God.
“Let’s start some coffee. We’ve got a few hours left before visiting starts. Let me see what else I can find out about Michalski.”
Tanner kissed the top of her head and pushed her toward the laptop, then went to make both coffee and breakfast for them.
Bree didn’t waste any time. She immediately hacked back into the Grand County Sheriff’s Department system.
She quickly wrote a program to send her a message anytime Tanner’s name was used by anyone in any department.
It didn’t take long to figure out they definitely knew Tanner was evading them now. There was a full search going on for him.
She winced as a new alert came across her screen.
“What?” he asked as he refilled her empty coffee cup.
“You were right. Whitaker brought Noah in for questioning.”
Tanner gave a brief nod. “Not surprising. We share a residence, and everyone in town knows how close we are.”
She knew how much Noah loved the outdoors, how much he hated people. “Will he be all right?”
“Noah can handle himself. He’ll keep it together however long he needs to. It helps that he doesn’t know a damn thing about what’s going on, not that he would hesitate to lie to help me.” Tanner’s tone was light, but there was a heaviness to his stance now.
She reached up and cupped his cheek. “I’ll work faster.”
He gave her another tight nod then turned back toward the kitchen.
Bree dug deeper into every file she could find. She had to be more careful; the sheriff’s department had obviously brought in some sort of computer specialist to try to help track her.
It almost provided a challenge.
In the end it was Tanner’s advice to treat Michalski as if he wasn’t guilty that led her in the direction she needed to go. And it definitely hadn’t been what she’d been expecting.
“Tanner, look at this.”
She turned the screen so he could see it more easily and brought up a backdoor list of all Dr. Michalski’s patient files. Including Tanner’s.
Tanner began to read.
“What exactly am I looking for here? Something specific?”
“This is a relatively sophisticated back channel into Michalski’s files. I should have needed to build this grouping one file at a time, but I didn’t.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means someone has already hacked Dr. Michalski’s files. It’s impossible for me to tell who from here. I’d need access to his computer. All I can tell you is that it was a reasonably well-done job.”
Tanner rubbed his fingers over his eyes. “This case just keeps getting stranger and stranger. Like there’s some puppet master pulling the strings that we can’t see.”
She couldn’t have agreed more. “Then we start yanking on strings of our own and see what happens. And I think we should start with Carrico.”