Chapter 39
Alex watched Con go.
She’d seen who had sent the email—it had come from an official-looking San Quentin State Prison email address—but had no idea of its contents.
But she could guess.
And Alex was pretty good at guessing.
The Sandman.
The Sandman was being held in San Quentin.
She thought that the most likely scenario was that Matthew Nelson Neil had agreed to meet with Con. And the timing also made sense; Con had mentioned that it was nearing the anniversary of his sister’s disappearance.
I should be with him , Alex thought. I should be by his side.
They had been working together for less than a week and a non-insignificant portion of that time Alex had spent by herself watching superhero movies.
Still, she felt a strong kinship with the man.
Had their kiss affected her opinion of the man?
Perhaps.
But it was more than that. He’d opened up to her and Alex was certain that this had been rare and extremely difficult for Con.
It meant something.
What Alex was really struggling with was if this something —whatever it was—meant more to her than being an FBI Agent.
Because, if nothing else, Con was self-destructive.
His blistered and calloused hands were evidence of this.
As was his appearance.
How long have you wanted to be an FBI Agent, Alex? she asked herself as she slowly made her way upstairs. Five years? Ten?
For the first time in as long as she could remember, Alex was at a loss for what to do next.
Before heading onto her floor, Alex pulled out her phone.
She’d gotten into the NYPD Police Academy through hard work and perseverance. She’d done the same to gain acceptance into the FBI Training Program.
And once there, she’d worked her ass off. She’d worked her fucking ass off.
Top of the class. Excellent marksman. Impeccable psych eval.
She’d done all of this with only the occasional personal encouragement from her father. But now she needed him.
She needed Brandon Frost’s advice.
Alex wasn’t looking for her father to clear up this mess, nor did she want him to intervene. But she needed his help, nonetheless.
The man answered on the first ring.
“Alex, it’s great to hear from you. I was going to call this evening—I heard through the grapevine that you aced your exams and that you got your first assignment. Congratulations! No one deserves this more than you.”
“Thanks, dad.” Alex squeezed her forehead with her hand. “I appreciate it. The reason I’m calling is that I need your advice…”
***
“Where’s Agent Striker?” Marcus Allen demanded from across his desk. There were pages and pages of notes sprawled across the surface.
“Family emergency,” Alex lied. Or maybe this wasn’t a lie.
Maybe The Sandman was finally going to tell Con about his sister’s fate. Didn’t that constitute a family emergency?
“What family?” Marcus Allen snapped. Then he shook his head. “In the middle of a murder investigation? Agent Frost, do you remember what I told you about what would happen to you if you lied to me?”
Alex nodded. How could she forget?
“We’re confident that Edward Samuelson is the man responsible for Martin Yeo’s murder. We also believe that he extorted Adon Guerrero, Thomas Ellsberg, and Charles Calloway for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars each. He secretly filmed them performing illicit acts and then he hid these videos inside the pirated versions of IP blockbusters. He only agreed to take them down once they paid his ransom. Martin refused, so Edward took things to the next level.”
Alex tried her best to keep an even voice as she said this, but it cracked ever so slightly at the end.
This was the part that she was having an issue with, but it would do no good to express this to the irate man seated across from her.
“If what you say is true, why would Edward go to all this trouble? Why not just send the videos directly to Martin and the others?”
Why would Matthew Nelson Neil encode a secret message in an audiobook that Con might never even come across? Because it was like a game to these men? Because it was cryptic and infuriating?
“I don’t know,” Alex admitted.
“And what does killing Martin do? If Edward is behind this and it’s all about the money, how does this help him?”
“I… I don’t know.”
Marcus stared at her for a long time.
“I’ll tell the LAPD to be on the lookout for Edward Samuelson. But I won’t put out a state or even nationwide APB. I refuse to take valuable resources away from other cases until you find me concrete evidence that Edward is involved in this.”
Marcus was making it seem like he was doing her a favor but they both knew that this was bullshit. All Con had to do was call his police chief friend AA and ask him to do the same.
But sometimes you just had to play the game.
That had come from her father.
“Thanks.”
Alex rose and started to leave.
“One more thing, Agent Striker.”
She turned.
“Yes?”
“Con has a family emergency?”
There was something sinister hidden deep within the man’s eyes. He was testing her.
“Yes,” Alex said quickly.
Marcus’ lips twisted into a sardonic smile.
“Don’t ever say I didn’t give you a chance. You’re dismissed.”
Alex returned to her desk.
Stay loyal to your partner , Brandon Frost had instructed her. Unless, of course, he’s a sinking ship. You don’t ever want to anchor yourself to a sinking ship.
She’d wanted a hard and fast answer, but Alex should have known better.
Her dad, after all, was a politician.
Alex puffed her lips.
Only time would tell if Con was treading water or going under.
Marcus wanted hard evidence, so that was what Alex spent the next hour looking for.
Edward Samuelson’s online presence was scant. Just a couple of images on Instagram of his dog and an old Facebook page that hadn’t been updated in at least two years.
Alex switched focus, instead searching for mentions of DLean1908 . This proved more fruitful.
A user of the same name was extremely active on Reddit. The first few posts, dating back ten months or so were relatively tame.
But then something happened. DLean got angry.
And his anger was focused on directors and producers in Hollywood.
He claimed that they were all money-grubbing assholes, that they had no integrity, no creativity. All they gave a shit about was maximizing revenue.
Amidst these rants, Alex found one line that was particularly interesting.
Let’s just see how much these guys love their money.
It was a far cry from an admission of guilt, but it could coincide when Edward made the decision to start posting the pirated movies.
The dates matched and the messages represented a classic pathological pattern: increasing anger, more manic, desperate. More violent.
What happened to you ten months ago, Edward ? Alex wondered. What was the triggering event? Did you get a divorce? Did someone close to you pass away? Or is it simpler than that: did Martin just refuse to promote you to direct or producer?
Alex continued to review the posts, and while she was confident that this DLean was the same DLean they were searching for, there was no obvious link to Edward Samuelson.
She’d been hopeful, optimistic, but hadn’t really expected the man to do something as stupid as sign off on one of these profanity-laden tirades as ‘Eddie Samuelson, editor of Quantum Guardians and Eclipse , among others’. After all, Edward had enough sense to use Proton Mail and a VPN to send the videos to Con.
Frustrated, Alex debated what to do next.
On a whim, she opened Mega Torrent on her computer and did a search for Imperial Production films. There were no ripped copies of Quantum Guardians, Eclipse , or Rise of the Titans available—at least not ones that looked legitimate.
Edward had removed those after Charles, Adon, and Thomas paid their ransoms.
But to her surprise, there was a new upload, a new seed that had first appeared just under an hour ago.
Shadowstrike.
It was Imperial’s big summer blockbuster release, the movie that Martin Yeo had been most worried about being pirated.
According to Con, Martin had said something about a big twist that the producer wanted to keep a secret.
But they now knew it had nothing to do with the film itself.
Edward had likely pirated the film, inserted frames of Martin doing… something… and sent it to Martin with a message along the lines of: Pay up, or I upload this version of Shadowstrike .
Evidently, Martin’s death was irrelevant.
What mattered was that he hadn’t paid. Couldn’t pay , if what Julia Yeo had said was true.
Alex downloaded the movie.
And then she started to watch. During the opening credits, she noticed an unusual frame. If she hadn’t been looking for it, Alex might have just passed this off as a coding error in the pirated movie.
But now she knew better.
Bearing down, Alex watched the entire movie, stopping it often to cut out a frame and drop it into editing software.
On their own, these frames meant nothing.
But when Alex was finally done and she watched what she’d created in its entirety, she felt sick to her stomach.
“Jesus.”
Alex tried to watch it again, but it felt wrong.
She saved the file and closed her laptop.
Then she got up, stretched her back, and checked her phone.
No messages from Con.
Alex’s eyes drifted to Marcus’ office.
The door was firmly closed.
She debated, very briefly, telling the Special Agent in Charge what she’d found but decided against it.
As the man had said, she’d picked her side.
And it wasn’t Marcus’.
Having made up her mind, Alex left the office and set out on foot, wanting nothing more than to clear her clouded mind of the horrible images that simply refused to fade away.