CHAPTER THIRTY ONE
In the sanctum of Dylan Hartley's computer room, the air was alive with the hum and whir of technology.
Ten minutes ago, he'd been her prime suspect.
Now, if he could prove his innocence, he might just be an ally in a case that kept slipping further from her grasp.
Dylan pressed a cloth to his bloodied nose.
Ella, perched on the edge of a chair, watched him intently.
According to Dylan, the truth about why he ran was much simpler than him being guilty of multiple homicides. Monitors lined his desk, and each one displayed different camera feeds. Dylan pulled up the footage from the past five nights and let it play.
Ella leaned forward, scrutinizing every frame.
There he was. Alone in this room. Every night between eight PM and three AM. The timestamp ran continuously with no gaps or jumps. The outside cameras showed the same thing. No one came or went. Dylan Hartley had been in this house the entire time.
Ella's chest tightened. She'd been so sure.
‘You record every room of your house?’ Ella glanced up in the corner of the office and saw a blinking camera.
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
Dylan smirked, though it looked painful with his broken nose. ‘Safety. Security. And for times like this. This isn't my first run-in with the cops.’
Ella looked back at the monitors. ‘This footage could be edited. You know that. I'll need our tech team to verify it's legitimate.’
‘Fine. But it's real. That's me, every night, working.’
Ella felt the certainty she'd built over the past twenty-four hours crumble. She'd chased the wrong man. Again. The real killer was still out there, still hunting.
But while she was here, she might as well cover every angle.
‘Dylan, I need you to tell me everything about this app of yours. Whoever is doing this, they're using your app, your creation. You know it better than anyone. Help me catch them.’
Dylan met her eyes. The smirk was gone. ‘Then you need to tell me what's going on. If someone's using my platform to hurt people, I need to know.’
She wasn’t supposed to reveal the finer details of ongoing investigations, least of all to potential suspects, but if Ella wanted to dig into the heart of this operation, she needed to be transparent.
‘Three bodies, three nights. All the victims were killed in ways that represented their worst fears. Rats, claustrophobia, fire. All of the victims were members of your app. I found voice notes that one of the victims was sending to… someone. I need to know who these victims were talking to on your app. There has to be a common denominator somewhere.’
Dylan’s face, already colorless from his wounds, turned a shade paler. ‘What? You’re kidding?’
‘I wish.’
‘But how do you know your guy is using Scarecrow?’
‘Because he has intimate knowledge of these victims’ phobias. He’s spending one-on-one time with these people. Once he knows their phobia, he brings them to life in an isolated space.’
Dylan removed the bloody cloth from his nose. ‘Right. In that case, the users are most likely communicating with one of the therapists on here. Since we only cover Wisconsin and Illinois, a lot of users transition to real life therapy sessions with counsellors they click with.’
‘Is there any way for users to interact with each other?’
‘No. Users can only message therapists and vice versa. We nixed the user communication feature because it created too many problems. Unlicensed therapists coming in, offering free advice and so forth. They can communicate with each other on the forums, but everything there is public.’
‘We checked the forums. The victims hadn’t posted anything.’
‘Then it has to be one of the therapists,’ he said. ‘By the way, we try not to use the term phobia much anymore. It’s kinda eighties.’
Ella didn’t have time for lectures of any kind. ‘If I give you the users’ names, can you recall their conversations? See who they were in contact with?’
Dylan dabbed at his nose again. The blood flow had all but stopped. 'No. Scarecrow is third-party encrypted. That means…'
‘I know what it means,’ Ella jumped in. She didn’t have time for another tech lesson. ‘How long would it take you to get these conversations? Can’t you call the encryption company and get them now?’
Dylan chuckled a humorless laugh. ‘Detective, it’s not even seven AM. The company doesn’t start work for another two hours, and even then, it’s not that simple.’
Ella rubbed her forehead in irritation. ‘But you can get them, right? Once they're open?’
‘I can request the data. But it's a complicated process. We're talking about breaking through layers of encryption designed to protect privacy. It's not just a key we can turn. It's more like... unraveling a web, but making sure the web doesn't collapse at the same time. If that makes sense.’
Ella sighed. She missed the days when you could just steal someone’s cell phone and look through it without anyone batting an eyelid.
‘It doesn’t, but okay, what can you get me?
What about a list of therapists that work through the app?
Ones within fifteen miles of Cedarburg? I looked myself but I couldn’t see where they were based. ’
Dylan's hands paused on the keyboard as a thoughtful expression crossing his face. 'Yeah, I guess I can do that. I'll have to export the information from the database, but if you give me half an hour, I can have it.'
The tech expert resumed his assault on his keyboard. Ella, meanwhile, exhaled a slow breath. She felt a tinge of relief amidst the storm of uncertainty. It wasn't the complete breakthrough she'd hoped for, but it was progress.
And if her instincts were right, in half an hour, the killer’s name would be in black and white in front of her.