Chapter Nineteen #2
“People are inspired. They’re actively looking for Whiskey. In your line of work, you know the speed of the Internet once the public has their teeth on a good bone.”
“Shit.”
“I’m going to cut to the chase.” Reaper laced his fingers and put his forearms on his thighs, leaning forward; Whiskey curled at his feet.
“I’ve brought the situation to Iniquus Command, and they’ve asked that I coordinate with you.
Because we’ve used Whiskey in the field, and we’ve got an ongoing relationship, this is a concern. Iniquus is strictly low profile.”
“Absolutely.”
“We guard against public exposure of our K9s as well as our operators. We can’t have names and images in public because of the kinds of people we brush up against. We don’t need the bad guys knocking on our doors in the middle of the night when our families are home alone.
You understand the importance of privacy. ”
“I do. I’m sorry about this. Truly. I guard my privacy, so I’m never on social media. I had no way of knowing. But I’ll go talk with Mourning Notes and explain that she’s putting good men in harm’s way and ask her to take down the videos.”
“She might be reticent because she’s monetized,” Reaper said. “Iniquus is willing to compensate her lost income.”
“I’m not letting Whiskey go to the graveyard anymore. That’s done. So she won’t have any new content unless she AI-generates it. The public has a short attention span. Even if she’s not cooperative, it should fade.”
“As long as there are likes and shares, this can keep circulating,” Reaper countered.
“I’ll ask her to take it all down. If that’s not enough,” Gabriel said. “I’ll ask her the price to stop.”
“Thank you, brother. We also need you to ask her for permission for the Iniquus computers to scrape it off the Internet.”
“Is there something she’d need to sign?” Gabriel asked.
“If she’s amenable, then we’ll send a lawyer over with some papers. If she’s not amenable, we’ll also send some lawyers over with some papers. Those videos need to come down. So far, the Iniquus name isn’t involved. That’s why we’d appreciate you starting the conversation.”
“I’m really sorry about all this.”
“You were on the search because I asked you to be there,” Reaper said.
“Your name is in the public sphere because you were doing a good deed. Now, this woman hasn’t broken any laws.
You’re standing on the public street where anyone’s allowed to videotape you.
It’s just an unfortunate set of circumstances to which we can’t guess the consequences. ”
“Kate’s safe, though.”
“Kate’s had a rough go in the past, wandering into the path of crazy people. The sooner we have this cleared up, the better. The path to finding her isn’t hard as long as those comments are publicly available.”
“Easiest trail in the world,” Gabriel agreed.
“As involved as Kate was with Daniel and Whiskey, and the way she’s been tagged, someone with a screw loose might just think she’s Mourning Notes. Kate looks similar enough to the woman in the video. We don’t want that in our lives.”
Reaper stood and shook Gabriel’s hand. “I’ll bring Whiskey around before you head to work in the morning. Thanks for letting her play tonight.”
Whiskey got a final good-bye scrub from Gabriel, then she trotted alongside Reaper as they left.
Gabriel shut the door and moved to his computer, pulling up the Mourning Notes feed. He started at the beginning and read and skimmed through every comment, looking for clues as he listened to the consistently thirty-second-long concerts.
From what could be seen of this woman’s image, it could well be Kate Hamilton. His mind flashed to Little Bird, and Gabriel scrubbed his knuckles into his eyes. Shit.
Focusing back on the feed, in no video was his face visible, nor was Whiskey easily seen until the very last one.
Four days ago, he was possibly identified; speculation began.
Three days ago, they were mentioning Whiskey’s name.
Two days ago, there was nothing posted.
Yesterday's post was just as problematic as the one that cited the newspaper article.
Gabriel had walked down to the church, then across the street to the witch cottage. The motion-detector lights turned on, and there he stood, staring at the camera.
Fear slicked through his system.
Then he looked at it more closely, with his FBI hat on.
Gabriel knew it was Whiskey and him, but could anyone else identify him?
His build? Yes.
His face? No.
The massive rose bush cast branches between him and the lens, along with a shadow. Even with his high-tech software, Gabriel wouldn’t be able to adjust the information to see his features.
And to test the theory, he put his picture into the system and tried to make himself emerge as recognizable, but failed.
The comments didn’t attach their name to him in this video. There were some flattering comments about his build, but otherwise the comments were mostly about the new song choice.
Next, Gabriel searched for the newspaper article Reaper mentioned to see what that photo looked like, hoping it would be grainy and distant.
There he was, kneeling next to Whiskey, a clear picture of his face. The photographer had made him look heroic, possibly by their choice of camera angle. That felt uncomfortable. He didn’t like to be advanced in that light.
It seemed egoistic or self-congratulatory or something, when, in reality, Gabriel ran at the end of the leash, then made a fire—nothing noteworthy at all.
This whole thing was stupid.
Gabriel pulled the videos up again to look at them through the lens of an FBI geolocator.
Using the comments made on the video that tagged Kate, Gabriel typed his name along with his brother’s name in the search bar. Instantly, he got his name, age, family members, Daniel’s obituary, and a complete list of places he’d lived in his life.
One of those addresses was his present house. The house he’d moved back to after his parents died.
Then he put that address into a map search and panned out a bit. There was the graveyard, the church, and the little cottage in the woods.
That honestly took him less than five minutes and could have been done by any middle school kid.
Gabriel looked up the street address for the cottage and went to public records.
A single name was on the deed: Sommer Hayes.
“Well, Sommer Hayes, it looks like we might just meet tonight.”
How would he make the approach?
Having Whiskey with him would be ideal, but Whiskey wouldn’t be back until morning, and Gabriel wanted this off his plate.
Still, a stranger wandering up and knocking on a woman’s door for a chat, especially when she didn’t have any neighbors to watch out for her, seemed aggressive. Doing it at night seemed aggressive.
Without his dog, Sommer probably wouldn’t recognize who Gabriel was.
Like it or not, he should wait for Whiskey to soften the introduction.