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“He beat his wife. Raped a teenager. She wasn’t his first.”
“First kill,” Kimberly amended, keeping her tone as matter-of-fact as Flora’s.
The Mosley County sheriff raised his hand. “Hank Smithers here. I’ve read about Jacob Ness. I understand your point that this girl disappeared from his known hunting grounds. But there are two locations for us to be considering. The second, where her body was dumped, is in my neck of the woods to the north. We’re talking more mountains than highway. How do you figure that?”
“We don’t,” Kimberly said honestly. “That’s one of the questions we need to answer. Now, Miss Dane”—Kimberly nodded toward Flora—“in her statement regarding her own abduction, thought she was initially held in a mountain cabin. It’s possible Ness has a connection to northern Georgia, Mosley County, whatever. We’ve never been able to identify that cabin, and as you can imagine, we’d like to.”
“The remains were found off a hiking trail,” Keith interjected, frowning. Kimberly had watched him flip through the binder. From what she could tell, he’d scanned the entire contents in a matter of minutes. “How far up the path?”
“More than a mile.”
“Incline?”
“Six hundred foot altitude gain. Trail gets significantly steeper after that.”
Keith turned to Flora. “He strike you as a hiker? Because I’ve never read about him doing any physical activities, not even high school sports.”
“The Jacob I knew was a fat, out-of-shape addict. I can’t imagine he was magically fitter eight years prior.”
“Hauling a body one mile uphill is no mean feat,” Keith added.
“You’re assuming he was carrying her,” Kimberly replied blandly. “For all we know, Lilah was alive when she walked up that trail.”
“He led her to the location he wanted, then killed her,” Flora stated. “Now that sounds like Jacob.”
“Or he had help.” Keith, looking at Kimberly again.
She nodded slowly. “It’s important to note what we didn’t find in the grave. Clothing. Shoes. Physical restraints. None of that. The body was laid out in the shallow grave unbound and completely naked.”
“Forensic countermeasures,” D.D. interjected. “He removed any objects that might yield evidence.”
“That’s certainly a possibility. To be clear, Jacob didn’t take those steps with his other known victims?”
“No, he just dumped them, bloody clothes and all.” Flora again.
“Maybe that means she was special,” Keith spoke up thoughtfully. “First victims, there’s often a personal connection to a serial predator. Meaning Jacob took extra precautions because he had more to fear if someone found the body.”
“All reasonable assumptions,” Kimberly said to the taskforce. “But just that—assumptions. We don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves. While there’s good reason to consider Jacob Ness a prime suspect in Lilah Abenito’s abduction and murder, we don’t know that he did it. We don’t know anything at all, which is a huge injustice to her and to her parents, who all these years later, are still waiting for their daughter to magically come home.”
“There’s more than one serial killer running around the mountains of Georgia?” Sheriff Smithers drawled sardonically.
“We need to take things one step at a time,” Kimberly agreed, “and keep an open mind.”
Kimberly gave the room a moment to process. When none of the taskforce argued with basic investigative protocol, Kimberly cleared her throat and moved on to the next pertinent part of the briefing. Basically, bringing everyone else in the room up to speed on a conversation she, D.D., Flora, and Keith had started nine months ago in Boston. And a scary discussion at that.
“We recently had some developments regarding Jacob Ness’s recovered laptop. The computer initially appeared devoid of data. Further analysis by our techs revealed Ness had taken steps to automatically clear his computer activity on a daily basis—a much higher degree of sophistication than we expected from a man with limited formal education. Recently, however, Miss Dane and Mr. Edgar helped us identify Ness’s username and password, unlocking a host of dark web and cloud-based activity on the laptop. It’s clear now that while Ness was a loner in real life, on the internet he actively sought out and participated in forums with members who shared his own predatory instincts. The question is, did any of these virtual partnerships result in a real-world relationship?”
Kimberly nodded toward one of her fellow FBI agents, a striking twenty-eight-year-old woman with glossy black hair. “Su Chen,” Kimberly addressed the agent directly, “is one of our best computer analysts. She’s been studying Ness’s laptop for the past few months.”
Keith sat up straighter, as if eyeing the competition. Kimberly admired the hostile glance Su sent his way before picking up her notes.
“The identification of Jacob Ness’s username and password have been pivotal.” A slight nod toward Flora and Keith. “The good news about online forums is that they’re searchable; once we have a username, we can trace much of the subject’s online activities. Unfortunately, the web is a steadily evolving environment. I haven’t had luck identifying any particular group from seven years ago.”
“What about posing as Ness online, waiting for one of his former associates to contact you?” Keith asked immediately. Kimberly understood the question; nine months ago Keith had used that strategy to assist with another homicide investigation. They had been fortunate that Ness had used a pseudonym for his online activities, meaning many of his dark web contacts didn’t realize he was a serial killer who’d been killed in an FBI raid years ago.
“I’m in ongoing virtual conversations with two different subjects at this time,” Su replied coolly. “So far, their interest is purely porn, which I’m guessing was their previous relationship with Ness. Given the seven-year gap, I’m sure other participants are wary of Ness’s sudden reappearance, so success might not be overnight, but I have faith in the strategy.”
“Can I study the laptop again?” Keith asked.
