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Just like that.Jane and Frost glanced at each other, both of them stunned by how quickly their problem had been solved by a fifteen-year-old.
“And here’s her inbox,” said Jamal. “There’s not a lot in here ’cause she only had the account for a few weeks.”
But those weeks were the all-important ones just before she died.
Jamal scooted out of the way to let Jane and Frost see the screen. Jane grabbed the mouse and began to click through the messages.
In the three weeks before her death, Sofia Suarez had received emails from Pilgrim Hospital regarding her work schedule, a message from the hair salon confirming her appointment, a nursing journal renewal reminder, two alerts from Amazon about new romance releases, and messages that were clearly spam. Lots and lots of spam. There were no threatening messages, nothing that seemed out of the ordinary.
Then Jane clicked on an email that was sent from a Hotmail address. It was only two lines long.
Your letter was forwarded to me from my old apartment. I want to know more. Call me.
Jane stared at the phone number in the message, a number she’d seen before. “Frost,” she said.
“That’s the number on her call log,” said Frost. “The call she made to that burner phone.”
Jane looked at Jamal. “Did Sofia say anything about this email to you?”
He shook his head. “I was just her computer guy. I don’t know anything about any phone call. Why don’t you just call the number and find out who it is?”
“We’ve tried. No one answers.”
“Well, you’ve got the email address. Lemme see what’s in the header.” He tapped a few keys, made a few clicks of the mouse.
Frost frowned at what was now on the screen. “IP address.”
Jamal nodded. “Maybe it’ll point us to the sender’s location.” He navigated to a new website, pasted the data into the search box, and sighed. “Sorry. It goes to Hotmail in Virginia. Why don’t you just send him an email?”
“And if he doesn’t answer?” said Frost.
Jane stared at the computer, thinking for a moment. “He says he got a letter from her, forwarded from his old address. Which means she was the one reaching out to findhim. She probably searched for him online.”
“So let’s check out her search history,” said Jamal.
“We don’t have her laptop.”
“You don’t need it. You’re already signed into her Gmail account.” He reached for the mouse, then stopped and looked at Jane. “Just because I can do this doesn’t mean I’m a hacker or anything, okay? I just know a few tricks. And I swear this is the only time I’ve accessed her account.”
“Okay, we believe you,” said Jane.
His mother said: “And just so you folks know, I’m recording this on my phone. To make it clear you’reaskinghim to do this. So don’t go putting words in his mouth later.”
“We wouldn’t dream of it,” said Frost.
“Since we’re already logged in, all we need to do is go into her Google account.”Click.“Go to Activity and Timeline.”Click.“And open My Activity.”Click.“And there’s a list of her online searches, by date.” He swiveled around and smiled at Jane and Frost. “You’re welcome.”
Jane stared at the screen. “Shit. Boston PD needs to hire you.”
Mrs. Bird called out from the doorway: “I got that on video too!”
Jane and Frost crowded in close as Jamal scrolled down the screen, revealing the websites that Sofia had visited in the last weeks of her life. Weather.com.USA Today. An online nursing journal. An article about the genetics of blood types.
“Stop,” said Jane, pointing to the screen. “There. April tenth. She did a Google search for someone named James Creighton. What’s that about?”
“Seems like a pretty common name,” said Jamal. “You’re gonna get a lot of hits.”
“Do it. Let’s see what turns up.”
