AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She had to follow up on this last lead.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
Cami had the feeling that her decision was going to create a serious bombshell. Waiting outside the door, her stomach twisted as she saw Connor marching back to the interview room, phone in hand. He was looking stressed and rushed. He was looking exactly like a man who wanted to get this case wrapped up.
He didn’t look in the least like a man who wanted to go out on a limb to pursue a brand-new, and still vague lead.
If his demeanor hadn’t convinced her, his words did. "We need to get moving on this. No more ducking and diving for this suspect," he muttered, glancing at the door. "Fraser has said we're all out of time. We can't rush the DNA analysis any more than we're already doing, but we can pressure this guy to spill what he knows. He's clearly hiding the truth."
Cami took a deep breath. "Look, don’t be mad at me, okay? But there's one more thing I want to check up on."
Connor stared at her, now looking seriously annoyed.
"One more thing? You mean, a detail?” Looking at her face, he frowned. “You don’t mean just a detail, do you? This is something bigger, isn’t it?”
Biting her lip, she nodded.
“Cami, don’t tell me you want to start chasing after a different suspect? Why? What’s the reason?"
Now, Cami felt panicked. She didn't want Connor to be mad at her, but she might not have a choice. She had a feeling that he was going to get mad when she insisted on this.
"What is the reason? I need to know. Now." Connor pressured her again, glancing at the door.
Taking a deep breath, Cami tried to explain. "When I went looking in the logs in that local site, there were three different people who'd been looking at all those posts.”
“One was Mario, correct?”
“Yes. He seemed like the obvious choice, because he had such a strong link to Tracy, as well as a criminal record. The second one was the site admin, which is understandable. But there was another person. A third one. And I think we need to rule that person out, because if they're the killer, they might be out there, ready to kill again. Mario hasn’t confessed, and without the DNA results, there’s a chance that it isn’t him."
Connor frowned at her. "That means another lead to chase. That's the last thing we need. That's the last thing this case needs. How sure are you about this? Because this is a convincing suspect, right here."
Cami gathered her courage. Time to spill the truth.
“When you went out, Mario pleaded with me, off the record. He won’t tell you this. Yesterday, he was doing something else, on a secret mission with a friend, involving some kind of personal vendetta. He’ll never admit to it because otherwise he’s sold his friend out.”
She’d expected Connor to explode at this, but to her surprise, he sighed. “That was going through my mind when he started denying outright like that. I’ve seen it before. It’s something suspects do if they happen to have another agenda they can’t admit to.”
“He also said he had an affair with Tracy. That’s where the whole neighbor situation went wrong,” Cami said. “He said that he never wished her any harm. He wants us to find the killer and that made me think that we should at least check that third person. I don't want to ignore a loose end. I'm worried that it could come back to bite us.”
“I see.” Connor’s eyebrow raised.
“Also, he apologized for throwing the spanner at me.”
“Alright. Let’s not get into irrelevant detail,” Connor said briskly.
“But also, it’s my own gut feeling, Connor. Please understand. I wouldn’t feel that I’d done a good job unless I ruled this out.”
“Okay, okay. You’ve justified your reasons. I accept that they’re valid.”
“So, can I check it out now?” Hope surged inside her.
"If you think you can do it, go ahead," he said. "You'll need to work on your own, though. Go and set up in the back office and tell me if you find anything. Regardless of what he told you off the record, I need to keep the pressure on this suspect."
Looking annoyed but resigned at this latest twist, he stomped past her and headed back into the interview room.
Hustling through to the back office, Cami took another look at the IP address, opening her machine and using the full force of all her hacking and tracking programs to identify it. The person’s user ID on the site was “Storyteller.” That was all the information he, or she, had given.
The next detail she saw, with a thud of her heart, was that this person had connected through a virtual private network.
