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She drew a breath, trying to recall. “Maybe five months or so before he died.”
“Where was it?”
“Here in the Bahamas.”
“In Nassau?”
“No, no,” she said with the same chuckle. “This was very private. On somebody’s private island. They had to take everyone over by boat.”
By boat.From Nassau. Past the site of mass execution of pirates.Anywhere the captain say it happened, that where it happened.
“Do you know whose boat it was?”
“No.”
Jack tried to remain focused, but it wasn’t easy to tamp down the anger he was feeling toward his client. The lies were starting to pile up. From the very beginning, she’d lied about the big things, starting with when she’d told him she’d never heard the name Tyler McCormick. She’d lied about the little things, too, splitting hairs about the Bahamas being in the west Atlantic and not the Caribbean. It hardly seemed accidental that she’d neglected to tell him that she’d not only been to the Bahamas, but performed a private concert there; not only that she’d met Tyler McCormick there, but that he’d worked her exclusive event—and maybe even had been on the boat from Nassau with her.
“Do you know anyone else who worked that party?” asked Jack.
“Tyler’s cousin worked it. I can get you his number, if it’s important.”
“Yes, thank you,” said Jack. “It’s very important.”
Chapter 47
The South African lobster tails with drawn butter were delicious.
Vladimir Kava was in his private dining room with his son, trying to decide between a second bottle of the chardonnay or moving to a light red, perhaps the pinot noir. The flat-screen television on the wall was tuned to CNN International. The lead story was delivered by a London-based anchorwoman. The graphic on the green screen behind her appeared in bold letters, a jaw dropper:
DEATH SENTENCE FOR MUSIC PIRATES
“What the hell,” said Kava, the words coming slowly, more of a reaction than a question. He raised the volume with the remote control.
“They are calling him the pirate killer,” the anchorwoman said at the top of her broadcast. “His victims include a young woman from Boston, Massachusetts, and a young man from Kingston, Jamaica. Less than one hour ago, unconfirmed reports surfaced of a possible third victim near Chicago.”
Kava suddenly felt a wave of indigestion. “Sergei, have you heard about this?”
“No, nothing.”
On screen, the anchorwoman continued.
“The victims have two things in common. One, they visited one of the busiest music piracy websites on the internet. And two, their murders mimic the gruesome execution and what is called gibbeting of pirates that was commonplace three centuries ago. This bizarre crime spree has some people asking: ‘Has the music industry finally found the nuclearweapon in the war against music piracy?’ More on this story from Simon Cutter in Kingston, Jamaica.”
Kava slammed his fist on the table. “Sergei, check our platform traffic!”
His son cracked open a lobster claw. “Now?”
“Never mind. I’ll do it myself,” he said angrily, and he dialed his chief technology officer on his cellphone. “I need data on our current traffic,” Kava told his CTO.
“One minute, sir. I’ll check with my team.”
Kava waited with the phone pressed to his ear. The live news report from Jamaica detailed the killer’s method—ligature strangulation and gibbeting—and then it was back to “Lydia in London,” who promised “more on this story that is instilling fear around the globe.”
Next up was a reporter in Times Square, who was targeting people at random for their reaction. The headlinePirate Killerwas scrolling on the huge digital newswire behind him.
“Excuse me,” the reporter said, thrusting a microphone into a group of five young women who were all wearing University of Wisconsin sweatshirts. “Have any of you heard about the pirate killer?”
One of them stepped forward, glancing one way and then the other, as if not sure whether to look at the reporter or at the camera. “Yeah, we all just saw. It’s all over TikTok.”
