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“I’ve volunteered with WCF for nearly three years,” she began. “We’ve had so much success—taking hundreds of predators off the Internet and putting them in prison.” Lucy realized she was stalling—at the fundraiser the other night, if Sean hadn’t already known this, he would have picked up the basics then.
“And. Well.” She drank half a water bottle. “Another WCF project focuses on high-risk repeat offenders on parole. We know that fifty to eighty percent—depending on which study—of sex offenders who target children or teens and are paroled will be arrested for a like crime within three years. Those are the ones who are caught. We find them in chat rooms popular with their target victim, and wait for them to contact one of us. We create a profile that fits their preferences, and it rarely takes longer than three months to identify and locate them. Most of these guys, by virtue of talking online with a minor, have already violated parole, but because of overcrowding, we usually need more than that to put them back in prison. We need them to try and meet up with a potential victim.
“I was involved in twenty-seven of these cases,” she said. Then added, “Twenty-eight. Brad Prenter was the latest parolee we targeted. He had a strict parole—no alcohol, mandatory AA meetings, for example—and was easier to put in a situation where he’d break parole. I chatted him up in a popular college chat room. He made a move immediately; I drew it out until the time was right. Then I set it up for last Thursday at the Firehouse Bar & Grill in Fairfax.
“Cody Lorenzo takes many of these cases when he’s off duty. But Prenter didn’t show Thursday night. He was killed in a robbery outside a different club.” She slid over a copy of the autopsy report to Sean. “I pulled the autopsy report. Look at those entrance wounds. Three in the abdomen, one in the back of the head. Then I found out that Prenter’s online account was deleted. Wiped. Gone. I couldn’t get it back. Cody found out from the bartender that Prenter was meeting someone at the club that he’d met online, and then he found an email in the police investigation files that came from my alias ‘Tanya’ sending Prenter to the other bar. He thought I had written it.” She hesitated, then added, “On purpose. To kill Prenter.”
Her bottom lip quivered, but she bit it to control her emotions.
Sean said, “Sit down.”
“I can’t—”
Sean grabbed her hand and pulled her into the seat next to him. “Why would your ex-boyfriend think you had done something like this?”
“I—he knows I killed someone before.”
Sean’s expression turned stony. “Adam Scott?”
“Yes, I told him when we were involved. And—and he thought—” She shook her head, unshed tears burning the back of her eyes. “He apologized. But I am capable of murder—”
Sean pulled her to him. His eyes flashed, darkened, and he said in a stern voice imbued with restrained fury, “That wasn’t murder.”
Then he kissed her. It stunned her, the intensity of his lips, the way his hand grasped the back of her head, holding her to him. He broke it off just as quickly, and before he could shield his emotions, Lucy recognized the rage in his expression.
“Lucy, did Cody tell you he was arresting you? Investigating you?”
She shook her head. “He thought I was protecting someone, but—”
“That bastard. Do not talk to him alone again.”
“He knows I had nothing to do with Prenter. I pointed out all the reasons why it couldn’t be me. He understands that now.”
“He’s a cop, Lucy. Do not talk to him alone about Prenter or the WCF—promise me.”
She agreed. “Someone used me to kill Prenter. They used my account.” Her voice cracked and she willed herself to remain calm.
“If Prenter’s account was deleted, how did Lorenzo get hold of the email?”
“Prenter had auto forwarding to his personal email. The police printed a copy from his cell phone.”
“Is it traceable back to you?” Sean asked.
“No—it’s nearly impossible to trace. WCF has blind accounts. If someone was really good or had a warrant, they might be able to follow an active account back to the source, which would be Women and Children First, not me personally. But Cody knows all my account names, and knew the name I used with Prenter.”
Sean was thinking, his body deceptively relaxed, his eyes looking right at Lucy, but she could tell he wasn’t seeing her.
Lucy was so torn up by the situation, she couldn’t stop talking, trying to figure it out. “At first I thought it was personal—that someone who knew one of Prenter’s victims had killed him,” she continued. “I looked into each of them, and their families, which I didn’t want to do.”
Sean’s eyes focused and he stared at her. “Because they were victims.”
It wasn’t a question, and she nodded, relieved that Sean understood exactly how she felt. “No matter how sensitive or well trained the police or the prosecutor, rape victims always feel violated by the criminal justice system. But I did it because I thought one of them used me.”
“And?”
“Nothing. Maybe you can find something more—”
“You don’t even have to ask. And I’ll be exceptionally discreet.”
