Strong, Sleek and Sinful

community. They were used to a high-profile life and probably would have gone public without the law if they hadn’t agreed. “It would have been nice to have a bit more time.”

“Want me to send out a forensics team?”

“Yup. The police will probably be here soon and I’d just as soon get a good sweep of the scene before they mess with it.”

“Sending them out now.” The sounds of explosions and continual laser fire never stopped. “Rita Simoli was talking to a guy named Peter on her family’s computer. Your cop, Mr. Flynn, just left there a bit ago and reported in to his Chief. We got the information a few minutes before you called. You need to narrow in on this guy and set up another meeting.”

“I’m working on it.” She grabbed the evidence bag out of her trunk, then locked her car, which she’d parked on the side street on the back side of the store, and sprinted across the parking lot. “So far we keep missing each other with instant messages, but I’ll see if I can lure him out later tonight. If I can, that means he’s either disposed of Rita or locked her up somewhere so he can focus on his next prey.”

“If the Web site is connected to him, he’s locking them up and not killing them.” Paul grunted. “At least not right away.”

“We also need to consider the possibility that Peter could be more than one person.” Her insides churned at the thought of these teenagers being locked up like animals and tortured. “How soon before Forensics is here?”

“You should have a couple agents there in a few minutes. I suggest you take off.”

She tried not to breathe too heavily into the phone after running from her car back to the sidewalk. But pulling on gloves and then sliding the shoe into the ziplock bag, she sealed it and grabbed the receiver from the pay phone, sliding it into another evidence bag. “I’m bringing the shoe and receiver in; then I’ll see if I can get Peter on the horn and arrange for a meet.”

Kylie headed down the sidewalk toward the back of the building when she glanced at the entrance to the parking lot from the main road. A tan sedan, similar in make and model to the ones parked at the FBI field office, pulled into the parking lot. It parked at the end of the sidewalk, but the driver kept the motor running. One of them saluted her when two men got out of the car. She recognized the special agents from when she was down at the office, but didn’t know their names.

“I’ve got confirmation your team has arrived,” Paul said in her ear as one guy walked to her and the other popped his trunk.

“That’s a ten four,” she told him. “I’ll brief these two and talk to you soon.”

“Roger that.”

Kylie walked the two men through the crime scene and helped rope off the scene with yellow tape. A news van entered the parking lot and two other cars, one unmarked and one city police, followed.

“Crap, the circus has arrived.”

“You’re going to blow your cover,” one of the guys warned her.

“Nope.” Kylie hated leaving the scene but trusted the two men to do their job. “Time to get out of Dodge.”

“You’d better fly,” the guy closest to her said, grinning.

“I’m on it, Batman.” She bolted down the length of the building, pretty sure no one saw her.

An hour later they had confirmation that the shoe belonged to Rita Simoli and her frantic parents once again turned to the press, offering a large reward for the safe return of their daughter. There were fresh prints on the receiver that matched prints on the pole that had been scratched, but Rita had never been printed. There was no way to make a positive ID other than using the assumption they were hers based on the shoe. Kylie managed to escape the cameras and snuck back to her house unnoticed.

After adjusting the volume on her TV so she could hear the news, she settled in the middle bedroom, keeping an eye on her monitors as well as focusing on her buddy list. Anticipation riddled her insides, like the feeling she got when a case was about to explode wide open. In spite of suspecting she was on to the right guy after learning that Rita spoke to Peter with the same screen name, Kylie guessed her stomach tied in knots for several reasons.

She didn’t doubt Perry would be pissed when he learned she hit his crime scene and tagged it before he could, even though he wouldn’t know she was the agent who reported to the scene. That wasn’t the only reason trepidation ran hot and heavy through her veins.

Dani was speaking with Peter, too. Even though she had told Kylie another girl would meet him this Friday night, that didn’t ease Kylie’s nerves any. There would be another meet and she knew when. If only she knew where. Somehow she needed to learn where Peter was meeting Lanie Swanson, Peter, or Petrie, wouldn’t tell Dani and even if he did, getting Dani to tell Kylie would be harder than pulling teeth. She’d feel a hell of a lot better if she knew without any doubt Dani wasn’t going to meet him.

Kylie continually glanced at the monitors. Something told her Perry would be by tonight, and just thinking about him showing up at her home made her insides swell with expectation. He wouldn’t be the only one wound up from working a case. Although she couldn’t share with him anything she’d found out or learned, she could show him what to do with all that energy that needed an outlet.

Heading over to the Facebook profile she’d created, she began searching, going from profile to profile, reading every line and checking out pictures and comments posted to each profile. It sickened her how openly teenagers discussed their social lives on one another’s profiles, making it so easy to get to know them if anyone wished to take the time and sift through the millions of profiles on the site to find the ones of interest.

She stumbled onto Dani’s Facebook profile after finding a profile for the Mission High School drama department. Although Dani’s profile said she was ninety-seven years old and lived in Lebanon, there were quite a few references to other kids, and after Kylie checked out each profile she realized who some of them were.

The sound of someone signing on startled her. She was so engaged in what she was doing that she’d even drowned out the TV from the other room. Immediately a chat box popped up in front of the Web site she’d been scrutinizing.

Where were you earlier tonight? I’ve been bored all evening and no one was online.

Convenient opening line. And an obvious guilty conscience. Peter probably just finished dealing with Rita. There wasn’t any reason he should suspect her. Apparently, he felt a need to put in writing he never left the house due to some warped line of thinking that somehow that proved his innocence.

Sorry. I had homework, she typed, and flipped his box behind the Web site to search and see if she could find Rita’s profile. She didn’t, but there were links on all of the pages she went to for Dani’s and some of the other profiles connecting them to a Facebook profile.

Are you done with it now? Talk to me, Kayla. I really need a good friend.

I’m right here. Is something wrong?

Yeah, there is something wrong. It’s my birthday and my parents are leaving town.

She didn’t get the connection but knew he was plotting a good three or four messages ahead of her. Kylie minimized the Web site behind her so she could focus better on the conversation without distractions.

It’s your birthday? she asked, deciding she’d approach the comment about his parents being out of town next. There wasn’t any doubt in her mind where he was heading with that one. And from what she’d learned about teenage girls since she started this case, any of them would be sharp enough to guess why he would bring that up.

Not today-Thursday. But both of my parents are going to be out of town on business. I don’t get a birthday party.

If they’re going out of town, you can have a bash. She cringed after sending it, praying her choice of words didn’t sound too square for a teenage girl.

Call me a nerd if you want, but they would kill me if I had a party while they were gone. And well, it’s not right.

What the hell was his motivation? Maybe he wanted her feeling sorry for him and agreeing to meet him. Or possibly he believed if he portrayed himself as a compassionate soul, she would like him even more and be more likely to do whatever he suggested.

Then it hit her, and without commenting on what he said, she pulled up the Facebook Web site and quickly