On Dangerous Ground Read online

  “Call her now, Jen. This freaks me out, and I’m three thousand miles away. I know Cujo Junior, Spawn of Satan is there to protect you, but if this guy’s out and looking for you…”

  Jen knew he was probably right. “I know, I know. I’ll call her right now.”

  She heard his audible sigh of relief. “Okay, I feel better now. Did you forget anything else?”

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  She shook her head. “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Glorious tits?”

  God, he just never stopped. “Shit, Joe, I didn’t even look.” She paused to think, remembering the hot babe with the sunglasses. “Well, actually, I did look a little, but I couldn’t tell. She had on a suit jacket that covered everything.”

  “See, Jen, one more reason to give her a call. I need to know about these things.”

  Jen finally relented, said her good-byes, and went to her office to get the number to call the FBI.

  v

  A call to the office had turned up no new information on either the case or Jennifer Rosenberg. Terri sat at a table in a local sandwich shop typing notes into her PDA and watching Bobby wolf down a sandwich. When her phone rang, Terri assumed it would be the office with even more unhelpful information, but the caller ID told her otherwise. She flipped open the phone and spoke, “Agent McKinnon.”

  The voice on the other end of the call was hesitant. “Um, hi, Agent McKinnon, this is Jennifer Rosenberg, you know, from earlier.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I do remember. Is there something I can do for you?” Terri mouthed “Rosenberg” to Bobby across the table. He shrugged back at her. Terri held up one finger to indicate that he should wait.

  The hesitation was still there. “Well, um, there’s this thing, you know, I kind of forgot about. I may have more information for you.” Nervous pause. “Can we talk again?”

  “More information?” Bobby began gesturing wildly at Terri, pointing at the phone and acting like a mime pretending to drink something. “Hold on a second, please. Agent Kraft

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  has a question.” She covered the phone and asked, “What the hell are you doing?”

  “She has more information, and you could meet her at the hotel bar next door to get it. Ask her to come for a drink. How much information can she have?”

  Jesus, he was so pushy. “Bobby, shut up. This is business.”

  She pointed right at him and whispered, “And see, I told you she was keeping something from us.” She put the phone back to her ear and calmly slipped back into agent mode. “Dr. Rosenberg, I appreciate the call. Will you be available at home for the next couple of hours?”

  She heard the nervous pause again. “Well, Agent McKinnon, I could recommend somewhere nice for, maybe, I don’t know, dinner? We could talk then.”

  “Just a moment, ma’am.” Terri covered the phone again.

  “Bobby, I think she just asked me out to dinner. Holy shit!”

  Bobby looked astonished, but then broke into a wide smile. “Holy shit is right. I told you she wanted you. Say yes, fool!”

  Terri took a deep breath to steady herself, as well as to remind herself that this was business and that Jennifer Rosenberg was part of the job. Nothing more. “Thank you, Dr. Rosenberg, that’s a most generous offer, but I’ll have to decline. Agent Kraft and I will be out to your place in an hour or two.”

  Jen continued on the other end of the call, definitely sounding a little deflated. “There’s just one thing, if you don’t mind me asking. Could you please stop with the ‘Dr. Rosenberg’ and all the ‘yes ma’am’ and ‘no ma’am’? It’s a little weird for me. Everyone else calls me Jennifer or just Jen. Could you try that?”

  “Sure, um, Jen.” Bobby mouthed “Jen” and gave Terri a

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  hearty two thumbs up. Terri shook her head and waved him off. “I’ll see you in a couple hours. Thanks for calling.”

  Terri looked at the phone once before closing it, then looked up at Bobby. He was squirming in his seat. People were starting to stare. “Girl, I told you.”

  Terri pulled at the arm of Bobby’s jacket to get him out of crazy person mode, but she had to laugh at his antics. “God, Bobby, you’re such a goof. Besides, whatever you think is going on with her, isn’t. Trust me. We’re working here.”

  “Yes, Agent McKinnon, I know that. Understood. I just thought you deserved a little fun too.”

  Terri knew he was thinking of her. He always did. Best friends want you to be happy, but this was not the way. Work made her happy. That was all she really needed.

  “Bobby…work…remember? Now, let’s go. It’s getting late and I’m thinking hotel for the night. Gives us a place to work. I want to check my e-mail before we go out there again, and you have calls to make.”

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  Chapter nine

  Terri stood in front of the mirror in her hotel room, smoothing her jacket, when she heard a knock. Bobby stepped into the room when she opened the door. “Well, not my first choice, but if it’s all you’ve got. You can’t go wrong with jeans and a black turtleneck.”

  “Shut up, Bobby.” She turned away from him, adjusted her black leather jacket again, and asked, “Can you see my sidearm?”

  “Nope, it’s all good.”

  Terri took a deep breath and got back to business. “Now, are you coming along, or are you staying here to make phone calls?

  Bobby grinned. “I think you can handle one cute little lesbian all by yourself. You are armed, after all.”

  Terri looked around the top of the dresser for something to throw at him.

  He shrugged. “I have to say it. It’s what I do. I’ll hang here and check in if you think you’ve got Dr. Rosenberg under control.”

  She stared at him, looking for a smile, a twinkle in his eye, or anything else that looked like more teasing. “Works for

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  me,” she said and headed out, leaving Bobby standing alone in her room. “Lock the door on your way out.”

  He leaned out of the door and called after her, “I won’t wait up.” Without even turning around, Terri raised her right hand over her head, calmly flipped him off, and continued down the hallway toward the stairs.

  v

  Jen checked the full-length mirror in the bedroom one last time. “Not bad, eh, Snickers?” He didn’t have anything to say, but continued to stare at her. “Well, I think I look hot.”

  She really did, decked out in a jade green turtleneck, black jeans, and black suede boots. “God, I hope the ol’ gaydar isn’t busted, or else all this hotness is just going to waste.” She headed downstairs to wait for Agent McKinnon. A knock at the door stopped her halfway to the kitchen. Jen smiled, turned around, and pulled the door open.

  “Agent McKinnon. Welcome back.” Jen stood back to allow Terri through the door. “Wow, you look really different.”

  Jen studied her a little closer. “I guess it’s your hair.”

  Terri idly fidgeted with the loose ends of her hair. “Well, it’s technically the weekend, so I don’t have to keep it up off my collar.”

  “I must say it suits you. Not so, what’s the word, agenty?”

  Terri smiled. “I suppose the word ‘regulation’ might be better, but ‘agenty’ works too.”

  Jen motioned toward the kitchen. “Can I get you some coffee?”

  “Um, sure, that would be great.” Terri leaned down to pet Snickers, who was wagging his tail furiously. “He sure is friendly, isn’t he?”

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  Jen reached for mugs and peered at her dog. “Not usually, no, but he seems to like you. Have a seat.”

  Terri seated herself at the kitchen table in the same chair she had used during her first visit to the farmhouse. “Now, you
said you had some information for me.”

  Jen suddenly felt stupid. Somehow she had let Joe convince her that she should explain this completely embarrassing situation from her college days to a federal agent. “You know, I’m pretty sure it’s nothing, but Agent Kraft did say something about spurned suitors, and I got to thinking, and then my friend Joe called, and he thought I should tell you, but I’m sure it’s nothing. After all, the guy is still in prison.”

  “Your friend is in prison?”

  Jen felt really stupid. “No, I’m sorry.” She felt heat rise to her cheeks. “Okay, here it is. This is embarrassing. I used to know this guy in Ann Arbor. Creepy little guy, but you could tell he was always up to something, always thinking. He’d get this funny look in his eyes, but I was nineteen. What did I know?” Jen shrugged. “Anyway, I found out that he was a computer geek like me, and we started hanging out a lot. I thought he was going to help me get into MIT. He was amazing when it came to programming. He helped me with my classes, let me bounce project ideas off him, told me I was brilliant, stuff like that.” Jen blushed and lowered her head. “I was so busy learning computer stuff from him I didn’t notice that he was into some seriously advanced cryptology stuff. One time, I asked him what he was doing and he told me that he was hacking into a bank over in Detroit.”

  Terri arched her eyebrows. “Not messing around, was he?”“Um, no, he wasn’t. But I thought it was cool. You know, nineteen years old, thought I wouldn’t get caught.”

  “Caught? Caught doing what?”

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  “Helping him. Showing him new ways to get around firewalls that we talked about in class, stuff like that.” Jen felt really small. “Evidently, he managed to hack into the Bank of America.”

  Agent McKinnon remained silent. Jen wasn’t sure what she was thinking, but it made her nervous. “I was walking home one night, and these two guys in suits followed me across the quad to the burger joint where I liked to stop. Before I got to the door, they pulled me around the side of a building, showed me their cool little wallet things that proved they were the FBI, and asked me what I knew about Brad Davis. Scared the shit out of me.”

  “I’m sure it did.” Agent McKinnon was still cool as a cucumber. That made Jen even more nervous. “What did they do?”“Well, it dragged out for a couple of days, but they eventually made me a deal.” Jen shrugged. “In exchange for my testimony, they’d let me go. I’m sure the mega mogul lawyer that my dad showed up with helped, but they let me go scot-free.”

  Jen hesitated and looked at Terri, who smiled and set her PDA down. “Well, Dr. Rosen…Jen, I really appreciate you telling me about this. I don’t know—”

  “There’s more.”

  “I’m sorry for interrupting. Go on.”

  “No problem. Anyway, he ended up getting convicted and sent to prison. I went to grad school after that and never really thought about him again until now. My friend Joe thought I should tell you mostly because Joe always worries about me. He always thought Brad was creepy.”

  “And did you? Think he was creepy, I mean?”

  “Well, yeah. He smoked too much and never had any friends. He spent all of his time with his computers instead of

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  people. And he always looked at me funny. Showed up places where I was having drinks with friends, stuff like that.”

  Terri leaned forward in her chair. “He was stalking you?”

  Jen considered that for a moment. “Well, I never looked at it like that. He said he wanted to work with me on some programming projects he had lined up. I was kind of flattered.”

  “So, a man you didn’t know tracked your activities enough to know how you spent your out-of-class time, asked you about projects you were working on in class in order to get close to you. You eventually went to work with him, involving yourself in a federal crime, and later testified against him, resulting in his being sent to prison?”

  “When you say it, it sounds so bad.”

  Agent McKinnon arched her eyebrow and stood. “Dr.—

  Jen, here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to take this information that you have given me. There isn’t anything else is there?”

  Jen shook her head.

  “Okay, I’m going to take this to my office and make a few phone calls. I don’t want you to worry. I’m sure this Davis guy is still in prison, but I’ll make some inquiries. In the meantime, you go on about your business, but hang on to my number in case you think of anything else.”

  Jen rose and walked Terri to the door with Snickers trailing at their heels. They shook hands and Jen watched until the big black SUV was out of sight. “Well, Snick, that wasn’t quite the romantic seduction I had hoped it would be, was it?”

  v

  Terri was barely back on the main road toward town when she called Bobby.

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  “Hey there, Agent McKinnon, how are things down on the farm?”

  “A little more complicated than either of us thought, I’m afraid. It seems that Dr. Rosenberg has a bit of a past that includes pissing off a computer hacker and getting him sent to prison.”

  Bobby whistled. “Wow, it’s always the quiet ones, isn’t it? What do you want to do?”

  “I’ll be back at the hotel in about fifteen minutes. Why don’t you call DC and check this out? Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe Bradley Davis is still in prison, but I have a funny feeling about this one, Bobby.”

  “It’s never good when your Spidey-sense lights up, Terri. Never.”

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  Chapter ten

  Terri sat at her desk, head in one hand and elbow on the desk while she fiddled with her pen and stared into space. It was Monday, it was raining, and she was trapped in a dreary, nondescript office waiting for the phone to ring. She looked at her notes for what seemed like the hundredth time, hoping for some new revelation, but none was forthcoming. She continued to wait, trying not to stare at the phone. Her research from earlier that morning had led to some of the details of the case that Jen had left out. Bradley Allen Davis, also known as Alan Davis, a cyber thief who had slipped up and been caught by a college kid because he thought he was smarter than she was, had evidently made some threats against that college kid. She had not been informed about the threats because he had made them on the way to the maximum security prison where he had been incarcerated ever since. At least Terri hoped that he was still incarcerated. Regardless of her denials to Bobby’s teasing, she liked Jen Rosenberg. She was funny, quirky, and everything Terri was not, and she most definitely did not deserve to be harassed by an ex-con with an ax to grind. Bobby came back into the office with two cups of coffee and some paperwork under his arm “Anything from the Great White North?”

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  “Not a peep. They must be out ice fishing or something. Did you get the faxes about this Davis creep?”

  Bobby had e-mailed both the Ann Arbor and Detroit police departments requesting information about the case. He held up two folders for her to see and tossed them onto her desk.

  “There’s not much there that we don’t already know. Your Dr. Rosenberg apparently told you most of it.”

  “She’s not my Dr. Rosenberg.” Terri shook her head. “Oh, never mind. You said most of it. What else is there?”

  “Did she mention that she was offered immunity for her testimony?”

  Terri closed the folder slowly and looked up at Bobby.

  “She was involved in the hacking? I find that hard to believe. She’s so…so…”

  “Innocent?” Bobby gave her his best “oh, please, girl”

  look. “Come on, Terri, you know as well as I do that you can’t judge a book by its rainbow cover. According to the lead investigator, she was believed to have played a minor role in Davis’s operation, but they had no hard evidence. Sounds to m
e like they scared the crap out of a young girl to get what they wanted.”

  “Damn,” Terri responded. She didn’t know what to think. If Jen had been involved, it certainly would make her a target for Davis—if he was even out. But what about the other victims? What was their connection to Davis?

  She tossed the folders back across the desk when the phone on Bobby’s desk rang. “Agent Kraft,” he said. Terri focused intently on Bobby’s end of the conversation. He listened, asked to clarify a date, wrote a name and phone number on his pad, thanked the voice on the other end, and hung up the phone. Terri looked Bobby in the eye, his next words putting voice to what she had been fearing the most.

  “He’s out.”

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  v

  Bradley Allen Davis, who until recently was simply known as Terre Haute Federal Correctional Complex Inmate Number 50301, awoke with a start as a passing fire truck broke the silence of his slumber. Maybe silence wasn’t the right word. His new apartment was on one of the busiest streets in town, which meant his bedroom window was less than ten yards from the 24/7 stream of traffic along Jackson Avenue.

  “Fuck!” Bradley tried to shake off the anger that had smoldered constantly in his head since his incarceration ten years earlier. The early release from his fifteen-year sentence had been welcome, but sometimes he was unsure. There was a certain level of comfort to the prison routine, and the constant fear of physical abuse had actually become comfortable as well. His mom always used to tell him, “You get used to hanging if you hang long enough.” Well, he knew all about hanging now. The daily harassment could be counted on, even scheduled if he really stopped to think about it. At least the prison didn’t sound the horn to open the cells for breakfast before six a.m. From his mattress on the floor he looked over at the clock on the milk crate.

  “Four o’clock in the morning…what the fuck? Can’t a guy even be allowed to sleep through the night?” He spoke to no one in particular, which was good since no one else was in the apartment. He contemplated lying back down to try to sleep but knew it would be futile. There was far too much on his mind, and way too many things to do. His freedom was hardly that. There were visits to the parole officer downtown, visits to the doctor to try to find the cause of the blinding headaches that plagued him almost daily, and the constant harassment of phone calls from these and all of the other random idiots that he had to deal with every day.