1st Case Read Online Free PDF Page B

hidden itself, not just on the phone’s screen but in the operating system.
    “I don’t get it,” I said. “Where are they keeping the files for this?”
    “We’ll find out,” Eve said. “But sometimes, Angela, you’ve got to look up from the files. It’s not always about the code.”
    A little wave of anger passed over me. Frankly, I wasn’t used to being outsmarted.
    “ShouldI even be on here?” I asked. It was a little late for that question, but Eve shook her head.
    “It’s fine. That handset’s cloaked. You can’t even go online,” she said. “And I’ll wipe it as soon as we’re done.”
    That was easy enough for her to say. She was Eve Abajian, as in
the
Eve Abajian, FBI superhero. I was still just Angela Hoot, lowly intern. My security clearance couldn’t even touch Eve’s.

    Not that I was going to say no to any of this. If Eve was comfortable sharing it with me, that’s all I needed to know.
    I looked down at the phone screen again. There was no chat history, or even a way to access one that I could tell.
    “What about the .glp files?” I asked.
    “Try refreshing,” she said, and hit two keys on her keyboard. “Now.”
    I closed and reopened the app. When I did, it was suddenlypopulated with thirty-one new messages.
    “Just like that?” I asked.
    “Yeah, but if it’s this easy, it means they wanted you to find them,” Eve said, echoing my own thought. “Don’t ever forget that. It’s a completely different premise. They could have squirreled these away much more deeply if they’d wanted to.”
    “They’re putting on some kind of show,” I said.
    “Exactly,” she said.
    The problemwas, everything had been scrubbed clean. There were no date stamps, no metadata to trace back the files, and certainly no forensic watermarking. All we had to go on was what we could see.
    The files turned out to be a combination of images and text. The images were clear enough. There were no faces, but a lot of body parts. Some of them were coy—an open blouse, an unbuttoned pair of jeans—butit got more explicit from there.
    The rest were text fragments, from what seemed to be an ongoing conversation. Or a seduction, I guess. It was horrifying to read through, knowing what was waiting for Gwen Petty at the end of it all.
    The texts were also arranged in what seemed like a random order and chopped up into pieces. There was no way to know what
wasn’t
there, or how much of the conversationwe were missing. Any number of other files could have been overwritten since they were deleted, in which case we’d never get them back.
    Or maybe they’d been deliberately left off by the killer, excising anything that might reveal more than he wanted us to know. I had no idea yet how much control the app’s administrator had over the content, or even the devices that people used to access it.
    All we could do for now was work with what we had. So while Eve called Keats to catch him up, I printed everything out in hard copy and spread it across her dining room table. Then we started moving the pieces around, trying to guess at an order, make connections, and hopefully start to pull this whole puzzle together.

CHAPTER 12
Please tell me you don’t actually watch that crap.
    It’s a good show.
    Yeah—on MARS.
    It’s a good show EVERYWHERE.
    Goodbye.
    Nice knowing you.
    Very funny
    —————
    Do YOU think you’re pretty?
    Honestly, I don’t know.
    I know I’m not ugly but …
    I bet you’re beautiful.
    What about you?
    Do you think you’re good looking?
    Can I tell you the truth?
    Of course.
    Then yeah. I think I’mgood looking.
    Can I send you a pic?
    —————
    Is your name really Beth?
    No … ☺ Is your name really Rob?
    No. Do you want to know my real name?
    Not yet
    That’s ok. Besides, BETH IS WAY HOT.
    Thanks, so is Rob.
    Hope you don’t mind
    It’s just good to be careful.
    Your parents would be so proud.
    Shut up.
    I’m serious.
    Keep shutting