Deadworld Read Online Free PDF Page B

his face to work with if you want.”
    “Do it,” Jackie said. “Run it if you get a good one, and see if anything pops up.”
    “Sure thing.”
    Laurel shrugged. “He’s probably just wondering if I’m all right.”
    “Maybe,” she agreed. “But he could be wondering a lot more than that, too.”
    “Paranoid.”
    “Innocent.”
    “Ha! My title is better.”
    Jackie clapped Denny on the shoulder. “Thanks, Den. Figure out who he is, and I’ll buy you a shot.”
    “I’m there.”
    She stepped away from the desk. “I want to see about that penny they found. Maybe the geeks can tell us what it is.”
    After acquiring the penny, Jackie and Laurel went down to the basement and tracked down Mark Hauser, head of the Geekroom, where all things information were acquired and processed. Jackie never ceased to marvel at the kinds of things the FBI was capable of finding out. It was almost disturbing.
    “Hey!” he exclaimed, spinning around in his chair when Jackie knocked on the open door to his office. “What brings the FBI’s sexiest agents down into the depths?”
    Jackie took in the sprawling desk with its three thirty-inch monitors and grimaced. “Seriously, Hauser? Can you ever greet us without mentioning looks?”
    “Why? That would be boring.” He gave her a smug grin. “Besides, who else around here can get away with it besides us harmless geeks?”
    Laurel laughed. “He has a point. Hauser’s about as harmless as they come.”
    He pointed at Laurel. “Exactly.”
    Jackie thrust the bag containing the coin at him. “You guys are also the sneakiest, most conspiratorial bastards in the agency. Everything has a plan.”
    He plucked the bag from her fingers. “It makes us more interesting. What have we got here?”
    “It’s a coin found under a dead boy this morning. Only real piece of evidence we found at the scene, so I’m hoping you might give us some info on it.”
    “Cool. Let’s have a look.” He grabbed a pair of tweezers from a drawer and withdrew the coin from the bag. After turning it over a couple times, he arched his brows. “It looks like an Indian Head Penny, 1862. Perfect condition, by the look of it.”
    “Worth much?”
    “One sec, and I’ll find out,” he replied and spun back around to type on his computer. About thirty seconds later he tapped his screen. “If it’s real and as pristine as it looks, it’ll fetch about twenty-five K.”
    Laurel whistled softly. Jackie could hardly believe it. “For a damn penny? Wow.”
    “Coin collecting is serious business, Jack,” he said. “And this was just found on the ground beneath a dead body?”
    “Yep.”
    “Robbery gone bad?”
    The image of loose, gray skin washed through Jackie’s mind. “Don’t think so. We think it was left on purpose.”
    “Really.” He nodded and reexamined the coin. “Someone sending a message, perhaps?”
    “What sort of message requires killing a twelve-year-old boy?”
    He winced. “Ouch. That sucks. I’ll look into this and see if I can find anything—coin collectors, auctions, that sort of stuff. Maybe something will pop.”
    “Thanks,” Jackie replied. “Let me know the second you find something.”
    Back on their floor, Jackie sat down at her desk to the sound of Denny’s voice coming from the other side of the cubicle’s wall. “Check your e-mail, Jack. Got some interesting stuff on your guy.”
    “Already? Nice going, Den. Thanks.”
    “Anytime.”
    Jackie turned on her computer and accessed the e-mail, downloading a picture of what turned out to be a photo ID card. Laurel leaned over her shoulder, her head next to Jackie’s.
    “He’s a PI?”
    “So it would seem,” she said.
    “Man, would you look at those eyes. Those have to be colored contacts.”
    “Maybe. So why would PI Nick Anderson be interested in the body of a dead boy from the Chicago burbs?”
    “Coincidence?”
    Jackie shot her a skeptical glance.
    “It’s been known to happen, you know.”
    “Not