The Best Victim (Kindle Serial) Read Online Free PDF Page B

her about blabbing her whereabouts to the world so casually, Rachel had only laughed off her concern, accusing her of letting her cyber-security work make her paranoid.
    Frigid waves of nausea broke Lauren out in gooseflesh. If she only had the chance to annoy her little sister with another lecture…
    Durant took her silence for permission to continue. “I wanted to see if she’d received any direct communication from a troll who was leaving comments in the discussion sections under online news stories related to her accident. I’d been scanning social media and forums, checking out the conversations, looking for similarities in the wording, threatening statements—”
    “I’m surprised all that ugliness didn’t melt your eyes in their sockets,” she said bitterly. “I’ll never understand the kind of person who gets off on leaving sick, judgmental comments about people involved in tragedies.”
    “Actually, you just nailed it right there.”
    “What?”
    “They get off on it, at least that’s what the bureau experts and the forensic psychologists have to say about the subject.”
    She made a sound of pure disgust. “Sexually, you mean?”
    “A lot of times. But sometimes, it’s just a matter of relieving their own stress or boredom by inflicting pain on others. And just like with face-to-face bullying, it can get competitive. Like a sport.”
    “A blood sport,” she corrected, her short nails digging crimson crescents in her palms.
    “I’d been following discussion threads related to women I believed might fit the suspect’s profile,” Durant continued, “when I noticed a similarity in the wording of some of the most vicious comments. And there were personal details in them, details I suspected could have only come from Rachel. How she blamed herself. How she was seeing a counselor to help her with the bad dreams she’d been having—nightmares about Megan Rutherford’s unborn child coming to accuse her of murdering her mother.”
    Lauren’s heart raced, hearing Rachel’s anguish in the words. Or had she sent them in an e-mail? “He could have hacked her phone or maybe her computer. If her password wasn’t secure enough, or she logged in on a public access wireless hotspot somewhere—”
    Somewhere like the coffee shop.
    “Or if he somehow got her number and spoke to her by phone,” Durant said. “She denied speaking to him, but she wouldn’t look at me when I asked. She became defensive and asked me to leave soon afterward.”
    Lauren shook her head. “Maybe she wasn’t lying. Maybe she was just sick of talking about it. That’s why she left counseling. She said it was bad enough she’d had to survive the accident once, let alone rehash it again and again.”
    “She was lying, Lauren. And it fits this suspect’s pattern, digging up his targets’ numbers somehow and phoning to torment them.”
    “If some creep had called her, she would have freaked out,” Lauren insisted, “and I would’ve been there in a heartbeat. Would’ve made her report it to the police and even slept on her damned doorstep if I had to, with my gun in hand.”
    “Before I, um, before I left the bureau, I was able to subpoena a couple of the other victims’ phone records. Right around the time of their deaths, both had dozens of calls from private numbers, numbers that turned out to be from burner phones, disposables paid for in cash from various locations. Little mom and pop stores with no security cameras—or old, low-tech systems where nothing could be made out but a blurred figure in a hoodie sweatshirt.”
    “So how can you be sure it’s always the same person?” And how can I be sure you not making up all of this?
    “I can’t. Not for certain. And I can’t prove he’s connected to the troll on the forums. But I damn well know it’s him. I swear, I can practically feel the evil welling up in the final message he posted in relation to each victim.”
    Durant’s reasoning might not completely