The Girl Who Disappeared Twice (Forensic Instincts 1)

She’d omitted more than a few details. Then again, so had he. Trust wasn’t something you developed in one conversation. It took time, and lots of it. So Lynch had kept certain cards close to his vest, and he was sure Casey was doing the same.

There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that she and her team were heavily pursuing Hope Willis’s former court clerk, Claudia Mitchell. He understood why. Their reasoning had merit. Their methods, on the other hand—well, those he had a hunch would be teetering on the brink of illegal.

He couldn’t be a part of it.

On the other hand, there was no saying he had to stop it.

It was just after dark when Casey and Marc parked their car under a canopy of trees a half block down from Claudia Mitchell’s house. They were both dressed in black sweatshirts and jeans. They looked perfectly ordinary, and were hardly noticeable in the darkness. Marc carried his tools in a

sport waist pack.

They approached the front door like casual visitors and rang the bell.

As expected, there was no response.

A second ring.

This time a cat meowed from somewhere inside.

“Did you hear that?” Casey asked flatly, knowing full well that Claudia owned two yellow tabbies.

“Yeah.” Marc’s response was equally bland. “I wonder what it was.”

“I couldn’t tell if it was a cat or a child. Could you?”

“Nope. But if it’s a kid, he or she can’t be left alone in the house.”

“Definitely not. And he or she sounds like they’re in some kind of distress.”

A second meow.

“That’s it.” Casey reached for the doorknob. “We can’t risk it. We have to go in.”

Marc grabbed her arm and stopped her. “Don’t bother. I think it’s unlocked. Let me check.” He pulled out a torque wrench and pick. Inserting the flat end of the wrench, he exerted just enough pressure to the L-shaped top of the tool, which served as a lever. He then inserted the pick and carefully tapped each pin out of the way. There was a slight click and a subtle movement of the cylinder as the torque wrench acted as a substitute key, turning the entire cylinder and disengaging the lock.

With a slight push, Marc opened the door. “I was right. Unlocked. Let’s check on that sound.”

They crossed the threshold in a heartbeat.

“Start with the basement,” Casey instructed, all sarcasm having been abandoned. “That’s the room where Claire kept visualizing Krissy.”

They found their way to the stairs leading down to the basement. All Casey was hoping to see was a room transformed to a bedroom, much the way Claire had described.

All she found was a bare-bones basement. Drywalled partitions. Indoor-outdoor carpet. Two pull-string fluorescent fixtures. An Alienware gaming laptop sitting on top of a small desk. The only upgrade to the decor was a leather gaming chair facing a large flat-screen TV, along with video game consoles, controllers, various accessories and all the games to go with them.

But no sign of a child.

“Dammit,” Casey muttered. She flicked on one of the overhead fixtures and scanned the room.

Nothing.

“You take care of the computer,” she told Marc. “I’ll keep searching.”

In response, Marc walked over to the laptop, which was currently turned off. He popped open the DVD drive with a paper clip and inserted the disk Ryan had given him. Closing the drive, he turned on the computer and watched as it booted from Ryan’s disk. In an instant, the laptop’s hard disk indicator began flashing furiously, as the program hacked into the password security tables, inserting a seemingly innocuous system account with full administrative rights and an undetectable spyware program that tracked everything. It also enabled the microphone and effectively turned the laptop into a one-way intercom, with Ryan able to listen to everything that transpired in the room.

When the program finished, it shut down the laptop as if nothing had happened.

Marc removed the disk, sliding it into his jacket pocket, and closed the drive.