Alone in the Dark

‘Because of Jill,’ Scarlett murmured, and beside her Marcus sighed.

Diesel just shrugged. ‘So what’s up with you two? Other than the need to get a room.’

‘We came to see Stone,’ Marcus said, serious now. ‘You should come too.’

Diesel came to his feet with a frown. ‘Okay.’

Marcus led them past his own office and through a door to the back where the rest of the staff worked. Offices with doors lined the walls and the middle was divided into cubicles. He stopped at a closed door with Stone’s name on it and knocked.

Stone opened the door right away and gave Scarlett a look that wasn’t quite welcoming but was considerably less hostile than before. ‘I got your text saying you needed to talk, Marcus, but I didn’t expect a party. What’s this about?’ he asked when he’d shut the door.

Marcus showed them a copy of the sketch of Demetrius, told them what the Bautistas had suffered and what he himself remembered from his hospital stay.

Stone was visibly shaken. ‘They tried to kill you in the hospital? Holy shit, Marcus.’

‘You attract trouble even when you’re unconscious,’ Diesel added, stu

‘The obvious threat that week was from Leslie McCord,’ Scarlett said, ‘but she was dead by the time Marcus was in the hospital. There’s a puzzle piece missing. What can you remember about that investigation?’

Both Stone and Diesel winced. ‘That was a bad one,’ Diesel said softly. ‘I . . . I still can’t get those pictures out of my head, and I only looked at a few. As soon as I saw what McCord had on his home hard drive, I backed out.’

‘I wrote the story,’ Stone said, ‘then we tipped the Internet Crimes Against Children task force. As soon as they confiscated McCord’s computer, we went live with the story.’

‘Where are the photos now?’ Scarlett asked.

‘With the ICAC task force,’ Stone said. ‘We didn’t keep copies.’

‘I always keep copies of the hard drives that I hack,’ Diesel said, ‘except when it’s kids. I don’t want it and I can’t handle it,’ he added with brutal honesty.

‘Not many can,’ Scarlett said. ‘What can you give me?’

Stone typed a command, and a minute later his printer was spitting out pages. ‘This is the story and all my notes. We got tipped off that McCord was too friendly with some of his students by a few of the boys on the JV football team. Marcus was a volunteer coach.’

‘The Ledger sponsors youth sports,’ Marcus said. ‘It’s an environment that can make kids vulnerable to predators, but it also fosters a spirit of communication.’

‘Not the Ledger,’ Diesel told Scarlett in a theatric whisper. ‘Sponsoring sports was Marcus’s idea. And mostly his money.’

She smiled up at the giant of a man who was even larger than Stone. She patted Marcus’s thigh as he sat in the chair beside her. ‘I’m not surprised.’

Marcus rolled his eyes, embarrassed. ‘It’s expedient with respect to our team’s goal. Kids will talk to a coach or a team sponsor about things they might not tell a teacher – especially when that teacher is the predator. McCord taught freshman science. Some of the boys were creeped out because of how he would get too cozy when he was checking their lab setup. They said the girls felt the same way – uncomfortable. None of the kids would come forward with anything specific, though, so I had Diesel dig.’

Diesel raked his fingers across his shaved head as if he still had hair. ‘I . . . I was not expecting what I saw. I mean, I’ve seen porn collections and I’ve even seen some kid photos when I poke around people’s computers as part of this job, but McCord’s collection took it to a whole new level. He had photos, video files . . . big files. Long videos, not just clips.’ He swallowed hard. ‘Like I said, I backed out as soon as I figured out what I was looking at. I’m no lover of cops, no offense, Detective, but I pitied the ones who had to analyze that vile shit.’

‘Okay,’ Scarlett said gently, because Diesel was actually trembling. ‘You said you turned the entire hard drive over to ICAC. You didn’t keep copies of the photos or videos, but what about the rest of the hard drive? Was it all pictures, or were there other file types?’

‘Files,’ he said on a rough exhale. ‘Word files, a few spreadsheets. Hell, I didn’t even open them. I ran a check to be sure there were no picture files embedded, then I put them in my safe at home with the drives from all our other investigations.’

Scarlett glanced up at Marcus. ‘We need to have a look. I can do it, if you want.’

He nodded grimly. ‘I’m go

She squeezed his knee, then began skimming the pages Stone had given her. ‘So you anonymously tipped ICAC, they got a warrant, found McCord’s stash. He’s arrested, you publish the story, the community shudders – appropriately – in horror and disgust. McCord loses his job, his pension, goes to jail . . .’ She turned the page and frowned. ‘He hired an attorney who was going to fight the charges.’ She looked up at Stone. ‘Fight with what? What did McCord have to bargain with?’

‘The attorney wouldn’t say,’ Stone said. ‘I badgered him about it, because I wanted to know too. Finally, after McCord hanged himself, the attorney said that he’d pla

Scarlett blinked. ‘Pandering? Really? I mean, it’s a lower minimum sentence than for child porn possession so that’s why he’d want it, but pandering carries with it an economic element. Was he copping to prostitution? Would a judge even allow that?’

Stone shrugged. ‘That’s all the attorney would tell me.’

Scarlett found the attorney’s name in Stone’s story and used her phone to look him up online. ‘Shit,’ she muttered. ‘We won’t be following up with him. He’s dead.’

Marcus leaned over her shoulder to read along with her. ‘Died in an office fire. Arson was suspected.’

‘Tidy,’ Scarlett said grimly. ‘Dammit. McCord said he was going to expose his suppliers, and all of a sudden anyone who can tell us what he was going to divulge and against whom is dead.’ She put the papers down, spoke aloud the thought that had been circling in her mind since they’d left the hotel. ‘Demetrius supplied the Bautistas to Chip Anders for labor. Maybe he supplied children to McCord for—’

‘God knows what,’ Marcus said from behind clenched teeth.

Scarlett squeezed his knee again, for support. And comfort. Because now she understood his zeal to punish monsters who hurt children. ‘Let’s take a look at the files you saved, Diesel. You say they’re at your house? We can follow you there.’

‘I’ll go home and get them and bring them to you,’ Diesel said.

Scarlett wanted to argue, but there was a sudden undercurrent in the room, a tension that she could feel but that she didn’t understand. She squeezed Marcus’s knee again, so lightly that no one else would know.

‘We don’t have that much time,’ Marcus said to Diesel, apology in his voice. ‘We’re headed to the Meadow next. It’s a shelter on Race Street.’

‘I know it,’ Diesel said stiffly. ‘I’ll meet you there as soon as I can.’

They dispersed, Scarlett holding her question until she and Marcus were alone in his office with the door closed. ‘I didn’t mean to upset him,’ she said. ‘What did I say?’

He covered her shoulders with his hands and massaged. ‘Nothing wrong. It’s just Diesel being fucked in the head. He doesn’t like letting people in his house. I’ve only been there a few times myself.’ He leaned in until their foreheads touched. ‘I’m afraid to see what he brings us.’

‘I know. I couldn’t push either of them any further to tell us more. They . . .’ She swallowed hard. Thought of what Marcus had told her about Stone, and all the things he hadn’t put into words. She’d seen the pain in Stone’s eyes, the understanding where there should have been none. Diesel had exhibited that same deer-in-the-headlights panic. ‘Diesel too?’