A/N: A new chapter for the weekend! Enjoy!
A Return to Vegas
Chapter 8
At the same time, the hacker was sitting in a small back yard on a tiny deck drinking coffee heavily laced with cheap vodka. He had little to do—he was going to do very little, that is. He shouldn't even be here, he thought. He should be in New York or Los Angeles or Chicago or a top tier university where he could be using his mental skills on a worthy project.
He knew that wasn't going to happen. Every time he was ready to make a move, something jumped up to thwart him—several girlfriends, his mother's life, self-doubt. He had a job at a casino, the third casino in two years that provided a steady income and kept his mother happy.
His mother. Every day the woman got up and left the house, doing the same job for over twenty years. For years, she'd come home and told him every detail of her work, who she worked for, what they did. Every night, the stories, the names, the details; one night, he had enough. Decided he would do something that would throw a monkey wrench into her world and the people who populated it.
The hacker was slender, worked out daily, had a sense of humor, and often looked in the mirror and thought he looked good. But he knew he wasn't going any place but Vegas, doing the same job year-after-year, waiting for retirement. The boredom, the monotony of his life brought him to this—this idea.
With very little planning, he began to read and found it remarkable how much information he could find with a simple search. As he read, he became more confident that he could pull this off.
The local college offered night classes; he signed up for two and learned even more. The instructors telling the students how they could hack into data bases and how they could hide their tracks—all in the process of teaching how to prevent such intrusions. He cracked into computer records of a couple of private schools, changed a few grades that no one but the kids with failing grades noticed.
After that, hacking became easy and he found hundreds of ways to hack—schools, small businesses, churches, local government offices—most never knew he'd visited even when he left a virus that would interrupt their computers for months. If there was a difficult password or fire wall, he'd back out and try some other place. Months passed before he decided to try the crime lab, his goal from his first thought.
He rented a storage unit, set up a makeshift lab—found it easy to purchase what he needed, found internet instructions for most lab procedures, and then he hacked into the crime lab. A wall—much easier than it should have been—he found an access and opened one of several sections. Biology and trace evidence were massive; disappointed he could not use his recently acquired knowledge of lab procedures, he moved on and found ballistics. His mind began to churn with possibilities for gun markings, serial numbers, and spent bullets.
It took him a week to work out what he would do and how and in hacking worlds, what he did was easy; his virus, loaded with eighteen names to randomly show up in the data base waiting for the right search and a ballistics report would be corrupted to show a real person's name and a computer generated report that matched no weapon. He had laughed when he'd found a public report of the disposal of old guns by the city and county—there would be nothing physical to compare to the computer file.
Once his virus was set, placed into computer files for ballistics, waiting for someone to do a search, he wondered who would set it off. Probably some minimum wage clerk hired to do searches for higher-ups who couldn't be bothered.
Clearly, he could remember news conferences where names became faces and those names he plugged into his hack. All were retired now but he still remembered those names—and wished he could see the faces when his virus exploded their lives.
Slugging a gulp of coffee, he reminded himself to loosen up and thought about what he had done. He might be an irrelevant nobody in Las Vegas, but what he had created would cause chaos—he laughed. And he was already thinking of the next time. He could probably get into city hall or the sheriff's office—property tax office would be fun.
The crime lab had been easy and he was certain the local offices would tighten up security once they realized the ease of invading one of the big data bases. So far, he had heard nothing; didn't think for a minute his work would make the nightly news—at least not for a while.
Finishing his coffee, he leaned back, stared at the sky and waited.
…They divided up; Chris with Sara and Allie with Grissom. They took the list of names and divided it up. Chris and Allie plugged the names into internet searches, surprised when nothing recent showed up. Sara worked on employment records; speed-reading before printing one information sheet for each name. Grissom handled the pages, putting some kind of order to the names.
Allie sighed, "These old guys don't have much of a social media presence."
Chris cleared his throat, shooting a glance to the young woman then toward Grissom.
Quickly, she said, "I don't mean you, Dr. Grissom. I—I mean—you aren't so old."
A laugh from Sara, "He has no social media presence—nothing!" Another laugh and she added, "If he had a choice, he'd still have a flip phone."
At the end of the table, Grissom pretended to hear nothing as he said, "We're going to have to talk to as many of these guys as we can." He shuffled a stack of papers, adding, "A lot of overlap in cases but that's expected. None to tie them all together except their employment history covers a couple of decades."
He slid one page toward the others, saying, "He has the earliest employment date." Four more pages came across the table. "That's the first five of our group—they didn't retire in order of employment dates." He sighed as he thumbed through the others. "I remember the faces of these guys—some of them were habitual drinkers, most were married at some point in their careers. All of them took some bad guys out but I do not remember any of them having a blemish on their work."
For several minutes, everyone was silent. Then Grissom said, "Divide the names again—we can start calling and see who we find at home—or wherever they answer the phone."
In an hour, five people had been contacted; a wife of one said her husband was incapable of remembering the past. The other four were talkative and quickly agreed to come in for a face-to-face meeting—as if they were waiting for a summons. A quick call to Jim Brass and the other two retired officers brought the number up to seven.
Maxine reappeared several times and when told they had seven from the list coming in, she said, "That's a good number—maybe we can figure out—figure out something."
Over the next hour, the group discussed how much to tell the retired officers. Maxine wanted to hold back while Grissom was for sharing all they had.
He said, "We don't have enough to give any direction—they need to talk—we need to spur their memories."
In the end, they decided to put everything out, telling them how their names had been linked to corrupted files. Maxine was worried the information would make the men offensive, as if they were accused of wrong-doing.
Grissom said, "It will make them want to help—figure out who could be behind this."
"Been there, done that," Sara muttered.
Grissom shot her a glance, eyebrows raised.
Seeing the exchange, Allie asked, "What case was that?"
"A bombing case," said Grissom.
Sara snorted before she laughed. "He means his buddy Lady Heather, Allie."
Allie's eyes widened, moving from Grissom to Sara and back. "Lady Heather—that sounds like—like royalty."
At her comment, Sara laughed again, suppressed it quickly before she erupted in more laughter, shaking her head at the same time.
Grissom pulled a face and kept quiet.
Sara managed to say, "She liked to think she was royalty." She glanced at Grissom, made a soft laugh, and with a touch of irony in her voice, said, "Some people were at her beck-and-call."
Grissom kept quiet, finding the paper in front of him requiring his full attention.
Chris said, "Who is she—or do we need to look her up."
Leaning back in her chair, Sara said, "Years ago, Lady Heather was a professional dominatrix in Vegas—had quite a large clientele, made lots of money—a few times her—her clients ended up involved in crimes and once or twice—maybe three times, she was a suspect in a situation and ended up
assisting law enforcement in—in unique ways. Always popular with the men," she bit her lips stifling another grin as she glanced at Grissom.
Grissom's eyes met hers. With a smug smile, he said, "She was quite helpful in several difficult cases including the last one we worked."
The three young investigators glanced at each other; Josh had already searched and read from the screen, "Heather Kessler, former owner of Lady Heather's dominion, a private club which closed in 2008, after which she worked as a therapist until retirement."
"That sounds about right," Grissom said.
Sara stifled another laugh. She said, "I'll tell you about Lady Heather one day—including how she slept with the man who killed her daughter to get his DNA."
There was a deep intake of air as the three young people were stunned speechless.
Waving a hand and exaggerating her voice in a slower drawl, Sara continued, "I wasn't involved in all the interactions between the lab and Lady Heather." She looked at Grissom, saying, "But Grissom was—and…" Sara's smile broke into a wide grin before she said, "Yes, she redeemed herself in several ways," She placed her hand on his shoulder; the smile remained on her face as she added, "Didn't she, dear?" Her thumb ran up his neck in a slow caress.
For a long moment, their eyes held.
The others in the room knew they were witnesses to an intimate act between two people who love each other very much.
The chirp of a phone broke the spell and Sara checked her phone.
She said, "Jim is here."
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