She gestured for him to lead the way. A small table near the restrooms was available, and they sat. “Please”—she pointed to his lunch—“feel free to start. This won’t take long.”
Remson pushed the bag a few inches away. An act of rebellion? She smiled again. “So tell me about your relationship with Dena Baldwin.”
Remson froze for an instant, then massaged his mustache with his fingers. He folded his hands together on the table. “I didn’t have a relationship with Dena Baldwin.”
“No?”
“I signed up for the group she started. I don’t even remember the name of it.” He refused to make eye contact with Georgia.
“Does ResistanceUSA ring a bell?”
He fidgeted in his seat, then looked at Georgia. “What do you want from me?”
“What did you want from Dena and her group?”
He hesitated. “Look. My wife doesn’t know anything about this. I scrubbed my Facebook account. I don’t want any trouble.”
“So you do know what this is about.”
He straightened his spine and raised his chin defiantly, and for a moment, Georgia thought he might show some mettle. Then he slumped. “She knew what she was getting into. I never hid the fact I was married.”
“Yes. All those pictures of your family on Facebook were a good cover.”
“I’m not a sexual predator, you know. I love my wife and kids.”
“Right. You just dabble.”
Remson folded his arms. “I assume you’ve read through the correspondence. If you have, you’ll know that she started it.”
Georgia nodded.
“Well?”
“You jumped right in. Hardly took you a minute to reply.”
A spit of irritation flashed in his eyes. “Then you know nothing happened. She was a real piece of work. As soon as I figured that out, I got out.”
“I see. So she was the predator.”
He kept his mouth shut.
“You volunteered to do some work on the site. IT stuff, right?”
If his eyes could have narrowed any more, they would have been slits. “What of it? I hate the president and what he’s done to this country. I was happy to do my part.”
“And what exactly did you do?”
“Actually, not much. I didn’t get the chance.”
“Why not?”
“Dena was always picking fights with people. Especially her admins. She liked to play victim. When she wasn’t having fantasies about us,” he added.
“How do you know she picked fights with the admins?”
He shrugged.
“Because you hacked into her private messages?”
Remson reddened from the neck up. He’d stepped into his own shit.
“What else did you hack into?”
“Nothing.” He squirmed. “Really. That’s the truth.”
“But you were planning to.”
He left the question unanswered. Then: “Dena was a player. I guess she got bored . . . I mean, she was already sleeping with Dixon. Or maybe it was a habit. Our—our conversations only lasted a week or two.”
“Three weeks actually. Plenty of time to harvest data from members of the Facebook group.”
Remson opened his mouth, then shut it.
“I mean, here you are working for a highly successful data-protection company, which just might have a data-mining business on the side.” She leaned forward. “You and your company could be in a lot of trouble.”
“What are you going to do?”
“What are you going to tell me about who killed Dena Baldwin?”
“You already know. It was that ex-military creep. Jarvis.”
“And he blew himself up so there wouldn’t be much of a crime scene afterwards. Pretty convenient, wouldn’t you say?”
“I don’t know anything about that. I swear.” Beads of sweat popped out on his forehead. Was Remson telling the truth?
“Ah, I see. You were just trying to steal data for a client. And coming on to Dena was the easiest way to get what you needed.” She paused. “Who was—or is—that client?”
He bit his lip. “I’ll get fired if I tell you.”
She sat back, trying to suppress her triumph. She was right. DataMaster was hacking for a client, mining data for a probably nefarious purpose. She reacted with what she hoped was a casual wave of her hand. “You’re going to get fired anyway, once I call the FBI.”
“Wait. Wait a minute. You can’t! I mean, please don’t.”
“But you and DataMaster are breaking the law. Bigly.”
He sucked in a breath and looked down. Then he met her eyes. “If I tell you who it is, will you keep me out of it?”
“I might be persuaded to call you a confidential informant, but eventually it will come out. And whether your company figures out you were the informant is entirely out of my hands.”
“I was just doing my job,” he said miserably.
“If I had a quarter for every person who told me that, I’d be a millionaire.”
Remson looked down at his hands again. He spoke quietly.
“It’s a congressman. From Pennsylvania. Jackson Hyde.”
“And why would he want the Facebook data of the ResistanceUSA members?”
“His district is into fracking in a big way. The state of Pennsylvania supplies almost twenty percent of the dry natural gas in the country.”
Georgia was puzzled. She didn’t understand why a politician in a fracking state would want data about an anti-president Facebook group. Luckily, though, she didn’t have to. That was an issue for Paul Kelly to figure out. She was just the investigator. She asked her last question.
“Do the words ‘beef jerky’ mean anything to you?”
Remson looked confused. “Wha—what?”
“Beef jerky.”
“Not a thing. That shit is terrible. Full of nitrates. It’s really bad for you.”
Talk about “really bad for you.” Georgia didn’t know much about fracking, except that it caused earthquakes and poisoned water with the chemicals used to pump out the gas. But she didn’t say anything and slid back her chair.
“Wait. Where are you going? What’s going to happen next?”
“Just live your life normally.” She got up. “Pay attention to your wife and kids.”
“But you can’t just ruin my life like this and then walk out!”
She knew she was going to say it. Knew she shouldn’t. It wasn’t polite. Or professional. But she couldn’t help it. “Watch me.” She turned and walked out of the coffee shop without looking back.