“Well, this is going to make our job slightly easier,” Chris stated. “At least, we have the common denominator. So rather than read through thousands of forum threads, all we have to do is search for all the posts made by Erotic Heart.”
“Is the internet connection back on?” I asked, sipping on coffee we’d ordered from room service.
“It sure is.” Chris poured himself a cup of coffee and stirred in a teaspoon of sugar. “By the way, I’ve been able to confirm van Horn as the administrator of the site.”
“How did you do that?” I pulled up a chair next to his at the small desk so we could both be in front of the laptop screen.
“Too long a story and very technical for you, Ferrari. Needless to say, it’s definitely van Horn. He used a different name on the actual site, but I traced a number of IP addresses coinciding with some of his posts back to his ISP.” He saw the confusion in my eyes, and explained, “Basically, each internet service provider, or ISP, uses a whole bunch of IP numbers, or addresses, for their users. These numbers identify the actual service provider, among other things. They also tell us when the user posted to a site or used the internet. This creates a log of dates and times when the user is on the net, and...” he paused and shook his head when he saw the glaze over my eyes. “Never mind, just take it from me; I confirmed van Horn as the administrator and owner of the site despite the fact that he used Neurotic Boy as his avatar and his internet account is under the name of Burt Horner.”
“Then, how did you connect him with van Horn?” I was still confused.
“Because he used a real credit card to pay for his internet service, and this is how I knew the account belonged to him.”
I was impressed. “Well done. We’ll leave aside the fact that you’re doing something illegal by hacking; but well done all the same.”
Chris smiled his thanks and turned to the laptop, bringing up the Neurotic Erotics Club site. “By the way, Multiswitch, whose real name is Wanda Kerr, made a one-off post on the forum. I don’t think she’s the common denominator, not if we’re right about Erotic Heart.”
I agreed, and Chris then searched for the name Erotic Heart. Suddenly, the page changed to a summary of comments posted by the user under different threads. I looked at the bottom of the screen and saw there were twenty-seven more pages of comments. It seemed Erotic Heart was a very busy lady.
“Man, this chick’s into everything!” Chris exclaimed while we did a quick look-through of the threads she had posted under.
“I think we’re on the right track with her,” I replied when my eyes scanned all the categories—illicit liaisons, threesomes, fetishes, anal, S&M, and a whole lot more.
Chris clicked on a few random summary pages. “There’s so much she posted. So where to from here?”
“I guess we read through some of the comments to see if she mentions anybody in particular, especially if any of the other horse names come up in her posts.”
Chris nodded and clicked back to page one on the summary of posts. The first comment was under the illicit liaisons thread; it was dated 5 August 2012.
“Today is my seven year anniversary on this site. I wanted to say I’m so happy I found you guys. Before this, I used to have to make do with internet dating and in my younger years, it was all done by posting ads in a newspaper. I’ve enjoyed every steamy minute of my sexual encounters and can’t wait for more.”
Following this post, there were a few replies of congratulations, but none of them were from names we recognised. “She looks like she’s been at it for a long time,” I commented as Chris clicked on another post. This one came from the threesomes thread and it was dated 8 January 2007, one of her early posts.
“They say there’s a first time for everything, and this was a big first for me. I had the hottest sex in years with one sexy stud taking me from the front and one from the back at the same time. Let’s just say I was the meat in the sandwich.” The post was followed by a smiley icon with its tongue hanging out of its mouth. Again, we looked to the replies, but did not recognise any of the names. SexManiac said: “You were worth it, darling. I loved your tight butt.” Erotic Heart came back with: “And I loved your big, hard cock.” MysteryMan posted: “Enjoyed sticking it to ya, love!” To which Erotic Heart replied: “And you’re finger lickin’ good. Mmmm.”
“This is disgusting!” I protested. Despite this, I felt wet between my legs and knew I had to get out of the room lest Chris see me blush. When he didn’t reply, I turned to him and noticed his own flushed face going right to the very roots of his hairline. One look down at his shorts told me the reason why. “Okay, that’s it!” I declared firmly. “We can’t do this together.”
Chris remained silent, probably absolutely mortified at his erection. I took pity on him. “I tell you what. Let’s take turns doing this. I read through the comments on certain pages and you look at others. We’ll keep tabs on which pages we’ve searched and look for anyone posting with one of the horse names.”
Chris simply nodded and handed me his laptop. He said in a low tone, “You stay here and continue. I’m going out for a walk.” He slammed out of the cabin before I had a chance to reply.
I went back to the comments, feeling a lot more at ease without Chris looking over my shoulder, and worked my way through ten pages. It took me around two hours to do this, but I didn’t stop to read the details of the posts that were sometimes so explicit they brought colour to my face and wild images to my mind. Instead, I simply looked at the usernames of those who commented on Erotic Heart’s posts. I had been going at this for about an hour and a half with my eyes feeling dry and tired, when I finally spotted one. At last, a name I recognised! Footloose.
This gave me renewed energy and within another half hour, I came across Neurotic Boy and Adrenaline Rush. I was now on a high, but before I could continue, Chris returned.
He looked more relaxed than when he had left. “Sorry about before,” he apologised when he entered the cabin. “I—”
I gave him a reassuring smile. “No need to explain, Chris. It happens to the best of us. Now, get yourself over here. You’re going to be a busy boy tonight, hacking whatever it is you hack into.”
All other thoughts forgotten, Chris took a seat on the chair next to me and I explained what I’d been doing. “It was taking too long to read the comments themselves, though they are more than spicy; so I simply started going through the posts and scanning for names that might jump out at me. So far, aside from Neurotic Boy, which I knew we’d find sooner or later, I found Footloose and Adrenaline Rush.”
Chris looked happy all of a sudden. “That’s excellent work! Thanks, Mia.”
I stood and stretched. Time for a rest—and later a shower to cool myself off. “Try to find out who these people are. We’ll update the others at dinner. And tomorrow, I’ll look through some more of the posts and see if I can come up with anyone else. We need to identify if the victims match the names I found on the forum. We also have to find out who Erotic Heart is—and if we have time, try to come up with any other names we can link to the medical convention list. I mean, for all we know, half of them could be part of the cheaters’ club. And if any of them had something to do with Erotic Heart, we could have a huge body count on our hands.”
Chris nodded, already at work.
“I’ll give you a call before eight. We’re meeting Dobbs and Smythe at the buffet restaurant.” I left the cabin and went to mine, where I fell into a deep sleep the moment my head hit the pillow.
I slept for a couple of hours and awoke feeling refreshed. My neck was a little stiff after sitting for so long in front of Chris’s laptop, but a hot shower would soon take care of this.
Whilst the rejuvenating stream of steamy water cascaded over my body, I thought about all I’d been able to unearth from the cheaters’ forum. I was pleased with the results and with any luck Chris would come across further information.
My mind kept busy as I got out of the shower and started to get ready for dinner. I tried to imagine Erotic Heart. For some reason, I saw her as a blonde siren with beguiling green eyes and red pouty lips—a woman whose passions ruled her completely. Although I hadn’t spent too much time reading the details of her posts, I’d gleaned enough to know she was a truly erotic creature with a voracious appetite for sex and experimentation.
I was no prude myself, but some of the stuff Erotic Heart was into shocked me to the core. Not so much because she seemed to enjoy it, but because she allowed her body to be used by the men she went with. She allowed pain and humiliation in her sexual adventures with S&M; she took part in not just threesomes but sexual parties of four, and even five, where she was the only female. Men used her body in the most depraved of ways, and yet she seemed to be proud of it, enough to post about her exploits in the forum.
I shook my head when I saw my reflection in the mirror. I was a passionate woman who enjoyed lusty sex, and I had a penchant for younger men. In addition, I wasn’t averse to trying certain things, but certainly none of what Erotic Heart was into. I respected myself, and my body, too much to allow anyone to use me in that manner.
This made me wonder what went on in the woman’s head. My intuition told me she was obviously very unhappy in her marriage. I recalled she’d mentioned this in one of her posts; something about her steady marriage and how her husband was more or less the “missionary position” type. So I could relate to why she wanted to experiment, but to go so far!
The other thing I wondered about was her age. In the post, she talked about her seven-year anniversary on the forum. She also mentioned that prior to this she’d used internet dating and newspaper ads. I tried to remember when internet dating first became popular. This must’ve been around the late 90s. So the time span between now and back then would have to be around fifteen or so years. Plus she didn’t mention how long she was answering newspaper ads. Therefore, depending on how old she was when she started doing this, she could have been cheating on her husband for more than fifteen years!
I thought back to the days of newspaper ads, plus actual matchmaking agencies, and this brought me to my early twenties, which meant Erotic Heart could be of a similar age to me or older. She’d mentioned in a post that she mainly stayed in her marriage for the financial security.
Again, I shook my head and then dropped my line of thinking. I only hoped Chris would surprise us all with the identity of Erotic Heart.
~~~
“What do you mean you can’t find out who she is?” I exclaimed with frustration.
Chris, Dobbs, Smythe and I were sitting at one of the outdoor tables on the stern of the ship, just outside the buffet restaurant. The night air was bracing, but not too cold to eat out. Even so, most diners sat inside and we pretty much had the whole deck to ourselves.
When we’d met at the restaurant, Chris and I gave them a rundown of what we found. Smythe seemed to enjoy some of the details I gave on Erotic Heart’s adventures, even though I glossed over them quickly. I detected a smile that told me he was picturing the woman in all the acts I described, though I kept them as circumspect as possible. Dobbs, on the other hand, looked vaguely interested, but seemed more interested in his food. I found this humorous and this made it easier for me to relate my findings.
Once I reported my side of it, Chris took over. “After Mia left, I was able to identify Footloose and Adrenaline Rush.”
I leaned forward, waiting in anticipation for him to go on.
“We already know Neurotic Boy was van Horn,” he said. “As for Erotic Heart, I can’t find out who she is.”
This was the point at which I’d exclaimed, “What do you mean you can’t find out who she is?” I leaned back in my chair, wondering why this was so. We just had to find out her identity. Right now, she was our only lead to the killer.
“Ferrari,” Dobbs said in between bites of roast chicken. “Let Chris finish first.”
I remained silent, feeling like a five-year-old who’d been admonished by her father. From the corner of my eye, I noted Smythe giving me a look of sympathy. I blushed, thankful it was dark out and he wouldn’t be able to see the colour creeping up my face. A sexy image flashed into my mind of Smythe and I engaged in a passionate sexual act that suddenly had me quaking in my shoes.
“... So what do you think?” Chris’s voice suddenly pierced its way into my mind, thankfully dispersing what Smythe was about to do to me.
I almost jumped out of my chair. “Huh?”
“Ferrari!” This from Dobbs, again. “Pay attention, girl. Good God, I don’t know where your head is tonight.”
If only he knew. “Sorry, Chris.” I turned to him. “I was just thinking of something to do with the case. What do I think about what?”
Chris threw me a querying look but didn’t berate me. Instead, he replied, “I just explained how I found two of the victims’ identities through the ISP. I guess you tuned out of all the technical talk.”
I grabbed onto this like a lifeline. “Yes. Exactly right. I didn’t even understand it the first time round. I guess my mind wandered. But you were saying?” I could kiss the boy.
“Well, I traced the accounts for Footloose and Adrenaline Rush. Footloose is Dr Barry and Dr Weinstein is Adrenaline Rush.”
“Good work, Chris,” Smythe remarked. “Ever thought of joining the force?” He sounded quite impressed with Chris’s efforts.
Chris looked pleased. “Not a chance, Smythe. IT’s my life.”
“Yes, but the police also needs IT experts.”
I turned to Smythe and laughed. “Don’t encourage him, Smythe. If Chris went into the police force, plus worked with me on the side, we’d be the Batman and Robin of the NSW Police and you guys wouldn’t have anything left to do.”
My comment was made good naturedly and I felt pleased when Smythe joined in the laughter around the table while gazing my way with his attractive eyes.
I thought I was going to blush again, so I said, “Chris, what about Erotic Heart?”
Chris looked perplexed. “Well, this is the thing. Remember how we went through the summary of her posts?”
I nodded. “How could I forget?”
“Did you notice how her most recent post was August 2012?”
I stopped with the fork midway to my mouth, looking stunned. I put the fork back down. “Shit! Why didn’t I see this?”
“Probably too busy lapping up all the sex details,” Smythe teased.
I screwed my nose at him and thought how pleasant it was to have friendly banter without us being at loggerheads all the time. I espied Dobbs’s satisfied smile as his glance encompassed us both. But now it was back to business and I turned to Chris. “I kind of did notice the last post was in 2012, but it didn’t really register that the summary was in chronological order.”
“You’re right. It wasn’t. And at first, I thought the same as you. She was in so many threads that some posts would’ve been more recent than others,” Chris explained. “But when I went looking for some of her IP addresses, so I could crosscheck them with the log from her ISP, I couldn’t get anything after August 2012.”
Dobbs held up a hand. “Whoa. Now I’m lost. What do you mean by some of her IP addresses?”
Chris said, “When a person posts, they don’t always get allocated the same IP address. The IP addresses are kind of “leased” out to the customer when they’re on the net posting something or simply surfing around. But if they don’t use the service for a period of time, the IP’s leased to another customer. You see,” he added when he saw the frown of confusion on Dobbs’s face, “each internet service provider has a series of IP addresses allocated to them, which they rotate among their customers. So if today you post to a blog, you’ll get one IP address from your service, but if you don’t post or use the net for a while, someone else will get to use that same IP and the system simply generates another one for you when you go back online.”
Understanding dawned on Dobbs’s face. “So the IP isn’t fixed to anyone customer. It’s like ‘lent out’, right?”
Chris nodded. “Yes. As long as the IP belongs to the same internet service provider, you could have a whole bunch of different numbers over any given period of time. You know, like a usage log.”
I then jumped in. “Which means Chris has to gather a few IPs and match them with the times the person logged in and posted to the forum. Basically, he has to cross-reference the activity of the forum members and match those same exact details with the ISP logs. This way, he can pinpoint who the user is. You see, he carries out a search to find the same sequence in the ISP logs in order to confirm it’s the same user and hopefully, he can find out their real identity by getting into their accounts data.”
Chris threw me an impressive smile. “You were listening after all, Ferrari!”
Smythe shook his head in disbelief. “I don’t know how you do it, Chris. It’s mindboggling. And I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Chris is brilliant, Smythe. This is why we’re generally way ahead of you cops.” I winked playfully. “Well, it’s just that we move faster because we don’t need search warrants and all that red tape stuff. But back to Erotic Heart,” I prompted Chris.
“She didn’t post for just over a year,” Chris replied. “This could mean she changed her internet provider, although I still couldn’t find any other posts after this date. So it’s more probable that she decided to change her identity altogether.”
“You mean she could be using another name?” I remarked.
Smythe shrugged. “Nothing illegal about that.”
Chris concurred. “Exactly. So I’ll need more time to search for her.”
“We have two more days at sea before we reach Pago Pago,” I reminded him. “Let’s hope we can get to whoever this woman is before then. The last thing we want is another murder.”
As if on cue, when we started on our coffees, Mark Evans made an appearance. He barely spared me a smile as he approached our table with a serious look on his face. My heart sank and I knew something was terribly wrong.
“I’m glad I found you together,” Mark said instead of greeting us. “The captain sent me to fetch you.”
We all stood at once. “What is it?” Smythe spoke for us.
“One of our turndown service attendants just found the body of Dr Cliff Downes.”
“Where is it?” I asked.
“Lying naked in his bed with his throat cut.”
“He bled to death?” This from Dobbs.
Mark nodded. “It’s not a pretty sight. The ship’s doctor is currently gathering more info about cause of death to confirm how and when it happened. But he thinks the killer cut both the jugular veins and carotid arteries. So it was very quick.”
Mark looked visibly upset, but Smythe, Dobbs and I were old pros. I said, “Lead on, Mark. Although terrible, this can’t possibly top a dismembered body in a bathtub. Trust me.”
Mark looked rather dumbfounded as he started to walk and we followed. Only my group knew that I had been referring to one of my finds during the grisly gay mardi gras murders.