I CAN’T SLEEP. ALL NIGHT long I’m plagued by terrible dreams where I’m running frantically down long corridors, only to turn the corner and find Jacob standing there. Except it’s not Jacob, it’s Keith Edgar, and he’s telling me he’ll take care of everything, which sends me careening away, running even faster.
I never make it to bed. I collapse on my sofa, where my legs twitch and my eyes keep flying open and I bolt upright like some demented jack-in-the-box.
My past and present have collided. I honestly can’t figure out where old ghosts end and new demons begin. Is Keith Edgar just some computer genius who, due to a family tragedy, has a true-crime obsession similar to my own? Or is he too good to be true? The handsome guy who’s been writing to me continuously since the day I came home, studying and perfecting the right thing to say so that one day, when we finally meet in person . . .
How many true-crime aficionados would love to brag they have Flora Dane as their girlfriend? Or maybe he is something darker, more sinister? The guy who got into studying killers because everything about murder fascinates him? In which case, could there be any bigger coup than claiming Flora Dane as his first victim?
I’m being selfish, arrogant. Assuming I’m worth so much. Yet, total strangers stop me on the street to say, Hey, aren’t you that girl, and, Why didn’t you run away the first time he left you alone, and, Doesn’t that mean you must’ve liked him at least a little bit? Sicko men write marriage proposals. Others think I’m the only one who can truly understand them.
Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.
At six A.M. I give up. Shower. Leave a message for my boss at the pizza parlor, claiming to be deathly ill and apologizing for missing my shift yesterday. Given how I feel, I’m not totally lying. This is the other thing I resent about Keith Edgar. Him and his whole you can be anything. What a load of shit.
If I could do better, don’t you think I would’ve by now? Instead of hanging out in a triple-locked apartment plastered with articles about missing persons cases. I’m not even a good pizza employee. And I don’t want to write a tell-all novel or sell the movie rights or exploit my situation to make a quick buck.
Sure, I help other survivors. I assist the police. But six years later, I’m mostly still me, seeing monsters everywhere, and training every day to kill them.
I hate Keith Edgar all over again. Him and his elitist club and his quiet competence, which seems to argue you can fight predators and still lead an almost-normal-looking life.
I decide we need to talk. Which is why I grab my favorite down jacket, fill the pockets with all my latest tricks, then, hunching my shoulders against the cold, trudge down to the T station in Harvard Square.
It all seems like a very good plan. Till I knock hard on Keith Edgar’s door. And SSA Kimberly Quincy opens it.
I FEEL IMMEDIATELY like I’m intruding on something, but I don’t know what. Quincy doesn’t say a word, merely opens the door wider. She doesn’t seem surprised to see me. Maybe after yesterday’s display, she thinks Keith and I are friends. Or more than friends.
She’s wearing a pantsuit very similar to yesterday’s ensemble, except today she has a dark-green fitted top beneath the short black blazer. Sensible heels, I notice, as she leads the way to the back of Keith’s town house and I reluctantly follow.
They are set up in the dining room at a sleek, dark wood table. I note Quincy’s long coat slung over the back of a chair, her computer bag occupying the seat. On the table, her computer is up and running, while across from her, Keith’s hunched over a laptop. It doesn’t look like his computer from yesterday. This machine is both larger and older-looking. I’m confused for a moment, then . . .
“Is that?” I ask Quincy, staring at the computer in rapt fascination. Keith still doesn’t look up. He seems intent on avoiding me. That pleases me.
“Ness’s actual computer? No. First rule of forensic analysis, you clone the hard drive so you’re never working on the original. Granted, we made this replicate six years ago, so some of the external scarring is authentic by now.”
“You brought the machine to Keith?” I leave my next question hanging in the air. Why?
“He seems to know a great deal about Jacob Ness, as well as computers. I have profilers who can give me the first half of that equation and geeks who can give me the second half, but as for one person with insight into both psychology and technology . . .”
Quincy’s voice trails off. I scowl. I don’t want Keith to be that valuable to this investigation, never mind that I’m the one who involved him in the beginning.
“The geeks cracked the password?”
“We think. But that’s only a piece of the puzzle. Are you familiar with the dark web?”
Quincy pulls out a chair, takes a seat without asking. Clearly it’s up to me to follow if I feel so inclined. Across from us, Keith continues to type furiously, scowling at the monitor. Briefly, the FBI agent’s gaze goes from me to him and back to me again. I don’t think much gets by her.
“The evil underbelly of the internet,” I say. “Its haunted house.”
“Good analogy. The typical online experience, or open web, features legitimate businesses, interests, services. The dark web . . . the less reputable sort. Illicit drugs. Firearms. Assassinations. And, yes, human trafficking.”
I take a seat.
Quincy leans forward. “One of our issues with Ness’s computer was how clean it initially appeared. His use of SteadyState meant that every time he rebooted his computer, it automatically deleted any traces of websites he may have visited or content he downloaded.”
I nod.
“Even knowing he must’ve been visiting the dark web—given the Tor browser—we couldn’t make any headway with the one username we had. Keith and you, however, cracked that nut for us yesterday when you helped determine Jacob’s ‘real’ username, so to speak.”
“I. N. Verness,” I fill in. “But you still need a password.”
“To access sites on the dark web, absolutely. Which meant we were thrilled at four this morning when codebreaking software finally churned out the magic answer. Better yet, like a lot of people, Jacob seems to have reused the same password over and over again. Meaning now, a mere six years later, that computer right there, our Ness clone, is currently logged in to several markets and forums on the dark web. Hallelujah!”
Keith looks up briefly at Quincy, nodding in acknowledgment. The glance he throws my way is harder to interpret. Sullen? Hurt?
“But here’s where it gets tricky,” Quincy continues. “Even if we could re-create every IP address Ness ever visited six years ago, the internet—open or dark—changes all the time. Basically, we’ve finally arrived in the right country. But all the roads and landmarks are different. We have no idea where to go or what to do next.”
“So what’s he doing?” I ask, gesturing to Keith. “Learning the landscape?”
“Actually, I have other techs mapping out the terrain; one of them is an expert on the dark web and is continuing to cross-check Jacob’s username with all the pages we know would appeal to a subject with his tastes.”
“Porn, prostitution, human trafficking,” I provide.
“Keith, on the other hand, I gave a different task. He’s basically . . . wandering around. Seeing if he can get anyone else to approach with directions.”
I don’t understand right away; then it comes to me. “This is the first time I. N. Verness has been logged on in six years,” I say slowly. “You’re waiting to see if someone who used to do business with him, or hang out in a chat room with him, recognizes the name and initiates contact.”
“Precisely. To the best of our knowledge, Ness kept his online identity secret, even from his fellow surfers. Meaning they don’t know I. N. Verness was Jacob Ness or that Jacob is dead. They’re simply seeing a visit from a long-lost guest.”
“Won’t the six-year gap scare them off? I mean, why now?”
“Fortunately, given that a lot of the activity on the dark web is illegal, it’s easy to imply Verness spent the last few years in prison. Just got out. Not a new or interesting story, given the company. And of course, as someone who’s been incarcerated, he’s trying to get his bearings again.”
I can’t help myself. I move around the table and peer over Keith’s shoulder. Up close, I can smell the scent of Keith’s shampoo, see the ends of his hair still damp from his morning shower. I also sense the tension through his shoulders. My own stomach has tightened, as if readying for a blow.
I turn my attention to the screen. I’m not sure what I expected, but this appears so . . . banal.
“There are hundreds, if not thousands, of portals within the dark web,” Keith says now, his fingers still moving as he scrolls down a screen too fast for my eyes to follow all the content. “One of the most famous, the Silk Road, was run by the Dread Pirate Roberts.”
“Princess Bride,” I murmur.
“Jacob Ness wasn’t the only felon who prided himself on being clever.”
“This page,” I say, “it looks so boring.” White background, menu items running down the side, with innocuous-sounding labels. Small photos of goods I have to squint to see, paired with brief descriptions. Frankly, it reminds me of scrolling through any old e-commerce site.
Keith has already moved on to another page, is scrolling rapidly. I don’t know how he can take in data that fast. But then, my skill sets have always been more hands-on. And while I had a passing knowledge of things like the dark web, I’d never tried to visit or analyze it myself. I didn’t have the computer expertise. Plus, I genuinely worried the stark reality of such a platform would completely overwhelm me. I had enough sleepless nights patrolling Boston. An entire virtual world of predators . . . Even I knew I couldn’t take it.
“Post–Silk Road, these sites had to learn to be more careful. Many now appear exactly like a normal retail page.”
“Obviously.”
“There are backdoor portals that get you to the real page. Even then, sales items often appear under clever labels—hardware for guns, or you may have a prescription meds site that at first blush is completely legit, except if you click on the photo of aspirin, the jpeg file is much larger than it should be.”
“Data is hidden in the photo. There’s a term for that . . .” I search my mind.
“Steganography. Not all dark websites bother. But marketplaces dealing with child porn, human trafficking—”
“Jacob’s kind of places,” I fill in.
Keith looks at me. “They have the highest security features in place. They have to. They’re hated even by other criminals who’d turn on them in a hot second. Which, of course, makes our job of retracing Jacob’s virtual footprints that much more challenging. It’s not just that he was walking around in bad neighborhoods, so to speak; he was touring the most sordid, dangerous back alleys possible, where everyone is suspicious and taking extra precautions.”
I’m confused. “Given all that, how would Jacob even learn of such marketplaces? Know that clicking on this photo actually gets him that pornographic image? Is there like a web version of street smarts?”
“Welcome to forums—or chat rooms as some people call them. Ness had to belong to at least one to learn all the things he learned. Unfortunately, given the paranoia of the members of the more twisted forums, learning who, what, when, where, how, and why is that much more difficult.”
“So what are you doing?”
“The dark web is a competitive marketplace, right? Illegal or not, the goal is still to make money. Hence customer reviews, rating systems, everything.”
“Okay.”
“I’m hoping one of Jacob’s past business associates will find us. Start a private chat in a pop-up window, hey we haven’t seen you in ninety days, welcome back with a free thirty-day trial . . .”
“Business is business,” I murmur. I nod slowly. “You don’t know all the forums Jacob visited or the members he might’ve ‘chatted’ with. So if you can’t go to them, you’re hoping one of them will come to you.”
“Exactly. You said Jacob used a lot of drugs.”
I nod.
“Those e-commerce sites have less security, believe it or not, so might be one place to start. But I think those deals had to be local, because to order off the dark web Jacob would need a PO box for delivery. Given his life on the road, always going from state to state . . .”
“He had mail sent to his mom’s house.”
“Exactly. Meaning he’d have to return there every time he needed a fix; and we know he didn’t go there that often. As an illegal consumer, what other items would Jacob have been into?”
“Porn. And not child porn. But more like everyday porn.” I grimace in distaste at the distinction. I tap the screen, where new images have appeared. “Wait. Is that what this is? But it looks like a gardening catalogue? Aren’t those photos of different kinds of daffodils?”
Keith glances up. His expression is faintly apologetic.
“It’s awful,” he says.
I stare at the screen. “You said only the really terrible sites relied on steganography. The ones even other predators hate.”
“It’s awful,” he repeats.
Meaning those daffodils aren’t really daffodils. Young girls? Images of children for sale? He’s right; the possibilities are too awful to consider. I sink down into the chair beside him. Just as a pop-up window appears on the screen.
Keith straightens, looks over the laptop monitor to Quincy. “We have contact.”
The FBI agent marches over, takes up a position behind Keith’s shoulder.
She reads the message, nods in grim satisfaction, then takes out her iPhone. She aims it at the screen and hits video.
“All right,” she says. “Let’s play.”