Pitch Black by Leslie A. Kelly Read Free Book Online

man. “My book on how to avoid Internet scams.”
    “That’s what I meant.”
    Sure it was.
    “How long have you been corresponding with him?”
    “Probably about a year.” Suddenly remembering what Special Agent Lambert had said when he’d first arrived, Sam met his stare directly. “Wait, you said crime. Is he all right? Nothing’s happened to him, has it?”
    Alec noticed right away that Samantha Dalton’s immediate response was to assume young Ryan Smith was a victim, and she sounded worried. Considering she’d met him only once and had a strictly e-mail relationship with the boy, he filed the detail away, because it said a lot about her. So did her clothes. Her apartment. Her job. Her lifestyle.
    But, Jesus, none of that meshed with the visual picture of the woman who’d opened the door to him ten minutes ago.
    He’d been prepared for a vigilante computer nerd. Not the brown-eyed, golden-haired beauty with lush lips and a fragile throat. He’d seen fewer curves on a figure eight, despite the shapeless, washed-out sweats she had on. Though she wore no makeup and her hair was a mess, she’d been striking enough to suck every thought out of his head for a long, breathless moment.
    Yet she lived like she’d never had a date and didn’t much care. Which didn’t jibe with that Mrs. Dalton thing she’d carefully pointed out. Or the bare ring finger on her left hand.
    Yeah, he’d looked.
    All in all, the woman presented an interesting puzzle, one his brain was already trying to take apart and fit back together.
    “Agent Lambert?”
    “When is the last time you heard from him?”
    She met his stare, and he could see the silent debate going on behind those dark eyes. He’d seen it before. Everyone in law enforcement had. Sometimes wanting to know the truth was outweighed by the desire to put off unhappy news for a while. When she shifted her gaze, choosing to delay the inevitable, Alec added another piece to the puzzle: She’d known loss.
    She tapped the tip of her index finger on the top page. “This message. About a week and a half ago.”
    Alec had memorized the victim’s final e-mail to Sam the Spaminator. “He asked about an e-mail offer a friend of his received?”
    “Typical Nigerian four-one-nine scam. I wrote back and sent him links to tons of articles about it, including recent ones I’d written.”
    The thing had landed in his own in-box dozens of times, so he knew exactly what she meant, but he let her expound.
    “It’s amazing how many people still fall for this thing. Losses in the hundreds of millions, all because Joe Naive thinks he’s going to get rich if he just puts out a little more money for bribes or taxes or legal fees or security. Until the money’s all gone and the ‘finance minister’ or ‘bank manager’ or ‘estate executor’ is gone with it.”
    Her tone had gone from conversational to hard, verging on bitter. The tautness in her form told him even more about her—like exposing fraud online might be a personal crusade, rather than a professional one. She was emotionally affected by the issue, not a bit detached.
    He had a feeling she was going to take Ryan Smith’s murder very hard.
    “Did he forward you the actual e-mail?”
    She shook her head, pushing back a few long strands of silky hair. “No. He told me about it and I responded.” A tiny furrow appeared on her brow, and she added, “Oh, I just remembered: He also asked about certified checks. Whether the scheme ever included them.”
    Alec leaned forward, leafing quickly through the copies of the e-mails. “Where?”
    Frowning in concentration, she said, “It was . . . wait, actually I think it was in an instant message.”
    That surprised him. “Strangers can IM you?”
    “He was a bright kid with a lot of potential, so when he figured out my ID, I was impressed enough to chat with him on occasion.”
    The investigative team already had Ryan Smith’s computer and would find the history, but