The People vs. Alex Cross by James Patterson Read Free Book Online Page B

enforcement agencies. Gentlemen, which one of you is Lone Star Blondes Must Die?”

CHAPTER
14
    VERTZE’S EYELIDS DRIFTED almost shut. Stetson frowned, as if he’d heard a foreign phrase spoken at a distance. Cyr acted like I’d punched him in the gut.
    Then the burly teen’s expression shifted from shock to anger. He twisted his shoulders and hissed at Stetson, “I told you messing around with that kind of crap was mind poison.”
    “Shut up, Juan,” Stetson said, studying me calmly. “Who
are
you?”
    “The worst kind of poison, unless you come clean,” I said, feeling like I’d identified the leader of this crew. “How old are you, Brian?”
    “Eighteen,” he said. “How do you know my name?”
    “I know all your names. I know you get your kicks exploring the dark web. Pushing the boundaries. Looking into nasty places.”
    “Free world,” Stetson said.
    “Dogfights?” I said. “Explicit war clips? Hardcore S-and-M fantasy sites?”
    “There some law against watching I don’t know about?” Stetson said.
    “No, but there are several against abetting the kidnap and advocating the murder of five women.”
    That seemed to rock the kid, who looked less certain as he said, “I know what that means,
abetting
, and no one in this room abetted anything.”
    “Didn’t you post a comment on a bulletin board about the Killingblondechicks website? Quote: ‘I want in to that site. I can contribute. Help. Break some skulls, even.’”
    He looked at me dumbly, then at his computer. “You hacked me?”
    “FBI hacked you, Stetson. You screwed up. Forgot to use onion routers. Which means that I should go to the dean’s office and tell him what you’ve been up to, which means you most certainly will be expelled, which means your parents will be called, which means you’ll be escorted out of here in complete disgrace and humiliation.”
    I let that sink in before saying, “Or you can talk to me.”
    After several tense beats, Vertze said, “I’ll talk.”
    “Fred,” Stetson said. “Don’t.”
    “Brian, my old man will skin me alive if I get expelled,” Vertze said sharply.
    “I’ll talk too,” Cyr said.
    Stetson’s face flushed. He glared at me, caught in a fierce internal argument, and then finally said sullenly, “What do you want to know?”
    Over the next twenty minutes or so, the story came out.
    Stetson was a math and computer genius who should have gone to Caltech, but his father was a trustee and fervent supporter of Catholic University. His first night at the school,Stetson had introduced Cyr and Vertze to the dark web. They’d found the Killingblondechicks website and started posting about it for fun.
    “Fun?” I said.
    “C’mon,” Stetson said. “No one thinks those videos are real.”
    “Have you unlocked the videos?”
    “You can’t. I tried. The locked world, the unknown, it’s just part of the fantasy of virtual reality, man, a place to safely experience and vent frustrations without consequences.”
    I reappraised the eighteen-year-old, thinking that he was entirely too smart for his own good. “You boys experience frustration with blondes?”
    “Hasn’t every guy on the face of the earth?” Vertze said.
    Cyr and Stetson both started laughing. I had to admit it was a funny line, and I fought not to smile.
    Finally, I said, “If I look around in your pasts, am I going to find a blonde one of you disliked so much that she ended up kidnapped? Or dead?”
    Cyr said, “My first girlfriend was a blonde. Caught her messing around with my best friend’s older brother. They’re married now. Not kidnapped. Not dead. Just miserable.”
    Vertze said, “My anti-blondeness stems from a severe German teacher junior year who had zero sense of humor. I thought about sticking a pin in her ass but refrained—at least, long enough to get an A.”
    Stetson and Cyr laughed again. I couldn’t help it and smiled.
    “What about you, Brian?” I said, looking at Stetson.
    Stetson