Read Online Blood of Innocence (Sloan Skye) by Tami Dane - Free Book Online Page A

cars.
    “What?” JT asked, hesitating in front of the house next door.
    “Gabe told me he’s learned something, working this case. Everybody has secrets.”
    “Oh, yeah? What’s yours?”
    “I don’t have any.”
    “Well, then, that shoots his theory all to hell.” He motioned toward the neighbor, who was standing on her front porch, a coffee cup in her hands. JT waved at the woman; she waved back. Turning on the charm, he headed toward her. I followed.
    “Hello, ma’am, Agent Thomas. This is Sloan Skye. FBI. Do you have a few minutes to answer some questions?”
    “About what?” she asked, peering toward her neighbor’s house. “What’s going on?”
    “Your neighbor was found dead early this morning,” JT told her.
    The woman’s face turned white. “Really? Mike is dead?”
    “No, his wife,” JT told her, after shooting a glance over his shoulder at me.
    Maybe the Volpes had a dirty little secret, after all.
    “Oh.” The woman’s brows drew together. She didn’t speak for a moment, just glanced at the house periodically while staring down into her coffee cup the rest of the time. “That’s ... awful.”
    “You look very shaken,” I said. “Were you friends?”
    “No, not really.” The woman looked at me. “She was pregnant.”
    “Yes,” I said. “She was.”
    The woman gnawed on her lip. She glanced at the house again.
    “Why did you assume it was her husband who was found dead?” I asked, keyed in to her pensive reaction.
    She jerked her gaze back to me. “Oh. Um. His hobby.”
    “What kind of hobby does he have?” I asked.
    “Well, he sort of likes to ... test computer security systems. . . and then he ... Oh, hell, he loves hacking into company’s computers and messing with them. But it’s not as bad as it sounds. He’s doing the companies a favor, in a way. He’s letting them know there’s a vulnerability.”
    “And this has what to do with his wife’s death?”
    Her gaze flicked to her neighbor’s house. “Last week, he told me he nailed some little company in Scranton. A few days later, he found a package on his front porch. Inside was a fake bomb. The note said if he so much as logged on to the Net, the next one would be real.”
    I shook my head. I’d known a hacker or two in college. For the most part, they were like this guy, harmless. But the fact was, they sometimes hit the wrong person. Then things could get ugly. “I’m hoping he realizes it’s time to take up a new hobby.”

Genius—to know without having learned; to draw just conclusions from unknown premises; to discern the soul of things.
    —Ambrose Bierce
     
    7
     
    Three dead women.
    Three missing babies.
    I was convinced that their being pregnant was no coincidence. Despite all the other ugly secrets we’d dug up—the affairs and shady careers and so-called hobbies—the pregnancies were the unifying factor.
    “What do you think?” I asked JT as we walked toward our cars. Both were parked a few houses down. JT’s car was in front of mine.
    “With a ‘hobby’ like that, it’s a miracle something hasn’t happened to him sooner.”
    “But it has nothing to do with the case,” I stated.
    “Right. Nothing.”
    We stopped next to my car. JT watched me get in.
    I rolled down the passenger-side window and asked him, “What do you think? Check Laura Volpe’s medical records next?”
    He opened the passenger-side door and made himself comfy. “Makes sense.”
    “I don’t suppose it’ll be so simple that we learn all three women were going to the same doctor... .”
    “That would be nice.” He motioned to my phone, which I’d set in the cup holder. “Why don’t you go ahead and call Hough? She can have the physicians’ names in a few minutes. In the meantime, we could grab an early lunch somewhere.”
    I checked my phone. It was early all right. More like breakfast time. But I was starving. “Sounds like a plan.” I called Brittany, asked her to get us the names and addresses of