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Laura Lee relented and sat in the wheelchair. After she was alone in the apartment on the ninth floor of the building, she propped herself against the headboard in a seated position and grabbed her laptop. While she was in the hospital, she had stayed on top of her emails, viewing them on her phone. That wasn’t what she logged into.
Since she’d been high on the painkillers and had that horrible nightmare, a thought came to her that now, in her sober mind, made sense. So much so that she couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of it before. Harrison West was a predator. She couldn’t have been his only victim.
It was probably several of the recent cases Shepherd Security worked on that helped form this theory. She’d been assigned to Ops for part of the investigation Alpha Team conducted into a case that involved several missing teens that ended with the agency busting a major human trafficking ring. The perpetrators were long-term predators with a long line of victims left in their wake. That was the New Orleans case the woman in the nightmare was from.
At the time, hearing the grim details of that case left her speechless and sickened by man’s inhumanity against their fellow man. She recalled sitting in the all-agency post-Op briefing feeling every negative emotion she could feel. Others on the team were proud of the work the agency had done to figure out what was going on and stop it, but Laura Lee couldn’t get past her revulsion that it had taken place. Not that she was naïve and didn’t know there was evil in the world, if anyone knew it and had experienced it, it was her.
She logged into the campus portal of her alma mater, where Harrison West had been one of her professors. Then she brought up the newspaper from that university. She also logged into the crime reports of the campus police department. Even though some names would be redacted, the listing of the actual crimes would be there. And she knew they kept them on file permanently.
First, she learned that Harrison West was still a part-time professor at the university. She decided to work from the present backward. Going back and forth between the three open tabs in her browser, she was looking for allegations against West for anything. She also searched for suicides by female students, as she assumed, given the sexual nature of West’s manipulation of her, that his victims would be female. And she looked through the reports of rapes with the campus police. She was specifically looking for reports where the victim couldn’t identify their attacker.
She searched for hours, working all the way back to when she was a student. She took a few breaks to use the bathroom and had several snacks. Angel stocked the cabinets and the small refrigerator with a variety of food. Angel had also called to check in and see if she needed anything a few times, including at five p.m. before she left for the night.
When Laura Lee again looked up, she was shocked to see it was dark outside the large window. She checked the time. How had it gotten to be nearly ten? And she didn’t feel the least bit tired. She glanced over the notes she’d typed out in a Word document. She had nearly fifty incidents noted. Her next step would be comparing the names she had against class registration records to see if any of the young women had been in one of Harrison West’s classes prior to the incident.
But how would she get access to those records?
Her mind went where it shouldn’t have. Caleb Smith was a hacker. Could she possibly ask him to hack into the university’s records? No, that would be asking way too much of him, especially since he was urging her to come clean with Shepherd.
Knowing that she had pursued every avenue she could tonight, she closed the laptop and then turned the lights off. After an hour of staring at the ceiling, she turned the bedside light back on. Sleep was nowhere on the horizon. She grabbed hold of the television remote, but then changed her mind. She’d mindlessly watched way too much television while she was in the hospital. She brought up the staff calendar on her phone to see that Brad Dupont was on in Ops partnered with Garcia.
She tapped out a text to Brad. “Hi, hope you’re having a quiet night. I can’t sleep. Just texting to say hi.” Her phone immediately rang. “Hello,” she answered, seeing it was Brad calling her.
“Are you okay? In any pain?” he asked.
“No pain and all is okay. I’m just wide awake and bored. Somehow, my days and nights got mixed up while I was in the hospital.”
“I just left Ops for a half-hour break. Can I swing by?”
Laura Lee cringed. She looked terrible; she was sure. “I know you like to walk during your break.”
“I’d rather visit with a friend,” Brad said. “I’m just coming up the stairs now.”
“Okay, I’ll open the door. See you in a minute.” Laura Lee ended the call. She glanced in the bathroom mirror and then splashed water on her face. On her way to the door, she popped a breath mint into her mouth. Brad was on the other side of the door when she opened it. Her lips pulled into a smile, seeing him. “Hi.” She stepped aside and motioned him in.
“How are you feeling? For someone who just had major surgery, you look good.”
“Thanks. And I’m fine. How are you? Losing your dad suddenly is rough.”
“Yeah, I know you know exactly how it is.”
They sat in the overstuffed chairs. Laura Lee was sore and still moving slowly, which Brad noted.
“Yes, unfortunately I do.”
“It makes having good friends that much more important. Shepherd sent a beautiful flower arrangement from the whole agency,” Brad said. “My mom really appreciated it.”
“I’m sure Angel sent it,” Laura Lee said.
Brad laughed. “Okay, Shepherd probably asked Angel to do it on his behalf. And everyone, you included, sent me text messages with condolences and offers to help if we needed anything. I realize that not everyone has friends and coworkers like ours.”
Laura Lee nodded. “Yes, I was surprised by all the well-wishes that flooded my phone after my medical issue. Michaela and Yvette even came to see me in the hospital, and they brought a bouquet of flowers.” She pointed to the table where the three bouquets of flowers she’d received were.
“Yvette’s a marshmallow,” Brad said. “She may come across as tough and surly, but she has a heart of gold.”
Laura Lee wasn’t so sure about that. “If you say so.”
“Do you have any idea when Doc will release you to come back on limited duty?”