Page 29 of Tear Me Apart

“Good morning, Spencer Landry and Associates. How may I direct your call?”

“I need to speak with your HR department, please.”

“Oh, I don’t think we’re hiring right now—”

“This is Juliet Ryder, CBI.”

“Oh! Well, certainly, ma’am, hold one moment.”

She bites back a laugh. Sometimes it is good to be with the CBI, even if she is using the title for nefarious purposes.

A moment later, a man’s voice comes through the phone. “This is Eres Patrone. How can I help you, Agent Ryder?”

She doesn’t disabuse him of the title. She holds a Ph.D. in microbiology and genetics and is not an agent pro forma. But Agent Ryder will get farther than Dr. Ryder.

“Good morning, Mr. Patrone. I’m looking for some information on a former employee of yours, a Kyle Noonan. I have a record of him leaving the firm in 2000 to take a position elsewhere. I was hoping you had the name of the firm he went to so I can reach out to him.”

“Wow, 2000. I wasn’t here then, but let me look into the archives and I can give you a call back. Will that work?”

“I’m in a bit of a hurry, actually. Can you put me on hold while you look? Surely a firm as advanced as Spencer Landry is all online.”

“We are, but...um, this is personal information, and I think I may need to talk to my supervisor—”

“Really, there’s no need for that,” she says, warmly now, conspiratorial. “I’m just looking for the forwarding address. You would have to send the man a final W-2. I could get a warrant, but that’s going to waste everyone’s time.”

“You do know we are a law firm, right?”

She laughs and hopes it doesn’t sound as stilted as it feels.

“All right, I was hoping not to have to do this, but here’s what’s going on. He’s my brother-in-law. He and my sister are divorced, but she’s sick, and I need to get in touch with him right away. She’s in the hospital, and I’m in charge of getting in touch with everyone. Please. I wouldn’t normally throw my title around, but I thought it was the most expedient way.”

“Oh, wow. That’s terrible. I’m sorry to hear it. But I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

“Okay, then, I’ll go get the warrant—”

“No, I mean, I can’t help you, because there’s nothing here. He transferred to our San Diego office, then he must have left the firm because his records with Spencer Landry end in 2000. I’m so sorry I can’t be more help. And I’m sorry about your sister. I hope she gets better soon.”

“Thank you, Mr. Patrone. You’ve been a great help. Have a good day.”

She hangs up the phone, mouth slightly agape. What has she just done? She’s just tried to extort personal information, without a warrant, without any probable cause, only to further her own goals. And has hit a brick wall to boot.

Serves you right for meddling, Lauren’s voice rings clear in her head.I warned you.Stay away from this.

God, now she is hearing voices. She needs sleep. She needs to take three weeks off, find a warm beach somewhere, drink fruity drinks and crisp herself in the equatorial sun, but this isn’t an option. Mindy isn’t resting; she is getting sicker and sicker. And if Lauren won’t do the right thing, damn it, Juliet will figure out a way.

She googles Kyle Noonan again, adding Spencer Landry and San Diego in the search box.

She finds nothing. But this isn’t unusual. She’s searching for information from seventeen years ago. Not everything was as plugged in then as it is now. Not every thought, word, and deed that happened every moment of every day made it onto the web back then.

Maybe she needs to do this the modern way. Social media holds all truths. She can troll Facebook for a while, see if anything pops. Lauren doesn’t have an account, but maybe Kyle does.

Like all CBI employees, she has a public server and a private server—the private clearly marked so they can exchange sensitive information and case-specific files without worrying about external hacking. The government has no quibble with her going online during work hours, but they frown on mixing the outside world with their internal confidential information. She opens her personal server and pulls up Facebook, logs in under a false name she often uses to look at people’s private accounts. It wouldn’t do to have her real name out there.Hi, I’m with the CBI, wanna be friends?doesn’t always go over well.

Once she’s become Jessica Baker—busty and icy blonde, exactly Juliet’s opposite—she searches Kyle’s name.

She scrolls through several Kyle Noonans, frustrated that none look familiar. But there is an entry for the Douglas County High School Alumni Group. Perfect. His high school is a great jumping off point.

It is an open group, meaning all she has to do is join and then she becomes a part of the page. No one has to approve her. A stroke of luck. Closed groups are harder to infiltrate. Not impossible, but harder.