Page 88 of Twisted Lies

‘He explained he’d had the same problem with AOL and had installed a program on his own computer that ensured no emails got lost. He already told me he worked in IT.’

Of course he had, Kim thought. It was called priming.

‘He said if I told him my IP address and password, he could install it remotely overnight so as not to inconvenience me.’

She cringed as she said the words.

‘So he had access to your computer and contents all night?’

Amelia nodded with shame at her own naïveté.

‘I woke up to the blue screen of death. I couldn’t access my emails, so I tried on my phone. I couldn’t log in to my account. It had been closed.’

Damn it, there was no way to try and trace the sender through her. She could only hope that Penn was having more luck. Although, Kim realised, that was not her biggest problem at the minute.

‘And you didn’t tell anyone what had happened?’

She shook her head. ‘I assumed he was after bank details or passwords, so I cancelled everything even though nothing had been touched.’

‘And you left your job?’

‘Yes, I just wanted to run away from the whole situation.’

And now to the real problem.

‘What sensitive information would he have been able to access on your laptop?’

‘Nothing that would identify any particular witnesses.’

‘There must have been something or he wouldn’t have been trying so hard,’ Kim reasoned.

Amelia began to wring her hands, and Kim was racking her brains. She was trying to remember everything she’d been told.

‘So you were responsible for paying all the bills and invoices?’

She nodded.

‘Were these lists of payments itemised on a spreadsheet?’

‘Yes, but there were no names of witnesses or—’

‘Did you pay the rents?’ Kim asked as a horrific thought occurred to her.

The nodding of the head started slowly.

‘Fuck,’ Kim said out loud.

Their killer knew where every person in the witness protection scheme lived.

Seventy-Seven

‘It’s not looking good,’ Penn said, putting down the phone a minute after Stacey had ended her call too.

She knew that Mitch had headed to Jacob’s house to collect the computer, to take it over to Ridgepoint House, before returning to Wren’s Nest to do a final sweep of Dean Mullins’s crime scene.

‘Apparently, Mitch’s best computer guy laughed his head off when he emptied the laptop guts on his desk, so I’m thinking we’re not gonna get a lot from that.’

‘Neighbours have anything to say?’ Stacey asked. Her colleague had knocked a few doors while waiting for Mitch to turn up at the property. Apparently, he’d made time to feed the cat as well.