the computer paraphernalia. “Pull up a chair.”
Liam had brought in his laptop with him in a case, so he found a clear space on the table and booted it up. Elisabeth gave him the password to her wireless internet network—or rather, one of her wireless internet networks. She had several, some with high-security protection. He also noticed that her desktop computer, which rested underneath the table, was hardwired into the cable internet and had a secondary security box attached.
He must have looked surprised, because she noticed his face and said, “I have to be careful because I have information on women on the run from some really bad men. It’s truly a matter of life and death if one of the abusers manages to find his victim.”
Liam also suspected she had a high security clearance for the work she did for the FBI. The security measures were likely for that information, too.
“So here’s what we have,” he said as she fired up her computer. “Joslyn is somehow connected to the Filipino Bagsic gang from Los Angeles. My guess is her ex-boyfriend is a gang member.”
“It makes sense. They have the money to hire someone like Patricia and to pay a hacker to make sure a background check raised no flags. The gang is probably involved in whatever murder Joslyn witnessed. We need to figure out what murder it was.”
“If Joslyn witnessed it, the victim might be someone who was connected to her. But to find out who it was, we need Joslyn’s real name. I doubt it was the one Patricia gave to me.”
“We need her boyfriend’s name, too.”
The worked side by side for an hour. Liam was used to working in silence by himself, but he found, to his surprise, that it was helpful to have someone there to bounce ideas off, or to have them offer tidbits of info they discovered in their searches. However, they couldn’t find Joslyn’s real last name, nor her boyfriend.
Liam heaved a sigh. “The problem is that the Bagsic gang members use nicknames, not their real names, on social media.”
“Or just their first names. And they’re careful about not declaring their gang affiliation on the internet.” Elisabeth frowned at her computer screen. “I wish we had more on Joslyn herself.”
They were interrupted by the sound of Elisabeth’s neighbor’s dog barking frantically, followed by the doorbell.
Elisabeth tensed. “I’m probably just being paranoid. I get visitors often enough.” She looked through the peephole, and her shoulders immediately relaxed. “It’s Kalea, from the women’s shelter.”
She opened the door. “Come on in.”
“No, I just stopped by to give you this.” Kalea handed her a crayon drawing on a piece of paper. “Kayoi drew this for you and insisted I give it to you today.” Kalea rolled her eyes.
Elisabeth smiled. “Tell her thanks.”
“See you!” Kalea waved and left.
Elisabeth shut the door and returned to the dining room. Her eyes softened as she looked down at the drawing. “This is the third drawing this month that she’s done for me.”
“Could I see it?”
She handed it to Liam. It was a very colorful picture with people scattered around a green field, with a jungle gym drawn in the corner. There were several children, each portrayed a little differently, and four adults—one with an S on her shirt, one with a ponytail, one with curly brown hair and one with long dark hair.
As Elisabeth pointed toward the people on the page, her neighbor’s dog started barking frantically again.
“The ponytail is probably me,” Elisabeth said. “The long dark hair is her mother. The curly hair is either Kalea or Tiffany, and the S on her shirt...” Elisabeth’s brow wrinkled. “Wait a minute...”
The dog was still barking. It had only barked like this when Liam and Elisabeth, and then Kalea, had been outside her apartment door. But Kalea was gone.
Someone else was outside her apartment door.
Liam shot to his feet. “No one knocked, right?”
“It might just be one of the neighbors walking past.”
“No harm in checking.” He drew his gun from the concealed belt holster he’d put back on after leaving the shelter.
He checked the peephole but saw no one in front of her door. Liam stepped behind a curtain to the side of the front window and barely touched the blinds to peek outside.
Two Filipino men in purple and gray stood outside Elisabeth’s front door, angled to avoid appearing in her peephole. Neither of them was the leader from today’s attack, but Liam remembered seeing one of them coming out of one of the other cars—he had a pockmarked face, puffy cheeks and a slightly bulging belly over his dark gray jeans.
Liam’s pulse raced, and he turned to silently signal Elisabeth to remain quiet. She nodded from her position a few feet away, slowly pulling a gun out of her purse. Her slim body was taut, alert. Although they both had their weapons, he would do everything in his power to avoid using them. This was a residential area, with families and children. A stray bullet could seriously injure or even kill someone.
He looked out again. The two men were talking in low voices, so low that he only heard a barely audible rumble. He probably wouldn’t have understood them anyway if they were speaking in Tagalog. What were they intending to do? Break down the door? Pick the lock?
One of the men moved to the front window to try to peer inside, and Liam moved against the wall so he couldn’t be seen. Elisabeth also ducked out of sight.
When the man’s shadow moved away from the blinds, Liam peeked outside again. One man crouched near the front doorknob with lock-picking tools, working frantically, while the other stood guard. Liam guessed that the neighbor’s dog barking spurred them to get inside before drawing more attention to themselves.
Liam mouthed to Elisabeth, “Is there a back door?”
She nodded and gestured with her head toward the kitchen. She only paused to reach under the table to grab a laptop case before she led the way. Liam also stopped to grab his laptop. In the kitchen, he whispered, “What about your desktop computer?”
“It’s password protected and the data is backed up on a secure cloud server,” she said. “If they try to hack my hard drive, it’ll go into security lockdown mode and wipe itself clean.”
The back door led from the kitchen out into a minuscule patio, which in turn led to a paved path that wound past the apartment complex. Elisabeth checked outside to make sure the two men hadn’t sent someone to watch the back, but there was no one there.
“Where does this path lead?” Liam asked while holstering his gun and settling his laptop in its case.
“To the south exit of the complex, or the front of this row of apartments.”
“They’ll see us if we try to run for our cars.”
“If we wait a bit, they’ll be inside my apartment, and we can go for it.”
“Let’s
