Dark Purpose by Stone Mary

Author:Stone, Mary [Stone, Mary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: thriller, Mystery, American Suspense, police procedural, Murder Investigation, Savannah, Georgia, Suspense, Crime, Crime Thriller
Amazon: B09HQZDJV5
Goodreads: 59149499
Publisher: Mary Stone Publishing
Published: 2021-10-03T07:00:00+00:00

Back at the precinct, Matthew and Charli bypassed the stairs and headed straight for the office in the left corner of the building that housed the tech guys. They still needed to contact Powell and Fields, but they needed a few minutes to process everything away from the agents first.

Matthew popped his head into the open doorway. “Knock knock.”

A young guy with brown hair that always flopped into his eyes greeted him. “What’s up?” The tech didn’t bother lifting his head from one of five computer monitors arranged like a spaceship console in front of him.

“Hey, Artie, we come bearing gifts.”

Magic words. Artie’s head popped up, and as predicted, his hair flopped into his face. He used both hands to shove the strands behind his ears which, going from experience, Matthew guessed would stay put for all of twenty seconds. Thirty, tops. “Detective Church! Detective Cross! Oh, look, another laptop.”

Matthew handed him the computer, along with the chain of custody card, watching to make sure Artie filled it out. “Did you manage to get anything off of Maddie Hanley’s laptop yet?”

Artie tossed his pen to the side. “Yes, give me just a sec.” He swiveled his chair and rifled through about ten piles of papers arranged along the far side of his desk before grabbing one. “Here you go.”

Matthew accepted the papers and watched as the tech fired up a silver laptop with a Lenovo logo. “If you want to sit, I can walk you through what I found.”

Charli dragged a chair over to the side of the desk so she could view the screen without Artie pivoting it back and forth. Matthew followed her lead and scooted in.

The tech clicked through and showed them Maddie’s various accounts. Email, both personal and student. Rarely used for anything other than Amazon purchases or assignments. Some photos, most of them from when she was younger.

“Any more recent photos?”

Artie shot Charli a sorry expression. “No, that’s all. Recent ones are probably on her phone. Since there aren’t any stored in Google Drive, I’m guessing she had an iPhone.”

Matthew grimaced. “According to her parents, she did.”

“No password for the iCloud?”

“No.”

There was a moment of silence during which all three of their expressions were equally grim. Unless they figured out Maddie’s password, breaking into the iCloud was nearly impossible. “So, no texts, either.”

Artie brightened. “No, but most kids don’t use traditional texting much these days. Maddie did a lot of messaging through Instagram. I consolidated all the messages and printed them out, along with the messages in her video game chat. Glancing through them super quickly, I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. Some cursing, lots of innuendo. Some complaining about her parents. No threats or ganging up on other players to try to get them banned or anything that made me think hmm, though. Seemed like your typical high school girl.”

Typical high school girl…except for the part where she got murdered.

“Any messages to her friends or boyfriend about running away?”

“Some, but I got the sense that it was mostly her blowing off steam.

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