SEE HER DIE a totally gripping mystery thriller (Detective Jeff Rickman Book 2) by MARGARET MURPHY

Author:MARGARET MURPHY [MURPHY, MARGARET]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Joffe Books Crime thriller and mystery
Published: 2020-07-19T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-nine

Their search of Megan Ward’s flat turned up nothing. She worked on her laptop computer in the sitting-room, pretending not to notice as Foster and Hart turned out drawers and looked under furniture. She didn’t even seem to mind when Foster asked her to move from her chair so that he could check the lining for hidden disks.

‘All finished, now?’ she asked when he set the chair upright again.

‘You’re not making any friends messing us about like this, Megan,’ he said.

‘I don’t need friends, Sergeant,’ she said. ‘Thanks all the same.’ She perched on an arm of the chair and continued working on her computer.

Foster looked over her shoulder as she clicked though several pages of an internet website. Something struck him as odd. It took him a few moments to work it out: there were no connectors going into or out of the sockets at the back of her computer.

‘What?’ she asked.

‘I thought you had to connect to a phone-line to get onto the Net,’ Foster said.

‘You do. And I am.’ He frowned and she added, ‘It’s WiFi.’

‘Now I know you’re winding me up,’ he said.

‘I’m not. It’s wireless. Uses radio waves to pick up a broadband connection.’

‘Yeah?’ Hart stood watching them from the kitchen door. ‘Whose broadband connection? One of the offices downstairs?’

Foster saw a twinkle of amusement in Megan’s eye. It lit up her rather solemn face, giving it an animation he found attractive. ‘In theory, it could be any connection up to a fifty-metre radius — it depends on the strength of the signal,’ she said. ‘Of course, in theory, their firewall would protect them — or if they had any computer savvy, they’d have a scrambler to prevent parasites piggy-backing on their bandwidth.’

‘In theory . . .’ Hart repeated, with a smile.

‘Girl talk?’ Foster asked, irritated and a little humiliated that he had understood barely one word in three of the exchange.

The women turned on him, eyes wide, ready for battle and Foster held up both hands defensively. ‘I’m apologising,’ he said. ‘Unreserved apologies, okay? Just don’t suck the life-blood out of my bank account and blacklist my credit rating, okay?’

Megan was surprised into laughter and Foster tried the smile. She responded and Hart rolled her eyes.

‘How did you get into this, then?’ Foster asked, flopping onto the sofa, still smiling.

Megan shrugged. ‘Computing degree.’

‘I meant the fraud.’

She thought for a moment. ‘I discovered that I didn’t need to work for a living.’

‘It’s no kind of life, though, is it?’ Foster said. ‘Looking over your shoulder all the time. No friends, no family, no roots.’

‘I have friends,’ she said evenly, ‘And only vegetables need roots — I like my mobility.’

Foster noticed she didn’t reply to his comment about family. ‘Where are your friends now?’ he asked.

‘My friends are on the Net.’

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘“Virtual” friends. Ever wonder how much of what they tell you is true?’

She shrugged. ‘It’s true in the context of the Web. Not some neat little story somebody else made up for them.

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