Earthbound : A gripping crime thriller full of twists and supernatural suspense Fynn Perry (if you liked this book TXT) 📖

that she was nodding as she sat there. He said nothing, staring blankly, excluded by another plane of existence.

John’s voice was velvety and reassuring. “All that has happened is that Hamilton’s computer has been hacked. It doesn’t mean that El Gordito is somehow onto us, Jen. It could be completely unrelated to the research Hamilton was doing on the fulfillment center. I’m sure he’s just keeping his phone off while he tries again to interview one of the Mexican workers. He could call us back any moment.”

Jennifer nodded again. She put her hand on her father’s. “Ask the detective to come in,” she asked, still a little shaken.

Lazlo returned to the room. “I’m so sorry, but your computer has been completely wiped. All your data has gone. Our guy’s running a few more checks, but it looks like all traces of the virus have disappeared, too, so we can’t track it back to its source.”

“Right now, I’m more worried about what has happened to Paul Hamilton!” Jennifer exclaimed.

Lazlo put a hand up to calm her. “Officially, Paul won’t become a missing person for another forty-eight hours. Unofficially, I will send a patrol to check out his home. Just so you know, I’ve known him to go offline for days at a time when working on a case, and this could just be an unrelated and random virus attack with nothing to do with what Paul was working on.”

“It’s no coincidence,” Jennifer said, handing Lazlo her portable hard drive.

“What’s this?” he asked, surprised.

“I saved the photos Paul sent me. I save all photos on here to free up my hard drive,” she said.

“Good girl!” Lazlo said enthusiastically and Jennifer could tell by his expression that his response had unintentionally come out in a way that was condescending.

Lazlo went out of the room and came back with one of the department’s spare laptops. He motioned that he wanted to sit between Jennifer and David, and they made space for him. Lazlo opened up the computer, switched it on and connected Jennifer’s drive to it. “I suspect you have a lot of private stuff here as well as the evidence, so be warned if these photos do turn out to be part of a crime, the entire drive will need to be kept as evidence.”

Jennifer glanced at David, who nodded. She leaned over and used the trackpad on Lazlo’s laptop to locate and open the relevant folder. The thumbnails of the photos appeared, and Lazlo opened each image in sequence.

“Well, this is Hamilton’s work alright—he never skimped on equipment and detail,” the detective said, giving a series of small nods in confirmation.

Lazlo noticed the partial image of the armed guard amongst the photos. As he continued through the file, he saw shots of the back of the workers’ heads and noted they were poorly dressed. Next were the photos of the outgoing shift. Full frontal face shots. All the workers had Hispanic features.

“Illegal immigrants, easy to control and in need of money,” Lazlo commented.

“That’s what Paul wrote in his email,” confirmed Jennifer.

“Do you have an address for the fulfillment center?” he asked her.

“Bellevue Logistics Park. Enterprise Lane, Newstone, New Jersey.”

“New Jersey? That’s outside my jurisdiction, but I’ll take a look.”

Lazlo opened up Google Earth and typed in the address and found the pixelated area where the building should have been. He tried the ‘Street View’ function, but it wasn’t available.

“Zoom down to the neighboring buildings and go into 3D if you can.” Jennifer instructed.

He did and got a three-dimensional, almost photographic, representation of the surrounding buildings in the park.

“Now compare that with some of the photos that Paul took.”

Lazlo pulled up the images and rotated the satellite view until the angles looked similar. The elevations and names on the buildings matched. It was the same park, without a doubt. Then he opened up again the photos of the workers in the setting of the housing complex. There were a few headshots of the same people, and five of one woman who appeared to be in her thirties.

“Why do you think he took as many as five photos of her in particular?” Lazlo asked.

“Perhaps he wanted to talk to her,” David answered.

“Maybe,” Lazlo replied.

“Maybe because of that he disappeared,” Jennifer challenged, still nervous about why Hamilton hadn’t called back.

Lazlo said nothing and then took out his phone. “Are these the pills your source said were being made at this place?” He showed David a photograph of the two pills with the spider logo that he had given to Richard Genna for testing.

“Yes,” confirmed David and Jennifer together. “I read they’re called Spider’s Bite on the streets,” Jennifer added.

Lazlo nodded thoughtfully. “Did Hamilton find out who owns the fulfillment center?”

“It took him a while to get through a complex ownership structure, but ultimately it’s owned by Miguel Vargas, also known as El Gordito,” David replied.

Lazlo immediately glanced up at him. His expression had changed. “I’m not surprised to hear that El Gordito is involved. All drug distribution in NYC is controlled by him, including any new product. I thought this new pill with the spider logo, which I came across just recently, was just another hyped-up newcomer.” His tone was more brusque than usual. “Hold on a moment.” He looked up at the surveillance camera in the corner of the room. The red recording light was on.

Lazlo left the room and returned in less than a minute with a pen drive. He plugged into the other port of the laptop and started transferring the photos onto the pen drive. A window opened on the screen showing a progress bar. It stated the transfer would take about fifteen minutes.

“Our conversation isn’t being recorded anymore,” he said pointing at the camera in the corner of the room, which now had its red recording light extinguished. “You were right to bring this to me. El Gordito is a cunning criminal. I’ve been trying to pin something on him for years, but he has connections all over the city,