“When a web server is first set up, there are default passwords necessary for first getting inside. In other words, standard log-on names and passwords. Guest/guest, for example. Or administrator/administrator. Once the server is up and running these should be eliminated to prevent compromise but quite often it is forgotten about and these become back doors, ways to sneak in. It was forgotten here. Lisa got in using administrator/administrator. And if she was able to do it, then any hacker worth his salt could have gotten in and then hijacked the Mistress Regina page. And somebody did.”

“What did they do?” Bosch asked.

“They put in a hidden hypertext link. A hot button. When located and pushed, it will take the user to another web site all together.”

“In English,” Edgar said.

Rider thought for a moment.

“Think of it as a tall building — the Empire State building. You are on one floor. The Mistress Regina floor. And you find a hidden button on the wall. You push it and an elevator door you didn’t even see before opens and you get on. The elevator takes you to another floor and opens. You step out. You are someplace completely new. But you couldn’t have gotten there if you hadn’t been on Mistress Regina’s floor and stumbled onto that hidden button.”

“Or been told where it was,” Bosch said.

“Exactly,” Rider said. “Those in the know can go.”

Bosch nodded at her computer.

“Show us.”

“Well, remember, the first note to Elias was the web page address and the image of Regina. The second one said, ‘dot the i humbert humbert.’ The mystery writer was simply telling Elias what to do with the web page.”

“Dot the i in Regina?” Edgar asked. “Click the mouse on the dot?”

“That’s what I thought but O’Connor/O’Connor said a hot button can only be hidden behind an image. Something about pixel redefinition that I don’t need to get into.”

“So you dot the eye?” Bosch said, pointing to his eye.

“Right.”

She turned to her laptop, to which she had attached a mouse. She now moved it with her hand and Bosch watched the arrow on the screen move to Mistress Regina’s left eye. Rider double-clicked the mouse button and the screen went blank.

“Okay, we’re on that elevator.”

After a few seconds a field of blue sky and clouds appeared on the screen. Then tiny angels with wings and halos appeared sitting on the clouds. Then a password template appeared.

“Humbert humbert,” Bosch said.

“See, Harry, you get this stuff. You’re just acting like you don’t.”

She typed in the name humbert in the user name and password slots and the screen went blank once again. A few seconds later there was a welcome message.

WELCOME TO CHARLOTTE’S WEB SITE