Seated behind a blue halogen lamp at a laptop was a teenage girl—dark hair, eyeglasses, braces on her teeth. “I’m all set up for you,” she said. “I’m Lili, of course, of course. I’ve been working on a decryption angle. It comes down to finding flaws in the algorithms.”

Monnie and I both shook Lili’s hand, which was very small and seemed as fragile as an eggshell.

Monnie began. “Lili, you said in your e-mail to us that you had information that could help with the disappearances in Atlanta and Pennsylvania.”

“Right. But you found Mrs. Meek already.”

“You hacked onto a very secure site. That’s right, isn’t it?” Monnie asked.

“I sent out some stealth UDP scans. Then IP spoofing. Their root server bit on the false packets. I planted a source code for the sniffer. Finally hacked in using DNS poisoning. It’s a little more complicated, but that’s the basic idea.”

“I get it,” Monnie said. Suddenly I was very glad she was there with me at the Olsen house.

“I think they know I was on with them. Actually, I’m sure of it,” said Lili.

“How do you know that?” I asked her.

“They said so.”

“You didn’t get into too many specifics with Agent Tiezzi. You said you thought someone might be ‘for sale’ at the site?”

“Yeah, but I blew it, didn’t I. Agent Tiezzi didn’t believe me. I admitted I was fourteen, and a girl. How dumb of me, right?”

“I won’t hold it against you,” Monnie said, and smiled kindly.

Lili finally cracked a smile too. “I’m in big trouble, aren’t I? Actually, I know I am. They might already know who I am.”

I shook my head. “No, Lili,” I said to her. “They don’t know who you are, or where you are. I’m sure they don’t.”

If they did, you’d already be dead.

Chapter 66

Chapter 66

IT WAS SO EERIE AND STRANGE, being in the young wunderkind’s room—with her life, and her family members’ lives, possibly in great danger. Lili had been a little coy in her message to the Bureau, so I understood how the tip might have fallen through the cracks. Also, she was fourteen years old. But now that we’d met and spoken to Lili face-to-face, I was sure that she had something real that could help us.

She’d heard them talking.

Someone had been purchased while she listened.

She was afraid for herself, and for her family.

“Do you want to go on-line with them?” Lili asked in an excited voice. “We could! See if they’re together now. I’ve been working on some cool anonymizing software. I think it will work. Not sure, though. Well, yeah, it’ll work.”

She smiled broadly, showing those beautiful braces.

I could see in her eyes that she wanted to prove something to us.