In Mesa, Beck turned the tables on Agent Bass. He made a preemptive court appearance to answer the charges before the warrant could be served. Tess watched snippets of the press conference online. Beck’s sanctimonious lawyer claimed the charges were trumped up by his client’s political enemies. The claims were all baseless, blah, blah, blah. And the preemption did the trick. Despite the fact that the charges were all serious felonies, Beck’s apparent willingness to cooperate was enough to convince the judge, and Beck was released on two million dollars bail with an ankle monitor. He couldn’t get out of surrendering his passport, though. But Tess knew there had to be a leak for him to be able to preempt Bass like that. The man should be in jail, not on monitored release.

She spoke to Bass briefly. He was stunned but not down for the count. They were still working on breaking the encryption of all the files on the tablet stolen by Chevy. Once they did that, it might tell them a more horrifying story and get Beck remanded.

She’d heard in news reports that Beck’s attorney decried the whole operation as a witch hunt. He was screaming about his client’s rights being violated and threatening all kinds of motions to get everything thrown out of court. Part of what he claimed was that the entire search was a violation of his client’s privacy and his constitutional right to be protected from unreasonable search and seizure because Chevy stole it. This was a predictable move, but it was anyone’s guess if he’d be successful. Bass didn’t think so.

“This guy is scum and he will fall, iPad or no iPad.”

Tess hoped he was right. After reading through everything on the drive, she realized that Bass had been chasing Cyrus Beck for the majority of his career. Obsession?

In any big case, there was a fine line between obsession and dogged determination. From everything Tess read, she saw Bass as meticulous and careful. He dotted all the i’s and crossed all the t’s.

You can never have too much evidence, she thought. Sometimes a preponderance of evidence helped avoid a trial because the bad guys would accept a plea. Tess never liked the idea of lessening charges for any reason, but nowadays juries were unpredictable. They watched too much TV and wanted everything wrapped up with a neat and clear DNA bow.