After running the IP addresses through police software that traced them back to the physical addresses of their respective routers, Micah quickly discovered that only two of them were located in New York. He and Jensen had immediately honed in on those.

Unfortunately, each had resulted in dead ends.

The first address had belonged to a married man whose wife had begrudgingly alibied him. Apparently, they’d been on a family vacation to Florida at the time of Nico’s disappearance.

The second address had belonged to an eighty-year-old widow. Miriam Murphy was a retired school teacher and church secretary who lived alone.

Micah seriously doubted that the money coming from the user account associated with her address was coming from the old woman – especially since all the money had been uploaded from prepaid Visas. More likely, someone had simply been using her Internet connection to communicate with Nico and send him money.

Unfortunately, with a dead husband and no brothers or sons who lived nearby, they couldn’t zero in on anyone in particular.

It didn’t help that when they’d told Miriam exactly what sort of crime they were investigating and why they needed to speak with her, she’d immediately become agitated, snapping at them that “no one she associated with would waste their hard-earned money on good-for-nothing whores with no sense of morals” and refusing to cooperate further.

Yeah.

Micah was convinced they were close – that they needed to probe deeper and maybe even case Mrs. Murphy’s house to see if she received any regular visitors who would have access to her Internet.

But Jensen wasn’t convinced.

He wanted to cast a wider net and investigate the rest of the names on the list the website provided before focusing in on Mrs. Murphy.

So, Micah was forced to start investigating the out-of-state user accounts, hence the phone interviews. He was only halfway through the list of Nico’s paying customers, and he’d lost track of how many angry wives and mothers (and on one particularly memorable occasion, a husband) he’d spoken to.

Honestly, he was a little relieved to be interrupted by Jensen. Or, he would have been if it weren’t for the frown. Micah knew from experience, he was likely to walk away from whatever discussion Jensen wanted to have in a foul mood.

“What’s up?” he asked, anyway.

“We’ll talk in my office,” Jensen clarified before turning on his heel, expecting Micah to follow.

Sighing, he quickly closed out of his document before doing just that. After shutting the door behind himself, Micah sat in the chair Jensen indicated, trying not to be annoyed when instead of sitting behind his desk, Jensen sat on top of it, so that he was looming over Micah, only about a foot of distance between them.

He didn’t immediately speak.