Niki read the Miranda warning to Sylvie in the squad car, while Matty stayed in the house with Dylan, waiting for the social worker to arrive. Sylvie jumped at the opportunity to tell her side, repeating, between sobs, that she had nothing to do with the death of Sadie Vauk, swearing that she was at home with her husband that evening.

Niki and Matty had already prepared a search warrant, but in the end, they didn’t need it. Sylvie agreed to let them search her house, telling them where they could find the two letters that Gavin had sent. Because of the text messages, they knew that the letter held a code and easily read the first message: Kill Sadie Vauk. The second letter led them to a URL and photos of Sylvie Jacqueline Dubois posing Lila Nash the night she was raped.

From there, they went in search of Gavin Spencer’s hidden server.

“Think of the IP address as a telephone number,” the tech told Niki. “Every computer has one so they don’t get all mixed up online.” He continued to click away on his keyboard as he talked. “And with an IP address, we can get a longitude and latitude for the server. I should be able to narrow the location down to…Here you go.”

The map on his screen had a pinpoint in Kenwood. When Niki leaned in to read the streets around it, she recognized the address.

An hour later, Niki, Matty, and a crime scene tech named Bug Thomas pulled up to Amy Spencer’s house, a search warrant in hand.

Amy opened the door, dressed in black, mascara smudged at the corners of her reddened eyes. “You killed my son” was her only greeting.

Matty did the honors. “Ma’am, we have a warrant to search your house.”

Her cheeks turned red with anger as he handed her the search warrant. “Haven’t you done enough?” she hissed.

“I’d like you to step outside while we search, or if you prefer to remain inside, I can come in and sit with you—”

Rage lit fires in Amy Spencer’s eyes. “I’m gonna sue you for killing my boy.”

“Inside or out, ma’am?” Matty said.

Amy turned and walked into her sitting room, lying down on the chaise without saying a word. Matty took a seat in one of the Queen Anne chairs to watch her.

Niki and Bug began their search on the outside of the house, Bug carrying a flashlight, expecting to spend time in either a crawlspace or an attic. He located the junction box where the internet cable connected to the house, which led them to a utility room in the basement. Behind a hinged panel Bug found a splitter.

“See this?” he said. “You normally have a single cable going from here up to a router, but there’s a second cable going somewhere.”