Before I could answer, Bree called archly, “Yes, how was fishing?”
I gave my dad a chagrined look and walked to the kitchen. “You know?”
She crossed her arms. “I know everything. What were you thinking, going up there and just barging in like that?”
“That was John’s call on his own time. I just tagged along.”
She really wasn’t happy. “You said you’d be straight with me.”
I lowered my voice, said, “Straight with you? Okay, it was bad. The worst animal cruelty I’ve ever seen. I feel like I’ve been dipped in a jar of creepiness, but we stopped more animals from being tortured by that piece of shit.”
Bree struggled, her eyes searching mine, and then threw up her hands. “Go take a shower.”
Turning from the stove, Nana Mama said, “Dinner in half an hour.”
“Smells good. What is it?”
“It’s a secret.”
“I’ll be right back down,” I said. I leaned over Bree’s cold shoulder and kissed her on the cheek.
“There’s something on the table in the hall for you, Alex,” my grandmother called after me as I left the room.
In the front hall I spotted a small U.S. Postal Service mailer addressed to Dr. Cross. No return address. I opened it to find the same kind of flash drive that the fake Alden Lindel had shown me. It was inside a plastic sleeve.
“You might want to see this,” I said, waving the envelope at Bree.
We went down to my basement office. Bree put on latex gloves and plugged the drive in. A few moments later, a QuickTime App launched and showed a low-light video of a handcuffed, barefoot woman in a tattered white nightgown. She had a white hood over her head and was being led to a mossy stone wall by two guys dressed in black from shoes to hoods.
When they reached the wall, one of the men spun her around. The other yanked off the hood, revealing a gagged blond teen.
I felt sick, said, “Gretchen Lindel.”
They took off the gag. The camera pulled back to show three men about fifty feet from Gretchen. They were all hooded, all dressed in black, and all carrying AR rifles.
“Ready,” the cameraman said.
The three men shouldered their rifles.
I expected Gretchen to go to her knees and beg for mercy.
But instead, she stood tall against the stone wall and stuck her chin out at the firing squad.
“Go ahead!” she yelled at them. “I’m not afraid. You can do anything you want and I am not afraid of any of you!”
“Aim,” the cameraman said.
“You won’t do it!” Gretchen screamed. “You kill me, you don’t get to play your games anymore. You kill me—”
“Fire!”
The guns went off. In the low light, orange flames shot out of their muzzles. By the sparks the ricochets threw, the bullets hit stone inches around her head.
It broke Gretchen, who went to her knees, shaking in terror.
“Don’t,” she wept. “Don’t.”
Then the screen froze, and I heard the voice of the fake Alden Lindel say, “Next time, it’s for real, Dr. Cross. Next time every blond bitch, including little Gretchen, dies. And forget about finding me before then. I exist in the digital void, invisible, ten steps ahead of you and the FBI.”