The Anti-Social Network, Part Three

Bystanders who’d seen the attack waited with us until cops and paramedics showed up. Patrol officers questioned them and me, and the paramedics told me I didn’t need stitches, just bandages.

            “No idea,” I told an African American female officer. “He just walked up, asked if I was Tom Jurgen, and pulled out his knife.”

            The switchblade was already in a sealed evidence bag.

            “What do you do for a living?” She peered into my eyes.

            “I’m a private detective.”

            She raised an eyebrow. “You working on anything that might have pissed someone off?”

            I thought about my meeting with James Keeton this morning. But I wasn’t ready to go there yet. “Not that I know of.” Which was more or less truthful.

           

Rachel slammed the door. “Let me at that laptop.”

            So much for romance. “It has to be Keeton.” I set a beer next to her hand. I wanted one, but my anti-anxiety meds don’t mix well with alcohol. I’d have to talk to my doctor about that. “But it’s a stupid, obvious move.”

            “Just because he’s a smart with technology doesn’t make him Professor Moriarty.” Rachel tapped keys with furious fingers. “Especially if he can brainwash an army.”

            “Did you get that from that guy?” In addition to being gorgeous, Rachel’s kind of psychic. Did I mention that before?

            “He was scared, and he really didn’t want to be there.” She brought up Capper. “And not in a ‘How did I end up here?’ way. More like a ‘I’m being forced to do this’ way.”

            Montez had written I HAD NO CHOICE before killing himself. “Be careful.”

            She found Montez’s profile page. It was minimal. His password didn’t work, as Gena Montez had said.

            Rachel tried several tactics, including requesting a new password. I’d gotten Montez’s email data, so she could log onto his account. Nothing worked. “I’ll have to bring in a hacker. Could be expensive.”

            “Set up a profile for me,” I told her. “With a fake name.”

            She used one of the alternate email addresses I have, and a random Facebook photo of a cat for my profile image. We had some fun creating “Likes”—my favorite shows were all reality TV, which I detest in real life, my favorite movies were all the “Fast and Furious” flicks and a few old spaghetti westerns, and my two favorite books were Portnoy’s Complaint and Fifty Shades of Grey. Then I sent friend requests to a few random people—including Morgan Montez.

            Probably nothing would happen. But you never know when a shot in the dark will hit something. And it helped us calm down from the murder attempt. Which led to a little romance.

I got no responses to the emails I’d sent to the former Keeton employees, so I worked on some other cases through the morning while Rachel was out again with her client.

            I was still rattled by the switchblade attack. I’ve fought off vampires and assorted monsters, but something about a normal human being wielding a sharp knife felt more—personal. And deadly.

            After lunch I checked my Capper profile. Two people had accepted my friend request, despite not knowing anything about me other than what was in my profile. I thanked them in my persona as a bartender and part-time Uber driver, and asked if they knew Morgan Montez.

            Then I went back to checking out KeetonTech. A private company, it didn’t have to file financial disclosures, but there was a lot of news about it online.

            I found out something interesting: Eric Grace wasn’t the first person connected to the company to be murdered.

            Two years ago, a programmer named Emma Willings, who was suing KeetonTech and Keeton personally, had been found dead in her apartment, victim of an apparent robbery. No sexual assault, and only a few items stolen—a small DVD player, a laptop, a purse, and a jewelry box. No arrests. Her family dropped the lawsuit.

            A year later, one of Keeton’s partners was gunned down from a passing car on the street. Again, no arrests. Digging in, I found that he and Keeton were locked in a complicated lawsuit, each of them accusing the other of lies, deception, and fraud. The case dragged on for months after the partner’s death, before going to arbitration.

            Neither killing featured a murderer confessing online, so I couldn’t be sure they were connected to Montez. But the string of deaths seemed . . . suggestive.

So I thought through my options. I could pick up my phone and call Keeton. But he could deny everything—and if he was trying to kill me, a phone call might only send more brainwashed assassins after me.

            I needed more information. And the only way to get it was to talk to people.

“What do you want?” Teresa Willings sounded annoyed. “My sister is dead. Why are you bothering me now?”

            “I’m looking into the company where she worked, KeetonTech?”

            “Oh, that dump.” She groaned. “She worked there for two years on some sort of website. When it went live and started making money, she asked for a share. But her boss said he’d only agreed to pay her a freelance fee. And that was bullshit. She had contracts.”

            “What kind of contracts?”

            “She spent more than a year working on this thing called Cap. It was a social media platform Keeton was trying to build, to be the next Facebook, right?” She snorted. “When it launched, he called it Capper, and when it started making money, Em asked for a share of the revenues. But he told her that was just part of her job. So she quit, and she sued him—and then she got killed.” She started sobbing.

I’d always hated this part of the job. “May I ask you just one more question?”

            “Go ahead.” She blew her nose.

            “Do you think Keeton had anything to do with, uh . . . what happened to her?”

            “How should I know?” Her voice was hoarse. “We didn’t want to keep the lawsuit going after . . .  after it happened.”

            That made sense. “Thank you. I’m sorry for bothering you. And for your loss.” It always sounded lame.

            “Screw you.” She hung up.

            Great. I gulped some lukewarm coffee. Then I tried to contact the family of the partner who’d been killed in the drive-by. The lawyer who’d been involved in the case refused to talk. The victim’s brother hung up on me.

            I was frustrated. Getting nowhere. I checked my fake Capper profile again. Nothing.

            So I started creating a real profile, using the access code Keeton had given me.

            THOMAS HALE JURGEN. My full name. I fudged my birthday by two days and a few years. I used an old college photo for my profile image, gave my profession as “Freelance reporter,” not “Private Detective,” and listed my status as single.

            I posted a few pictures—one from college, a few from my reporting days, one of my posing next to my Honda back when it was new. None of Rachel.

            My finger hesitated over the button. This could be a very bad idea. For a moment I wondered if my anti-anxiety meds were doing their job.

            Then I clicked “Return.” I could always delete the profile if I wanted to, right?