Hacker Betrayed (White Hat Security Book 11), page 10
Blackwood had worked with the police on many cases. Normally, when they needed extra help, they came to us. Brock didn’t bill the station for hours we put in. A few of the cops hated when we received credit for solving the case the police brought us in on. They thought it looked bad for the department. So far, Detective Higgins hadn’t given us any issues. I hoped that would continue and I wouldn’t end up in the back of a squad car.
“Detective, not sure why you were sent to arrest me, but I think now is a good time to tell you I plan to press charges as well. She drew blood.” I pointed to the slight scratch on my arm.
“I’ll get to you in a few minutes, Mia. I’m not here about something you did—the list is probably a mile long. Dr. Paxton and I need to have a conversation,” he explained.
“You found something?” Paxton shut the door after the two officers walked in. I caught the smirk from Dr. Cliff right as the door closed.
“Today’s visit is not about your mother’s case. Like I tell your sister every other month, we aren’t actively investigating her death. It was a hit-and-run, and back then, we didn’t have cameras on every corner. Nobody saw the man or woman who caused the accident,” Higgins replied, his voice terse. “I’m here to discuss a separate murder. I think this is something we should do privately.”
He gave me a clear get the fuck-out-of-the-room glare. “Not leaving, Detective. I’m staying to make sure Paxton says nothing to incriminate himself.”
“I’m sure his daddy will buy him out of the charges just like he’s paid off officers each time Javion is arrested for a DUI. At least the men you normally associate with don’t use their power to buy off the police. I’ve known Paxton a long time, but the evidence is stacked against him.” The detective crossed his arms over his chest.
“I can guarantee he has killed no one. Which is why I’m not leaving the room.” I moved to stand next to Paxton.
“I agree with Mia, she’s not leaving the room, Detective. I’ve never used Ruben’s money to get myself out of a single problem. What he does with his biological son is between them. I don’t speak to Javion. Now tell me what you think I did, so I can get back to running my business,” Paxton demanded.
The younger officer, silent up to this point, pulled a notepad from his jacket and flipped a couple of pages. “A woman by the name of Tabitha Clark was killed a month ago. A video places you with her at lunch and evidence in her apartment places you inside.”
“Impossible!” I took a step away from Paxton.
“I planned to meet with you next, Mia. I told you it would be better if we talked with him alone. We’ll get to the part where Brock never mentioned the victim was your sister. He was the one who called the murder into the department.” Higgins paused. “There were no photos of you on the wall. I didn’t find out about your ties to her until I dug into Tabitha’s life. Did you know Paxton and Tabitha were dating? A neighbor in the building saw them arguing outside.”
For a second, I paused. We had the name of the man Tabitha dated, but he was a ghost. No phone records existed between her and this other person. Lucas had told me a couple of places Tabitha and her boyfriend went to eat, and there was no evidence she was ever at any of them. Not to mention, Paxton wouldn’t have a motive to kill Tabitha.
Paxton shook his head. “The first time I heard Tabitha’s name was the morning you and Brock discussed your connection to her.”
I held my breath, hoping he wouldn’t divulge too much information. “He’s correct. I also know Brock had a team go into the apartment. There were no fingerprints.”
No way did I plan to tell the detective that I was the one to investigate Tabitha’s apartment. Two things he’d said were off. Only Tabitha’s body lay on the floor—the table wasn’t at the house when I arrived. All her furniture was gone. I pulled every photo of Tabitha and me from the apartment. Brock did his digital magic which made Tabitha and me strangers. Except according to Detective Higgins we were linked. The person we were dealing with was good, to be able to undo everything we put in place.
“The people who work for Brock aren’t officers of the law,” the younger officer snapped. “We should arrest Brock for sending people to the crime scene before calling the cops. Maybe the good doctor here paid Brock off. Ruben couldn’t pay the chief off a year ago, so maybe the new workaround is a corrupt mercenary company.”
“First, I’ve paid no one off, and I sure as hell didn’t kill Tabitha. On the date of her murder, I was on the other side of town,” Paxton replied, giving away too much information.
“So, you know way more about this case.” Higgins’s eyes had narrowed. “I never said the exact date of the murder. And you know where she lived.”
I had to do damage control before Paxton got his ass arrested. “Paxton and I are in a relationship. I told him about my sister’s death and where she lived. Detective, we’ve worked a lot of cases together. Are you going to sit here and let this cop say shit about Blackwood? Brock never even charges the station when we help. As for collecting evidence, I’m sure my time in the CIA trained me a hell of a lot better than anyone at the police station.”
“I’ve known Paxton and his siblings since the night his mom died. This was never a conversation I thought I would have with Paxton. But I also realize you grew up with the Ellison family. People change. They become greedy. I didn’t want to believe the evidence either, but Officer Fredricks showed me everything he has,” Higgins replied.
The person who wanted to ruin my life seemed to know about things close to me. The change to my records and the evidence I knew wasn’t there before the cops showed up proved that. I wondered if the person was on the police force. My brother had found no links in the organization to who would come after me, and neither had Donovan. Brock thought it was someone from one of my prior cases, but now I wondered if the person was an officer. They could plant the prints. The probability that I’d pissed someone at the station off was high. And although I watched my surroundings for suspicious cars, not once did I think about the officer’s car parked behind Tabitha’s apartment. I figured he lived in the complex. Now I wondered if he was the eyewitness.
Ft. Lauderdale had close to three hundred sworn police officers. Pinning the murder back on the police wouldn’t go well for Paxton. “Can I see where you found the prints?”
Higgins handed me a folder and walked over to Paxton’s desk and slid the photos across the surface. I couldn’t help but let my mind wander back to when he had me across that same desk. Annoyed, I redirected my focus back to the photos. My head was not in the game, which was precisely the reason I thought we should never sleep together. He clouded my judgment and made it hard for me to concentrate. And yet I wasn’t sure I could walk away.
Paxton stood beside me, his body pressed against mine.
“Later,” he whispered in my ear. The damn man could read my thoughts.
I concentrated on the three photos. The crime scene tech took a picture of the prints on a kitchen table. The palm and along the fingers were dark, but the fingers were light. “Why would he place his hand on the table but keep his fingers up?” I wanted to point out it wasn’t her table either, but I would keep that a secret in case Paxton needed to officially fight the charge.
“Does it matter?” The young officer stomped over to the desk and poked his finger at the image. “They are his prints. I could get an eight-point match.”
The lowest number most courts would even allow was eight. Some judges frowned upon that low a number. “To me, it looks like someone planted his prints after they lifted them.” I held up Paxton’s hand. “He has long fingers. When he holds a cup or glass, his fingertips might not press down hard or at all. I bet someone took his prints from a cup, which could happen at a restaurant. Why only one set of prints in the entire apartment?”
“He could have missed cleaning up this set,” Fredricks continued to talk. “You sure are fighting hard for the man who might have killed your sister. Look here.”
A video played on the officer’s phone. Paxton was at a Bona’s in downtown Ft. Lauderdale. In the video my sister sat across from him. The person who took the video sat a few tables away. Paxton’s voice came from the speaker. He was asking her when she wanted to come over.
Paxton plucked the phone out of the officer's hands and paced back and forth. “How is this possible? I’ve never gone to Bona’s. If the media got a hold of this video, my father would kill me. My adoptive father’s archenemy owns this restaurant. I’m probably on the ‘do not allow inside’ list. I tried going to an art show three months back, but hadn’t realized Walter Edward owned the gallery. Security stopped me before I so much as stepped inside. Did you check the cameras at the restaurant?”
The officer pointed to the phone. “Why do I need more evidence when I have the video in your hand?”
My knowledge of computers only included what I picked up at work. Some of the shit they talked about went straight over my head. Brock paid me for my fighting skills. I did remember we had a prior case where someone multiplied a video with new technology, though.
“Wait, let me see that again.” I held out my hand and waited for him to place the device in my palm. I didn’t have time to send the video to Brock, but I recalled a couple of his tips. In the third loop of the video, I caught the change in the right eye. “This is a deepfake. This past year a new app dropped to make creating these easier. Soon the technology will be untraceable, and nobody will know it’s a fake with one glance. The one I saw a few months back was easier to pick out the minor glitch. Whoever created this is a hacker, or knows one. But I can guarantee this is not Dr. Paxton.”
“You’re telling me someone stole his prints and placed them at your sister's crime scene, then created a deepfake? I’ve watched the video at least twenty times, and it looks real.” The officer paused. “You believe this, Detective?”
“Well, I was the one who told you none of the evidence seemed right. You went to the Deputy Chief and dragged me out here instead of a call. I’m getting too old for this shit.” Higgins gestured toward the phone.
The officer’s face turned deep red. “I should have known you were on the Ellisons’ payroll! I am going to take him down to the station, and if the tech guys can see any glitches, we can release him.”
I slipped my phone out of my pocket and tapped on Brock’s number.
Me: Police are at Paxton’s practice. They’re blaming him for Tabitha’s murder.
My phone vibrated as I slipped it back in my pocket.
“Watch the eyes. The way he tilted his head forward, the software will have a harder time with the eyes. At the three-minute mark, his eyes go crazy, just for a quick flash.”
“Holy shit, how did we miss that?” Higgins said under his breath. “I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry?” The officer yanked his phone back. “Where were you the day of the murder? Around six o’clock.”
“I don’t remember.”
My head whipped to the side. Paxton’s jaw ticked. Fuck, he was at the club, and no way he would give up his alibi or the damn club. Except the murder was way earlier in the day. Like the cop knew to ask what he was doing at six in the evening.
“So, you have nobody who can account for you?” The officer rested his hand on the butt of his gun.
“You’re correct. Not sure why I would need anyone to vouch for me. The video is fake, and I never even met Tabitha.”
The only damming evidence was the fingerprints. “We can come down to the station tomorrow, but we have somewhere to be,” I offered.
Higgins’s phone beeped, and he glanced at the screen. “That’s my boss. He wants us to bring Paxton down to the station.”
Shit. “Okay, we will follow you.”
“Not how things work. If you turn around, Paxton Renolds, I’ll place the cuffs on your wrists.” The officer’s smirk made me want to hit him.
I side-stepped in front of the officer. “You’re arresting him even after I already proved the video was fake. The photo of the prints on the table doesn’t look right. Why are you two ignoring all the evidence?”
Detective Higgins shook his head. “This is coming from above my head.”
“Your chief?” Brock could square things away with him easily.
“No, the deputy chief. Seems the coroner might have more evidence against Paxton.”
“While our tech looks over the video, we will ask a few more questions. It’s time to go, Paxton. We won’t handcuff you if you come willingly.”
“This is bullshit. I will make it my mission to make sure you are both thrown off the force. Paxton didn’t do it. He was at—” A bony-ass elbow jabbed into my side.
“I don’t know where I was,” Paxton reiterated. “I’m not sure what Mia was thinking, but we don’t want to give the police false information. I’ll come willingly.”
Most of the evidence wouldn’t stand. The prints would be a harder case. “I’ll call your sister. Don’t say a word, not even to ask for a glass of water. Someone set you up, and I don’t trust either of these two. I’ll have Brock come down to the station as well.”
I didn’t like the fact Paxton would be out of my sight for even a minute.
Officer Fredricks was in his late thirties, and he looked a little too cocky. There was a seventy-five percent chance I could take them down. Then we could run. Only…an escape would make solving Tabitha’s murder ten times harder.
“Let’s get this over with,” Paxton sighed. “Can’t say riding in the back of a cop car was on my bucket list.”
“Let’s go!” The officer waved his hand toward the door.
I slipped my hand into Paxton’s pocket and quickly grabbed his phone, wallet, and keys when the police turned away. “Remember, don’t say a word and drink nothing. No matter who walks in the door. Yes, I even mean if the chief or Brock walks in, wait for your sister.”
Paxton was led out of the room. I stared down at his phone and inwardly cussed at myself because the device was locked with a six-digit code. I had to reach him before he left or he got in the car.
The second I stepped outside of his office Felicity cut me off. “What the hell!” I moved to the side, but she did the same blocking my exit.
“You’re going to pay! The plans we had for you were to happen later, but you sped up the timeline showing up here today. All you had to do was leave. No, instead you pushed your way back here and caused us more problems.”
My fingers clasped around Paxton’s phone as I narrowed my eyes. I hadn’t noticed it earlier, but I had a feeling in my gut I’d seen her before. She’d mentioned the club, so maybe that’s where it was from. “You have one second to move, or you will need to have your nose done again.”
The woman pulled a small pink gun out of her purse. “Move into his office, or I’ll put a bullet through your leg.”
I reached forward to disarm the bitch when metal jabbed into my back. “You heard my wife. Move.”
Not one nurse from earlier was in the halls. The music was off, and I couldn’t hear any chatter. “What is killing me going to do?”
Not once did it cross my mind Tabitha’s death was because of Paxton. After all, we’d only gone to the club once eight months ago when we took the original traffickers down. Paxton didn’t know about Tabitha or Lucas, but these two somehow figured it out.
They shoved me back toward Paxton’s desk. The cop opened the door for Paxton to get in the car. His head was turned to the side. Why the hell wasn’t he looking at the window?
“He can’t save you. Paxton had the windows covered in a high-end film. Nobody can see in. Patient privacy and all that. Now sit the fuck down.”
“Put your hands together,” Dr. Cliff ordered as his bitch wife pulled a long rope from her purse.
Seriously? Were they going to attempt to keep me in place with a nylon rope tied in the front? I placed my wrist together but kept them turned so they couldn’t see I left a gap. When I had the information I needed, I would make my move.
“We couldn’t quite figure out how they got all the info from the woman. But you had access to the club servers through the medical practice. You realize this will cause more of my teammates to investigate the club and this place. I figured out the video was a deepfake. Once my boss has his hands on the recording, he will find the identity of the person pretending to be Paxton. Everyone knows you shot the video with your own face. Which one of you is going to go down?”
Dr. Cliff paced to my right. “She said nobody would know. Fuck, if they figure out it’s me, I’m done for.”
Felicity marched over to me and slapped her hand across my face. Her ring hit the side of my mouth and drew blood. “All I need to know is where your son is. If you want Paxton out of jail and you want to live, you will tell me where your son is.” She flicked her hair over her shoulder, and I caught a glimpse of the birthmark along her hairline. The birthmark looked like a small unicorn. Then I realized. Felicity and my sister Ashlyn were friends in high school.
“You will have to kill me before I give you any information.”
“Fine.” Felicity leveled the gun right at my head. Her hand didn’t even waver as she moved her finger to the trigger. I had to move fast, or I wasn’t going to make it out alive.
CHAPTER 11
Paxton
“You’ve kept my client locked in this interrogation room for an hour. I bet I’ll hear him ask for a phone call when I review the audio tape of this room. You can’t say you didn’t detain him, because you drove him down here. Now let’s get started.”
Officer Fredricks sat in the chair across from my sister. He flipped open the folder and pulled out the fingerprint photo again. He pushed the incriminating evidence across the table. “I would like your client to explain how his fingerprints ended up on the victim’s table.”
Cara tapped her red fingernail on the table. “Interesting.” Cara pulled a photo out of her bag and slid it across the table. “Want to explain why the table is different in this photo? I can. That is not Tabitha’s table. I don’t see a victim in the photo, so how does fingerprints on a table have anything to do with the crime?”
