I forced myself to veer away from any thoughts related to Ryan. Last night’s incident with Zack was still far too fresh in my mind, and thinking too hard about Ryan or what the hell he was being punished for, or the insane possibility that he could be seeing Jill, would easily tip me right over the edge. Bury myself in work. Really, it’s so much healthier, right?

I gave Jill a teasing smile. “I figured I’d watch you pretend to work,” I replied.

She rolled her eyes. “Riiiight. Because I’m merely killing time doing the work of three techs.” She snorted and pushed the stack of fingerprint cards away from her. “One of these days I’m gonna go blind from looking at that crap. You know, most real departments have crime labs where people actually specialize in one area, instead of having to know how to do everything.”

“Obviously, your rank recognizes your superior intelligence and wants to make sure you remain suitably challenged.”

She made a hacking noise. “So, as much as I want to believe that you merely want to bask in my presence, I’m willing to bet that you need my help with something?”

“I love basking in your presence. But actually I’m here to drop this off for examination.” I lifted the laptop case. “And, to find out if I can get it examined soooon?” I gave her a puppy-dog-eyes hopeful look.

She drew back in mock fear. “Stop making that face and I’ll do anything you ask!”

I laughed. “Really? Cool!”

“Don’t push it,” she warned, eyes flashing with humor. “As it so happens, I convinced our resident nerd to run Mr. Kerry’s laptop yesterday, so there’s a very good chance he’ll have something to show you today.”

“I knew there was a reason I was friends with you!” I said.

“Nah, you love me for the running,” she retorted. “C’mon, I’ll take you to the computer lab.”

She swiped her access card at the reader by the main lab door, and I dutifully followed her through. It didn’t take long for me to be grateful for her role as a tour guide as we made our way through the winding corridors. We finally ended up on the second floor at the end of a long hallway, in front of a door with a sign taped to it with the dire warning, “Do NOT walk in to this lab without knocking first! Contraband material present. Knock first!”

“Most of what he does is search computers for child pornography,” she explained, gesturing at the sign. She made a face which I echoed.

Jill knocked. I could hear movement inside, and then about half a minute later the door was pulled open by a man slightly taller than me with sandy blond hair and bright green eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses. He looked like he was in his mid-twenties, and he was slender to the point of being skinny, but even with all of the stereotypical physical attributes nailed, he somehow didn’t look at all like a nerd.

He stood in the doorway as if guarding the gates of hell. “Jill,” he said, expression grave, “I’ve told you before that I simply cannot make any more porn DVDs for you.”

Jill laughed and punched him lightly in the chest. “You are such an ass. I don’t need your porn, I have plenty of my own. This is Kara Gillian. She’s handling the Victor Kerry murder, and she has another computer for you as well. Kara, this is Brad, our computer forensics expert.”

“Nice to meet you, Kara,” he said, rubbing his chest. “I usually break out the pocket protector and taped-up glasses for newcomers, but you caught me out.” He stepped back. “Come on in. Watch your step. There’s crap and wires everywhere.”

Everywhere was an understatement. The room was crowded with enough computer equipment that it looked as if he could be directing a space shuttle launch. It was almost as bad as my aunt’s library, though with computers instead of books.

“I finished the laptop yesterday,” he continued, “and pulled off copies of the files I figured you’d be most interested in—email, documents, spreadsheets, financial programs, that sort of thing.” He handed me a CD in a plastic holder with the case number carefully printed on the front.

“That’s fantastic,” I said fervently. “I really appreciate you getting to it so quickly.”

“Murders always take priority,” he explained with a shrug. “Only thing that trumps them is missing kids.” A pained expression flitted briefly across his face. “Anyway, I have the image of the hard drive, so if you think you need anything else, like Internet history, images, that sort of thing, let me know and I’ll pull it out for you.”

I cocked my head. “Internet history ... you mean like what websites were visited?”

“That’s it. Can even tell you how long they stayed at each website and whether they typed the URL in or clicked on a link.”

“So, if I think someone’s been on my computer at home, I can find out what they did on it?”

“Sure can,” he replied. “Though if you’re worried about it happening again, you could always put a spy program on there that’ll record everything that’s done on the computer.”

“I may get back to you on that spy program,” I said. I could see Jill giving me a narrow-eyed look, and I could tell she’d figured out who I thought had been on my computer. It wasn’t as if there were a lot of suspects. She knew how few people were allowed into my house. “Is there a way to find out the Internet history without going through all of this?” I gestured at the mass of equipment.

He leaned against the worktable and crossed his arms. “Uh-huh. It’s not tough to do if they haven’t cleared the cache. What kind of computer do you have?”

I hesitated. “You’re going to laugh at me if I say ‘a black one’ aren’t you.”

Jill snickered but Brad managed to keep a straight face. “Not at all. I’ll merely post it all over the Internet.”

“Oh, well, that’s all right then,” I said with a roll of my eyes.

He grinned. “Okay, well is it a PC or a Mac?”

“PC. And I bought it about a year ago.”

He turned and rummaged for paper and pen, then peppered me with a few more questions as he scribbled quickly. “Here,” he said, passing the paper to me. “Instructions that even a non-geek should be able to follow.”

“I owe you one,” I said, deeply pleased. I tucked the instructions into my notebook and then lifted the laptop case. “Now I’m going to push your good will even farther. How long would it take you to examine this one?”

“Dunno. Let’s see what we’re up against.” He took the case from me and slid the laptop from it, then flipped it over. A tiny screwdriver appeared in his hand, and a few seconds later he’d removed what I assumed was the hard drive. He pivoted to the table against the wall and hooked the drive into a gadget connected to one of the computers, then clicked a few buttons on the screen with the mouse. A gray box appeared on the screen with rapidly scrolling numbers. I waited patiently while he peered at the screen.

After less than a minute he straightened. “This won’t take long at all.”

“Great!” I said.“So you could finish it today perhaps?”

He shook his head. “I’m done now.”

I looked at him blankly.

“It’s been wiped,” he said. “That drive is as clean as a whistle.”

After leaving the crime lab I headed to the main branch of Lake Pearl Bank, pausing only to zip through the drive-thru at Taco Hut in a carefully orchestrated effort to undo every bit of last night’s unintended purge. I scarfed down two burritos while I drove, musing on the various revelations. Brad had gone on to explain that it was ridiculously easy to wipe a drive with the right kind of software, and that such programs were easily obtained online, with no special expertise needed.

So, if Adam Taylor and Vic Kerry were murdered for the same reason—whatever that was—why wasn’t Kerry’s computer wiped as well? Maybe the murderer didn’t expect it to be pegged as a homicide. Or, since Vic Kerry was actually killed several days ago, perhaps the murderer hadn’t yet realized that Adam needed to be killed too. Or perhaps their murders really were for completely different reasons. I grimaced. I had an ugly feeling I was going to be up late tonight looking at financial information. Woo boy.