Page 5 of Hack
CHAPTER TWO
Archer sat across from the small café, watching the two men who were eating lunch. It took everything he had not to rush across the street and drag the information he needed out of them with his bare hands.
This was the closest lead he'd gotten since he started hunting, and he wasn't going to do anything to ruin the chances that these men would lead him to their brother.
Lyle Carmen was the man he really needed to find. The man who continued killing young girls and dumping their bodies across the country after he was done sexually assaulting them.
Archer had been after Lyle for years, even going as far as quitting his job with the FBI to continue to hunt him down. When the FBI had stepped back because there weren't any leads, despite the bodies continuing to show up, Archer had handed over his badge and gun, determined to find the monster who was killing innocent girls.
For years he'd dug into the case, using his FBI contacts along with local police to follow every report of a body found that matched the profile. It had taken him years to finally get a name, and now that he had it, he wasn't going to stop until he brought Lyle to justice.
The two men across the street were Lyle's brothers, and while it appeared that they hadn't had contact with Lyle in years, he was certain that at least one of them knew where Lyle was living now.
Ironically, it had been a DNA ancestry test that one of the brothers had taken that had broken the case open, allowing him to identify Lyle as the suspect. Levitt and Luis Carmen were both upstanding citizens as far as Archer could tell. They both lived in Atlanta, Georgia and were living in the old family home. Luis's girlfriend had managed to get them to do a DNA ancestry kit, and it had been a hit off that which had led Archer, and even the FBI, to look into the Carmen family.
While they had no collected DNA samples from Lyle, it was clear that whoever was killing young girls was male and related to Levitt and Luis. Since there was only one other living male in the family, that pointed the guilt directly at Lyle.
If only Archer could find him.
The last records they had of Lyle were from the early nineteen nineties. Soon after graduating from high school, every trace of Lyle was lost. It was as if he'd just disappeared, and while the FBI believed that Lyle might have finally left the country, Archer didn't believe that. There were still graves of young girls turning up every now and again, and even though none of the recent finds had any DNA evidence available, there was enough in common with the previous deaths that Archer was sure it was Lyle's work.
As Archer watched the two men, he thought back over the years to all he'd been through hunting for this man. While he'd given up his career with the FBI, he still did freelance detective work to pay the bills, but every free second he had was spent focusing on Lyle Carmen and his victims.
If Archer's count was correct, there were thirty-four young girls who had fallen victim to Lyle. Most of them were kidnapped around the age of eight and killed somewhere around the age of fourteen.
People told Archer he was crazy for focusing all of his time on one man, but he disagreed. He'd met the parents of the girls this man had killed, he'd seen their pain, he'd watched as they buried their daughters, grieving their loss.
Each new body they found made Archer more determined than ever to find Lyle and bring him to justice.
What sucked was that after all the years of being able to call in favors to the FBI, Archer's source was taking an early retirement. He was losing his direct line to evidence and information, and that was going to slow things down if Archer didn't get a break soon.
He sighed as he watched Lyle's brothers talk. No one would know they were related to a serial killer, hell, he wasn't sure the brothers even knew they were. Lyle had always been trouble, and when he'd left the family back in the nineties, it seemed none of the family bothered to keep in touch with him. Still, the brothers were the only current lead he had, and he needed to follow it.
The sound of his cell phone ringing interrupted his thoughts, and he glanced down, seeing his FBI source's name. Howard had put his job on the line several times, sharing things with Archer that he never should have.
"Howard, how are you?" Archer answered.
"Good. I hope I'm not bothering you." Howard was his usual jolly self.
Archer grinned. "Not at all. What can I do for you?"
"Well, it's more what I can do for you. I know with my retirement, it leaves you on your own, and I've been trying to figure out how to help you."
"It's not a big deal. You deserve this retirement. It's not as if the FBI is pushing this case to the front of their pile anyway. I doubt anyone but me is even looking at the case." Archer hated that more recent cases were being worked on while this one was forgotten.
"You'd be wrong," Howard told him. "It's why I decided to call. What I'm about to tell you needs to stay between us. I know I can trust you, and that's why I'm giving you this information. With me moving to Hawaii soon, I didn't want to leave you out in the cold on this case. While there isn't anything new to report, I know a guy, he's ex-CIA. I think he's still actively digging into the case and looking for leads. He's as determined as you are to find Lyle, but his methods aren't exactly legal."
"Meaning?" Archer asked as he continued to stare at the brothers out his car window.
"Meaning he hacks into government agencies and resources. He operates under the radar, pushing his own agenda." Howard sighed. "I hesitate to even give you his name, but I think if the two of you worked together, you might be able to make some headway on this case."
"And you know this how?"
"He's my brother-in-law. He was married to Beth before she took her life." Howard's voice softened.
"Shit, I didn't know you'd lost your sister. I'm sorry, Howard." Archer never got very personal with Howard, almost always talking only about the case.
"It was years ago. She couldn't live with the fact that Angel had been kidnapped and killed. She overdosed shortly after they found her body."
