Pitch Black by Leslie A. Kelly

seem to give a damn whether Wyatt approved of what she was up to or not. In fact, she suspected he’d like nothing better than to think Lily was less than loyal, or that her work on the other CAT could inconvenience Blackstone’s team.
    “I’ve been very busy. We’re working on a case,” she explained out of courtesy, not about to let him put her on the defensive. “That came first.”
    “Oh, right, hunting up phantom killers who attack through the Internet. Is Dr. Horrible sending electric shocks via DSL to strike down anyone who touches his keyboard?”
    Jerk . “What is it you want?” she asked. “Has something happened?”
    “Yeah. And I want you . . . in on it.”
    She had the feeling the hesitation between his words had been intentional. Anspaugh had never made a move on her, but she’d seen the way his stare sometimes lingered, noticed how frequently he found an excuse to touch her. Like now, as he moved a bit closer.
    She intentionally stepped around him. Even if she wasn’t a block of solid ice beneath her warm skin, with no interest in being close to anyone ever again, she would have recoiled from that particular touch. Anspaugh might be good-looking in a big-jock-football-player way, but she truly couldn’t stand his type.
    “Lil?”
    God, she hated that nickname. “What happened?”
    “You know we were finally able to sift through the history of Satan’s Playground and isolate a general geographic area of Lovesprettyboys.”
    Her stomach knotted, as it always did when she thought of him. “You said as much earlier.”
    “He’s somewhere near Richmond, which is where we’ve focused our investigation. We’ve been monitoring message boards, chat rooms, anything that would draw residents in a hundred-mile radius, particularly kids.”
    “And he showed up?”
    “We think so.”
    “My God,” she whispered.
    He stiffened. “You sure you’re okay talking about this? I mean, with everything else?”
    He hadn’t been part of the team that had investigated her nephew’s case, but he knew about it. Few people working crimes against children didn’t. It wasn’t every day that kind of tragedy touched one of the bureau’s own.
    “I’m fine. Tell me what happened.”
    “One we were watching was a site with a bunch of message boards for kids involved in a community program in Williamsburg. Sports, after-school activities, stuff like that.”
    Classic pedophile territory. She sucked in a breath of freezing air, then, shivering, tugged her coat tighter.
    “We’re not certain. But there have been a few comments this one supposed kid has made that sound like some things our perp said in the transcripts from Satan’s Playground. He didn’t use the same handle, of course. He’s been posting as Peter Pan.”
    The boy who never grew up, who wanted only to be with his lost boys. Sick bastard.
    “That’s not an ID a child would choose.” The Peter Pan fantasy was one grown men enjoyed. Certainly not seven-year-olds who were much more into superheroes like Iron Man.
    “No, I guess not,” Anspaugh said. “We can’t know for sure this is the same guy, but there doesn’t seem to be much doubt he’s a pedophile. So either way, we want him.”
    “How can I help?”
    He smiled down at her, as if she’d offered to do him a personal favor. In truth, she would find it hard to turn on a light if he asked her for personal reasons.
    “We’ve had no luck drawing him out. One of my agents has been posting as an eight-year-old boy, but he can’t get anything started with this prick.”
    “He’s going to be incredibly careful, of course,” she said. “He would never engage with someone who sought him out. Every pedophile in the country knows those sites are monitored.”
    “We haven’t directly engaged him,” he said, an edge of irritation in his voice. He wasn’t the type who enjoyed being questioned or corrected.
    She ignored him. “So we’d need to come up with a reason for him to seek