Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 79052 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 395(@200wpm)___ 316(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79052 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 395(@200wpm)___ 316(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
Egan and I dug in deep. Julian made use of all his contacts. Marcus assimilated all the information. Hours later, we had our profile.
“Okay,” Marcus began. “Here we go. John Allan—aka Stewart, Jeffrey, and Andy—that we know of. IQ puts him at the genius level. Wealthy family, only child. Mom died when he was young. Father never remarried. School notes indicated he got bored easily. Needed distracting all the time. That was a constant all his life. Decent kid until he hit his teens. Always into computers, games, and—” he lifted his head, meeting my gaze “—drama club.”
“Obviously kept that up.”
“Yep. So, he started with petty theft, bullying at school, bothering the girls. He was accused of lurking, being a peeping tom, stealing from the lockers of the girls he liked. He got attached easily, and they never returned his affection. He was written up several times. Kicked out of three schools. At sixteen, charges were filed for forcible confinement, uttering threats, among other things. The charges were dropped, the family of the girl who instigated the charges left town, and of course, the records were sealed since he was a juvenile. Egan found a large payout in the old bank records he dug up.”
“So, his father paid off the family, and they moved.” I surmised.
“The father paid off a lot of things.” Marcus cleared his throat. “Didn’t do him any favors.”
“Never does,” Julian inserted.
“John escalated. Hacking. Drugs. Dropped out of school. At nineteen, his father died of a heart attack. Kid became a billionaire overnight. He dropped out of sight for a while, then he disappeared. Completely off the grid. The money was gone, and so was he.” He paused and took a sip of water. “I noted one drama teacher’s notes from class stated that John had ‘the ability to lose himself so deeply into character, it was almost as if he became that person.’ I think our boy likes to be other people as much as possible.”
“So, he didn’t disappear,” I said. “He became someone else.”
“Yes.”
I rubbed my face. “How often has he done this?”
Egan grunted. “Probably more than we want to know. I’m looking at similar cases in other cities, but I need time to check them all out. I would say his obsessive tendencies reached epic proportions when he found Raven.”
“The only persona that seems constant is Jeff Drew. He pays taxes. Owns property. A decent bank account. Employees. Even has a driver’s license, although I’m certain all of them are fake and planted. He has his wealth hidden, somewhere offshore, no doubt. He certainly has the brains and knowledge to make that happen. I think if we dug deep enough, we’d find he was ‘born’ around the time John disappeared.” Marcus sighed. “But I think he only uses that as a cover. I’m sure he is out in the world under many other faces.”
“Why was he so careless with Stew’s persona?”
“You said Raven and Deb made plans the day before. He wouldn’t have much time, so he copied and pasted. Probably assumed no one would look that hard. He would have added other layers the longer the persona stayed around. He wanted to be in that coffee shop and ‘bump’ into Deb.” Marcus rubbed his chin. “Made a quick profile. Printed a few cards. Done. I think he was starting to get careless. First mistake. Second, not wiping down the car. Both have gone in our favor.”
“I thought him a bit odd. Raven disliked him. Said he gave her the creeps. I should have listened to that.”
“You can’t blame yourself. She spent time with Andy—you didn’t. On some level, her psyche knew it was him, and she was reacting. But she didn’t recognize him. That was the point. He was flaunting how close he could get to her without her knowing.”
I shuddered, wondering how close he was now. I couldn’t even think of that or I would go mental.
Julian drained his coffee mug. “He’s having the time of his life right now. Think about it. He’s acting different parts daily. Fooling people. Using his intelligence to stalk someone, while making more money doing it. It’s astounding how much money the dating site makes. I think it’s all a game to him. And he’s done it before. When he gets bored with it, he simply disappears and adopts new personas. He has the money to reinvent himself. The brains to know how to circumvent the system. No doubt he has legit-looking documents for every character. When he needs more, he gets them. Life is just a huge stage to him, and he enjoys the power of playing the game.”
“So, Raven is what in this game?” I asked.
Marcus joined in. “An obsession. I think somehow related to his past. Maybe she reminds him of someone he was infatuated with when he was younger. His mother. I have no idea.”