Chapter 10

TEN

The diner was a little more upmarket than Beth had expected. Glass-topped tables surrounded by wooden chairs gave the small diner the feel of a more expensive restaurant. They waited for Styles to explain that Bear was a patrol dog and allowed inside before entering the dining area. Moments after they'd sat at a table, a server brought them a bottle of water and two glasses and then handed them menus. Beth perused the menu and then looked at her. "I'll have the chili followed by peach pie with ice cream—and keep the coffee coming."

"I'll have the same." Styles folded the menu and handed it back to the server. "The coffee is a priority. Can you bring it out now?"

Beth watched the woman walk back to the kitchen and looked at Styles. "That would be about the first time in my life that a server hasn't filled a cup of coffee in front of me the minute I sat down."

"The prices look normal enough, but the place looks classy for a diner in the middle of town." Styles removed his jacket and hung it on the back of the chair. "I hope the food is as good as the decor."

While they were waiting for their food to arrive, Beth pulled out the tablet from her backpack and placed it on the table. "I'll request a search warrant for the doctor's premises as well. I'm sure you'll want to go through his home, and I can't wait to see what he's got on his computer, although there may be a problem because of the confidentiality of his patients. I'll have to specify that I don't want to look at his patients' records, I just want to look at his private computer inside his home. I need to know if he's been using the dark web."

"From their fast getaway, I would imagine they're very well organized." Styles leaned forward, clasping his hands on the table. "This might be the breakthrough we've been searching for since San Francisco. If we can find a link between what's happening in this town and what was happening there, we'll get closer to the kingpin who is running this organization." He smiled at her. "I have faith in your skills at searching the dark web. If they've left any kind of trail behind, I'm sure you will find it."

Beth pressed send and the search warrant request was flying through cyberspace and on its way to the judge. Now all they had to do was wait. Since meeting Styles, the one thing she'd noticed about him was his confidence in any situation. He rarely drew his weapon, preferring to take down a perpetrator with his bare hands. She wondered if he realized just how much danger they would put themselves in by digging deep into this syndicate's pedophile ring. She gave him a long look as the server returned to pour the coffee and left a pot with the fixings on the table. "I have two ways of dealing with these people and we need to discuss the ramifications."

"How so?" Styles slowly added the fixings to his coffee and stirred.

Beth eyed him over the rim of the cup. "I can dig into their files and they'll never know I've been there. In that case we can try and find the players, but one mistake and the same thing will happen. They'll vanish without a trace. In my experience these criminal rings are so well organized, each player has a backdoor plan. One hint of suspicion and it's activated. They just move on with a new identity and set up in another county or state."

"I'm aware of the setup." Styles' mouth flattened into a thin line. "We might catch a few of them but the kingpin remains untouched. So what's your second choice?"

The next step made the hairs on the back of her neck rise in a warning, or was it excitement? She needed to get close to the kingpin and this time she needed Styles' help. "If you want to flush them out, I can leave a few telltale signs behind and they'll trace me back to the bureau. They'll have my IP address and know where I am at all times. It will be putting our necks on the line, but we might catch guys who work closer to the kingpin."

"I've been involved with these big syndicates before and they're extremely dangerous. They wouldn't think twice about taking us out just to destroy the evidence we might have collected." Styles examined her face. "We do have a few aces up our sleeve. They don't understand the way the FBI works and how we update our files on the server for the director to keep track of our progress." He placed his cup back onto the table as the server returned with their chili and crackers. "The second is they won't know we'll be expecting them."

Sucking in a deep breath, Beth took in his confident stance. He never avoided a fight, but this time he might be the underdog. She nodded. "You have a point and I'd agree with the second choice once I've checked them out and discovered just how deep and widespread this goes. Drawing them out will mean that we'll be able to arrest some of the lesser players, but we really need to get to the kingpin and destroy the empire."

"We might be heading into a war?" Styles cracked his knuckles and smiled at her. "I say bring it on."