Alex stopped what he was doing. “He’s writing about Valerie?”
“Oh yeah, dude the guy is obsessed.”
Alex knew that, but hearing that Bruce was writing stuff about Valerie on the Internet was still unsettling to say the least.
“If it’s not public, how do you know what he’s writing?” Alex handed Romero the soda.
Romero gave him a look before taking the glass. “Alex, I told you this guy could get into Bruce’s bank account if he wanted. An online journal is nothing.”
“So, what’s he writing about?”
“Most of it is nonsense. But Mr. X assures me that we hit a goldmine.”
“Who the hell is Mr. X?”
“The guy doing all the digging. I don’t know his real name so that’s what I call him.”
“Wait. I’m paying this guy big bucks, and you don’t even know his name? What if he’s just feeding us a bunch of crap?”
Romero stared at Alex, annoyed. “He comes highly recommended from a very reliable source. I’d never steer you wrong. What, do you think I’m an idiot or something?”
Alex attempted a smirk, but he was too wound up. “You couldn’t come up with anything better than Mr. X?”
Romero frowned. “You wanna hear the rest of this or not?”
Alex nodded leaning against the back counter of the bar, crossing his arms in front of him.
“Anyway, Mr. X says any type of documentation is the best way to get into this guy’s head. That’s why he went looking for it to begin with. Stalkers and serial killers are notorious for being compulsive planners. This will definitely help if he’s stupid enough to write down what he’s planning next. So, far he has been. The problem is he’s not that stupid.”
Romero took a long drink of his soda. Alex waited impatiently. There always had to be a damn catch.
After nearly finishing the entire glass of soda, Romero put the glass down, burped then continued. “These journals, in some cases blogs haven’t been easy to find. They’re not in his name, of course. He uses different emails to set them up. If he were writing out of one computer only, it would be easy. He’d just hack the computer and get everything he done through it. But he doesn’t. He goes from one computer to another, most in public places like libraries and computer cafés.”
“So, how do we know it’s even him writing them?”
“Trust me, Alex. Mr. X knows. He changes the password on the journals blogs often enough, but not the email he uses to get in them. Mr. X says that’s pretty cocky of him since the passwords a no-brainer to hack. With the same email address Mr. X can stay on his trail.”
“Can you please stop calling him that? It sounds so stupid.”
Romero downed the rest of the soda. “What’s stupid about Mr. X?”
Alex rolled his eyes. “Never mind, what else did he find out?”
“So, far that’s the main thing. But he seems to think it’s pretty significant. He’s gonna go back all the way to when Valerie first met the guy. You said this was about a year ago, right?”
The same irritation he’d felt with himself when he first heard that Valerie had met the guy weeks after breaking things off with him sunk in. He felt completely responsible now for her ever meeting this psycho.
“So, he’s digging into that. He says it helps to find out what motivated this guy to come after her the way he has in the first place. Also, he’s mentions friends and acquaintances in the entries. That could lead us to where he might be staying.”
Alex chewed on everything Romero had just laid on him, his arms still tightly crossed over his chest. “How long is it going to take before we know any more?”
“He’s real close. I tell you he’s good. But there’s a lot he says he has to sift through. For every clue he finds there’s a ton of useless garbage he has to read through.” Romero stood up. “As soon as I know more I’ll let you know.” Romero tapped the top of the bar. “I gotta go.”
He started to walk away. Alex nodded lost in thought. Romero stopped and turned around. “Did you ever find out what was up with Valerie meeting Luke the morning of the rehearsal dinner?”
Alex came out of his stupor. “Yeah, she had to give him keys to some properties he was showing, but that’s all she said.”
“Did she mention anything about him being at her apartment?”
He’d tried pushing both incidents to the back of his mind, but the truth was it still gnawed at him. “He dropped by to take a look at a painting. Why?”
Romero studied him for a moment. “Hank wasn’t sure if it was worth mentioning, so he said he’d leave it up to me. Did you know she had breakfast with Luke yesterday and this morning?”
His arms still crossed in front of him, Alex squeezed them even tighter. Valerie had rushed out of the house both mornings claiming she didn’t have time for breakfast. “No. I didn’t.”
Romero didn’t say anything for a moment, then shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe it’s just me. If Izzy was having breakfast with an ex two days in row and didn’t tell me about it, I’d have a problem with it. But Valerie works with the guy, so… whatever. Just thought I’d mention it.”
He started for the door. Alex could feel the drumming of his pulse in his ears as he watched Romero walk out. The image of Valerie and Luke hugging and holding hands the morning of the rehearsal assaulted him. Add that to the fact that she’d chosen him, of all people to show the painting to, this really brought a serious question to mind. Was it possible she’d played down her relationship with Luke and her feelings for him ran deeper than she was admitting?