Taken by Tuesday (The Weekday Brides #5)(55)
Author: Catherine Bybee

His tongue ran over the tip, bringing it to attention and making her moan. She was warm, everywhere, instantly.

Rick started to move to the other side and paused . . . the hand on her thigh tightened.

When he didn’t move, she opened her eyes to see him staring at the tablet.

“Don’t stop now,” she said, teasing.

He went from touching her, tasting her, to staring without an ounce of humor in his face. “Do you talk to people on that game?”

“What?” Her head wasn’t following his thoughts.

He pulled away, his hands left her and reached for her tablet. “This. Do you talk to people on the game?”

“Yeah.” She sat up, readjusted her dress so she wasn’t hanging out of it. “We have chat rooms set up for wars . . . allies for battles. Enemies to conquer. All in fun.”

He opened the device and glanced at the screen, which opened to the game since she hadn’t shut it down before closing it. “Is it all in fun?”

“For me. Once in a while there will be a die-hard gamer that thinks everyone should dedicate their life to this . . . spend money to win wars. We weed those players out of our team once they start pitching a fit.”

Rick’s green eyes found hers and didn’t let go.

Chills, and not the kind she wanted while in bed with Rick, made her shiver.

You’re not so tough now, are you?

You’re not much of a fighter, are you?

“Oh, God. You don’t think . . .”

“Do you use your real name?”

“No . . . but . . .” But she knew many of the real names of those on her team. They’d been playing for over a year. She hadn’t worked terribly hard to keep her name out of the game.

Rick tilted his head. “It’s a lead, Judy. Our only one.”

Without Rick’s help, she changed into a pair of cotton pajama bottoms and a T-shirt and met him back in the kitchen, where he’d set up the tablet and her laptop. She freely admitted that her knees knocked a little as she made her way to Rick’s side.

“What are we looking for?” she asked as she sat beside him.

“A link. A direct path to you from this game.” He pushed her laptop over to her. “Log in to your Facebook account, Twitter . . . whatever you use.”

She brought up the Internet while Rick brought a cup of coffee for her from the kitchen.

“Hey.” Meg had on a long pink robe, her bare toes sticking out from under it. “I thought you’d be . . . well, I didn’t think you’d be in here. What’s going on?”

Judy exchanged glances with Rick.

“Rick thinks that maybe someone from the game I play online might be behind the attack.”

“The war game?”

Judy nodded.

“It’s a game.” Meg’s confusion was written in her eyes.

“A game where the top players spend serious cash to be in the top slots and get pissed if their team doesn’t play with the same intensity.” The more Judy considered the possibility that Rick was right, the worse she felt.

“But it’s a game.”

“I know, Meg. I feel the same way.”

“It’s also a sick world out there,” Rick added.

Meg tucked into a chair. “I’ve heard of pedophiles using online games to find victims, but adults falling into the same trap?”

“Internet crime against adults isn’t limited to monetary extortion.” Rick pushed close to Judy and leaned over the tablet. “OK. Tell me how this game works.”

While Judy explained the details of the game, Meg brought out her computer and looked up information about the game, the complaints, and the chat rooms.

The game wasn’t complicated, and since there wasn’t an active war going on there weren’t a lot of people online chatting. Judy explained the chats and the way to have private chats. “There are very few women playing, so those of us who do have hooked up elsewhere.”

“Where?”

Judy showed him her Facebook account and pointed out two women who knew her real persona. “My privacy settings are such that you have to be a friend to see all this.”

There were pictures of her friends at college, a shot of her with Meg and Mike at graduation.

Rick started writing down names of her Facebook friends and a list of all those on her team in the game. “This is going to take some time.” He looked over at the sofa and they both noticed that Meg had fallen asleep with her laptop on her knees.

“She’s been a real trooper. The night you went to jail, we were up until after two, fact-checking marriage and testimony laws. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like we’ve left school.”

“You should go ahead and go to bed.” He patted her hand.

She patted his back. “I don’t think so, babe. I’ve been in a cold bed for three nights, and when I finally crash, you’re going to be in there with me.”

Judy woke Meg long enough to motivate her to bed and took her friend’s place on the couch. She went through old messages on Facebook, searching for anything sketchy. She and Rick worked in a rhythm, she’d say a name, and he’d write it down or cross-reference it as a fellow student, a friend from Utah, or a friend of a friend or virtual stranger. Rick grew quiet while he was following people from her list around the Internet. Not sure what else to look for, she clicked into the topography of the Santa Barbara project until her eyelids gave up the fight and she fell asleep.

Rick took another look at the names of the women from Judy’s game, his mind working backward. There were four of them, two were middle-aged housewives and the other two were both college students. Because he was on Judy’s computer and acting as her, he was able to access everything on these ladies’ accounts. Both girls had picked a picture off Judy’s page of Judy and Michael. Rick was sure the draw wasn’t Judy, but her famous brother these girls were all over. There were comments galore with plenty of likes from numerous friends. He started writing down names, clicking over to pages to see if any of them were unsecure. He was surprised at how many people put absolutely every piece of information about their lives on their pages. Phone numbers, addresses, where they partied every Friday night, who they had sex with and the when and where of it.

It boggled his mind.

Judy’s page was conservative by nature. There was very little information about her day-to-day life with the exception of where she went to school and what she was studying. She hadn’t even updated where she lived from Seattle to LA. Probably an oversight since she had posted a couple of pictures of the paparazzi pointing their cameras at her. There was something here . . . he felt it.