Reviewing restaurants is normally a safe pursuit, but Lorne and Catherine face torture and death when they try to unravel organised crime's infiltration of the fine dining scene.
Their longstanding friendship deepens when they meet again seven mont...
Catherine clicked off her phone, and they continued the five minutes to the marina entrance, talking of possible libel, but they could think of nothing she'd written that even hinted at it. "We were always so careful. Nathan and I discussed this so many times. Write nothing that even the sickest interpretation of the law might contort as libel."
"They're using bully tactics. You've pointed to no one, named no one. They're pointing at themselves." Lorne motioned to the helm. "You want to take her alongside?"
"A little disturbed at the moment. I'll watch you, though." She gave him a crooked smile.
"Who's the email from?"
She opened her laptop, browsed to the site and scrolled down. "Here it is. Give me a sec... No, nothing, it's not showing a sender." She dug further, then looked up and shrugged.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"We can search through the routeing and... Later, we're here now." A minute later, he gave the engine a final kick astern, then shifted to neutral, stepped off with the breast and turned it to the float cleat.
They secured the bow and stern lines and the springs in silence, then they stood on the float at Tastevin's stern and hugged, still silent.
Finally, he spoke, "I can dig out the source — I spent several years teaching myself hacking. Became quite the expert."
"Hacking? Why?"
"Tracking down Connolly, then searching for evidence." Lorne gazed into Catherine's eyes. "Heavy stuff. Really sick stuff." He looked away.
She hugged him tighter, her face tilted up, chin on his chest. "Let's ignore the email. A crank, a troll. Get lots of those."
"It's not only the email. We need to find who's behind this stuff, manipulating the reviews. We're too far into this now to stop, to be scared off by bullies."
She squeezed him tighter still. "Go below and dig it out? Or head over to my... Over to our townhouse to do it?"
"Below. It's closer."
He sat at her computer and started analysing the routeing on the email. "It's likely a proxy IP through one of the anonymous SMTP servers." He clicked further and scrolled down the strings of text and code. "Here... AnonyMail."
"How'd you get all that stuff on the screen?"
"Practice. Did it a lot, starting fifteen years ago. Hard to forget things like this." He continued scrolling and reading. "Here it is, the sender's address: zxcvbnm@iam-ru.ru. Fuck!" He sat back quickly on the couch as his arms flopped to the side, and his head banged into the bulkhead. "Fuck, fuck, fuuuu..."
"What is it?" She reached over to him. "You hurt your head?"
"Head's the least of it." He lay back, rolling his head side to side, eyes strained wide. "Not good. Not at all good. Fuck!"
