The Competition (18 page)

It was after
seven p.m. by the time we got back downtown, and we were both starving. Threat of mass destruction or not, we still needed to eat. I reminded Bailey of Graden’s earlier offer to buy us dinner at the PDC. “If he’s still up for it, we can eat and keep working.”

Bailey nodded. “You make the call. Tell him we’ll meet him there. I’ll drop the laptop off with Nick.”

The sooner Nick got into Evan’s computer, the better. “How about if I ask Twan to join us? We could use a little outside perspective.”

“That’d be great.” Bailey pulled into the parking lot at the PAB. While she went to hand off the laptop to Nick, I called Toni and Graden. Both were on board for dinner. Bailey and I got there first and lucked out with a booth in the Club Car. We’d just ordered Bloody Marys for the table when Toni showed up.

“I’d ask how you are, but why pretend? You all look like hell.” She slid in next to Bailey.

“You, on the other hand, look disgustingly gorgeous,” I said.

“I love that suit,” Bailey said.

“Girl, everyone likes this suit,” Toni said. “It’s Armani. I scored it at a sample sale.”

Toni had fashion sense to spare. I’d never known anyone who managed to look as good as her—and I’m talking twenty-four/seven. She tells me I could do it too. Trust me, I can’t.

She held up her tall glass. “To both of you getting some sleep before you keel over.” We clinked and took healthy sips of our drinks. “Now catch me up.”

We brought her up to speed on the latest developments, ending with the letter. I knew Graden wouldn’t mind us telling Toni about the letter. She was family. We’d just finished describing our last interview with Evan when Graden showed up. He slid in next to me, gave me a warm hug, and smiled at Bailey. “How are you, Toni? Anything new?”

“You mean other than some fool in the parking lot telling me she loved my last concert?”

“Your last…what?” he asked.

Bailey and I rolled our eyes. We didn’t have to hear the story to know what she was about to say—this wasn’t the first time.

“Apparently, Beyoncé and I could be twins.” Graden tried to hold back his laugh, but a short bark leaked out anyway. Toni shook her head with disgust. Other than being black, there was no resemblance whatsoever. “She also told me my hair looked better this way, so I guess the answer is, me and my hair are ‘good.’”

The waiter came and took our orders. We all got the steak and lobster and decided to share two orders of their fabulous steamed asparagus. And, of course, another round of Bloody Marys. We talked about Toni’s case—she was in trial on a kidnap-murder—until the waiter brought our drinks.

We toasted to nailing all of our killers, and then Graden turned to Toni. “I assume they told you?”

Toni nodded, somber. “This case gets crazier by the second.”

Graden rubbed the side of his face. One of his tells when he’s upset. He took a sip of his drink. “Nick called just as I was leaving. He got into Evan’s computer with no problem.”

“Anything?” Bailey asked.

“Not so far.”

Toni jammed the straw into her drink, now mostly ice. “What do your shrinks have to say about all this—the letter, Shane?”

I interrupted. “We haven’t confirmed that Shane’s the second shooter—”

“Whoever. You need to figure out where they’re planning to strike next. Your shrinks might have some ideas. And it looks to me like Logan is the mastermind. This started with a school shooting. That’s all about
his
motive, not this Shane dude’s. Unless Shane went to Fairmont High—”

“No,” Bailey said. “And I agree. Logan’s got to be the lead sled dog. The letter even sounded like a high school kid.”

“We do need to get with our shrinks,” I said. “But I don’t need them to tell me that Shane’s photo got Evan pretty rattled.”

“Yeah,” Bailey said. “But do you blame him? Shane’s a sketchy-looking character.”

“Can I see?” Toni asked. Bailey pulled up Shane’s photo and handed her the phone. Toni raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, sketchy. But hot.”

Graden took Bailey’s phone, looked at the photo, then shook his head. “You call this hot?” He sighed. “Some things I’ll never understand.”

Bailey suppressed a smile. “I’ll call the shrinks first thing in the morning.”

“Let me know what they say,” Graden said. “And you’ll have the unis ask the rest of Logan’s buddies about Shane?”

Bailey nodded. “Already being done. We’ll talk to Caleb and Kenny ourselves, let the unis handle the outer circle.”

“We’ve got to get out ahead of this,” Graden said. “God knows where they’re planning to hit next.”

“We do know one thing,” I said. “It’ll be big.”

On that grim note, the waiter brought our dinners. For which we now had zero appetite.

Friday, October 11

I woke up
the next morning with an aching head and a gnawing emptiness in my stomach. I’d barely managed to choke down three bites of my steak, so the Bloody Marys had hit pretty hard. On the bright side, my pants were looser. Hell of a thing, this Mass Murderer Diet.

A pale, gray morning light poured through the gap between the drape and the window. I burrowed deeper under the covers to enjoy the warmth for just a minute more. It was almost as cold in the early mornings as it was at night. Keeping the covers tight around me, I snaked out a hand and called in my breakfast order: two eggs over medium, bacon, and toast with a large pot of coffee. Then I threw back the covers and forced myself out of bed.

After I’d showered, dressed, put on my face, and finished breakfast, I decided to drop in at the office. Bailey had said she’d call when she had our interviews set up. Since I hadn’t heard from her yet, I figured I had a little time to go in and talk to Eric. I hadn’t spoken to him in a while, and I wanted to get his take on our latest developments.

The sky was heavy with dark clouds that looked ready to open up and pour any minute—which they did, just as I got to the back entrance of the courthouse. I stopped by my office to check my in-box and found it blissfully empty. Maybe I was about to have a good day. Lord knew, I was due.

I went over to the window and looked out at the city. Even on a gloomy, wet day like this the view lifted my spirits. I stretched my arms up and leaned from side to side to work out the kinks that had built up from too many nights of fitful sleep and too few days at the gym. As I brought my arms down, the sleeve of my sweater caught on my earring and pulled it out. I felt my shoulder, but it wasn’t there. I looked down at my feet, but it wasn’t there either. Damn, it must have fallen under the table.

I got down on my knees to look, but it was too dark to see anything, so I got my phone and turned on the flashlight app. I saw a metallic sparkle against the wall—as far out of reach as possible. Groaning, I crawled under the table, but as I put my hand out to grab the earring, I noticed something stuck in the corner of the wall. At first, I thought it might be a cockroach or a water bug. I snatched my hand back. But then I noticed it wasn’t moving. And it looked too square. I shined the flashlight on it. Definitely not a beetle. It was a small, black rectangular box, no more than an inch long.

I pulled at it and it came away from the wall with a ripping sound. It had been attached with Velcro. I clutched it in my hand and backed out from under the table. I turned it over and saw a tiny red LED light and what looked like a USB port on the end. What the…? A bug? It had to be. My heart gave a dull thud in my chest. Who’d planted it? And when? I stood there staring at the object in my hand, trying to figure it out.

I knew it hadn’t been there before. My office had been swept regularly during my last trial, and it was clean then. Could it be the press? This school shooting was definitely big enough to make it worth their while. Tabloids were used to spending big bucks to get the “scoop,” but this case was hot enough to make even the mainstream press dig into their pockets. I thought about who else would want to keep tabs on me. Vanderhorn? This case could give him a real shot at the governor’s mansion—or doom him to a life of obscurity in a midlevel law firm. And what about sociopathic Lilah Bayer? She had plenty of reasons to want to keep an ear trained to find out if we were closing in on her. The list of possible suspects was daunting. The thought of someone sneaking into my office and planting that bug—and eavesdropping on me for who knew how long—made my skin crawl. I left the bug on my desk and quickly walked out of my office and down the hall to the fire escape. I stepped out and let the heavy metal door slam shut behind me. Then I pulled out my cell phone. The street side of the fire escape was enclosed by metal bars that let in all of the traffic noise, which was considerable at this time of the morning. Graden answered on the first ring.

“Rachel? Are you okay?”

I almost never called him during the day. If there was business to handle with him, Bailey usually took care of it. “Yeah. Well, no. Not exactly.” I told him what I’d found in my office and listed the possible suspects. “Vanderhorn might be a stretch, though—”

“Maybe not, actually. Like you said, his political future depends on this case. Your list of possible suspects sounds right on.” Graden was silent for a moment. “Where are you right now?” I told him. “And where’s the bug?” I told him. “Just leave it there for now and obviously don’t say anything you wouldn’t want everyone to hear. I’m sending someone over there to check it out. For now, I don’t want whoever planted that thing to know we’re onto them. I’m going to assign a detective.”

“Then you want me to do what? Nothing?”

“As impossible as that is for you. Our planter has to be someone with access to your office, so you can’t even talk about this over there. Not to anyone.”

“Even Eric?”

“Even Eric. For now, the fewer people who know about this, the better. Just let me handle this, okay?” I was silent. Doing nothing really didn’t work for me. “Rachel? I’m not kidding. Any move you make could screw things up.”

I sighed. “Okay, okay, I get it.”

I ended the call and stared out through the bars at the traffic. My world was a study in insanity. Two murderers on the loose and now someone was bugging my office. What was next? Alien invasion?

There was only one thing to do. Go back to work. I had planned to get Eric’s input on the case, but there was so much I couldn’t share, I didn’t feel comfortable talking to him now. I took the back hallway to avoid passing his office and ran to catch an elevator. I’d just stepped inside when my cell phone rang. It was Bailey. “What’s up?”

Bailey huffed. A sign she was righteously pissed. “You won’t friggin’ believe this—”

“Hang on, let me get to a safe place.”

I could’ve told her to hold off till I got to the station, but her tone unnerved me. I didn’t want to wait.

When the elevator
bounced to a stop at the ground floor, I snaked my way through the crowd, out to the stairway behind the courthouse. “Okay, go.”

“You won’t believe that little punk Evan. He’s been tweeting that we’ve been
harassing
him—”

“What? Are you kidding me?”

“According to him, he keeps telling us he doesn’t know anything and we just keep pressuring him. And the best part? The press just got wind of it.”

Damn. Just what we needed—bad press. “Stand by for the four o’clock news. You guys doing another presser today?”

“Yeah. And we’re putting out that Shane Dolan is a ‘person of interest.’ That’s a bigger deal, so maybe Evan’s little hissy fit will fly under the radar. Either way, it’s going to be crazy here. Mind if I come over there?”

“No. You stay put. I’m on my way over.”

“Uh, okay.”

I could tell she knew something was up. I hurried over to the station and found Bailey at her desk. “Mind if we use the interview room?”

She looked puzzled, but led me to the nearest room and closed the door. “What’s going on?”

I told her about the bug.

She slammed her hand down on the table. “Are you friggin’ kidding me? What’s next?”

“No. Do
not
ask that question, okay?” I rubbed my aching neck. “But there’s nothing we can do. Graden’s on it and we’ve got bigger fish to fry. Speaking of which, what’s the deal with Evan? I get that he might be upset, but why on earth would he
tweet
that crap?”

We walked out of the interview room and headed to Bailey’s desk.

“Who the hell knows?” Bailey said. “My guess? Evan’s world blew up on him when he found out his buddy was a psycho killer. So now, anything’s possible.”

“And he’s using the tweets to tell Logan he’s not talking so—”

“So Logan won’t feel the need to come back and shut him up. That’s my take.”

Which might not be that crazy, now that I thought about it. “From Logan’s point of view, all he knows is we’ve named him as a person of interest. As far as he knows, no one could identify him. He was covered from head to toe. He doesn’t know we spotted his tattoo on the video. So who could’ve pointed the finger at him?”

“The last person he spoke to who’s still alive,” Bailey said. “Which seems to be Evan.”

“I’m not saying I believe Logan would risk coming after him. But I do get why Evan might be worried about it. We’ve got someone sitting on Evan’s place, don’t we?”

“We’ve got extra patrol, but it’ll take some doing to get a car permanently stationed. We’re stretched pretty thin.”

Graden had gotten the chief to discreetly approve extra details for malls, government buildings, and some of the bigger venues around the city. It was a shot in the dark, but we had to do something. Getting an extra body assigned to one house on a full-time basis when there was no specific threat would’ve been hard under the best of circumstances—and these were the worst.

“I got hold of the shrinkers this morning,” Bailey said. “They should be here any minute. And I had Nick print out all of Logan’s emails.” Bailey leaned in, her voice low. “We’re going to tell them about the letter, right?”

I’d given this some thought. “I’d like to, but our conversations with the shrinks aren’t privileged—”

“Jeez, don’t you think they’d be willing to keep this under wraps?”

“They’re probably cool, but we don’t know for sure. If we’re wrong and they sound the alarm, there’ll be riots in the streets.” Bailey gave a tight-lipped nod. “Let’s at least hold off until we can talk to Graden about it again.”

“Okay, but the sooner the better.”

“Absolutely,” I said. “I’m going to run to the snack bar.” When the going gets tough, the tough pound chocolate. “Want anything?”

Bailey opted for a Snickers. I commended her good taste. I went for the Look! bar. I’d just gotten back when Nick sauntered over to Bailey’s desk, wearing his usual cowboy boots and sexy smile. He eyed the candy. “Not that y’all need to get any sweeter, but those are some fine choices.” He handed me a batch of pages. “Didn’t find too many emails from Logan, and they only go back about ten months. That when they met?” I nodded. “Nothing remarkable crime-wise, but there you go.”

“What about Otis’s laptop?” Bailey asked. “Anything?”

“Not so far. Kid was a major gamer, but from what I’ve seen, his guns were all digital. And not all that much correspondence with Logan.”

“So no weird writings?” I asked. Nick shook his head. “What about other pictures?”

“None that we care about. Some old ones of him and some junior high buddies at a paintball party. That’s about as ‘hot’ as it gets.”

“And nothing of interest on Logan’s laptop, I take it?” Bailey asked.

“Nope. I printed out all his emails for the past year, though, just to show you.” He handed Bailey a thick stack of paper. “Got some from Evan, a few from Caleb and a kid named Kenny. But it was all just routine boy stuff. Girls, school, movies, junk like that.”

We thanked Nick. He tipped an imaginary cowboy hat and left. A few minutes later, Drs. Malloy and Shelby showed up. Bailey had managed to snag us a small conference room in a private corner of the building.

“I wanted to ask you a couple of questions about Evan.” I told them about Evan’s encounter with Logan the morning of the shooting, his reaction to the photo of Shane, and his recent tweeting that we’d been harassing him. I gave them Bailey’s theory. “Do you think he’s trying to show Logan he’s not a threat?”

Michael Malloy nodded. “Seems likely. And probably your second suspect as well. Bailey’s right about his world being rocked. If a buddy he trusted can turn out to be a murderer, especially on this scale, then anything’s possible.”

“And remember, Evan was in that gym too,” Jenny said. “He’s lucky to be alive, and he knows it. I agree with your assessment of Logan’s point of view. From his standpoint, Evan might well appear to be his number one threat. Does that mean I think he would go after Evan? No. It’s too big a risk. And it’s not worth it. Evan’s information wouldn’t put Logan away. And much as I understand why Evan might be frightened by the revelation that Logan has teamed up with someone who looks as threatening as Shane, Evan’s certainly no threat to Shane. He seemed to be truthful when he said he didn’t know him?”

“He did,” Bailey said.

“But we’re being objective,” Michael said. “Evan’s psychological state is not conducive to objective thinking. Remember, all of these kids are extremely traumatized.”

“Right,” Jenny said. “Now imagine that on top of all that, you’re the last living person to speak to Logan. And what he tells you strongly indicates he was about to commit a massacre. The emotional conflicts would be massive.”

Michael nodded. “On the one hand, Evan feels guilty about not alerting anyone when Logan told him to skip school—”

“He does,” I said. “Which is crazy. No one could’ve known—”

Jenny held up a hand. “Again, we’re not talking about rational thinking here. And on the other hand, he’s scared for his own safety, for all the reasons we’ve discussed. Added to that, believe it or not, he probably also feels guilty for telling you about his encounter with Logan—”

Bailey nodded. “For betraying his buddy.”

“And they typically overestimate their own importance,” Michael said. “To put it bluntly, they’re self-centered. Evan’s statement isn’t huge in the grand scheme of things, but it is to him. And so he believes it must be to Logan—or maybe Shane—as well.”

“Still strikes me as kind of paranoid, don’t you think?” I asked.

Jenny tilted her head. “Is there such a thing as irrational fear when you’re dealing with someone who’s so irrationally violent?”

Touché.

I passed them the copies of all the email correspondence with Logan. “We’d like you to read these and get back to us by tonight or, at the latest, tomorrow morning with any ideas you may have about where Logan and his accomplice might be—”

Michael nodded. “I assume your people have already checked for any oblique references to a plan? Or some kind of code that might have been used?”

“Yes,” I said. “There was nothing they could see.”

Jenny frowned. “That’s very, very odd. I’ve never heard of a case where there wasn’t some evidence of preparation or planning. Typically written. Whether it’s in the form of poems to a teacher, drawings of some kind, or posting on the Internet or in some kind of journal. This type of killer is usually a copious writer. And it usually begins months before the event. It’s a form of ramping up, if you will. For a mass murderer—e
specially
one as young as Logan—not to write or say anything about what he plans to do…it’s extraordinary.”

“But why would they want to write down their plans?” Bailey asked. “Why take the risk?”

Jenny nodded. “It does seem counterintuitive, doesn’t it? But these killers live in their heads a great deal of the time. They get a lot of traction out of their fantasies. Writing, for them, is a way of savoring those fantasies. Plus—and this is an important point—much of the thrill for this type of killer is the sense of power. Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac for them. That’s why the killings are almost always set up ‘fish in a barrel’ style. They want to master the situation and terrorize a captive audience. That’s also why writing about their desires is perfect for them. When they write about their desires, they control it all: the means, the location, and the outcome.”

“Writing or no, there had to have been a heck of a lot of planning,” Bailey said. “They didn’t just put that arsenal together over a long weekend.”

“Oh, no doubt they’d been planning this for several months, if not a year,” Jenny said. “I’m only saying that these killers need some outlet for all this homicidal energy that gets generated every time they think about what they plan to do. Writing usually provides that outlet.”

“They had each other to talk to,” I said. “Wouldn’t that have siphoned off some steam?”

“Some,” Michael said. “But they couldn’t talk about it whenever or wherever they wanted. Understand that this killing was something they both thought about night and day, every single day. Writing is something one can do at any time. No one overhears it. And if they’re careful, no one sees it. Talking is a different story.”

“Right,” Jenny said. “And given that there are no writings, it’s difficult to believe this boy, Logan, showed absolutely nothing out of the ordinary in the months leading up to the crime.”

“His friends did say he seemed wound pretty tight,” Bailey said. “He’d pop off at little things. But how would that tip anyone off that he was planning something like this?”

“Yeah, exactly,” I said. “What
would
tip you off? If a kid doesn’t already have a track record for violent behavior—”

“And these killers seldom do—” Jenny said.

“Then what would you expect to see that would make you suspect a kid would do something like
this?
”

Jenny sighed. “That is the classic question in these cases. So Johnny got into a fight, or stole someone’s cell phone. Or defaced school property. Why should that make us suspect he’s building bombs in the basement?” Jenny shook her head. “We have never been able to answer that.”