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.
39
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-”