knew, she wasn’t even a little bit dangerous. Still, my heart was pounding as if I’d walked in on an armed robbery in progress.
My fear reaction was quickly followed by mortification.
I’d forgotten to call Karen to say I was going to be late. I apologized now, thanked her for hanging in.
“We watched a movie,” Karen said, then added to Martha, “Didn’t we, big girl? And I baked a potato,” she said to me. “And finished off the ice cream. I hope that’s okay.”
“Sure,” I said. “Of course. I’m sorry that I lost track of the time.”
“Martha has a real crush on Tom Cruise,” she said.
I walked Karen out to her car, stood on the sidewalk until I couldn’t see her taillights anymore, then I went back upstairs to my dog.
The phone was ringing when I got inside.
I looked at the caller ID and saw it was my sister, Catherine, who lives a little way down the coast in Half Moon Bay.
I’m four years older than Cat; we’ve both been divorced, and she has two girls. She’s been coaching me on the care of my child onboard, name to be determined, sex unknown to me and Joe.
I grabbed the receiver off the hook, took Joe’s big chair in the living room, and put my hand on my tummy; Martha circled, then collapsed onto my feet.
“Linds, why don’t you call me back? I get worried.”
“I just walked in,” I told her.
“Joe is still out of town?”
“He’ll be back tomorrow, I think.”
“You sound like the walking dead.”
“Thank you. That’s how I feel, if the walking dead feel anything.”
“Yeah, well, pregnancy does that. It also makes you feel like you’ve lost about fifty IQ points, as I recall.”
I laughed, and my sister prodded me to tell her about my two active cases. I held a few things back, but I gave her the basic rundown on the heads found at the Ellsworth compound. And I told Cat about the triple homicide that had kept me working late tonight, first at the scene, then at the Hall, then at the morgue, and finally at the forensics lab until a half hour ago.
“The guy is some kinda vigilante,” I told Cat. “I guess he doesn’t trust the cops will bring in the bad guys so he figures he’s the man to do the job.”
“Lindsay. You’re saying he’s armed and dangerous. And you’re trying to bring him down. Why won’t he go after you?”
“I’ll be fine, Cat, really.”
“Bull. You can’t know that.”
Cat was now beginning her lectures on the value of rest, on how I could burn out, on how my workload wasn’t good for the baby. I couldn’t argue with her. I just had to take it.
Then a call-waiting signal beeped in my ear. I checked the caller ID, and if I hadn’t been trying to get away from my sister, I never would have taken the call from Jason Blayney.
I told Cat I had an urgent call, said good-bye, and then put on a frosty voice for the crime reporter from the San Francisco Post.
Chapter 38
“It’s late, Mr. Blayney. And listen, don’t call me again. The person you want to talk to is Bec Rollins in Media Relations. She’ll be happy to speak with you. Use my name.”
Blayney ignored me, pressed on. “We got off to a bad start, Sergeant, and I know it was my fault. I get a little carried away. Does that ever happen to you?”
“Does what ever happen to me?”
“Do you ever get a little carried away when you’re really into a case? In my situation, when I’m on a story, I want to live it, breathe it, dream it.”
Blayney was trying to bait me into saying Yes, I sometimes get carried away. Did he think I was stupid?
“I understand that sometimes reporters who are living, breathing, and dreaming their stories get carried away. They should take care that what they consider enthusiasm isn’t actually stalking or assault.”
Blayney laughed. “Okay, okay, you win, Sergeant. But I still have an offer for you.”
“Oh, really.”
I was tired. Unlike the dealers who’d died tonight, I had inhaled smoke. And unlike Chuck Hanni, I’d gotten soot all over me. I looked charred. I felt charred.
“Good night, Mr. Blayney.”
“Listen, I don’t think you’ll go to hell if you call me Jason. And here’s my offer.”
I sighed loudly.
“Have lunch with me. I want to tell you what I’m trying to do at the Post. I think you’ll see that I’m not a bad guy. I’m on your side. I could be even more on your side if we work together.”
I laughed at him. It was a genuine laugh. The guy was actually funny. I recognized a journalist’s trick of the trade: make friends with your subject and gain trust — then betray that trust.
“I want to give you my number,” he said. “I sleep with my phone next to my pillow.”
I said, “Who doesn’t?”
“I never miss a call.”
“Sweet dreams,” I said. I heard him calling my name as I moved the receiver toward the hook.
I said, “What is it?”
“Just take my number, okay? You may change your mind about talking to me.”
I said, “Uh-huh, uh-huh,” pretending to write down his number, then I hung up. I was dying for a Corona, but instead I had a big glass of full-fat milk, got into bed with Martha, and put my feet up on some pillows.
Martha put her head on my belly, about where I thought the baby’s little butt might be. I talked to them both for a few minutes, laughed at myself, and then turned on the news.
I fell asleep with all the lights on. I hadn’t set the alarm. I hadn’t even brushed my teeth. And then came the call from the crime lab, from Charlie Clapper, who was pulling a double, maybe a triple shift.
Clapper said, “We found a gun inside the car. Thought you’d want to be the first to know.”
“What kind of gun?”
“A twenty-two. The number had been filed off, but we recovered it with acid and traced it. We already know all about that gun.”
“It was one of the guns stolen from our evidence room.”
“Well, you took all the fun out of that,” said Clapper.
“Brady is going to want to know.”
“He’s next on my call list.”
I thanked Charlie, said good night.
I stared at the ceiling until six, then got dressed and took Martha for a run. The killer Jason Blayney had nicknamed Revenge had taken out seven people, one of them an undercover narc.
Revenge was on a spree, and he was stepping up his timeline, doing multiple homicides. He was growing into his job as an executioner and he was becoming fearless.
These days, I couldn’t walk through the Hall of Justice without looking at every cop and wondering, Did you do it? Are you the one who’s gone rogue? I had the sense that I knew Revenge, that he was a regular cop, hiding in plain sight.
Chapter 39
