public here, not to you.”
“That’s crap, and you know it,” Sands growled. “You answer to your stockholders, just like every other corporation. We’re the ones who answer to the public, and it doesn’t help us or the public when some showboating reporter starts making irresponsible—”
“Irresponsible?” Michael cut in, rising to his feet and glowering at the two detectives. “I see no lack of responsibility in Tina Wong’s reporting. Her sources have all been well documented, and I suspect she’s talked to a lot more people about all these cases than you have. If she’s been more sensational than you — or even I, for that matter — might like, it’s because she believes that every possible connection needs to be investigated if this killer is going to be found. And I don’t disagree with her.”
“Finding this guy is our job,” McCoy said, his own anger now showing in his face. “Your job is to report the news, not solve crimes and make up theories.”
“Please do not try to tell me what my job is,” Michael said coldly. “I’ve been on this job at least as long as you’ve been on yours. I know what my job is, and if you were doing your jobs, you would be out following up on every single thing Tina’s found instead of wasting my time and yours by trying to kill the messenger instead of dealing with the message.”
“I’m sorry you see it that way,” Sands said, glaring at him.
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” Michael said, deciding to toss them a bone, though there would be no meat on it. “I’ll talk with Tina, and I’ll personally review all the material she plans to air, all of which is standard procedure.”
“We’ll want to see that material before it airs, too,” McCoy countered.
“And that is not standard procedure,” Michael said, “and I can tell you it won’t happen.”
“We can go over your head,” McCoy said.
Michael waved a hand at his desk. “Would you like to use my phone?”
Sands forced a smile. “The police and the press have always had a pretty good working relationship. We don’t want anything to change that, do we?”
“None of us do,” Michael assured the detective, moving toward his office door. “So you two do your jobs and let us do ours. Understood?”
McCoy looked ready to leave, but Sands didn’t budge. “Look, Shaw — we’re asking you nicely to check her facts before she airs them,” he said. “Make sure they’re facts.”
“Believe me, I’ll do exactly what the law demands,” Michael replied as he opened the office door just as his intern appeared with the fresh latte. The two detectives glared at Michael, then walked out.
He closed his door and returned to his desk, suddenly feeling better about everything. The adrenaline rush of sparring with the two detectives was better than ten cups of coffee; but even better was the knowledge that Tina was genuinely onto something, and knew more about it than the police.
A newsman’s dream.
He grabbed the stack of messages again and started returning calls, starting with one from Scott.
He needed to tell him that he would probably be late for dinner, maybe by as much as a week.
• • •
The soft trill of the cell phone thundered in the quiet room, and adrenaline gushed through the body, flushing the face. The fingers picked up the phone and the eyes checked the caller ID.
PRIVATE CALLER
The client.
It had to be the client.
The fingers deftly flipped open the phone and brought it to the ear, but the angry tirade could already be heard, as if it had been in progress even as the phone was ringing.
“How could you have been so stupid?” the voice from the phone demanded. “Are you insane? How could you have left that girl alive? Alive! And you didn’t even tell me? Goddamn you, you perverted lunatic.”
The hand holding the phone trembled at the onslaught, and the mind braced itself for the rest of the tirade.
The voice from the phone dropped, but its tone became dangerous. “Now listen to me, and listen carefully. I will fix this, but it is absolutely the last thing I will ever fix for you. Ever. This is not part of the deal.”
The furious voice paused as the speaker took a breath.
The hand not holding the phone wiped perspiration from the forehead and the upper lip.
“Very well,” the voice on the other end of the line said. It was far calmer now. “Let’s go over the rules one more time. It’s very simple: I give you the orders and you fill them. That’s all there is to it. Do I have to actually say that you leave nothing to chance? Do I have to stipulate that once you have what I need, you finish your job? Next time something goes wrong, you contact me immediately. Immediately!” The voice dropped even further and took on a darkly menacing tone. “But of course nothing like that will ever happen again, will it?”
There was a pause, and the hand tightened on the phone. “No,” the voice whispered into the telephone.
Without even acknowledging the response, the other voice resumed, the words pouring through the phone. “I made you,” the voice said. “I made you and I can destroy you. I can destroy you any time I want.”
The mind shrank from the words, but the ears kept listening.
“There will be no more mistakes! None. You will simply finish this job. Finish it now! And then, at last, I will be done with you!”
The line went dead.
The fingers, trembling as if palsied, closed the phone and laid it gently on the desktop.
The accident in Bakersfield would never be repeated. Could never be repeated.
Indeed, it was almost inconceivable that it had happened at all.
Yet it had.
The right hand clenched into a resolute fist.
Not again.
Never again.
There was only one more item to be collected.
One more, and it would finally be over.
The debt would finally be discharged.
No more orders. No more demands. No more deadlines.
The fingers moved to the computer keyboard.
The eyes peered closely at the monitor, the fingers typed in a few quick keystrokes, and a few moments later pictures once again began to fly by….
