To his surprise, the side door was locked. He knocked-loud enough to demonstrate his confidence. Hearing nothing, he knocked again.
Without warning, two darts hit him in the back, followed immediately by debilitating pain. He winced and shouted, crumbling to the ground, his muscles contracting. An electrical current snaked through every nerve ending in his body, setting him on fire, causing him to groan in agony. He tried to cry out, tried to beg for mercy, but could no longer control his tongue.
He writhed in pain on the cement, glancing toward his attacker with pleading eyes. His thoughts flashed to Crystal and the baby. They needed him! He had to survive! But when the pain became unbearable, his body ignored his will, and Rex Archibald passed out.
Archibald's unrelenting attacker continued the flow of crippling electricity into Archibald's unconscious body for another sixty seconds, causing the lawyer to spasm and jerk like a fish flopping on the deck of a hot fishing boat.
Later, Archibald would be tried, convicted, and sentenced to die by lethal injection. But rather than use the trio of drugs that most states had employed for the past twenty years-sodium thiopental as an anesthetic, pancuronium bromide as a paralyzing agent, and potassium chloride to stop the heart-the Avenger would use only potassium chloride. The Avenger wanted Archibald to be fully conscious and able to squirm when the potassium chloride triggered its fatal heart attack.
32
The phone woke Catherine at 6:30 a.m. She was still on the couch, still dressed in her clothes from the evening before. She shook her head clear and tried to remember where she had left the phone. The insistent ringing drew her to the kitchen table.
"Good morning, Cat." It was Ed Shaftner. Editor Ed Shaftner.
She grunted. She meant to say, "Hi, Ed," but it came out sounding more like a groan.
"Were you sleeping?"
She double-checked the clock. "No, no, I'm awake."
"Good. Have you checked the papers yet?"
"No, Ed. Not yet." He could only be asking for one reason. Cat had been through this drill before-an early morning call. Another paper had scooped them.
" Richmond Times. Front page. The Avenger struck again and sent a note to the editor of the Richmond Times."
The statement hit Cat like a bolt of java, jolting her awake. The Avenger struck again? "What did he do? What's the note say?"
"You can read the whole thing online and give me a call back. We'll need something from your source. We can't let this story get away from us."
Cat was standing now, running her free hand through her hair, starting to pace. She felt like the whole world was off and running a race while she was mired at the starting line, tying her sneakers. Then another thought hit-what had she been doing last night?
"Was it last night, Ed? Did the Avenger strike last night?"
"No. A few nights ago. The Times just got the note yesterday and turned it over to police. They sat on the article until this morning."
A few nights ago. Cat thought about her nightmare a few nights ago, the way she woke up tired. She flashed to the nightmare and asked a question without thinking. "Did the victim die from a head wound?"
Ed paused, and Cat realized how random the question must have sounded. "They haven't recovered the body yet, Cat. Are you sure you're awake?"
"Yeah, I'm fine." A few minutes later, Cat was off the phone and on her computer, digesting every detail of the article. She called Jamarcus and left a message. Another hour passed before he returned the call.
He began by confirming the Times article. Paul Donaldson had disappeared. In a note to the Times, the Avenger claimed credit for Donaldson's apparent death and included a lock of Donaldson's hair. Before telling Cat anything else, Jamarcus extracted a promise of confidentiality and a promise not to run a story without independent verification. Then he dropped the bombshelclass="underline" "We found a different hair fragment stuck to the seal of the envelope," Jamarcus said. "Donaldson's hair is blond. This piece of hair was dark."
Cat felt a rush of excitement-the killer's first mistake. She knew that the Avenger had been careful, using gloves, leaving no traces of DNA or fingerprints or footprints. But now, a single piece of hair.
"How long before the DNA comes back?" Cat asked.
"Forty-eight hours. We'll check it against our data bank. With any luck, we'll have something by Sunday."
Cat felt like she could take her first full breath in a week. She had never been so swallowed up by a story, had never felt her life being sucked into a nightmare like this as the story progressed. Now she could finally eliminate all shadows of doubt.
"We're trying to figure out how the Carvers play into all this," Jamarcus continued. "Paul Donaldson and Clarence Milburn both beat rape charges, but the Carvers didn't represent either one of them."
"Did the Carvers represent other rapists who beat the rap?"
"They're defense attorneys, Cat. That's what they do."
"Maybe this guy's going after rapists and their attorneys."
"That's our working theory," Jamarcus said, though he didn't sound convinced. "Or at least he's going after the innocent children of defense attorneys." He paused, apparently trying to decide whether he should open a fresh wound. "And our forensic psychiatrists are not at all sure that the Avenger is a man, Cat. The fact that the Avenger is targeting rapists might indicate a female."
The words triggered the usual reaction in Cat-churning stomach, tight chest, self-doubt-the symptoms of serious accusations against her. She remembered that Dr. Rebecca Ernst, the criminal profiler her own paper had featured in earlier articles, had come to the same conclusion about the Avenger's gender based on the methods used in the kidnappings. "What night was Donaldson killed?" Cat asked.
"His girlfriend says he didn't come home on Tuesday night." Jamarcus sounded like he was picking his words carefully. "Just to be sure, I would probably ask potential persons of interest about their alibis all the way through Wednesday."
His message wasn't lost on Cat. For the second time that morning, her mind raced back to Tuesday night. She had been home. By herself. Having nightmares. She distinctly remembered waking up Wednesday morning with the feeling that she needed to wash the blood from her hands and clothes.
Cat took a long breath, trying to calculate how much she could trust her source. In a few days, the police would have the results of the DNA test. Her name would be cleared. The only question was whether they would attach any credibility to her visions. If she wanted to help them later, she would have to establish the groundwork for reliability now.
"They haven't found the body yet-is that right?" Cat asked.
"Yes," said Jamarcus. "Why?"
"Will you do me a favor?" asked Cat. "If they find the body and Donaldson's death involves some kind of head wound, would you call me?"
"More visions?"
She trusted him. But not that much.
"Let's just call it a hunch," Cat said.
Two hours later, shortly after Cat arrived at her office, Jamarcus called back. This time he insisted on meeting in person. They agreed on the Aqua Bar inside the Crowne Plaza Hotel at Town Center in Virginia Beach. Cat nursed a sweet tea for ten minutes waiting for him.
When he came, he ordered a Coke. "Usual rules apply," he said cryptically.
"Right," said Cat.
"Which are?"
She sighed. "These comments are off-record and not for attribution. I'll take your name to the grave. I won't publish the facts unless you tell me I can or unless I get independent corroboration from another source."