“She has taken the bureau’s side on something,” I said.
“What is it?” Emily asked. “We need her, Jack. She’s our in with the bureau. Once this breaks, we will really need that.”
“The issue is that the FBI don’t want us to publish because it will alert this guy that they’re on to him. They’re afraid he’ll disappear. My side of it is that we are called FairWarning for a reason, and we have to warn the public about this guy. He has killed two people today alone and he has the list of women identified by Dirty4.”
Emily nodded.
“I agree with you,” she said. “We have to go now. Should we run it by Myron before he leaves?”
“Let me see if I can get Rachel on the line first,” I said. “Then we’ll be completely up-to-date with what we’ve got.”
“So... what happened between you two back in the day?”
“We just... I screwed up and she paid for it is what happened.”
“How so?”
I had to decide whether I wanted to get into this. I thought maybe talking about it would exorcise it. But we were in the middle of chasing a story.
“It might help me to know,” Emily said. “Since she’s become part of this.”
I nodded. I got that.
“I was working for the Velvet Coffin,” I said. “And Rachel and I were together. It was a secret. We kept our separate places but that was for show. And I was working on this story about an LAPD cop I heard the feds were looking at for corruption. I had a source who said the guy had been indicted by a federal grand jury but then nothing happened. It got quashed because the target had dirt on the sitting U.S. Attorney.”
“You asked Rachel for help?” Emily asked.
“I did. She got me the grand-jury transcripts and we published. The U.S. Attorney sued and the chief judge got mad and I got pulled into court. I wouldn’t name my source and the judge put me in jail for contempt. Meantime, the cop this was all about offs himself and leaves a note saying he was an innocent man bullied by the media — meaning me. That didn’t win me any sympathy, and after two months I was still in lockup.”
“Rachel came forward.”
“She did. She admitted she was the source. I was freed and she lost her job. End of story and end of us.”
“Wow. That’s rough.”
“She used to chase serial killers and terrorists. Now, she mostly runs background checks for corporations. And it’s all on me.”
“It wasn’t like you forced her to do it.”
“Doesn’t matter. I knew what could happen if I took the transcripts. I took them anyway.”
Emily was silent after that. And so was I. I got up, rolled my chair back to my pod, and called Rachel’s cell. She answered right away. I could tell she was in a moving car.
“Jack.”
“Hey.”
“Where are you?”
“At the office, working on the story. You left the bureau?”
“Yes. I was about to call you.”
“Going home?”
“No, not yet. What’s up?”
“I was wondering if you and your FBI friends got anywhere with identifying Rogue.”
“Uh, not really. They’re still working on it.”
I suddenly grew suspicious.
“Rachel, you’re not moving in on him right now, are you?”
“No, not at all. I would tell you that, Jack.”
“Then what’s going on? I haven’t heard from you all afternoon and now you’re going somewhere but not telling me where.”
“I told you, I was just about to call. Thanks for trusting me.”
“I’m sorry but you know me. I get suspicious about what I don’t know. What were you going to call about?”
“I told you they’re trying to determine if there were other victims, right? All you had were cases people mentioned on that coroner’s website. The bureau is doing a deeper dive than that.”
“Okay, that’s good. Are they finding anything?”
“Yes. There are more cases, more women with broken necks. But they aren’t going to share with you if you publish the story before they’re ready. They’re going to come to you tomorrow and try to make a trade. You hold back and they’ll give you more cases.”
“Shit. How many are we talking about?”
“At least three other deceased victims — including the Tucson case you mentioned today.”
Now I paused. What did that mean?
“Are you saying there are non-deceased victims?”
“Well, there may be one. That’s where I’m going now. They identified an assault where a woman’s neck was broken in similar fashion to the others. But she didn’t die. She’s a quadriplegic.”
“Oh god. Where is she?”
“It’s a Pasadena case. We pulled the file and it seems to match up. There’s a composite sketch and she met the guy in a bar.”
“What happened? How did they find her?”
“He had to have thought she was dead. He dumped her down a set of stairs in the hills. Have you ever heard of the Secret Stairs in Pasadena?”
“No.”
“I guess there are stairs that run up and down all through this neighborhood. After he broke her neck he took her body to the stairs and threw her down so it would look like an accident. But some guy running the stairs at dawn found her body and she still had a pulse.”
“Does this mean he knew Pasadena? Maybe the location is a big clue.”
“Well, they are called the Secret Stairs but they aren’t really that secret. There are Yelp reviews and photos all over the Internet. All the Shrike had to do was search Pasadena Stairs online and he’d have found them.”
“What about DNA? Did she go to GT23?”
“I don’t know. It wasn’t part of the case file. That’s why I’m going now to try to interview her.”
“Alone?”
“Yes, alone. The agents on this won’t get around to it until tomorrow. Too much else going on.”
I remembered my early research on atlanto-occipital dislocation. It wasn’t always fatal.
“Where?” I asked. “I’m going to meet you.”
“I don’t know if that’s best, Jack,” Rachel said. “I’m going as an investigator. She might not want to talk to a reporter — if she can talk at all.”
“I don’t care. You can do the interview but I want to be there. Where are you going?”
There was a pause and I felt that everything about the fragile relationship I had with her was on the line.
“Altadena Rehab,” Rachel finally said. “Google the address. Her name is Gwyneth Rice. She’s only twenty-nine.”
“I’m on my way,” I said. “Wait for me.”
I disconnected and went back to Emily’s pod to inform her that there were more victims and that I was going to see one who was still alive. I told her about the FBI’s plan to float a deaclass="underline" information on other victims in exchange for delaying publication.
“What do you think?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “We have till tomorrow to think about it. Why don’t you talk to Myron about that while I try to get this interview?”
“Sounds good.”
“By the way. They have a composite drawing of the Shrike.”
“Is that part of the deal?”
“We’ll make it part of it.”
I left the office then, grabbing my keys off my desk and hurrying out.
35
Rachel was waiting for me in the lobby of Altadena Rehab. She was all business. No hug, no hello, just “It took you long enough.”
She turned and headed toward a set of elevators and I had to catch up.
“Her father agreed to meet me,” she said after we entered an elevator and she hit the 3 button. “He’s with her now. Brace yourself.”