“Normally I would ask for a taste,” he said. “But you need it more than I do. You deserve another chance, and this world doesn’t like to give that to people anymore, so if you need anything else from me, you let me know, okay?”
She felt tears come to her eyes. “You’re the best, Tim.”
“I know, right? Talk soon.”
Tim hung up. Rachel wiped her eyes. She stared out the diner window, into the crowded parking lot, the siren still blaring in the distance. The world may eventually give Rachel another chance, but she wasn’t sure she deserved it. It had been two years since Catherine Tullo’s death at Rachel’s hands.
Catherine wouldn’t get another chance. Why should Rachel?
It had been the most important story of Rachel’s career. After an exhaustive eight-month investigation, the Globe’s Sunday magazine was going to feature her exposé of Lemhall University’s beloved president Spencer Shane for not only turning a blind eye over the past two decades to sexual assault, abuse, and misconduct by certain male professors but participating in a pattern of systemic abuse and cover-ups at one of the country’s elite institutions. It was a case so egregious yet so frustrating and slippery that Rachel grew obsessed in a way no journalist should. She lost perspective, not on the outrageousness of the crime and culture — there was no way you couldn’t be outraged about that — but on the frailty and decency of the victims.
Lemhall University, her alma mater, managed to get a lot of NDAs signed, so no one could or would go on record. While Rachel kept it from her editors, she herself had been pressured to sign one her freshman year after a disturbing incident at a Halloween party. She refused. The school mishandled her case.
Maybe that was where it started. She lost then. She wouldn’t lose again.
So she went too far.
In the end, the charges were too loaded for the Globe to publish because no one could slip past the NDAs. Rachel couldn’t believe it. She went to the local DA, but he didn’t have the appetite to take on such a popular figure and institution. So she went back to her former classmate Catherine Tullo and begged her to break her NDA. Catherine wanted to, that’s what she told Rachel, but she was afraid. She wouldn’t budge. So that was it. That was what was going to kill the entire story and allow an institution — an institution that had let Rachel’s own attacker skate — to remain unblemished.
Rachel could not allow that.
With no other alternatives available, Rachel went harder at Catherine Tullo: Do the right thing or get exposed anyway. If Catherine couldn’t put other victims first, then Rachel saw no reason to protect her. She would take the story online herself and reveal her sources. Catherine started to cry. Rachel didn’t budge. Half an hour later, Catherine saw the light. She didn’t need the money from the settlement. She didn’t care about the NDA. She would do the right thing. Catherine Tullo hugged her friend and sorority sister and told her that tomorrow she would give Rachel a longer interview and go on the record, and then that night, after Rachel left her apartment, Catherine Tullo filled a bath full of water and slit her wrists.
Now Catherine haunted her. She was here right now, sitting across the diner booth from her, smiling in that unsure way she always did, blinking as though awaiting a blow, until Rachel heard her waitress, a blue-haired diner special if ever she’d seen one, say to the customer at the table next to Rachel, “I haven’t heard that go off in, how long, Cal?”
The man she assumed was Cal said, “Oh, years now.”
“You think—?”
“Nah,” Cal said. “Briggs is probably just running a drill. I’m sure it’s nothing.”
Rachel froze.
“You say so,” the waitress said, but judging by the expression on her face, she wasn’t fully buying it.
Rachel leaned over and said, “Excuse me, I don’t mean to pry, but is that siren coming from Briggs Penitentiary?”
Cal and the waitress exchanged a glance. Then Cal nodded and gave her his most condescending smile. “I wouldn’t worry your pretty head over it. It’s probably just a drill.”
“A drill for what?” Rachel asked.
“An escape,” the waitress said. “They only blow that whistle when an inmate escapes.”
Her cell phone buzzed. Rachel stepped away and put the phone to her ear. “Hello?”
“I need your help,” David said.
Chapter 13
Three cop cars, all with flashing lights atop them, are on us now.
I feel numb. I am out of Briggs for the first time in five years. If they catch me, I will never get out again. Never. I know that. There is no second chance here. My fingers curl around the gun. The metal feels oddly warm and comforting.
The police cruisers spread out in a V formation.
I turn to Philip. “It’s over, isn’t it?”
“You willing to risk your life?”
“What life?”
He nods. “Point the damn gun at me, David. Keep it up where they can see it.”
I do so. The gun feels heavy now. My hand shakes. The adrenaline — from the fight with Sumner, from Curly’s attack, from this makeshift escape plan — seems to be ebbing away. Philip hits the accelerator. The police cruisers stay right with us.
“What now?” I ask.
“Wait.”
“For what?”
As though on cue, the car phone rings again. Philip’s face is a stern mask. Before he answers it, he says, “Remember you’re a desperate man. Act it.”
I nod.
Philip picks up the phone and says a shaky hello. A voice immediately says, “Your son is safe, Warden. He managed to untie himself and break the door down.”
“Who the hell am I talking to?” Philip asks. His voice is brusque and hostile.
There is a moment of hesitation on the other line. “I’m, uh... this is—”
Again Philip’s voice booms. “I asked who the hell this is.”
“I’m Detective Wayne Semsey—”
“Semsey, how old are you?”
“Sir?”
“I mean, have you always been an incompetent moron or is this a relatively new thing?”
“I don’t understand—”
Philip glances over at me. “I have a desperate inmate holding a gun against my ear. Can you appreciate that, Semsey?”
I press the gun against his ear.
“Uh, yes, sir.”
“So tell me, Semsey. Do you think the wisest course of action is to upset the inmate?”
“No—”
“Then why the hell are those cruisers riding up my ass?”
Philip gives me the smallest of nods. I take my cue. “Give me that!” I shout, grabbing the phone from him. I try to sound crazed, on edge. It doesn’t take much for me to get there. “I’m not in a chatty mood,” I scream, spitting out the words, trying to sound as menacing as possible, “so listen up. I’ll give you ten seconds. I won’t even count. Ten seconds. If I see a cop anywhere near us after that, I’m going to put a bullet in the warden’s head and drive myself. Do you hear what I’m saying?”
Philip adds, “Jesus, David, for God’s sake, you don’t want to do that.”
I worry he’s overselling it, but he’s not.
On the phone, I hear Semsey say, “Whoa whoa, David, let’s all slow down here a minute, okay?”
“Semsey?”
“What?”
“I’m serving a life sentence. I kill the warden, I become the most popular guy in Briggs. You understand me?”
“Of course, David. Of course. They’re dropping back right now. Look.”
I do. The squad cars are giving us distance.
“I don’t want them dropping back. I want them all the way gone.”
Semsey gives me the soothing voice. “Listen, David. Can I call you David? That’s okay, right?”