The Competition - [64]

Bailey huffed. A sign she was righteously pissed. “You won’t friggin’ believe this-”

“Hang on, let me get to a safe place.”

I could’ve told her to hold off till I got to the station, but her tone unnerved me. I didn’t want to wait.

40

When the elevator bounced to a stop at the ground floor, I snaked my way through the crowd, out to the stairway behind the courthouse. “Okay, go.”

“You won’t believe that little punk Evan. He’s been tweeting that we’ve been harassing him-”

“What? Are you kidding me?”

“According to him, he keeps telling us he doesn’t know anything and we just keep pressuring him. And the best part? The press just got wind of it.”

Damn. Just what we needed-bad press. “Stand by for the four o’clock news. You guys doing another presser today?”

“Yeah. And we’re putting out that Shane Dolan is a ‘person of interest.’ That’s a bigger deal, so maybe Evan’s little hissy fit will fly under the radar. Either way, it’s going to be crazy here. Mind if I come over there?”

“No. You stay put. I’m on my way over.”

“Uh, okay.”

I could tell she knew something was up. I hurried over to the station and found Bailey at her desk. “Mind if we use the interview room?”

She looked puzzled, but led me to the nearest room and closed the door. “What’s going on?”

I told her about the bug.

She slammed her hand down on the table. “Are you friggin’ kidding me? What’s next?”

“No. Do not ask that question, okay?” I rubbed my aching neck. “But there’s nothing we can do. Graden’s on it and we’ve got bigger fish to fry. Speaking of which, what’s the deal with Evan? I get that he might be upset, but why on earth would he tweet that crap?”

We walked out of the interview room and headed to Bailey’s desk.

“Who the hell knows?” Bailey said. “My guess? Evan’s world blew up on him when he found out his buddy was a psycho killer. So now, anything’s possible.”

“And he’s using the tweets to tell Logan he’s not talking so-”

“So Logan won’t feel the need to come back and shut him up. That’s my take.”

Which might not be that crazy, now that I thought about it. “From Logan’s point of view, all he knows is we’ve named him as a person of interest. As far as he knows, no one could identify him. He was covered from head to toe. He doesn’t know we spotted his tattoo on the video. So who could’ve pointed the finger at him?”

“The last person he spoke to who’s still alive,” Bailey said. “Which seems to be Evan.”

“I’m not saying I believe Logan would risk coming after him. But I do get why Evan might be worried about it. We’ve got someone sitting on Evan’s place, don’t we?”

“We’ve got extra patrol, but it’ll take some doing to get a car permanently stationed. We’re stretched pretty thin.”

Graden had gotten the chief to discreetly approve extra details for malls, government buildings, and some of the bigger venues around the city. It was a shot in the dark, but we had to do something. Getting an extra body assigned to one house on a full-time basis when there was no specific threat would’ve been hard under the best of circumstances-and these were the worst.

“I got hold of the shrinkers this morning,” Bailey said. “They should be here any minute. And I had Nick print out all of Logan’s emails.” Bailey leaned in, her voice low. “We’re going to tell them about the letter, right?”

I’d given this some thought. “I’d like to, but our conversations with the shrinks aren’t privileged-”

“Jeez, don’t you think they’d be willing to keep this under wraps?”

“They’re probably cool, but we don’t know for sure. If we’re wrong and they sound the alarm, there’ll be riots in the streets.” Bailey gave a tight-lipped nod. “Let’s at least hold off until we can talk to Graden about it again.”

“Okay, but the sooner the better.”

“Absolutely,” I said. “I’m going to run to the snack bar.” When the going gets tough, the tough pound chocolate. “Want anything?”

Bailey opted for a Snickers. I commended her good taste. I went for the Look! bar. I’d just gotten back when Nick sauntered over to Bailey’s desk, wearing his usual cowboy boots and sexy smile. He eyed the candy. “Not that y’all need to get any sweeter, but those are some fine choices.” He handed me a batch of pages. “Didn’t find too many emails from Logan, and they only go back about ten months. That when they met?” I nodded. “Nothing remarkable crime-wise, but there you go.”

“What about Otis’s laptop?” Bailey asked. “Anything?”

“Not so far. Kid was a major gamer, but from what I’ve seen, his guns were all digital. And not all that much correspondence with Logan.”

“So no weird writings?” I asked. Nick shook his head. “What about other pictures?”

“None that we care about. Some old ones of him and some junior high buddies at a paintball party. That’s about as ‘hot’ as it gets.”

“And nothing of interest on Logan’s laptop, I take it?” Bailey asked.

“Nope. I printed out all his emails for the past year, though, just to show you.” He handed Bailey a thick stack of paper. “Got some from Evan, a few from Caleb and a kid named Kenny. But it was all just routine boy stuff. Girls, school, movies, junk like that.”