The Competition - [67]

“Or not,” Bailey said. “Who says they’ll do it the same way next time? Maybe they’ll go for some kind of IED or do it Oklahoma City style-”

Too many unknowns. I was making myself-and Bailey-crazy. “You going to check in with Dorian?” We hadn’t heard any news about the evidence seized at the school. That probably meant there was nothing to report. But I was edgy with the need to make something happen.

“Yeah, I’ll take the hit this time. You’re too crazy.”

A sign of true friendship. “I’ll call Ed. See if he has anything new.”

I called Ed Berry and got his voice mail, so I left a message. Bailey had done the same with Dorian. We headed to Graden’s office and found out he was still with the chief. They had no ETA for him, so I headed back to my office.

I’d left the door open for Graden’s detective so he could check out the bug. Graden had said he was going to have the detective put it back in place so as not to tip off whoever planted it. I looked under the table, and sure enough, there it was. I knew it was the smart thing to do, but it was a drag. My office, my sanctuary at work, had been violated. It seriously gave me the creeps. And I sure didn’t want to talk to anyone with that thing listening in, so I put my phone on vibrate and spent the next couple of hours plowing through the reports that’d been generated so far. It was almost five o’clock before Ed called me back.

“Say, slugger, just got your message,” he said. “Guess you’re looking for some good news.”

“Nah, why would I do a silly thing like that?” The bug couldn’t pick up his end of the conversation, could it? No, of course it couldn’t. But just knowing it was there, listening, drove me crazy.

“Good, ’cause I don’t have any. The serial numbers have all been defaced-”

“Defaced? How-”

“With acid. Surprisingly sophisticated for a teenager.”

But not so surprising for a gun nut like Shane.

Ed continued. “And to answer your next question, yeah, it is strange that all of them were removed the same way.”

“How old are the weapons?” Pedro had said the thirty-eight Shane was trying to sell looked new.

“Not old, but I couldn’t say they all looked brand-spanking-new either.” He sighed. “I won’t lie to you, no serial numbers means life just got a lot tougher for you and me.”

Would we ever catch a break in this damn case? Especially with the threat that hung over our heads, the dead ends were making me want to pull my hair out. Ed didn’t have anything else to add so I thanked him and dialed Bailey’s number, but at that moment, my cell vibrated. It was Dr. Jenny.

“I’ve read the emails and conferred with Michael,” she said. “He agrees with my assessment, so if you like, I can give you our conclusions. We can do it on the phone, or in your office-”

“Uh, can you hang on, Jenny?” Neither of those options was going to work. I called Vanderputz’s secretary and asked if we could use the eighteenth-floor conference room. I knew that couldn’t be bugged. They swept it twice a day. I got the okay and told Jenny where to meet us; then I called Bailey.

She said she’d tracked down Graden. “Are you in your office?” she asked.

“Yeah, so don’t-”

“Got it. He says we should tell the shrinks. I’ll be there in ten.” She ended the call.

I tossed my phone on the desk and looked over my shoulder. That bug…I swore I could feel it staring at me.

42

Half an hour later the three of us convened around the table in the conference room. Jenny put on a pair of black-framed reading glasses to consult her notes. “We don’t have a great deal to go on here. Neither Michael nor I are code crackers”-she looked up and gave a little smile-“but there’s nothing we saw that alerted us to any secret language or code being used. The emails were largely about school or girls.” She took off her glasses. “None of it struck us as unusual in the least.”

“So their relationship was fairly superficial,” I said.

“That’s the way it looks.”

“Now that you’ve read those emails, do you feel any differently about why he tweeted that we were harassing him?”

“No, we’ve gone through all the possible explanations and I don’t see anything in these emails that would let me narrow it down to any one in particular. Anything else you’d like to discuss about Evan?”

I shook my head. We’d heard enough about him. It was time to get down to the heart of the matter. “We need to share some information with you that you cannot discuss outside this office. Not even with Michael.”

I’d made a copy of the letter-just one because I didn’t want to risk its getting lost or lifted from my office. Paranoid? Maybe. But better paranoid than sorry.

When she finished reading the letter, she took off her glasses and said nothing for several moments. “I suppose I should’ve expected that they’d seek out new targets. It’s just…I’ve never seen anything like this before.” Jenny put her hand to her forehead.

I gave her a moment, then leaned in. “What we need more than anything is to figure out where they’re most likely to strike next. The more you can tell us about him, the better our chances of predicting his next target.”