Fair Warning (Jack McEvoy #3)(24)

“You mean you’re a suspect, Jack?”

“No, more of a person of interest, but that will get cleared up soon. I gave them my DNA and it will clear me.”

“But then you have a big conflict of interest here. Your editor is letting you run with this?”

“Same thing. Once the DNA clears me there is no conflict. Yes, I knew Tina, but that doesn’t preclude me from writing about the case. It’s been done before. I wrote about my brother and before that I knew an assistant city manager who got murdered. I wrote about the case.”

“Yeah, but did you fuck her too?”

That was harsh and it led me to realize that Rachel had a conflict of interest herself when it came to me. Though our decision to part three years before was mutual, I don’t think either of us had gotten over the other and possibly never would.

“No, I didn’t fuck the assistant city manager,” I said. “She was just a source.”

I realized as soon as I said the last line that it had been a mistake. Rachel and I had had a secret relationship that blew up publicly when she revealed that she was my source on the series of stories exposing Rodney Fletcher’s misdeeds.

“Sorry,” I said quickly. “I didn’t mean—”

“It’s okay, Jack,” Rachel said. “Water under the bridge. I think you’re right about this DNA stuff. There is something there and I would pursue it.”

“Yeah, but how?”

“You said it’s a self-regulating industry. Remember when it came out that Boeing was essentially self-regulating and self-reporting when they had those airliner crashes? You could be onto something just as big here. I don’t care what it is—a government, a bureaucracy, a business. When there are no rules then corruption sets in like rust. That’s your angle. You have to find out if GT23 or any of them has ever been breached. If it has, then game over.”

“Easier said than done.”

“You need to ask yourself where the vulnerability is. That part you read to me: We cannot guarantee that a breach will never happen. That’s important. If they can’t guarantee that, then they know something. Find the vulnerabilities. Don’t expect the media flack to just give them to you.”

I understood what she was saying but I was on the outside looking in. The weaknesses of any system are always hidden from the outside.

“I know that,” I said. “But GT23 is like a fortress.”

“Weren’t you the one who told me once that no place is a fortress to a good reporter? There is always a way in. Former employees, current employees with grievances. Who have they fired? Who have they mistreated? Competitors, jealous colleagues—there’s always a way in.”

“Okay, I’ll check all of that—”

“The collaborators. That’s another vulnerability. Look at what GT23 is doing, Jack. They are handing off data—they’re selling it. That is the point where they lose control of it. They don’t control it physically anymore and they don’t control what’s done with it. They do their due diligence on the research application and then trust that that is the research that is actually conducted. But do they ever double back and check that it is? That’s the direction you have to take this. What did the mother say?”

“What?”

“The mother of the victim. You read me her quotes. She said Tina was never married, never wanted to be tied down to one man, was boy crazy from the start. What is all of that? It’s a nice way of saying she was promiscuous. In current society, that is considered a behavioral problem in females. Right?”

I was seeing all of her profiling instincts come into play. I might have had ulterior motives in coming to see Rachel Walling again, but now she was using her skills to give direction to my reporting and it was beautiful.

“Uh, right, I guess.”

“It’s the classic profile. A man pursues sex with multiple partners, no big deal. A woman? She’s loose. She’s a whore. Well, is it genetic?”

I nodded, remembering.

“Sex addiction. At least one of the GT23 collaborators is studying risky behaviors and their genetic origin. I saw that in a story. There might be others.”

Rachel pointed at me.

“Bingo,” she said. “Sex addiction. Who is studying the genetic relation to sex addiction?”

“Wow,” I said.

“Man, I wish we had this stuff when I was working bureau cases,” Rachel said. “It would have been a huge part of both victimology and suspect profiling.”

She said it wistfully, remembering her past work for the bureau. I could tell that what I had brought to her excited her but also served as a reminder about what she once had and once was. I almost felt bad about my motives for coming.

“Uh, this is all fantastic, Rachel,” I said. “Great stuff. You’ve given me a lot of angles to look at.”

“All of which I think a seasoned reporter like you already knew,” she said.

I looked at her. So much for my motives. She had read me the way she used to read crime scenes and killers.

“What did you really come here for, Jack?” she asked.

I nodded.

“Well, that’s just it,” I said. “You just read me like an open book. And that’s what I came for. I thought maybe you’d want to take a shot at this, maybe profile the killer, profile the victims. I have a lot of victimology and on the killer I’ve got times, locations, how he staged things—I’ve got a lot.”