Fair Warning (Jack McEvoy #3)(50)

“Well, we got something. Did you see his face when I said dirty four?”

“No, I was too busy trying to not get thrown into a wall.”

“Well, it hit him. I think it scared him that we know about it.”

“But what do we actually know?”

I shook my head. It was a good question. I had another.

“How’d they know what we were there for? I had it set up through corporate PR.”

“Somebody we talked to.”

Emily pulled out of the industrial park and headed back toward my Jeep.

“No,” I said. “No way. The two guys I talked to today, the detective and the lawyer, they hate Orton’s guts. And one of them gave me the name. You don’t do that and then turn around and warn Orton about why we’re coming.”

“Well, they knew,” Emily insisted.

“What about your FTC guy?”

“I don’t know. I don’t see it. I didn’t say anything about us coming down here.”

“Maybe he just tipped them off, said a reporter was sniffing around. Then Orton gets word from corporate in Indianapolis to let me in. He calls his lawyer guard dog and is waiting for us.”

“If it was him, I’ll find out. Then I’ll burn his ass at the stake.”

The tension from the confrontation turned to relief now that we were in the car and away from Orange Nano. I involuntarily started to laugh.

“That was crazy,” I said. “I thought for a moment the lawyer was going to go after you.”

Emily started shaking her head and smiling, casting off tension herself.

“I thought he was too,” she said. “But that was nice of you, Jack, to step in there between us.”

“It would have been pretty bad if something I said got you attacked,” I said.

A City of Irvine patrol car went streaking past us, its lights flashing but no siren engaged.

“You think that’s for us?” Emily asked.

“Who knows?” I said. “Maybe.”





22

Myron Levin frowned and told us that he needed to pull us off the story.

“What?” I said. “Why?”

We were sitting in the conference room—Emily, Myron, and me—after Emily’s and my long, separate rides back to L.A. We had just spent thirty minutes reviewing the events in Orange County.

“Because it actually isn’t a story,” Myron said. “And I can’t afford to have you chasing after something for this long with no results.”

“We’ll get results,” I promised.

“Not with what happened today,” Myron said. “Orton and his lawyer were ready for you and they shut that whole avenue down. Where do you go from there?”

“We keep pushing,” I said. “The four deaths are connected. I know they are. You should have seen Orton’s face when I said dirty four. There is something there. We just need a little more time to pull it all together.”

“Look,” Myron said. “I know there’s smoke, and where there is smoke there’s fire. But right now, we can’t see through the smoke and we’re hitting dead ends. I let you two run with this but I need you back on your beats producing stories. I was never convinced this was a FairWarning story in the first place.”

“Of course it is,” I insisted. “That guy down there has something to do with these deaths. I know it. I feel it. And we are obligated to—”

“We are obligated to our readers and our mission—consumer-watchdog reporting,” Myron said. “You can always take your suspicions and what you’ve found so far to the police, and that would take care of any other obligation you think you have.”

“They won’t believe me,” I said. “They think I did it.”

“Not once your DNA comes back,” Myron said. “Talk to them then. Meantime, go back to your stations, refresh your story lists, and let’s meet individually in the morning to sequence.”

“Damn it,” I said. “What about if Emily goes back to her beat and I stay on Orton? Then you don’t have half the staff on this.”

“Way to throw me under the bus, asshole,” Emily said.

I spread my hands.

“It’s my story,” I said. “What’s the alternative? You stay on it and I go back to the beat? That’s not happening.”

“And neither is your scenario,” Myron said. “You’re both back on the beats. Story lists in the morning. I have to go make calls.”

Myron stood up and exited the conference room, leaving Emily and me staring at each other across the table.

“That was really uncool,” she said.

“I know,” I said. “I think we were getting close.”

“No, I’m talking about you throwing me under. I’m the one keeping the story going and you were the one who fucked it up with that lawyer.”

“Look, I admit I messed up with the lawyer and Orton, but you said yourself it wasn’t going to go anywhere. And it was probably your FTC contact who tipped him off. But this thing about you being the one keeping the story going, that’s bullshit. We both had moves in play and were pushing it forward.”

“Whatever. I guess it doesn’t matter now.”