Fair Warning (Jack McEvoy #3)(71)

“This is Jack McEvoy.”

Nothing. Just an open line. I watched Mattson and Sakai drive out of the parking lot and turn right on Mission Road.

“Hello? This is Jack.”

“You sent me a message …”

The voice came through a digital modulator that turned it into the voice of a robot.

“Yes … I did. You’re in danger. I would like to help you.”

“How can you help me?”

I quietly unzipped my backpack and grabbed a notebook and pen so I could write his words down.

“For one thing, I can get your side of the story out. When this thing hits, there are going to be victims and villains. You want to get your story out there before other people put it out there for you. People who don’t know you.”

“Who are you?”

“I told you. I’m a writer. I track killers. I’m tracking the Shrike.”

“How do you know about him?”

“He killed someone I knew. He got her name and details from Dirty4.”

There was a silence and I began to think I’d lost him. I wanted to persuade him to talk. But I wasn’t willing to dance around what he and Hammond had wrought with their scheme. As far as I was concerned, RogueVogue was firmly on the villain side of the ledger. He was not as culpable as the Shrike but pretty damn close.

“This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

I wrote the line down verbatim before responding. I knew it would go high up in the story.

“What was supposed to happen?”

“We … it was just supposed to make money. We saw a niche.”

“What was that niche?”

“You know, helping guys … some guys have trouble meeting girls. It wasn’t that different from Tinder and some of those others.”

“Except the women whose profiles you were selling didn’t know, right?”

I said it in a non-accusatory tone but it brought silence. I threw a softball question out before I lost him.

“How did you and Marshall Hammond meet?”

After a pause he answered.

“College roommates.”

“Where was that?”

“UC–Irvine.”

A little piece of the puzzle clicked into place.

“You knew William Orton there?”

“Marshall did.”

I threw a curveball at him. A possibility that had been growing in the back of my mind.

“Is he the Shrike?”

“No.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I know. What happened to Marshall?”

“The Shrike broke his neck, then tried to make it look like he hanged himself in his home lab. How do you know Orton is not the Shrike? Do you know who the Shrike is?”

“I figured it out.”

I wrote it down. I knew my next words to him might be the most important part of the conversation.

“Okay, listen. There is a way for you to help your situation—if you want to.”

“How?”

“Tell me who the Shrike is. The FBI needs to stop him.”

“The FBI?”

I immediately realized I had misspoken. He didn’t know that this had come to the attention of the FBI. I sensed that I had to keep him on the phone by going in another direction. I blurted out a question.

“How do you think the Shrike found Marshall?”

There was a pause but then he finally spoke again.

“He made contact.”

“Who did? Marshall?”

“Yes. We knew about the ones who died. Clients told us that we had—that some of our profiles were … defunct. Marshall looked into it. He checked the downloads and found the link between them. It was him. Marshall reached out. He told him he had to stop.”

That was all the explanation he gave, but again it helped me put more pieces of the story together.

“And that’s how the Shrike found him? He traced the contact?”

“Somehow. We took precautions but somehow he found him.”

“‘We’?”

“We agreed to send the note. Marshall sent it.”

“Let’s go back to Orton. Marshall fixed his case, right? The DNA.”

“I’m not talking about that.”

“Then Orton owed him. He gave you the DNA.”

“I told you, I—”

“Okay, okay, forget it. What about the Shrike? You said you know who he is. Give me a name. You do that and you won’t be a villain in this. You’ll be somebody trying to stop it. Like you said, this wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“And then you give the name to the FBI?”

“I can or you can. Doesn’t matter as long as you are the one who gives it.”

“I’ll think about that. It’s all I have.”

I guessed he meant that the Shrike’s ID was all he had to trade in exchange for not being prosecuted.

“Well, don’t think too long,” I said. “If you found it, the FBI will eventually find it and then you’ve got nothing to give.”

He didn’t respond. I realized I was asking for the Shrike’s ID when I didn’t even have my source’s real name.

“What about you? Can you give me your name so I know who I’m talking to?”