Triple Cross

Up to that point, the book proposal had focused on the Landau killings, which had taken place six months ago, and the Hodges killings, which occurred eight months before that. There seemed no doubt in Tull’s mind that the killer would strike again and at shorter and shorter intervals.

I looked up at Liu. “If you’re talking about Tull predicting a shortening of the cycle, we predicted the same thing. Most serial killers follow this trend over time.”

“They do,” Sampson said.

“Keep reading,” the editor said. “Last paragraph on page forty, first paragraph on forty-one.”

CHAPTER 16

I READ THE PARAGRAPHS out loud. “‘No one can say who the next victims will be, what family will be chosen, and how many generations will be wiped out. We don’t know if the killer will stick to the pattern or change. Will he shut down his operations in the DC area and move to other hunting grounds? We don’t know. And we don’t know if he’ll keep shooting his victims execution-style, high through the head. And what links the targets? What’s the connection? Will he continue to kill only white families? Or will he change his racial profile and attack Black families? Hispanics? Asian-Americans?’”

I turned the page and kept reading. “‘As I conclude this proposal, we just don’t know the answers to these questions and many others. But no matter who the Family Man targets or where and how he kills them, I will leave no stone unturned, no angle unpursued. I will go where the police fear to tread, without friend or favor, in pursuit of this story and the killer, who I believe wears hazmat clothing of some type. After all, who doesn’t leave DNA behind them these days?’”

“See?” Liu said when I finished. “He predicted the change in racial target and the hazmat suit. Is that what you believe the killer’s wearing?”

I nodded. “But we’ve suspected that for a while. Since the Landau case. He could have talked to someone in the department about it.”

“Or he was being logical,” Sampson said. “I mean, how else would you do it?”

Liu turned frustrated. “What about the Elliotts? Black dad. Hispanic wife. Blended kids? That fits.”

“I suppose,” I said, unconvinced. “The way I read it, Tull has no idea what the future holds, which is where we are as well. He’s speculating here so editors like you will cut him some slack if his theories about the case fall apart.”

“I agree,” Sampson said. “It reads like the man knows he’s selling something that might not pan out the way this proposal suggests.”

“It’s more than that,” Liu said, her voice rising. “Do you know he owns guns? Lots of them? He almost always carries one.”

“He was a Marine and an NCIS investigator,” I said. “I can’t imagine him not carrying a weapon.”

“But—”

“Hear me out, Suzanne. I appreciate you coming all this way to talk to us, but I’m not seeing a shred of evidence to back up your suspicions.”

“They’re not suspicions!”

“They are,” Sampson said. “I’m sorry, but you sound like a former editor who is pissed at Tull because he took a bigger offer than yours and it got you fired.”

“That has nothing to do with it!” she said, standing up, slamming the lid of her briefcase down, and locking it.

“I think it has more than a little bit to do with it,” I said.

She gestured at the paperbacks angrily. “If you don’t believe me, read the books. Ask yourself how Thomas Tull could have known all these things. How could he have seen what no one else did? I was his editor and I always wondered. So did our legal department. Thomas had answers for every question we threw at him, but to be honest, I always came away feeling like there was more to his part in the story than he was letting on.”

We said nothing. Liu shook her finger at the three paperbacks. “My gut says there are things in those books that are not right, Dr. Cross. Maybe I don’t know enough about criminal investigation, or maybe I’m too close to the narrative to see them. But someone like you, an even better investigator than Thomas—you just might spot the holes in his books when you read them for the first time.”

CHAPTER 17

Manhattan

BREE STONE STROLLED UP Fifth Avenue around four Friday afternoon, killing time. She’d spent the train ride up from Washington the evening before studying the contents of several more of the Frances Duchaine files.

In them, she’d seen many references to possible quashing of a search-warrant request on Duchaine’s homes and offices; there was also a list of the times the fashion designer had been visited by police.

One detective, Rosella Salazar, had paid at least three visits to Duchaine’s pied-à-terre in the Dakota, the famed apartment building on the Upper West Side. Bree wanted to know why and had called Salazar.

Luckily, the detective answered, and luckier still, she had a cousin who had worked for DC Metro when Bree was the chief of detectives. Still, Salazar was a little hesitant to meet Bree when she found out she was now working as a private investigator.