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“My only goal is to determine if anything about Laura McAllister and the story she was working on will be detrimental to Larry Chadwick’s chances of getting through a senate confirmation hearing.”
Alex paused. She felt that the pendulum of the conversation had finally swung back to give her some leverage. She nodded.
“It will,” Alex said.
Annette cocked her head. “Ah, progress. Care to elaborate?”
“Not yet. I need to do my own background check. And I’m not sure what I can share with you until I speak with my boss at Lancaster and Jordan.”
“Sounds fair to me.”
Annette pushed a business card across the table.
“Call me when you’re ready to talk. And as a courtesy, if you decide you have something to tell me about Larry Chadwick’s son, the sooner the better for me. I’m on a deadline.”
The woman was up and out of the café before Alex had a chance to catch her breath or respond. Alex looked down at the card: ANNETTE PACKARD, SPECIAL AGENT, FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION.
CHAPTER 49
Washington, D.C. Saturday, April 29, 2023 2:30 p.m.
TRACY CARR SAT CROSS-LEGGED ON THE BED OF HER HOTEL WITH HER laptop in front of her. Comfortably in work mode with headphones covering her ears, a pen between her teeth, and hair pulled up in a bun, she was balancing both of her gigs. On a hard deadline to deliver a thousand-word article meant to bring New York Times readers up to date on the latest developments in the Laura McAllister case, she was also putting out content for her social channels to satiate the appetite of the true-crime fanatics who followed her. Many of her followers had never picked up a newspaper in their lives and acquired their news (or gossip) from videos dropped on social media.
Tracy had done two shoots over the last two days. The Laura McAllister case was turning into a true bonanza of a story and was gaining national attention due to the tangential connection to Lawrence Chadwick, whose potential nomination to fill the SCO-TUS vacancy appeared to be unraveling at lightning speed. The fact that Chadwick’s son had been floated as potentially being connected to Laura McAllister was true crime that could not be ignored. Now that the girl had turned up dead, the story was exploding across the Internet.
Still, despite the demand of her social channels and her deadline for the Times—her article was due to her editor in two hours and was only half written—Tracy could not shake the encounter she’d had on Friday. In the middle of her report, a woman had stumbled into the shoot and collided with her. This, alone, was not unusual. For a beat reporter, dealing with an inept public was part of the job. But the interruption was not what had her mind churning; it was the woman herself. Tracy refreshed the footage on her computer and rewatched the incident unfold. On the screen, she saw herself delivering her report, and then, from the right side of the screen, the woman with short blond hair appeared. She was looking to her left, to where other reporters were recording their shoots, and never saw that Tracy was in front of her until they collided.
Tracy slowed the footage as the woman walked into the frame. She paused the video at the moment just after the collision, when the woman turned in confusion and looked directly into the camera. Tracy studied the woman. Short blond hair spiked with product. Piercings in her left ear, eyebrows, nose, and lower lip. Tracy zoomed in on the still image, concentrating only on the woman’s eyes. They were bright blue, but artificially so, probably made that way by colored contact lenses. Tracy knew those eyes as brown, and when she got past the distractions it dawned on her.
“Holy shit,” she whispered to herself. She lifted the laptop off the bed and brought it close to her face. “It’s Empty Eyes in the flesh.”
CHAPTER 50
Washington, D.C. Monday, May 1, 2023 1:55 p.m.
“TURN ON YOUR TELEVISION,” ALEX HEARD JACQUELINE SAY AS SOON as Alex answered her phone.
“What happened?”
“Just turn on one of the local stations.”
Alex and Jacqueline had been working nonstop since Matthew Claymore was brought in for questioning on Saturday morning. As promised, Jacqueline had yielded enough power to avert a formal arrest until DNA testing came back. A backpack alone, she argued, was not proof of murder. The police had promised an expedited forensic lab run and gave Matthew strict orders not to leave the District of Columbia, or even his parents’ house.
“Are you watching?” Jacqueline asked through the phone.
Alex picked up the remote and clicked the television on. The local NBC station had a breaking news alert with a headline that read: ARREST MADE IN THE LAURA MCALLISTER MURDER INVESTIGATION.
Alex turned up the volume and watched as the news anchor inside the studio handed things over to a female reporter standing outside the gates of McCormack University.
“We are outside McCormack University, where there has been a break in the Laura McAllister investigation, the student journalist whose body was found early Saturday morning. Laura’s boyfriend, Matthew Claymore, was questioned on Saturday morning for several hours before being released. Now, just moments ago, police have arrested a different man. The Washington, D.C. police chief made a statement indicating that the arrest came after DNA evidence tied the suspect to the murder scene.”
The report cut to footage of a man—white, middle-aged, with greasy hair, thick glasses, and a salt-and-pepper scruff—being led from his double-wide trailer. He wore a dirty T-shirt and his hands were cuffed behind his back as police led him to a squad car and deposited him in the backseat.
“The man has been identified as Reece Rankin, a forty-eight-year-old Maryland auto mechanic. Police apprehended Rankin at the mobile home park where he lives. Again, police have indicated that DNA evidence has linked Rankin to the crime scene but are saying no more at this time other than they are confident they have their man. We hope to learn more during a scheduled news conference later this afternoon.”
The footage cut back to the studio anchor and Alex muted the television.
“Who is he?” Alex asked.
