“I’ve been cross-referencing cases all day, and I found this. I can’t say it’s definitively tied to Elizabeth Reilly, but it seems like a red flag, anyway.”

She picked up the crime report and looked it over as she kept talking.

“The name’s Amanda Simms. Ran away from an abusive home in West Virginia at age fifteen. Then no sign of her at all for eleven months, until a maid found her body in the tub at an Econo Lodge in Takoma Park. That was four and a half years ago.”

“Four and a half years?” Sampson said. “What’s the supposed connection to Elizabeth Reilly?”

Bree turned one of the crime-scene photos around to show him. John looked like he felt sick to his stomach.

“She was pregnant,” Bree said. “The autopsy showed heavy doses of Rohypnol and morphine. All indications are that she was drugged, cut open, and left for dead.”

“And the baby?”

“Never found.”

“Jesus.” John scrubbed at his eyes with a thumb and forefinger. We’d all had long days.

“So basically,” I said, “we’ve got a young girl, away from home for the first time, and pregnant. All of that’s in line with Elizabeth Reilly.”

“What about this phantom boyfriend, Russell?” John asked.

Bree shook her head. “I’ve got nothing. Presumably, that’s not his real name.”

“But let’s assume he’s part of the picture,” I went on. “Maybe Elizabeth finds out about Amanda somehow. She figures out her boyfriend is a monster, and she’s carrying his baby. That could go a long way to explain why she’d go all the way to Georgia to induce labor.”

“For that matter, maybe Amanda’s not the only other one,” Bree said. “I’m still looking.”

After a long stretch of silence, Sampson spoke up again.

“You said something else on the phone this morning. This blogger. What’s his deal? And why’s he hating on you?”

“Good question,” I said, and pulled up The Real Deal on my desktop. There was a new entry now, “MPD Whiffs Its Own Press Conference.” It had been posted at four that afternoon, and it already had ninety-two comments. Word was definitely getting out on this thing.

“He’s either got a vested interest in Elizabeth Reilly, or against me,” I said. “Or both.”

“Or,” Sampson said, “maybe he’s just looking to make a name for himself—trying to establish the blog and get some attention with a couple of big stories.”

“Yeah, well, he’s got my attention,” Bree said. She was at least as put out by the whole thing as I was—most especially by that picture of Kinkead’s from the night we were there.

“Alex, let me take a run at this guy,” John said. “You’ve got five homicides on the line. Six now, if we’re counting Amanda Simms.”

“Thanks. I’d welcome the help, actually,” I said. “Not to mention, you can be damn scary when you want to be.”

Sampson just grinned. “What’s the name on the account?” he asked.

“Still waiting on that.”

It wasn’t until close to eleven, when John was just getting up to leave, that I finally heard from Krause. It was perfect timing, actually.

“Sorry to take so long,” he said. “But I tracked a couple of tweets back to a phone number with a DC exchange. No real address on the account, just a PO box, but I do have a name for you.”

I grabbed a pencil off my desk and the nearest piece of paper—a takeout menu from Fusion Grill.

“Go ahead.”

“The name is Ron Guidice,” he said, and spelled it for me, then gave me the number. “You want me to bring him in?”

“No, but thanks,” I said. It seemed like everyone wanted a piece of this guy, which was fine with me. I tore off the corner of the menu and put it into Sampson’s very large outstretched hand. “We’ve got it from here.”

CHAPTER

38

HOURS AFTER SAMPSON LEFT, I WAS STILL AWAKE. SOMETHING WAS BUGGING me, and I couldn’t figure out what it was. That name, Ron Guidice, was sticking in my head for some reason. Was it familiar? Or did I just want to think so?

Finally, I got out of bed and headed back up to the office.

“Where are you going?” Bree asked me, still half asleep.

“I just want to check something,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”

Up at my desk, I got online and logged into the MPD case files. Members of Homicide have the highest level of clearance on investigative reports, which meant I could access the system from any departmental computer, including the laptop I had at home.

After a quick search, the only place I found Guidice’s name was in a police report from six years earlier. And in fact, he hadn’t committed any crime. He was the named next of kin for a woman who had died during a police action in Chinatown.

I remembered the case now. It came back to me with a creeping sort of dread. This one was not a good memory.

I’d been heading up an investigation on a midlevel arms runner who’d been playing both sides of the fence, providing automatic weapons to rival gangs in Southeast and Northwest DC. Word had been coming down from more than one informant that a major brawl was on its way. When you’re talking about automatic weapons, crossed with two crews who had a history of disregard not just for each other but for innocent bystanders as well, it’s best not to take too many chances. Even though we were still hoping to ID this guy’s upper-level contacts, I made the call to bring him in, ASAP.

Now, sitting there at my desk, I didn’t need to reread the report in front of me to remember what happened next.

The thug’s name was Marco Bruillo, with a last known address at an expensive studio apartment on H Street. On the night in question, Bruillo had been tracked there, and the plan was to make the arrest inside, as quietly as possible.

When we arrived, though, Bruillo was just on his way back out. We had no choice but to take him right there on the sidewalk, or risk losing him altogether.

What we couldn’t know was that two of his own people were parked and waiting for him across the street. As soon as we had Bruillo up against the wall, they opened fire from their vehicle.

It was the fastest-moving shootout I’ve ever found myself in. Within fifteen seconds, it was over. Bruillo was dead, but so were three other bystanders, all of them waiting in line to buy movie tickets at the theater next to his building.

In the end, forensics had shown that two of those bystanders had been killed with automatic weapon fire. But the third—a woman by the name of Theresa Filmore—was accidentally shot and killed by one of my fellow MPD detectives. It was a tragedy, no two ways about it.

The city had taken full responsibility, and settled out of court with Ms. Filmore’s named next of kin—her fiancé, a man by the name of Ronald F. Guidice.

I’d never forgotten about Theresa Filmore, but it wasn’t until I looked back at that file that I realized why Guidice’s name had rung a bell.

Now I knew. And everything was starting to make a little more sense.

Part Two

TIPPING POINT

CHAPTER

39

NIGHT FISHING WAS ALL THE COVER RON GUIDICE NEEDED TONIGHT. THERE WAS no necessity for a pseudonym, or physical camouflage, or even keeping out of sight, for that matter. From the middle of the wide saltwater channel where he sat, he could watch the little stilt house on the shore all he liked. Even if the cop in the driveway happened to look over and notice him, all he’d see was some goober out trying to hook a few snapper in the dark.

It was a good time to be away from DC, too. Guidice had started to pull back the covers now, and chances were high that Alex Cross had begun to figure out who he was. Which was fine. As long as Guidice controlled the flow of information, then he controlled Alex, too.