“Yes, of course,” Quinn said uneasily. “I meant ‘it,’ not her.”
“Which brings me back to my first question: is the article true?” Rebecca said.
“No,” Kate and Quinn said in unison.
“You’re sure?” Rebecca said. “One hundred percent? No doubts?”
“None,” Kate responded.
“Then that’s a start,” Rebecca said. “If we know the story is false, it’s just a matter of making that clear.”
“How?” Quinn asked. “We already published what we know.”
“We’ll have to figure it out,” Rebecca said, “with the new editor’s help.”
As if on cue, Ethan emerged from the conference room.
“Rebecca?” he called, and then noticed who else was in the room. “Oh, Kate and Quinn. Glad to see you’re already on the job.”
Ethan had never really noticed Quinn during his first few years at the paper and had only noticed Kate because she publicly challenged him at their first meeting. But their stock had risen ever since the articles on Lord Halloween, including exclusive details on his identity and killing spree. Those articles had won the Chronicle national fame and were now prominently framed and displayed on the wall near the paper’s entrance. As a result, Ethan now considered the two of them his star reporters and seemed almost entirely oblivious to Kate’s asides questioning his competence.
“We have a problem, sir,” Quinn said.
“Good, good,” Ethan said, apparently unaware of what Quinn had actually said. “Why don’t you come on back as well to meet your new boss?”
Quinn gave Kate a look and shrugged. Rebecca stood up and the three of them walked into the conference room.
It wasn’t until Quinn was fully in the room that he realized who the new editor was. His jaw was practically on the floor in surprise. Kate arched an eyebrow but otherwise appeared nonchalant.
“Allow me to introduce the three of you to your new editor-in-chief: Tim Anderson,” Ethan said.
Quinn stared. Somewhere in the back of his brain he knew it was important not to act surprised—to pretend he didn’t know Tim at all—but that part of his mind appeared slow on the uptake. He was floored.
“Tim,” he said, knowing immediately it was a mistake.
“You know each other?” Rebecca asked.
That was something of an understatement. Last year, when Quinn and Kate had been on the trail of Lord Halloween, Tim’s name kept popping up. The former crime reporter for the Loudoun Chronicle, Tim had received several letters from the serial killer during his initial killing spree in 1994. Shortly after Lord Halloween vanished, so did Tim, making him either a presumed victim or a likely suspect.
But Quinn and Kate had eventually tracked him down not far away in Bluemont, West Virginia. He had been serving as editor of the Gazette under an assumed name. Lord Halloween hadn’t killed him, but he had broken him. The man they found out there was paranoid and deeply scarred by the murders.
Quinn didn’t know how the death of Lord Halloween had affected Tim. If he had ever stopped to think about it, he might have assumed that maybe now he felt free to live his life. But it had never occurred to him that Tim would head back here.
“Quinn?” Rebecca said again, and he realized he had been lost in his memories.
“I knew his parents,” Tim said after a moment. “It’s been a long time, Quinn. You’ve grown into quite a reporter.”
“Not unlike another star we used to have here,” Ethan said, and patted Tim on the shoulder. “Rebecca, Tim Anderson was the best reporter and writer this paper ever had. When I saw he applied for the job, well, there really was no question. Tim, this is Rebecca Alsbury, our managing editor, and Kate Tassel, our business editor and general assignment reporter.”
There was a polite round of greetings and shaking of hands. Quinn noticed that Tim looked much healthier than he had a year ago. He looked trim and fit and wore a crisp blue blazer. He might have even looked younger, except his brown hair was now heavily streaked with gray.
“Where have you been recently, Mr. Anderson?” Kate said, and Quinn flinched at her use of the name. In his letters, Lord Halloween had often referred to the reporter as “Mr. Anderson,” especially when he was angry with him.
But if Tim took any umbrage at the question—to which Kate knew the answer—or the tone, he didn’t show it.
“It’s a long story, Kate,” Tim said. “For the past decade, I’ve been the editor of the Bluemont Gazette, a paper I founded.”
“I’ve heard of that paper,” Rebecca said. “It won several West Virginia press awards, right?”
“Yes,” Tim said, sounding somewhat pleased. “I should tell you before you pick it up, however, that I didn’t edit under my own name. When I left Loudoun, I had reason to believe I might not be safe, so I used a pseudonym.”
It was Ethan who jumped in to explain the rest, sounding almost jovial about it.
“Can’t blame you for that, Tim,” Ethan said. “Given your help to the police during that time, I’m sure you would have been a prime target.”
“And what made you decide to come back?” Kate said.
“This was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up,” Tim responded. “Thanks to you two, Lord Halloween’s identity is now exposed and someone has taken the liberty of killing him. I thought it was time to reclaim my life.”
“It’s funny you bring up Lord Halloween,” Rebecca said.
Until then, Quinn had almost forgotten about the Post story, or at least succeeded in pushing it to the back of his mind.
“I’m afraid you are going to face your first challenge as editor a bit earlier than planned,” she continued, and handed him the copy of the Post.
“What is it?” Ethan asked.
Anderson opened the paper and read the headline out loud: “Is Lord Halloween Really Dead?”
He kept reading: “‘The Loudoun County police and local media claim the infamous serial killer was murdered, but many residents—and outside experts—have their doubts.’ Who is this by-line? Summer Mandaville?”
Both Kate and Quinn groaned, but didn’t have time to respond.
“I assume since you’re interested in the case, that you know what this means,” Rebecca said.
Ethan weighed in first.
“It’s an attack on our paper,” he responded. “We were the ones to tell the world who Lord Halloween was and that he was dead. We have to respond in force.”
Quinn didn’t usually like Ethan much, but he was definitely in favor of the militaristic tone. It was not unusual for newspapers to disagree with each other, at least somewhat. Send two different people to the same event and they would likely have differing perspectives. This article, however, was something entirely different.
Mandaville’s piece suggested that the man identified by police as the killer—Kyle Thompson—may have been merely an accessory. The real killer might remain at large. In addition to potentially sowing more panic among a populace that had twice been terrorized by the serial killer, the story claimed the Loudoun Chronicle had been wrong about the most important details in their extensive reporting on the subject. It was an assault on the paper’s integrity.
“Hmmm,” was all Tim said. “Of course I agree with you, Ethan. It is an attack on this paper. No doubt. But let’s make sure we have our ducks in a row before responding. Anything less and we’ll only undermine our own credibility. If you don’t mind, I’d like to talk to Kate and Quinn more about the story in-depth today, and we’ll get a sense of our next move.”
“We can’t afford to wait,” Ethan said. “Other media will be calling today.”
“I agree that time is of the essence,” Tim said. “Like I said, give me some time to huddle with Kate, Quinn and Rebecca, and we’ll plot our strategy.”
“I’ll leave it to you, then,” Ethan said.
For the second time that morning, Quinn’s jaw practically dropped to the floor. Ethan was the publisher, but he alway
s liked to be as involved as possible on the biggest stories. This was a prime opportunity. But he noticed a look pass between Tim and Ethan. Obviously some deal had been cut—and part of it seemed to be for Ethan to back off.
Kate and Quinn watched as Ethan left the room. Quinn kept expecting him to turn around, having rethought his quiet acceptance of the new power structure at the paper. But he left without any fuss.
Quinn wished Rebecca had left too, but there was no way to politely get rid of her. He wasn’t prepared to tell the whole truth to Tim—but he would be freer than he was now.
“What’s your plan?” Tim said, looking directly at Kate.
The man had good instincts. While Quinn had been quietly mulling over the situation, Kate had undoubtedly been working on a counter-strategy. She paused for a moment before responding.
“Our story had a hole,” she acknowledged.
“Yes, it did,” Tim said. “Don’t get me wrong, you two did outstanding work. The fact that you’re even alive is a testament to your journalistic skills. Had I gotten that close, Lord Halloween would have finished me off.”
“He did try,” Kate said flatly.
“What’s the hole?” Quinn said. He hated feeling like he was missing something.
It was Rebecca who answered him.
“Who killed Lord Halloween?” she said.
Quinn almost gave her the answer then and there. I did, he wanted to stay. I slid my blade across his neck and took his head clean off. He opened his mouth to say it—he was proud of what he had done—but Kate flashed him a warning look. The truth wouldn’t work here.
“Does it matter?” was all he said instead.
“Yes,” responded Kate. “It does. It’s the entire reason that Summer had an opening here and we should have seen it earlier. She’s not claiming that Kyle Thompson wasn’t involved in the murders—that would be easy to disprove, given what we know now. What she’s arguing is that he was merely the assistant, a partner in crime with someone else. It was that person then, who killed him. So whoever killed Thompson…”
“Is the real Lord Halloween,” Quinn finished.
“Right,” Kate said.
“Do you know who killed Kyle?” Tim asked.
It was a dangerous question. Quinn knew right away that Tim was really asking whether they had killed Lord Halloween. He didn’t know anything about the Prince of Sanheim or their powers, but he had seen them last year. While Lord Halloween was hunting them, they were tracking him. It was not impossible to imagine a scenario in which they had gotten the better of him.
But Kate, to her credit, didn’t miss a beat.
“I wish I did,” she said. “I would give him or her a medal. That bastard killed my mother, Quinn’s best friend, and a whole lot of others who didn’t deserve to die. No, Tim, we don’t know. If we did, don’t you think we would have reported it?”
“Yet you seemed curiously uninterested in the question,” Tim said.
“Excuse me?” Kate said.
“There was no follow-through on the single biggest question left hanging,” Tim said. “You never speculated about who killed Lord Halloween. It’s as if you didn’t care about the matter at all. Frankly, I’m surprised it took this long for someone to step in with their own theory.”
“It wasn’t…” Quinn started. He had been about to say “relevant.” But of course it was. The only reason Quinn and Kate had appeared uninterested in the question was because they already knew the answer. In their articles, they had sidestepped the issue entirely, implying incorrectly that Lord Halloween had somehow died when police tracked him down. But they had never explicitly addressed it head-on.
Tim nodded his head when Quinn stopped speaking.
“You see?” he said. “Look, what you did was incredible work—truly outstanding journalism. What I am saying is that you left a good follow-up angle totally unexplored, and it’s the only way we are going to effectively respond to the Post.”
“We could just attack them head-on,” Kate said.
“Wouldn’t work,” Rebecca responded. “If we run something that just says, ‘No, he’s dead,’ but doesn’t add to the conversation, forget it. We’ll look defensive. People will conclude that the Post might have a point.”
“Don’t misunderstand me,” Tim said. “While you are out there reporting, Rebecca and I will have your back. When we get media inquiries—and we probably have some already—I know plenty of ways to subtly suggest the Post is off base without coming off as petty or defensive. But that can’t be our only response. We have to have something better in the works.”
“Like what?” Kate said, but Quinn knew she already had the answer.
“Who really killed Lord Halloween?” Tim replied. “You don’t have to have a definitive answer, but you need to provide enough new details to make it clear it wasn’t some fictional partner. Get the police involved. They have two reasons to help you. For one, if people believe Lord Halloween isn’t really dead, they’ll panic again the next time anyone dies in this county. Secondly, it will also make them look stupid. They already declared Lord Halloween dead once—Charles Holober, remember?—and were proved wrong. Sheriff Brown can’t afford to go through this again. They must know more than they’re saying. And they will have every incentive to help you find that out.”
Quinn nodded. The plan, from an outside perspective, made total sense.
“Okay,” he said. Kate gave him another warning look, but he pretended not to notice it. “We’ll get on the case. Starting now.”
“I don’t need to remind you that you don’t have a lot of time,” Tim said. “The longer the Post story sits out there, the more people will believe it no matter what we say.”
With that, he seemed to dismiss them from the room. Kate and Quinn walked out feeling like they had been battered and bruised. Kate started to speak, but Quinn motioned to go outside.
They walked downstairs to the basement, past the massive printing press and out the back door.
When they were outside, Kate wheeled around.
“What are you doing?” she said. “We can’t take this assignment.”
“Would you like someone else to do it?” Quinn responded.
“Yes,” she said. “Anyone else, in fact. Let Helen do it. We’re playing with fire.”
“And God knows what she’ll say,” he said. “This is the only way to control the narrative.”
“There is another way,” Kate said. “And you know it.”
“No, I don’t,” Quinn said.
“Go to Summer directly,” she said. “Make her back down from the story. She made this shit up. She’s pulling a Jayson Blair here and we know it.”
“How? How are you going to make her back down?”
“I’ve got lots of ideas,” she responded. “Most of which would be extremely satisfying.”
Quinn watched her uneasily. He thought the death of Lord Halloween would have eased some of the anger she had inside her. He understood—better than anyone—how the death of her mother had affected her outlook on life. But if anything, the fury she carried with her was even worse now. The only difference was that at certain times of the year, she had a powerful way to inflict that anger on others.
“No,” Quinn said. “For starters, we don’t have any powers yet.”
“I don’t need any powers to scare the hell out of Summer,” Kate said.
“Still no,” he said. “It’s a bad strategy. I guarantee Summer doesn’t think she made up the story. She’s not that terrible a reporter. No, someone whispered in her ear and she ran with it because she finally gets to take revenge on us.”
“For what? We never did anything to her,” Kate said, but she knew that wasn’t true.
“Oh, come on, Kate,” he said. “We broke the biggest story in this county’s history. She’s the Post’s reporter on the ground and she looked like a fool to her editors when she had nothing and we had everything. She has plenty of reasons to hate us and more than enough
cause to seize any excuse to undermine our credibility.”
“She made it up, Quinn, and she should pay for it. Lord Halloween never had a partner. He’s dead. We killed him. We can’t write a story speculating about the killer when we know damn well it’s us.”
“Oh yes we can,” he said. “I have a plan.”
“I’m not in your head, honey,” she said. “You’re going to have to say it out loud.”
“You aren’t going to like it,” he responded.
“There’s nothing about this I like,” she said. “What’s the plan?”
Quinn took a deep breath.
“We tell the truth.”
Chapter 3
Kate looked at him like he’d gone insane.
“You want us to admit that we killed Lord Halloween?” she said in disbelief.
“No, of course not,” he said. “But you left the door open, didn’t you? You wrote that letter. The one signed by the Prince of Sanheim taking credit for the killings.”
It took a minute for Kate to even remember what he was talking about. She had done it on a whim. It was early on November 1, shortly after they had lost their powers. She had left Quinn sleeping in bed to sift through the piles of information Buzz had left behind on Lord Halloween. She understood the gift they had been given—a roadmap of all the serial killer’s murders; years of research that Buzz had locked away without showing anyone. If he had, the police might have been able to find Lord Halloween earlier.
At the time, she was still reeling from all that she knew. It had only been the previous evening that Quinn had defeated the Headless Horseman at Phillips Farm. In that moment, everything had changed. Quinn had become the Horseman. But she… she wasn’t sure what she had become.
Madame Zora, the local fortune-teller, had said Kate was a psychic—a claim she had rejected. But when Quinn became the Horseman, Kate could see into Lord Halloween’s mind. He wasn’t a threat—not anymore—because the abilities Quinn and Kate had tapped into were far more powerful than any mortal man’s. She could see where his hideout was, what his plans were, why he was killing people—everything.
Band of Demons (The Sanheim Chronicles Book 2) Page 3
