The Kill Chain

by Nichole Christoff

While I watched, Jones hopped from his Jetta. He sprung the trunk again, reached in, and removed a flat silver object. And despite the distance between us, I could’ve sworn that object was the exact size and shape of a laptop.

  But Jones didn’t tuck the computer under his arm. He didn’t carry it with him into the car. Instead, he raised it high—and threw it onto the blacktop with all his might.

  Less than satisfied with his handiwork, Jones didn’t allow the computer to lie there. He slid behind the wheel of the Jetta, threw the car into gear. He backed over the thing, reversed direction, and ran over it once, twice, three more times.

  When the laptop had to be well and duly crushed, Jones shoved the Jetta into park. He got out of the car, scooped up the wreckage, and flung it into the library’s Dumpster at the edge of the lot.

  With a nervous look over his shoulder, Jones climbed into the car.

  And then he hit the gas.

  I didn’t follow him this time. Instead, I waited. I wanted to be sure he wouldn’t return to the library’s parking lot—and I wanted to be positive he hadn’t sent someone else there, either.

  But when a pickup truck rolled up behind me, eager to reach the post office’s drop box, I turned up the alley and pulled into the library’s lot. The Denali’s headlights spotlighted the Dumpster. Red and rusting, the old tub had been collecting more than what the library’s patrons had been throwing into it.

  At least, that’s how it seemed based on the smell.

  But I knew there was only one way to find out what was really inside.

  Chapter 25

  The bumper of the Denali made a fine step stool for a private-eye-turned-security-specialist who didn’t exactly want to go Dumpster diving.

  I balanced on the chrome, gripped the flaking edge of the container.

  Sure enough, nestled on top of black garbage bags reeking of rotten vegetables and maybe even table scraps from the eatery next door lay the shattered remnants of a laptop computer. Its cracked case was as flat as a dinner plate at one end. Circuitry of some kind spilled from its body.

  With my gloved hands, I was careful to collect every bit of it.

  Safely locked in my vehicle once again, and parked in the lot of an all-night coffee shop two towns over, I took a closer look at my bounty. The hinged screen reluctantly gave way, but the glass and pixels were gone. Likewise, the ports for USB cords, flash drives, and more had been cracked and flattened out of all proportion. Still, this served to convince me that something very juicy resided on the hard drive inside. Only, on my own, I’d never be able to access it.

  Without an arrest warrant hanging over my head, I could’ve presented this puzzle to my cyber forensics expert—provided, of course, that it wasn’t past his bedtime. All joking aside, however, the reality of the situation wasn’t funny. Here, I just might have evidence that could clear me of the false charge of second-degree murder. But because of the charge, I couldn’t access that potential evidence.

  For some reason, someone wanted me to look good and guilty. Was that person Madeline Donahue? Had she been furious when I’d survived the ambush in the National Arboretum? Did that provoke her to take Kenneth Jones to dinner and convince him I’d killed Robert Fraley long before Dylan Pruitt turned up dead instead?

  I didn’t know.

  And I was sick with not knowing.

  But one other person claimed to want to know the truth as much as I did. So, with nowhere else to turn, I pulled my burner phone from my jacket pocket. In the glow of the Denali’s dashboard lights, I gave him a call.

  “Rappaport,” he answered.

  “Can I trust you?” I asked without preamble.

  “Yes, Jamie, you can.”

  I wanted to believe him.

  I needed to believe him.

  “I’ve got something,” I told him, “that may help both of us. But I need a hand accessing it.”

  “What are we talking about?”

  I explained, beginning with a carefully edited version of my search of Kenneth Jones’s apartment and ending with my picking through the trash of a public library.

  “I know a guy,” Rappaport said. “The paper works with him all the time. Meet me and we’ll talk to him together.”

  “Where?”

  “Come to my place.”

  I wasn’t sure that was such a good idea. For one thing, Rappaport’s neighbors might see me, recognize me, and report both of us to the police. And for another?

  He was essentially a stranger.

  But stranger or not, he picked up on my hesitation.

  “I can assure you this isn’t a setup. I won’t turn you in, Jamie. I won’t dismember you and store you in my chest freezer, either.”

  “Do you even have a chest freezer?”

  “On a journalist’s salary? Are you kidding?”

  What could I say to that?

  It took a solid hour and forty-some minutes to reach the neighborhood Rappaport described. He lived in a community of 1960s mid-rise condos and coveted single-family homes tucked between the enclaves of historic Foxcroft Heights and busy Rosslyn, and not far from the Potomac River. Close to the Metro, the demolished Navy Annex, and the District proper, the hills were steep and the rent was more so.

  I found Rappaport where he said he’d be, holding up the support pole of a corner bus shelter with his shoulder and his lanky frame. He’d traded the tweedy sports coat he’d worn to the Patriot’s Cup for faded jeans and a fisherman’s sweater. He’d shoved the sweater’s sleeves to his elbows. That sweater—teamed with his horn-rimmed glasses—made him look exactly like the kind of English Lit tutor every co-ed would crush on. But I just hoped he knew what the hell he was doing.

  When I swerved to the curb, he got in the Denali’s passenger seat.

  “Circle the block,” he directed. “A friend of mine is out of town. You can park in his space in the garage.”

  I didn’t object. Vehicles in this part of Arlington would be towed before the dew had a chance to settle on their hoods if they parked overnight without the proper permit. But I didn’t like the thought of being trapped in an underground garage where law enforcement could box me in if they wanted to.

  Still, a private garage was better than the public alternative, so I did it, descending down a gentle slope that had been designed for Beetles and Barracudas long before Hummers and Escalades had ever been dreamt of. And once I’d wedged my Denali between a Passat and a Forester, Rappaport—with the crushed computer under his arm—and I took a slow elevator to his floor. There, the hallway was wide and the wallpaper was a wild print reminiscent of big, blowsy California poppies.

  “The Homeowners’ Association thinks all public areas should be decorated in keeping with the sixties,” Rappaport explained rather sheepishly. “This is their idea of a tasteful allusion to sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll.”

  “It’s not bad,” I said.

  “Yeah, well, you should see the lobby. Campbell’s soup cans everywhere.”

  That made me laugh—and I hadn’t laughed in a long while.

  “I called our guy.” Rappaport unlocked his door, invited me inside. “He’ll be here in fifteen minutes.”

  I crossed Rappaport’s threshold and found myself in a small but pleasant living room. Dark hardwood stretched away from me in all directions. To my left was a sparkling white and stainless-steel kitchen. Across from me, a simple coffee table fronted a sofa. Rappaport’s desk stood behind it, and behind that, mocha drapes framed a sliding glass door, twinkling with the lights dotting a walking path along the river. Off to the right ran a hallway that probably communicated with a bedroom and bath. All in all, this bachelor’s pad might’ve been as modest as Kenneth Jones’s, but was much more stylish. It was ten times cleaner, too.

  Rappaport deposited the news producer’s ruined laptop on the coffee table,
gestured for me to take a seat on the couch. Dropping my backpack, I did as he suggested, and when I sank into the comfort of the cushions, I began to think I might never want to rise. But then Rappaport offered to build me a sandwich, and that sent me to my feet since I’d consumed mostly granola bars and bottled water during the course of the day.

  I followed my host to the breakfast bar, and as he went for the knife drawer, I volunteered to give him a hand.

  He turned from the cutting board, where he’d laid out succulent slices of sourdough bread. “While wearing those gloves?”

  I hadn’t removed them or the baseball cap.

  And frankly, I didn’t want to.

  “Rappaport, if your computer expert recognizes me—”

  “He won’t.”

  “If he reports me—”

  “Jamie—”

  “—even if I got out of here before the authorities banged in, my prints in your place would be bad news for you.”

  Rappaport didn’t reply.

  And a knock at the door made us both jump.

  The new arrival turned out to be the computer guru Rappaport and his paper relied on. Dressed in a hoodie, skinny jeans, and sneakers, he might’ve been old enough to order a beer. But I wouldn’t have counted on it.

  Apparently, he was known in certain circles by the moniker Double-Click. At any rate, Rappaport addressed him that way. Double-Click didn’t seem dissuaded by the laptop’s current state, either.

  In fact, he eagerly turned it over and over in his hands.

  “We’re looking for video,” Rappaport told him, “and the sender’s contact information.”

  “I can’t guarantee retrieval,” Double-Click replied.

  “We understand,” I assured him.

  And with a sandwich in his sweatshirt’s pocket and the computer in his arm, Double-Click departed.

  Rappaport locked up behind him and returned to the kitchen to place a beautiful turkey club on the countertop in front of me.

  “Tell me again,” he requested, “about the visit you paid Kenneth Jones.”

  At last, I shed the gloves. I perched on a barstool and took off the ball cap, too. And I thought long and hard about how much to say to this newspaperman.

  “Kenneth Jones,” I said, “has something to hide. But the laptop might only be part of it. He had a doggie bag in his fridge from the Saint George. He didn’t like it when I asked him about it.”

  “The Saint George?” Rappaport asked around his own mouthful of turkey. He swallowed hard. “You might be onto something. Mitchell Farnsworth has lunch there nearly every day.”

  “Who’s Mitchell Farnsworth?”

  “He’s the current chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. Lobbyists advocating for net neutrality, those adamantly against it, representatives from cellular networks that want more bandwidth released from military reserve, wealthy investors who don’t want to roll the dice at spectrum auctions—they all pretend they’re just having lunch at the Saint George, too. But I guarantee you each and every one of them stops by Farnsworth’s table, accidentally on purpose. I’ve watched it happen.”

  I patted my chin with a paper napkin. “That’s odd, but it’s not illegal. Unless this Farnsworth is wheeling and dealing favors for kickbacks under the table.”

  “He’s not. At least, not that I can tell. Still, his opinion, and that of the Commission, sets rules and regulations that mean hundreds of millions of dollars won or lost.” Rappaport tore a bit of crust off his sandwich, popped it in his mouth. “Of course, Farnsworth isn’t the only government lackey who likes the Saint George’s twice-baked potato.”

  “Now you’re talking about half of Washington.”

  Rappaport nodded thoughtfully. “That’s true. So, which half would like to see you behind bars?”

  Chapter 26

  Rappaport’s question unsettled me. In part, it sounded a lot like the query Barrett had put to me on that park bench. Adam had asked if I’d made any enemies lately. I’d assured him I hadn’t. But what if the enemies seemingly after me weren’t really mine?

  In a bipartisan government town like Washington, DC, at any given time, at least half the movers and shakers might not be happy with the positions and policies of the other half. And once in a while, an individual lawmaker ticked nearly everybody off. When that happened, several someones could have an axe to grind.

  But what if grinding that axe meant clipping the wings of a particular politician? Or more specifically, what if it meant going after a certain senator? Bringing down that senator’s daughter just might damage him—and for some people damaging others was the ultimate goal.

  This line of reasoning turned my turkey sandwich to dust in my mouth. I felt sick in the pit of my stomach. Because I suspected this was close to the truth.

  “Have you considered,” Rappaport said slowly, “that you might be better off if you turned yourself in to the authorities?”

  Shaking my head vehemently, I shot from the barstool and onto my feet.

  Rappaport reached across the countertop, wrapped a careful hand around my wrist. “Think about it, Jamie. Think about the power it’s taken to set you up, to get that story on the news without questions being asked, to have you charged with murder in absentia. Whoever’s done this to you has a long arm. Turning yourself in could buy you some protection—”

  “Not if someone sells me out,” I snapped, shaking off his paw. “And that’s exactly what would happen if a power broker like you describe is bent on burying me.”

  I snatched up my gloves and cap, retrieved my backpack, and fumbled it onto my shoulder.

  But quickly, easily, Rappaport stepped between me and his front door. He slipped his hands in his jeans pockets as if to convey he wasn’t some kind of threat. Maybe he wasn’t.

  But I still didn’t like the maneuver.

  Not unkindly, he said, “Jamie, where’re you going to go?”

  I couldn’t go home. I knew that too well. Likewise, my office would be under watch. Checking into a motel with the cash in my bag meant risking recognition. Any friend or associate who welcomed me would be inviting a raid, which ruled out Matty, Laura, and Daniel.

  Barrett, of course, was out of the state.

  And, for a lot of reasons, he was out of the question.

  “Crash on my couch,” Rappaport urged. “You’ll be safe here.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I know sleeping in that SUV you’re driving around is downright dangerous. Anyplace you park overnight in this town, you’ll have the cops tapping on your window, telling you to move along—provided they don’t identify you first.”

  Rappaport had a point. And his apartment was safer than most places I could end up. After all, no one knew we were in cahoots.

  So, reluctantly, I accepted.

  A fast shower, the loan of a T-shirt in lieu of a nightgown, and a makeshift bed put together on Rappaport’s sofa, and I was alone yet again, lying awake in the dark. I wondered if Barrett was doing the same—and if he wondered about me. He’d managed to stay no less than one step behind me in California.

  That wasn’t much of a margin.

  Of course, in his eyes, I had to be a lost cause by now. No man in his right mind pursued a woman for a year, only to be disappointed again and again. Except I hadn’t done all the disappointing. Last autumn, Barrett had pushed me away when the going got tough. At the time, he’d thought he had a good reason.

  Now, in my circumstances, I had to admit his reasoning appeared crystal clear.

  I thought of Barrett long into the night. Then I dreamed of him until the glare of morning hit me full in the face several hours later. That’s when I realized I’d fallen asleep—and I remembered I was on the run.

  Even burrowed in the blankets I could hear Rappaport moving around in h
is kitchen. The scent of brewing coffee was unmistakable. I sat up, squinted at the sunlight streaming through the mocha drapes, and felt for my brainiac glasses on the coffee table.

  “What time is it?” I called.

  Rappaport ran water in the sink. “After ten, sleepyhead.”

  “Ten?”

  I jumped to my feet. I’d burned a lot of daylight by inadvertently sleeping in. And I didn’t like that one bit.

  Rappaport appeared in the doorway. He’d showered and shaved, and even knotted a knit tie at the neck of his crisp dress shirt. He looked good that way.

  He offered me the steaming cup of java in his hand. “When you’re ready, I’m taking you to lunch.”

  In an instant, I caught on.

  “At the Saint George?”

  “One and the same.”

  I sipped the hot coffee, welcomed the rush of heat and caffeine. “What if I’m recognized?”

  “I’ll go alone, if you prefer. Since you’re back and Kenneth Jones knows it, I want to see who swings by Farnworth’s table today.”

  “I’ll get dressed.”

  Twenty-six minutes later, I’d wrangled the Denali into a parking space three blocks from the Saint George. I’d insisted on driving my own vehicle. Just in case I had to make a quick getaway.

  Rappaport, in the meantime, tried to get us a table. The Saint George was popular with the congressional lunch crowd, especially on a Monday, when a new workweek meant new opportunities to sway others to their way of thinking. But the Washington News-Journal carried a certain cachet, too, and Rappaport intended to trade on it. So, while I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel, he’d gone ahead to have a word with the maître d’. An eternity later, he returned.

  “We’re in,” Rappaport reported, whipping open my driver’s-side door and offering a polite hand to help me from the SUV.

  “Yeah, but how long before they kick us out?”

  “The manager is a friend of the press.” Rappaport grinned as we strode up the sidewalk. “Just don’t spread that around. He’s agreed to give us a good table, right in the middle of the action. We can have it all afternoon.”