Chapter 7
Peter sat shivering in the open rear door of an ambulance, head bent and aching, a silver foil blanket wrapped around his shoulders.
It was full dark, still raining, and the temperature had dropped enough for him to see his breath.
His knee bounced to the beat of a metronome only he could hear.
Behind him, KT sat on one of the jump seats, arms wrapped around Ellie on her lap.
With all the police on the street around them, Peter figured mother and daughter were safe enough. But he’d still positioned himself so that anyone trying to harm them would have to go through him.
He’d already stripped off the body armor June had given him, and the EMTs had supplied an ice pack for the bruise on his chest, which throbbed in time with his heartbeat.
The adrenaline comedown had hit him hard.
He wanted nothing more than to close his eyes.
But every time he blinked, he saw the shooter jam the gun under his own chin and blow his brains out.
He knew from experience that it would stay with him. Like the other memories lingering after eight years of war and the things he’d done afterward.
He had good reasons for all of it. He’d wanted to help people. He’d tried to do the right thing. But sometimes it went wrong. Sometimes people died.
—
The police had come late, but they’d come in force.
Along with a couple of pop-up tents with drop-down side panels to keep the rain off the cops and the body, someone had brought coffee for Peter and KT and hot chocolate for Ellie.
Two detectives named Kitzinger and O’Donnell had already taken their statements separately, going over the events of the afternoon at least three times to make sure there were no fault lines in their stories.
Peter had tried hard not to be separated from KT and Ellie, but Kitzinger wasn’t having any of it.
He was glad he’d made that first 911 call, which had established his desire for police involvement from the jump.
He was also grateful that he hadn’t actually shot the guy, because that would have ratcheted up their professional suspicion.
Even with witnesses to confirm his story, the cops would have taken him to the station for sure.
The white static, which was what Peter called the post-traumatic claustrophobia that had showed up after his war, would flare up like a wildfire in a tiny police interview room.
Now he turned his empty coffee cup in his hands while his mind tried to make sense of the dead man’s words.
He was supposed to kill the lady, he’d said.
Because he’d gotten some kind of message.
From who? And why? And why had he ended up killing himself?
You don’t know what’s coming. He’d seemed a little unhinged, to say the least.
Thinking about all of this, Peter had listened while KT had told the police about the stories she’d been working on, trying to figure out why she’d been targeted.
The Microsoft CEO interview she’d done that afternoon.
A piece about OpenAI’s investment in data centers.
A postmortem on a failed hardware startup.
An analysis of startups acquired by the Big Five, and what happened afterward.
And a dozen other stories she’d barely looked at, including a whistleblower who’d reached out for a conversation but never showed up for the meeting, and something about an oddly secretive group of tech bros who may or may not be into guns.
She and June could get into that later. Or tomorrow.
Tomorrow would probably be better.
—
Behind him, Ellie wore her mom’s orange raincoat, and KT still wore Peter’s. He heard KT murmuring to her daughter, then she came to sit beside him in the open doorway of the ambulance.
He asked, “Are you okay?”
“No. I want to scream.” Her voice was quiet as she stared out into the darkness. “But I have to keep it together for Ellie.”
Peter was familiar with that process. “You can freak out after she’s gone to bed. If you like, we can get drunk.”
“Oh, we’re definitely getting drunk.” She turned to look at him. “You seem fine. How is that possible? He shot you point-blank, you could have died. You watched him kill himself.”
“I’m not fine,” he said. “I just have more experience processing this kind of thing.”
“What do you mean, more experience?” Ellie had left the jump seat and crept up behind them.
“Hush, Ellie.” KT reached for her arm and pulled the girl to sit between her and Peter. “That’s not your business.”
“It’s okay.” Peter turned to Ellie. “I fought in two different wars. I’ve been shot at before.”
She peered up at him, wired from her large hot chocolate. “Did you kill anyone?”
“Eleanor Grace Thorsen! Peter, I am so sorry.”
Peter might have punched a civilian who asked him that question, but Ellie was only thirteen, and she’d been through a lot in the last few hours. She was practically a combat vet herself. Peter figured she deserved an answer.
“Yes, Ellie. I killed people. That’s what happens in war. Why do you ask?”
She looked away. “I just, like, I don’t understand what happened today. Why would someone want to hurt my mom and me? Over some dumb news story?”
“That’s a very good question,” Peter said. “I’d like to know the answer myself.”
KT nodded. “Me, too.”
The girl opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again.
“Go ahead,” Peter said. “Ask your question. You’ve earned the right.”
Ellie looked at her mom, then back to Peter. “What’s it like to be in a war?”
“It sucks,” Peter said.
Although that wasn’t the whole truth.
Because the sun never shone more brightly than when somebody was trying to kill you. You felt alive. That was war’s dirty little secret, the reason young men had fought since the dawn of time. War could be fun as hell.
Peter hated to admit that he missed it. But sometimes he did.
Which is one reason why, when June had called about the death threat, Peter had dropped what he was doing and climbed in his truck to help.
God help him.
—
A man appeared out of the night. Maybe sixty with a broad silver mustache, he was bulky and imposing in a long black slicker and a black cowboy hat, rain streaming from its broad brim. “Mr. Ash, I’m Captain Durant. May I have a word?” He pointed toward a tent a dozen yards away.
Peter climbed to his feet and took a few steps into the rain, which pattered on the silver blanket wrapped around his shoulders.
“Here’s good.” He didn’t want to get too far from KT and Ellie, sitting in the brightly lit ambulance.
“What’s a police captain doing at the scene of an attempted murder? ”
Durant had the hooded eyes and expressionless face of a man who’d seen everything and couldn’t unsee it.
His blue-stubbled jowls lifted in a faint polite smile.
“Detectives Kitzinger and O’Donnell work for me.
I run our special investigations squad, among other things.
I’m curious why you showed up on Western Avenue to begin with. ”
“I already told Kitzinger and O’Donnell,” Peter said. “I was doing a project at my girlfriend’s property in Klickitat County when she called and said KT needed help. So I got in the truck and headed for Seattle.”
“That’s not an answer,” Durant said. “I want to know what kind of man drives four hours to put himself between a bullet and a woman he’s never met?”
Peter shrugged. It wasn’t complicated. “I like to be useful.”
“You were useful overseas, too,” Durant said. “I just got off the phone with someone I know at the Pentagon. He shared some details from your file. Silver Star, Bronze Star for valor, couple of Purple Hearts.”
Peter didn’t like talking about this. “None of that means anything. It’s just politics.”
“Riiiight.” Durant looked at him, a butterfly pinned to a corkboard.
“And that’s why the rest of your file is almost completely redacted.
Listen, I know you’re a serious guy. So I want to be straight with you, make sure you understand something.
You saved lives today. We appreciate that, believe me.
But your involvement is now over. This is a police matter. ”
Peter felt the muscles bunch and flex in his shoulders.
His neck was tight as a bridge cable. But he kept his voice casual, reasonable.
“You understand why we might be curious.” He tipped his head toward KT, who’d been listening to their conversation.
“Somebody tried to kill us today, and we have no idea why. We don’t even know his name. ”
“That’s why I’m here, to share what I can. The guy’s name was Geoffrey Reed. He had no criminal convictions that we can find. He did have a number of arrests, however, and a history of serious mental illness, including one period of involuntary commitment in a psychiatric institution.”
“But what’s his connection to the stories KT was working? How did he get her home address? What about that stuff he said before he killed himself? He said he’d gotten a message. He was supposed to kill KT. Who sent the message? Why try to kill a journalist?”
“Mr. Ash—”
Peter’s voice rose. “The letter said We are Legion. Plural. I’m concerned that there might be somebody else involved. Did you get into his phone?”
Durant’s mustache twitched with irritation.
“This isn’t our first investigation,” he said dryly.
“We’re inside Geoffrey Reed’s phone, we looked at every app.
We can’t find any messages telling him to kill anyone.
We can’t find any messages at all, except a few texts from his sister.
With his medical history, any message was more likely to come from the voices in his head.
There’s no conspiracy. It’s easy to get somebody’s home address unless they spend a whole lot of time and money keeping it out of the system. ”
He looked past Peter and raised his voice, aware that KT had been listening to their conversation. “Ms. Thorsen, was that a priority for you?”
“It was,” she said. “Obviously, it will be a much bigger priority after today.”
Peter wanted to feel relief, but he didn’t. June had forwarded KT’s photo of the threat letter. He kept thinking about it. “Okay, that’s Reed’s phone. What about the rest of his life?”
“We have a team at his apartment right now. Forensics will do a deep dive into all his electronics, including his computer and whatever else we find, just to make sure. But I have to tell you, most of the guys who do this kind of stuff, they’re not right in the head.
That’s looking like the case with this guy Reed. ”
KT said, “I want access. I want to know everything you know about him. For my own peace of mind, and my daughter’s.”
“Ma’am, I’m sorry, but that’s not possible. This is an active investigation. In the unlikely possibility that there are others involved, I can’t have you muddying the waters. It might affect our ability to prosecute.”
KT stood up. She was clearly fighting her own adrenaline crash, her eyes sunken and her skin pale. She was still scared, Peter could see it. But he watched with admiration as she took a deep breath and gathered herself.
“Captain Durant, I appreciate your position. I have no interest in disrupting your investigation. But somebody just tried to murder both me and my daughter. You know I’m a journalist. I have a national platform.
Obviously, I’m going to write about this.
The relevant question for you and your bosses is this: How would the Seattle Police Department like to be portrayed?
As concerned professionals who did everything they could to help the victim of an attempted murder?
Or as bumbling idiots who had credible information about a possible school shooter but couldn’t be bothered to dispatch a single cruiser until long after the first shots were fired? ”
Durant’s face darkened. “We had a six-car pileup on Highway 99, with multiple injuries. We came as soon as we could. In addition, the department is responsible for security for the technology conference that starts in three days. And, as I’m sure you are aware, there is a nationwide shortage of new police recruits, and the SPD is significantly understaffed across all precincts. ”
KT put on a cheerful smile. “That’s one side of the story, Captain. I can spin it a lot of ways, depending on what happens next. I want full access. Why don’t you talk to your bosses and I’ll call you first thing tomorrow. By then you should know a lot more about Mr. Reed.”
Durant’s tone hardened. “Ma’am? All due respect? You really don’t want to fuck with me.”
KT’s smile only got larger. “Captain, you should really read my work. I’ve spent three decades fucking with bigger fish than you, and I’m still here.
I also have the mayor’s personal cell number.
If I have to call him, it’s going to go a lot worse for you.
So do the smart thing. Get with the program or get out of my way. ”
Now Peter understood why KT was such a successful journalist. Beneath the middle-aged mom was a titanium core that would not bend.
Peter raised his hand. “While you’re at it, is there any chance I can get my gun back?”
“It’s with forensics,” Durant said. “We just want to compare test firings against the rounds we dig up here.”
“I told you, I never pulled the trigger.”
“And I’m sure you’re telling the truth, but I have to follow procedure. When it passes ballistics, I’ll get it back to you.”
“I don’t have another weapon. What if Reed wasn’t working alone?”
Durant gave him a dark look. “I’ll see if I can expedite.”
“Thanks,” Peter said. “One last thing. Can you get someone to give us a lift to a hotel? KT doesn’t want to go home tonight, and my truck took a round to the radiator.”
Durant sighed. “I’d send you with a patrolman but God only knows what she’d get out of him.” He pointed at an unmarked black Suburban gleaming in the rain. “That’s my ride. I’ll take you.”