Double Cross

Chapter 100

AS SOON AS WORD about a possible suspect named Tyler Bell reached the chief of police’s office, a reply boomeranged back to us. We were told to “go public” with the information immediately. Easy to say-a whole lot harder to do.

Certainly we had to tell the press something. If another murder came down and we hadn’t shared what we knew, it wouldn’t matter why we had made the decision to withhold. The damage control would become a huge time suck, and the investigation would suffer badly.

On the other hand, our suspect was definitely part of the receiving public. Putting out too much information about what we knew, and didn’t know, was a mistake that couldn’t be undone.

So what should we do?

Our compromise was a quick, unscheduled press briefing out on the steps of the Daly Building. It was something none of us wanted to do, but there didn’t seem to be an alternative that the chief was willing to agree to. He needed to communicate “progress” on the case, no matter what the possible consequences for the investigation.

At eight that night, Sampson and I spoke with reporters, all right, but only long enough to name Tyler Bell as our primary suspect and to say that we weren’t taking any questions at this time.

Bree stayed off camera. It was her decision all the way. She didn’t want to make her recent attack any more of the story than it already was.

Afterward, the three of us went straight into an emergency session upstairs. It was hard to imagine that this case was heating up, but it was. DCAK seemed to want it that way.

Someone certainly did.