The Competition

36

On the way downtown, I called Principal Campbell to ask him how they’d come across the letter.

He’d been surprised by it too. “The past couple of days we’ve had mail pouring in from all over the world. There was no way to keep up with it, so some of the teachers volunteered to help sort. But it turned out to be easier than we’d thought. Most of them were addressed to the school, and they were obviously meant for everyone. The rest were addressed to the families of the kids who…didn’t make it.” He paused to collect himself. “So the one addressed to you stood out. I thought I should call.”

“You did the perfect thing, Dale,” I said.

By the time we got to the station, the letter had been cleared by the bomb squad, and Dorian had finished processing it. Now it sat alone in a ventilated cardboard box on Graden’s desk.

“Did you read it?” I asked him.

Graden nodded, tight-lipped. “I only had the chance to scan it, but…”

His worried expression made me nervous. I opened the box. There was just the letter, no envelope. “They took the envelope?”

Graden nodded. “Yeah, to see what they could do with the postmark. And there were two actually. The outer envelope was addressed to Rachel Knight at the school, and there was one inside it that just had your name. The letter was in that second envelope.”

The letter was typed on plain white Xerox paper. I put on latex gloves and took it out.

Rachel Knight, Fairmont High is only the beginning. They say we’re Columbine Copycats. They’re idiots. We already proved those pathetic losers are nothing compared to us. But we have more, much more, to show the world. Do you realize how lucky you are? You have the privilege of being involved in what will be the greatest criminal legacy of all time. They say you got famous after that case with the Hollywood director, but that was nothing compared to this. I bet that’s why you wanted my case. Because you always want the big case. Because you blew it with Romy. And now she’s probably dead. I could have saved her. You know why? Because I’m superior to you-to all of you-in every way.

I am the best, the very best you’ve ever seen or ever will see. Our victory at Fairmont High was NOT luck. It was skill. MY skill.

If you catch me, you’ll be a hero. But if you fail, Rachel Knight, like you did with Romy, many, many more will die. So now, it’s all up to you. Do your job, you’ll stop us. Fail and we will go on. And on.

I felt as though I’d been hit in the chest with a sledgehammer. I reread the letter. It wasn’t the fact that he knew about my sister’s abduction. That story had been blasted all over the tabloids during the Antonovich trial. Everyone and his dog could know that my sister had been abducted by a man in a pickup truck while we were playing hide-and-seek in the woods near our house. And it didn’t strike me as a big leap in logic or insight that Logan figured out I might need to avenge my sister’s kidnapping by taking on the gnarliest cases I could find. But that this kid had managed to zero in on my survivor’s guilt-that was a little less obvious. It showed me he not only had smarts, but he also knew how to go for the emotional jugular.

Logan’s teachers had said he tested at genius level. And strategizing the shooting and escape clearly took some intelligence. What I hadn’t counted on was this kind of insidious cunning. Or such grandiose megalomania.

I gave the letter to Bailey. Her face was ashen when she passed it to Graden. He read it, and when he looked up, his eyes were blazing with fury. “This animal needs to be put down, and fast.” Graden raked his fingers through his hair. “I’ve got to take this to the chief ASAP.” He looked from Bailey to me, his expression stern. “This stays between us until I say otherwise. If anyone asks, it was just fan mail. Got it?” Bailey and I nodded. If the public found out what was in this letter, the threat of future shootings would cause mass hysteria. And there was no realistic way we could allay the fear. As Bailey pointed out, we couldn’t secure every single public building in the city and county of Los Angeles. Graden reread the letter, then put it back in the box. “This was obviously written by the ringleader-”

“Logan, based on what we know at this point,” Bailey said.

“And it sounds like a high school kid,” I said.

Graden frowned. “Do we know if Shane Dolan is our second shooter?”

“No,” Bailey said. “He’s looking good, but it’s too soon to commit to anything.”

Bailey filled Graden in on what we’d just learned from Isaiah Hamilton and Nancy Findley.

“And we’re sure no students are unaccounted for?” he asked.

“Checked and double-checked,” Bailey said. “All accounted for now. We’ve got alerts out for Logan and his Toyota, and for Shane and his pickup. And the lab is still sifting through a mountain of evidence.”

“We’re going to hit up Caleb and Evan and see what they know about Shane,” I said.

Graden nodded. “Sounds right.” He looked at me closely. “That letter was one hell of a gut shot. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, sure.” I’d tried to sound casual, but the words came out a little choky. Graden put an arm around me. That kind of physical display was something we never did at work. Ordinarily I would’ve appreciated it. Not now. This was my private bête noire and I needed to deal with it on my own. I straightened and leaned away. “It really is okay. I’ll be fine.”

Graden nodded and stepped back behind his desk, the move as much emotional as physical. “Just a word of advice about your interview with Evan,” he said. “You might want to go easy on him right now. He felt bad for not telling you about seeing Logan in the parking lot and, beyond that, for not realizing what was up at the time. Go too heavy and he might just shut down.”

“I agree,” Bailey said. “He was trying not to show it, but he looked pretty bent about the whole deal.”

Graden picked up the box containing the letter. “I sincerely doubt that these guys have the wherewithal to follow you two-”

I shook my head. “We’re too small a target. They don’t want us. They want a massive hit and they’re busy planning it. Right now.” Just hearing myself say the words made me want to run outside and start hunting, anywhere and everywhere. Every second we stood there was another second wasted.

“Still, I’m going to try and get you extra security. But in the meantime, be on your guard.” He looked from Bailey to me and back again. We nodded.

Graden left to see the chief, and Bailey and I headed out to her car. In the last twenty minutes, the entire complexion of the case had changed. It had never occurred to me that escaping from Fairmont High wouldn’t be enough for them. That, far from trying to hide, they’d be brazenly planning another attack. But now that I knew, it seemed obvious, even naive of us not to have anticipated this. Bailey’s grim expression as she steered out of the parking lot told me she was having similar thoughts.

“All we can do is push ahead,” I said. “The moves are the same.” Track down the witnesses, squeeze them for information, follow the leads.

“Yeah, but the moves need to be a lot faster now.”

I nodded, feeling my gut tighten with anxiety. I forced my brain to slow down and focus on our interview with Evan. Graden and Bailey had both made a fair point. Evan was pretty frayed around the edges when we’d last seen him. The past few days had given him time to think. Time to feel guilty about not having sounded the alarm when Logan told him to ditch school. Maybe time to wonder whether Logan or the other shooter would remember that conversation-and decide to do something about it.

I still had trouble believing Logan would risk making a move on him. But Evan knew Logan better than we ever would.