The Competition

42

Half an hour later the three of us convened around the table in the conference room. Jenny put on a pair of black-framed reading glasses to consult her notes. “We don’t have a great deal to go on here. Neither Michael nor I are code crackers”-she looked up and gave a little smile-“but there’s nothing we saw that alerted us to any secret language or code being used. The emails were largely about school or girls.” She took off her glasses. “None of it struck us as unusual in the least.”

“So their relationship was fairly superficial,” I said.

“That’s the way it looks.”

“Now that you’ve read those emails, do you feel any differently about why he tweeted that we were harassing him?”

“No, we’ve gone through all the possible explanations and I don’t see anything in these emails that would let me narrow it down to any one in particular. Anything else you’d like to discuss about Evan?”

I shook my head. We’d heard enough about him. It was time to get down to the heart of the matter. “We need to share some information with you that you cannot discuss outside this office. Not even with Michael.”

I’d made a copy of the letter-just one because I didn’t want to risk its getting lost or lifted from my office. Paranoid? Maybe. But better paranoid than sorry.

When she finished reading the letter, she took off her glasses and said nothing for several moments. “I suppose I should’ve expected that they’d seek out new targets. It’s just…I’ve never seen anything like this before.” Jenny put her hand to her forehead.

I gave her a moment, then leaned in. “What we need more than anything is to figure out where they’re most likely to strike next. The more you can tell us about him, the better our chances of predicting his next target.”

Jenny nodded. “He-and I say ‘he’ because this sounds very male-appears to be a classic psychopath. Grandiose, manipulative, completely non-empathic.” She looked at me. “But you already know that, don’t you? I’ll bet you were shocked at how he managed to drill down on your particular weaknesses, weren’t you?”

I was shocked that she knew that. “Completely.”

Jenny nodded. “They’re empathically and emotionally stunted, but even so, they often do have an uncanny ability to suss out someone’s weak spot. It’s a survival skill for them, and they start honing it from an early age. When most children are learning how to get along with others, make friends, and show affection, the psychopaths-who are emotionally incapable of those things-are figuring out how to manipulate others in order to get what they want.”

That certainly fit our letter writer to a T. “But if that’s the case, then how come no one saw all that in Logan? Wouldn’t it be pretty obvious?”

“No, not necessarily. The smarter they are, the better they are at observing how others respond to social cues and mimicking normal behavior. That doesn’t mean some people won’t figure out that there’s something ‘off’ about them. You can’t fool all the people all of the time. And in any case, we can’t be sure that Logan wrote this letter. It seems to me that the letter writer was the alpha in this duo, but there are no absolutes.”

“So the person who wrote the letter might be the second shooter,” I said.

“It’s possible.” Jenny frowned and picked up the letter. “But about this parting shot, ‘Do your job, you’ll stop us. Fail and we will go on. And on.’ I don’t want to overstep my bounds. I’m not your therapist, Rachel. But I want to be sure that you don’t get taken in by this effort to blame you for anything that might happen.”

I shifted in my seat, suddenly aware that my back hurt. “I’m not.”

Jenny observed me silently for a few moments. “I believe you have a particular…sensitivity when it comes to guilt.” I started to respond, but Jenny held up a hand. “Yes, I know it’s common. Many people-especially in law enforcement-carry the weight of the world on their shoulders. But given your background, I’d guess that you have a particularly acute tendency to believe you’re responsible whenever something goes wrong. So please try to remember that you’re not to blame for what these shooters do. Only they are.”

Her words reminded me of the feeling I’d had when I’d read the letter-an all-too-familiar heaviness in my chest, the coil of anxiety that wound around my gut. But I was in no mood to share. “I don’t have any doubt about that, Jenny.”

“Not consciously, no. But subconsciously, you might. And that alone I don’t worry about. It’s not the worst thing anyone’s ever had to deal with. But you’re under enormous pressure to catch these killers. When that pressure is added to your subconscious motivators, you may find yourself impelled to take undue risks.” Jenny gave me a stern look. “And that’s what I worry about.”

I tried for a smile to lighten the moment. “So I’ll move my toaster off the edge of the bathtub.”

No one laughed.