Jonathon King - Eye of Vengeance

Nick knew that the newsroom computer system was an open setup. Because of the direct production link, every PC was tied in to the next level of the chain. A reporter's PC could be accessed by his editor. That editor's by the copy desk. The desk by the printing facility.

They must have been monitoring him. Nick knew that every time a reporter hit the save button-and you did it all the time to keep from losing everything in a crash-the editors could read exactly what you were writing without asking. They were probably watching his screen while he was putting in his notes, before he deleted them. He suddenly felt like Patrick McGoohan in The Prisoner. The thought did not scare him as it had the character in the old television serial, it only pissed him off.

"I want you in here, Nick. I've spent the day trying to cover for you, but I'm going to have to take you off this story if you can't level with me. I saw what you wrote. I know what you're chasing, but I can't argue for your stand on this without you. "

He so badly wanted to tell her to fuck off, but knew she didn't deserve it.

"They'll slap it up there in headlines, Deirdre. You know they will, even if it is all still speculation. It'll be a command decision and you won't stop them."

The line was still open, but Deirdre wasn't arguing.

"I'll be in to pick up my personal items tomorrow," Nick said. "Today, I quit."

The second he pushed the off button he thought of his daughter, and then checked his watch. Carly would be home from school. Elsa gushing all over whatever art project she'd brought home. The television would go on, tuned to whatever kid thing was in vogue. There wouldn't be any fighting now that she didn't have her sister to share the decisions with. Not that Nick had ever heard the fighting. He'd never been home, just heard about it later in the evening.

Now unemployed, maybe he'd make up for it, find time to argue with her himself about watching ESPN or That's So Raven.

Hargrave knocked, or maybe just bumped the door before he came in with coffee cups in either hand. Nick accepted one and looked into the dark swirling slick. There was a sheen of bean oil on top.

"Fresh," he said.

"No such thing in a cop shop," Hargrave said and then sat down in front of his computer and punched some keys. Nick sipped at the cup, saying nothing.

"OK," Hargrave said with the only hint of surprise Nick had yet heard in the man's voice. "You've got a better computer researcher over there than we've got here. The file is in." Hargrave printed out two copies of the newspaper list and ended up with a healthy stack. He handed one to Nick, then sat back in his chair. Nick immediately started to scan the first page and when he jumped to the second, Hargrave reached out and stopped him.

"Let's do this one by one, if you don't mind, Mullins. I've only been here a couple of years and a lot of these names are going to be completely foreign to me, so I want you to walk through them. Believe it or not, I might pick up on something that you could skip over."

Nick conceded it made sense and went back to the beginning. Lori had printed out just the first or second paragraphs of first-day stories Nick had written on each person. The headers on the top of each story held the date of publication.

Bobby Andreson, the kid who shot a deputy when the off-duty officer tried to stop the twenty-one-year-old and his sidekick from boosting the chrome rims off a Cadillac.

"But when they tracked Andreson down, he did a murder-suicide, shot his partner and then himself. DOA at the scene," Nick explained.

Stephen Burkhardt, killed a hooker down on South Federal. Went in for twenty-five to life.

"Doesn't seem like the avenging kind of case unless Redman knew the girl," Nick said.

"I'll check him with DOC and see if he's still in," Hargrave said, making a mark on his sheet. "Pretty graphic stuff," he said, continuing to read the story. "You see this body when it happened?"

"Yeah. Back then the road patrol deputies thought it was fun to have the print guys take a look. This girl was hacked into pieces and tossed into the Dumpster," Nick said, moving on to the next name. Hargrave just looked at him, studying the side of his face.

Damalier, the casino boat operator that Susan caught the scoop on by photographing the guy's license plate.

"Mob hit," Nick said and they dismissed it.

By the fourth page they realized that Lori had sent the file in alphabetical order, not by year.

"Falmuth. I worked that one," Hargrave said. "Scrap it. That guy died of AIDS while he was in lockup. Rapist. Deserved the worst and got it."

Ferris was next on the list and both of them set his story aside.

It went on like that for two hours. Nick's cell phone rang three times and he refused to answer after checking the number. Hargrave on occasion would be interrupted by a receptionist or a call directly into his office, which he answered with short affirmations or begged off because he had "something going right now."

The Kerner story stopped Hargrave and when he asked about it, Nick filled him in.

"Did you call anyone in law enforcement up there to check it out?"

"Not yet," Nick said, embarrassed that it had slipped his mind. "I'll do it tonight."

When they got to the last sheet, they found Lori had included only a name and a date and the charges against the arrested.

Robert Walker. Manslaughter. There was no bylined story.

"What's this one?" Hargrave asked, flipping the page over to see if there had been a misprint on the back.

"Nothing," Nick said, turning his head away, trying to hide the flash of anger in his eyes. Why the hell would she include that? "Not what we're looking for. A DUI manslaughter case that got negotiated down. Doesn't fit our guy at all."

"OK," was all Hargrave said and then he reshuffled his papers and set them down.

In the end they had narrowed the list to a dozen. Twelve possible targets if Michael Redman was truly judging and executing subjects of Nick's stories who might be considered worthy of death.

"Look, I'll run these through the DOC website, find out where these guys are, whether they're even alive anymore. The ones who are on the street we'll track down through probation and parole," Hargrave said.

Nick nodded. It was the same thing he would do if he went back to the newsroom, where he would have access to most of the sites the cops had, with the exception of FBI links.

When Hargrave went back to his computer terminal, Nick did not move. After a few keystrokes the detective turned.

"You're dismissed, Mullins," he said.

Nick got up to go. "You've got my cell. Keep me in the loop, OK? That's the deal, right?"

"Yeah. Go write your story," Hargrave said without turning.

Nick stepped out of the tiny office and took a deep breath of the stale air-conditioning and left the building. He wasn't writing stories anymore.

When he walked in the front door of the house he had owned for nine years, the only family left looked at him simultaneously and then at their watches in dismay. The early hour, long before deadline, caught them off guard.

"Querido? Mr. Mullins. You are early!"

"Hi, Dad. How come you're home?"

He put a smile on his face, the one that, if he really thought about it, he knew never fooled anyone.

"I'm here to see my girls," he said, using a familiar phrase, and then quickly added, "Carly the Creative, and Elsa the Magician!"

The two looked at each other with a mix of humor and apprehension and waited until Nick crossed the floor and bent to kiss his daughter and said quietly, "I wanted to see you, pumpkin." She accepted that and took his hand and led him to the sewing machine, where she was putting together her latest fashion project.