Макс Коллинз - No One Will Hear You

“No,” Amari said, wide-eyed. “Flipped the switch?”

Rue nodded, half smiling. “It’s still in the off position. But I checked to make sure. No evidence the motion detectors had been tampered with or that there were any extra wires in there. He knew his stuff, Anna.”

Amari said, “Some serious planning.”

“Oh yeah,” Rue said. “Guy either picked the lock or had a key. He sure as hell didn’t hurt it.” Rue held up a bag that contained two pieces of lock, the hasp still neatly clasped.

“Thoughts, Marty?”

“This is an organized killer,” he said. “And my guess is he’s one smart bastard. You better find a way to stop him fast, Anna, or this ‘Don Juan’ of yours will be collecting more lovers.”

Amari smirked. “You do know we already have a psycho in West Hollywood to catch?”

“I heard. You know what the song says, Anna.”

“I do?”

“Never rains in California. It just pours. Just pours.”

While Amari and Polk walked back to their car, the coroner’s team was bringing the body up the hill to their wagon. Up top, she watched the sad procession, Polk at her side.

When the body bag had gone into the back of the vehicle, she said to Polk, “That girl was alive and well yesterday, LeRon.”

“Yes she was.”

“Let’s do our best not to have to stand and pay these kind of respects to any more victims. Okay?”

“I hear you, Lieutenant.”

As the coroner’s van pulled away, Amari called her boss to deliver a preliminary report on what they knew so far.

When Captain Womack answered, the first words out of his mouth were, “Just getting ready to call you.”

“Yeah, sorry,” Amari said. “Took longer than we thought.” She filled him in on the booby-trapped control box, then gave him the details about the crime scene.

Womack asked, “You say he signed the note Don Juan?”

Her boss’s voice had a funny edge.

“Yeah,” Amari said, brow furrowing. “Why, does that mean something to you?”

“Hell, Anna, that’s the reason I was getting ready to call you.”

“What is?”

“Don Juan.”

“Really.”

“Really. Anna — before you come in, stop by UBC.”

“What, the TV network?”

“Yeah. They received some sort of video communication from somebody calling himself ‘Don Juan’ just this morning.”

“Hell. Okay. Who do I ask for?”

“J.C. Harrow.”

“Aw shit,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Frickin’ Crime Seen’s got this? So we can’t even grab a breath before this goes straight to media circus?”

Womack paused, then: “You don’t know Harrow, do you, Anna?”

“No, but I saw the show once,” she said, not wanting to confess she watched it every Friday night.

“Well, I’ve met the guy,” Womack said. “He’s former law enforcement, as you must know. A straight shooter, Anna. He’ll work with us. I think you can probably trust him.”

There was a ringing endorsement.

“All right, Cap,” she said with a sigh.

She rang off and told Polk about the call.

“J.C. Harrow’s a damn TV star,” Polk said. “What makes the cap think he’s going to play ball?”

Amari shrugged and put the car in gear. “Ours is not to reason why, LeRon. Ours is but to—”

“I know the rest of it,” Polk said.

Laurene Chase and the rest of the Killer TV team group took the chairs provided in a loose semicircle around Byrnes’s desk, where the network president already sat. Harrow and a massive, bald, well-dressed African American were at Byrnes’s shoulders, like bodyguards.

To nobody’s surprise, Harrow took charge.

“Meet Lucian Richards Jr.,” he said, “from UBC legal.”

“Sorry to take you away from your lunch break,” Richards said, in a God Almighty voice. “You’ll soon understand why.”

The team traded wary looks.

The attorney’s navy-blue three-piece suit draped smartly, for so large a man, and Chase figured his gold Vacheron Constantin Patrimony watch retailed in the neighborhood of twenty grand.

Harrow swung the laptop on Byrnes’s desk to-ward the group, merely saying what they were about to see had come in on the tip line.

Chase watched until it turned gruesome, then turned her attention to the team. She saw them all, from stoic Harrow to boisterous Choi, set their jaws firmly when Don Juan’s metallic voice cut through the speakers.

Carmen was looking away — she had seen it enough times already.

When the homicidal home movie ended, Michael Pall spoke. “Lot of fake snuff flicks out there. This one looks real.”

His voice uncharacteristically soft, Choi said, “Those weren’t special effects.”

Jenny, with no more expression than a bisque baby, said, “Nothing digital there.”

Someday, kiddo, Chase thought, all of that stuff you push down is going to come roiling up.

Carmen said, “I was going through the overnight stuff and ran across the damn thing.”

Harrow said, “We’ll get Jenny right on tracing it, after this meeting.”

“Done deal,” Jenny said.

With a nod toward the laptop, Harrow said, “Does anyone doubt we’ve witnessed the birth of a serial killer?”

Pall, the profiling expert, said, “Not necessarily his debut. More a coming-out party.”

“A serial killer we spawned,” Byrnes said, face as gray as clay.

A rich baritone rumbled in like thunder.

“There are those,” the attorney said, “who may think the network itself is behind this, to boost ratings and ad revenue.”

“Ratings?” Anderson said. “ Revenue? Why would anyone think that? You’ve already heard us say this is no fake.”

Richards said, “How many shoulders would you have to tap, down on the street, before you found somebody who thinks the moon landings were staged? And somebody else who thinks the president was born in Kenya?”

Harrow said, “All due respect, Mr. Richards, I don’t think our audience is that cynical. They know we’re sincere about what we do on Crime Seen.”

“J.C.’s right,” Carmen said. “No significant number of viewers will think that we elaborately faked this video, much less set a serial killer loose to goose ratings.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time a show created ‘killer’ ratings,” Richards said. “A Brazilian TV host, one Wallace Souza, was indicted for hiring hit men to provide him material to cover on his reality show.”

“No,” Choi said, eyes wide.

“Yes,” Richards said, calm as a funeral director.

Chase, anger spiking her voice, said, “Are you suggesting we copied this Brazilian dipstick’s MO? What sort of absurd—”

“I’m not suggesting anything, Ms. Chase,” Richards cut in. “I am here to advise Mr. Byrnes, and yourselves, of the legal ramifications of this unfortunate situation. And to provide you with some... call it, informed kibitzing.”

Choi said to the attorney, “If we do come under fire, or suspicion, or whatever... are you going to represent us?”

But Carmen answered for him, “No. His job is to protect UBC.”

“And how do you propose to do that?” Choi asked Richards.

This time Pall answered for the attorney: “Yank our show off the air and sweep that video under the rug. Out of sight, out of mind.”

“No, they won’t do that,” Choi said, cockiness returning. “We make them too much money.”

Carmen said, “We could also cost them a lot of money.”

“I agree,” Pall said. “We have apparently inspired one of our viewers to ‘try out’ to be our next ‘guest’ villain. Even if legal payback proves impractical for the parents of the victim, the attacks on us and UBC from the media would be as merciless as what that maniac did to that poor girl.”