Rick Mofina - Every Second

Is she just another whack job?

Kate searched databases Newslead subscribed to and requested their news library, one of the best in the business, to help search for anything on a California police officer named Lori Fulton. She went back ten years to ensure everything was covered, but nothing had surfaced. Not one iota of information identifying Lori Fulton as a cop in California.

It made Kate skeptical of the woman’s information. It was clear she’d held a grudge against Lori, steeping her account in bitterness. But she seemed certain Fulton had been a cop, and the internal notice by Dixon Donlevy hinted at it. The notice was brief, announcing that Lori Fulton would be the senior investigator of fraudulent claims in the Queens region; that she’d graduated from California State University with a degree in criminology and had many years of investigative experience. There were no details, no elaboration. When Kate called, Cal State couldn’t confirm that Lori Fulton had ever attended.

Kate bit her lip to think, then picked up her phone again and dialed a number in Los Angeles belonging to a guy she’d dated a few times.

“ LA Times , Benjamin Keller.”

“Hi, Ben. Kate Page in New York.”

“Kate! Hey, superstar, how’s things in the Apple?”

“All good, and you?”

“Oh, you know, taking it day by day. What’s up?”

“I need a little confidential help, Ben. It’s urgent.”

“If I can help you, I will. I owe you a few favors. Shoot.”

“I need you to check with your sources on the name Lori Fulton. She was supposed to have been a cop in California when something went wrong and caused her to leave the force.”

“What force?”

“That’s what I need to know.”

“How far back?”

“Say five to ten years.” Kate gave him the spelling of Lori’s name and her age.

“Sure, I can check this out pretty quickly. But promise you won’t kill me with a story in my backyard, Kate. You have to share anything relevant for LA Times , all right?”

“Promise.”

Kate hung up, took a breath, then called a number for San Francisco.

“Betty Yang, Chronicle .”

“Hi, Betty. It’s Kate in New York.”

“Oh, my God, Kate! Great to hear from you. How are you?”

“I’m doing fine. It’s been a while, though! How are things with you?”

“Mike and I just got a house in Daly City-he says I’m nesting. And I’m sending my love to your sister. My God, Kate, that was a hell of a thing. How’s Vanessa doing?”

“Good, she’s doing real good.”

“And Grace?”

“She loves New York.”

“Thanks for sending me the pictures. She’s so pretty, just like her mom. So, what’s going on?”

Kate, as she’d done with Ben in LA, asked Betty to help her look into Lori Fulton’s supposed police background, and Betty agreed to check with her Bay Area police sources.

Then Kate glanced at the time and went to the restroom to check her face in preparation for the press conference. Her calls to Ben and Betty pulled her back to when they’d all worked at the San Francisco Star .

It was the best of times and the worst of times.

Kate had still been something of a wide-eyed rookie on the crime desk when, after a short fling with Ben, she’d met another guy-a fantastic guy. He was a cop. He was caring, charming and oh-so-easy on the eyes. She’d fallen hard for him, and after a few months of an intense, wildly physical relationship, Kate had become pregnant. She’d gone through a maelstrom of emotions at the news, but eventually decided to tell him about the baby.

That’s when she’d learned that he’d been lying about being divorced. That he was still married, and that he had two little boys she’d had no idea about. He’d admitted that his marriage had gone through a rocky stage, but that he wasn’t going to leave his wife. He’d blamed the pregnancy on Kate, offered to pay for an abortion, and, when she’d refused, he wrote her off completely.

They never spoke again.

Kate had been determined to keep her baby. She’d left San Francisco and gotten a job with the Repository in Canton, Ohio, where she’d had Grace at age twenty-three and decided to raise her on her own.

We survived.

For an instant, Kate thought of calling him to ask for help tracking down her lead on Lori Fulton.

An icy shiver coiled up her spine.

No. No way. I’ve never needed him for anything, and I won’t start now.

Back at her desk Kate checked all the other news outlets for their latest on the Fulton story. Nobody had an edge. The New York Times noted and credited Newslead as reporting the amount stolen by Dan Fulton was a quarter million dollars. Kate smiled when she came upon a clarification issued by Signal Point Newswire, noting that it had erroneously reported the amount taken in the heist and would update the correct figure when it was available.

Kate’s phone chimed with a text from Betty Yang at the San Francisco Chronicle . Checked Sacramento + Bay Area sources. Nothing on LF as a Calif cop-still checking.

Kate exhaled. Her tip was fizzling, as suspected. She’d have to look for another angle. Maybe something would come out of the press conference. Or she could pump Varner afterward, she thought, collecting her bag to leave just as her desk phone rang.

“Kate Page, Newslead.”

“Hey, it’s Ben. So far zip on any cop named Lori Fulton. Checked with LAPD, LA County, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, but I’m still looking.”

Kate was disappointed but not surprised. “Thanks, Ben.”

“I checked with the associations and had our researchers go through municipal employee lists. Nothing there, either.”

“That’s what I thought you’d say.”

“Well, we did find something with Santa Ana PD that might be relevant. However, it’s about a Lori Wallace, not Fulton. But the situation seems to fit what you described, and the date falls in the right time frame. Check it out-just emailed you the first clip from our Orange County edition.”

Kate opened the file and read the headline: Police Officer and Suspect Killed in Shoot-out.

Somewhere in New York State

Lori and Billy watched the van door roll open.

Two men with military assault rifles stood before them.

Cutty and Thorne.

Both were still in coveralls, but they’d removed their masks, revealing two white men in their early twenties. Thorne had tousled hair, large eyes and a stubbled chin; Cutty, the big one, had a shaved head, a beard and a scar high on his left cheek.

She didn’t recognize either of the men, but a new realization dawned on her as she looked at them, fear twisting deep in the pit of her stomach.

They can’t let us live if we can identify them!

“Get out!” Cutty said.

Lori blinked as she adjusted to the sunlight after hours in the dark van.

They were somewhere in the mountains, atop a ridge overlooking vast sweeping forests stretching to the horizon in every direction. The air had cooled, now carrying the sweet scent of spruce and red cedar, woods so dense they looked impassable.

Where’s Dan? Have they brought him here?

Not another vehicle or person in sight.

“Get moving!”

The ridge was crowned with a natural path of twigs and leaves that meandered for some forty to fifty yards up a gentle rise to a cabin. Cutty and Thorne walked behind them, unconcerned that they’d removed the tape from their mouths and wrists. Only the plastic handcuffs bound their hands in front of them. The small red lights on the battery packs of their suicide vests continued blinking.