The Suburban was parked halfway up the hill, on a side street near the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. Denny climbed in, fired up the computer, and got right to work.

Ten minutes later, he was back out of the car, with only one thing on his mind.

He walked around the block to a rickety wooden staircase that led down to the old canal, twenty-five feet below street level. The crushed-gravel towpath that ran alongside it was popular with joggers, but it didn’t take more than half a cigarette before he got a few moments’ privacy.

He leaned down and gently slipped the laptop into the brackish water, where it quickly sank to the bottom, probably never to be seen again. It was almost too easy.

Mission accomplished, Denny thought, and smiled to himself as he started back up the stairs to go find that wild man, Mitch.

Chapter 40

THE TRUE PRESS OFFICE was hectic this afternoon, but no more than any other deadline day. Final copy was due to the printers by seven, nothing was proofed yet, and the clock was running down.

Colleen Brophy scrubbed at her eyes, trying to focus on her lead article. She’d been editor for two years now and still loved the job, but the pressure was constant. If they didn’t get the paper out on time, eighty homeless vendors would have nothing to sell, and that’s when people started choosing between things like breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

So when Brent Forster, one of the college interns, interrupted her train of thought for the umpteenth time that day, it was everything Colleen could do not to bite his head off and eat it whole.

“Hey, Coll? You want to take a look at this? It’s real interesting. Coll?”

“Unless something’s on fire, just deal with it,” she snapped at College Boy.

“Then let’s say something’s on fire,” he said.

She had to swivel only halfway around to take a look over his shoulder — one of the very few advantages of working in a teeny-tiny office.

An e-mail was up on his screen. The sender was a [email protected], and the subject line was “Foxes in the Henhouse.”

“I don’t have time for spam, Brent. Not now, not ever. What is this?”

The young intern rolled his chair out of her way. “Just read it, Coll.”

Chapter 41