This was starting to feel like the first good day of my investigation. A very good day.

Once I’d deciphered everything I had so far, I called a good friend at the phone company, Esperanza Cruz. I knew that the reverse directories we used at work were only good for listed numbers. It took Esperanza maybe fifteen seconds to find the first listing.

“Okay, now you’ve got me curious,” she said. “This one is for Ryan Willoughby, unlisted. What’s he done? Other than being a walking, talking stiff.”

I was surprised but not shocked. Ryan Willoughby was the six o’clock anchor for a network TV affiliate here in the Washington area.

“Esperanza, if you and I were actually having this conversation, I could tell you, but given as how we never spoke today—”

“Yeah, yeah, story of my life, Alex. What’s the next number?”

In a few minutes, I had a list of fifteen names. Six of them were familiar to me, including a sitting congressman, a professional football player, and the CEO of a high-profile energy-consulting firm in town. This thing was starting to bubble over, and not in a good way. When I thought about how these men knew Caroline, it made me sick, physically ill.

My next call was to Bree. She recognized two more of the names. One was a partner at Brainard & Truss, a political PR firm on the Hill; and it turned out that Randy Varrick, who was the mayor’s press secretary, was a woman.

“Things are about to get real nasty around here,” Bree said. “These are high-resource people, and I’m afraid they’re going to push back hard.”

“Let them push,” I said. “We’ll be ready for them. In fact, I’m going to make my first call right now. In person.”

Chapter 18

HIGH-RESOURCE PEOPLE, and apparently a lot of them were involved. What was this about, and how had it led to the death of Caroline Cross? Where else would it lead?

It took me less than fifteen minutes to get from the Daly Building on Indiana up to Channel Nine’s offices on Wisconsin. By the time I got there, I hadn’t cooled down one bit. My badge got me past the guard in the lobby, then up to a receptionist on the third floor. A big number 9 hung on the wall behind her, along with poster-sized head shots of their news team.

I showed my badge and pointed at the wall. “I’m looking for him.”

She pushed a button without taking her eyes off me. “Judy? I’ve got a police officer out here for Ryan?”

She covered the receiver and spoke to me. “What is this regarding?”

“Tell him I’ll be happy to share that information with anyone who wants to listen if he and I aren’t face-to-face in the next two minutes.”

About ninety seconds later, I was ushered past reception, past the news studio entrance, and into a hall of windowed offices someplace in the back. Ryan Willoughby was waiting for me, looking like his tie was a little too tight. I’d seen him dozens of times delivering the news, but now all that polished blond congeniality of his was nowhere in sight.