Double Cross

You still there?” Brian Kitzmiller asked over the phone.
    “Yeah. I’m here. Just having a depressed-cop moment. That was pretty neat, all right.”
    “You okay? Other than the obvious?”
    She focused on her hands, which were shaking only a little bit. “Yeah, Kitz. Thanks for asking. It’s creepy, but it makes sense to me. He’s probably a total junkie for his own coverage. Of course he knows who I am. And of course he knows about Alex. He’s watching us, Kitz.”
    “In one way, that’s good news, isn’t it? We wanted to make sure we were in the same communication stream as the killer. I think we’re there.”
    “Ya think?” Bree’s mind was racing with all kinds of questions. “When was this posted?”
    “Eleven twenty last night. It’s already burning up the chat rooms. It’s everywhere, and I mean everywhere.”
    “That might explain
these
calls.” She picked up the stack of pink message slips already in her in-box. The top one was from Channel Seven news. “Listen, I need a name to work with. Something solid. Whose site is this?”
    “Still working on that. I’ve got an IP address, and I’m checking all the major registries. With any luck, I’ll have a name for you soon. Operative word—
luck
.”
    “I hear you. Soon is good, though. Thanks, Kitz. We need you on this one.”
    “Yeah, I agree. You definitely do. I wonder who he ‘models’ himself after? You got any ideas?”
    “No, but I bet Alex will.”
    Bree hung up, then tried Alex and Sampson. She reached voice mail for both of them and left the same message: “Hey, it’s me. Something just came up. Another posted message from our Audience Killer, now signing off with the shortened form ‘DCAK.’ I’m moving on it as soon as I have an address. I hope one of you will get this before then, but I’m lining up a backup unit in the meantime. Call me ASAP.”
    Bree knew she’d work better with her partners than with a couple of uniformed cops, but the second she had a name and address, it would be
go time
.
    DCAK wanted to know her better—well, he just might get his wish soon.

Chapter 51

    I SAW THE LIGHT on my phone flashing, but I didn’t answer calls during therapy sessions. So I let it go for the moment, and then I worried about it.
    “Who was that I saw on my way in here?” Anthony Demao was asking. I had to juggle my clients’ schedules around some to accommodate my new lifestyle. “Another cuckoo clock like me?”
    I smiled at Anthony’s usual irreverence. “Neither of you is cuckoo. Well, maybe a little.”
    “Well, she may be crazy, a
little
crazy, but she sure is good-looking. She gave me a smile. I
think
it was a smile. She’s shy, right? I can tell.”
    He was talking about Sandy Quinlan, my schoolteacher patient. Sandy was attractive, a good lady, maybe a little cuckoo, but who wasn’t these days?
    I changed the subject. Anthony certainly wasn’t here to talk about my other patients. “Last time, you started to tell me about your army unit’s push toward Basra,” I said. “Can we talk about that today?”
    “Sure.” He shrugged. “That’s what I’m here for, right? You fix cuckoo clocks.”
    After Anthony Demao left, I checked my voice mail.
Bree
. I caught up with her on her cell.
    “Good timing,” she said. “I’m in the car with Sampson. We’ll come get you. Guess what? It looks like you were right again. Must get boring.”
    “What was I right about?”
    “Copycat. On the G.W. Parkway with those kids. That’s what DCAK says, anyway. Says he did FedExField but not the two murders on the overpass.”
    “Well, he would probably know.”
    I met Bree and Sampson on Seventh Street and climbed into the back of her Highlander. “Where are we going?” I asked as she pulled out in a hurry.
    Bree explained as she drove, but I had to interrupt her halfway through. “Hold on, Bree. He used your name? He knows about you too? What are we doing with that?”
    “Nothing, for now,” she said. “I’m feeling pretty
special
, though. How ’bout you? You feeling honored?”
    Sampson shrugged at me in a way that said he’d already had the same conversation with her and obviously with the same result. Bree showed no fears, at least I’d never seen any.
    “By the way,” Bree said, “he claims he models himself after people. Any ideas on that?”
    “Kyle Craig,” I said. It just came out. “Let me think about it some.”
    Kitzmiller had provided Bree with the name Braden Thompson, a