Nothing made it stop. Nothing. Narcotics and marijuana dulled the pain, but it was with him even in hissleep.
He drew a breath, reached into his pocket for an Oxy, popped it into his mouth, and chewed. When this kicked in, he’d have to rethink his plans. Maybe there was still a way to make her seem guilty. Or maybe that didn’tmatter.
In the end, the Iron Maiden would die just like the others, and he would be free to end his pain once and for all with a bullet to thebrain.
* * *
Joaquin lethimself into the newspaper and took the elevator up to the newsroom on the third floor. Most of the desks were empty, the newsroom quiet, the editor’s office dark, its door shut. But, hey, there was stillcoffee.
Over at the news desk, Cate was talking with Syd Wilson, the managing editor, bringing her up to speed on the possible homicide. “As of two minutes ago, they hadn’t found a body, so we can’t say it’s ahomicide.”
“It sounds like we can’t say much of anything forcertain.”
Cate defended her story, eager as all new reporters were to get her byline on the front page. “Idohave the interview with the neighbor. He told police he saw bullet holes in the guy’s shower, but DPDs public information person won’t confirmthat.”
“Do you think you can fill teninches?”
“Absolutely.”
Syd shouted to Joaquin from across the room. “Ramirez, did you get anything that could run on the frontpage?”
Joaquin studied the images on his screen, his gaze falling on Mia Starr, the distress on her face giving the photograph emotional weight. “You bet. I’ll have them to you in a fewminutes.”
He worked his way through the assignments, picking a shot from the protest, then one each from the fire and the hit-and-run accident. They probably wouldn’t have room for all of them, but that was life as a photojournalist. The vast majority of the photos he took were neverpublished.
He wrote a cutline for each image and saved the files on the news server. “You’ve got it,Syd.”
She nodded without glancing up from her computerscreen.
Cate hurried over to Syd’s desk and bent down, clearly eager to see what he’d shot for her story. “That’s fantastic. That woman is a person of interest in thecase.”
“She didn’t do it.” The words were out before Joaquin realized he’dspoken.
Both Cate and Syd looked up from thescreen.
“What makes you say that?” Cateasked.
“She walked up when I was shooting, blocked my view, and started asking questions. She was torn up about what had happened, reallyworried.”
Syd laughed. “Maybe she’s worried they’ll catchher.”
Joaquin shook his head. “Nah, man, I don’t think so. If she’d killed the guy herself, she would have stayed in the shadows somewhere, kept out of sight, not stepped in front of mycamera.”
“But she is a person of interest, correct?” Sydasked.
Cate nodded. “I heard Detective Wu say she might be the last person to have seen Andrew Meyer before hedisappeared.”
“Make sure you mention her in your story and include the fact that she’s a person of interest in the investigation. Let’s run the story and photo on the frontpage.”
Well, this would make Ms. Starr love the media that muchmore.
Shit.
Not sure why it bothered him—they were only publishing facts—Joaquin shut down his computer, slipped into his parka, and grabbed his camera bag. He was about to head out when he remembered. “Hey, Syd, Chris is covering for me tomorrownight.”
“You got a hotdate?”
Didn’t Joaquin justwish?