“Just what you want to do, eh? Check the Megan’s Law Web site every morning while you pour yourself a cup of tea.”
“Thank goodness there is a registry. Imagine how helpless past victims have felt.”
“Why not move closer to us, escape the memories and the threat? Now that she’s going back for her master’s, Brenna’s pretty wrapped up in her life at San Diego State, but she comes to visit probably once a month. And Dad’s close by.”
Distance from Sacramento was no escape, just the illusion of escape. “I don’t want to move, Jen.”
“Why not? There’s plenty of violent crime down here. This is L.A., remember? You could open up an expansion office.”
Skye liked living in the house where she’d grown up. Besides, Sheridan and Jasmine needed her. And, although she didn’t want to acknowledge it, even to herself, Detective Willis was here…. “Maybe someday.”
This answer was met with silence.
“Jennifer?”
“I don’t know what to say,” her stepsister admitted. “I’m scared, so I know you must be, too. Only I don’t want to tell you I’m scared in case I make this harder on you.”
Skye turned onto Greenback Lane. “I’ll be okay.”
“How will you be okay? What’ll you do if he comes after you again?”
“I’ll kill him.”
“I wish there’d been some hesitation before you said that. It gave me chills.”
It was pointless to try and explain the desperation that created such resolve. Skye decided it was better to get off the phone. “I’ve got to go.”
“Are you mad at me?”
“No, I have an appointment.”
“Will you call me later?”
Skye turned into the driveway that led to Noah’s office. His car wasn’t in the front lot, but she could see a truck—with an NSL Construction logo on the door—when she peered down the alley.
“Skye?” Jennifer prompted.
“Sure, in an hour or two,” she said, parking off to the side where she couldn’t immediately be spotted through the large window. It wouldn’t be a big deal if he did see her car. She was about to speak to him, in any case. But this way, he’d have less time to prepare.
David was pretty sure the journal Skye had dropped by the station was Burke’s, especially now that he could read it. Using letter statistics and letter positions, it had taken the cryptographer to whom David had copied and faxed just three pages less than two hours to break what turned out to be a basic transposition cipher. The notebook contained a list of initials that corresponded with various offenses, and many of the names and offenses had been crossed out. S.E. Rude at the office…T.L. Disrespectful in front of K.P… J.O. Unkind to wife… P.B. Discourteous again… S.W. Ignorant as always… L.B. Distrusting ass**le… T.M. Dishonest…
He’d notified Skye as soon as he learned it himself, but she hadn’t had time to talk. She’d been about to go into a meeting of some kind. So when his phone rang an hour later, he thought she might be calling him back.
Dragging himself out of his immersion in the notebook, he answered. “Detective Willis.”
“This is Miranda Dodge. You left me an e-mail about Oliver Burke.”
David scooted his chair closer to the desk. “Yes, thanks for calling, Ms. Dodge.”
“It’s Miranda. I’m sorry I couldn’t get back to you earlier. I help out at my daughter’s school every Thursday and just got home.”
“I understand.”
“What can I do to help? Has Oliver gotten himself in trouble again?”
David set aside the notebook. “I suspect he might be responsible for some pretty heinous crimes. What can you tell me about him?”
“Not a lot. We were never really friends.”
“When do you remember first becoming aware of him?”
“I guess when you look at it that way, we go back a few years,” she said with a little laugh. “My family moved to Sacramento while I was in fifth grade. He was in my class at Schweitzer Elementary.”
“Did you like him?”
“Not especially. But I felt sorry for him.”
“Why?”
“Everyone picked on him.”
Surprised, David tapped his desk with the eraser end of a pencil. Burke came from a supportive, middleclass home, he possessed a higher-than-average intelligence and he was generally considered good-looking. “What was there to tease him about?”
“He was small for his age and sort of uncoordinated. When we’d go out for recess or have P.E., the other boys would fight about which team had to take Oliver. Pretty soon, he quit trying to play with the boys and started hanging out with the girls. Except that didn’t work so well, either. They were the only ones who’d accept him, but he sometimes acted like he hated them for it. And, as he got older, some of the kids started accusing him of being g*y, refused to change in front of him in the locker room, that kind of stuff.”
“How did he react?”
“It enraged him. I mean, beyond what you might expect. At lunch, a boy yelled out that Oliver had tried to touch his butt and Oliver freaked out. It’s the only time I ever saw him fight.”
David nodded at another detective who called out a greeting as he passed by. “It actually came to blows?”
“Only that once, at least as far as I remember. It was in the eighth grade. Oliver definitely got the worst of it. But I saw his father when he came to the school that day. Here was this slender boy with a rather pretty face, covered in blood, yet Mr. Burke expressed absolutely no concern or alarm. He looked almost…triumphant, as if Oliver had finally done something he approved of.”
David wondered if Burke had started keeping lists way back then. “Did the taunts stop after that?”
“Unfortunately not. If anything, they grew worse. Until high school. By then, the kid he’d fought had died in a drowning accident, so he wasn’t around to harass him anymore. Besides, Oliver was no longer that small for his age, and he’d managed to find places where he could fit in. Debate team. Academic stuff like that. He was also old enough to pair off with a girl, and did so whenever he could, which stopped most of the slurs on his masculinity.”
“He seemed happier?”
“Definitely. Especially after he got a steady girlfriend who was older, a hairstylist or something. Then he walked around acting like he was the coolest guy on campus.”