Crush - Alan Jacobson [119]
He bit his bottom lip and spoke with it sandwiched between his teeth. “Okay.”
Vail leaned forward and held his gaze. “Remember we talked about Victoria’s stroke? Well, Isaac also had a stroke.”
Wirth’s mouth fell open. “Are you saying—”
“I’m saying he had a stroke,” Vail said. “Now, given that information, I want to reiterate that we have no direct information indicating you’re in danger . . . of also having one. Having said that, of the three people who opposed Superior’s contract renewal, two are now dead. Be aware of your surroundings. Be careful. If something doesn’t seem right, you call us. Okay?”
Wirth nodded without saying a word.
“Can we get him a uni to keep an eye on him?” Vail asked.
“I’ll have to ask. I don’t know if the sheriff will go for that.”
“I have private security,” Wirth said. “For the winery. Retired Secret Service. I’ll take care of it.”
Dixon called over to a deputy who was standing across the room at the coffee maker. “Greg, can you escort Mr. Wirth out?”
“Hang on to my number,” Dixon said. “Remember, call if you need anything. Anything.”
Wirth nodded uncertainly, then walked out with Greg.
“You’re worried about the guy,” Dixon said.
“His colleagues have been brutally murdered. And no one knows. The rest of them don’t even know to be careful, that someone might be targeting them. I think we may need to get them all together and level with them.”
“If we do, it’ll be all over the news. If we’re going to do that, let me find a way of using it to our advantage . . . as a way to catch this jerkoff.”
Vail watched as Wirth disappeared into the stairwell. “You’d better think of something fast.”
FORTY-FOUR
Before joining the others, Dixon got Marc Benezra’s phone number and explained to his assistant that they needed to meet with him today. The woman fit them into the attorney’s schedule for ten o’clock, one hour from now.
“We’re all set,” Dixon said.
Vail, a dozen feet down the hall, was tapping out a note to Jonathan. “Excellent. Can you tell Brix I’ll be right in? I’ve just gotta finish this email.”
“Roxxi, you got a minute?” It was Eddie Agbayani, coming down the hall.
Dixon turned. “What’s up?”
Agbayani stopped in front of her and shoved his hands in his rear pockets. He looked down at his feet.
Vail sensed the awkward tension and glanced up from her email.
“When this is over,” Agbayani said, “when we catch this guy, maybe we could have dinner. Talk. Just the two of us.”
Roxxann rubbed at her brow. “I don’t know, Eddie. Yes. Maybe . . .” She shook her head. “Let me think about it, okay?”
“Is that where we’re at? You have to think about whether we can sit down and talk?”
“Eddie, I can’t do this. Not now. Let me—yes. I’m sorry. You’re right, we should talk. As soon as we get some time, let’s have dinner.”
Vail shoved her BlackBerry in its holster, then pushed through the conference room door. The rest of the task force was there—Mann, Gordon, Lugo, and Brix. And a woman they hadn’t yet met; presumably, she was the person they were there to see.
A moment later, Dixon and Agbayani entered and took their seats.
Brix stood at the front of the room by the whiteboard. Their assignments were still laid out in colors. A few had lines through them, while others were encircled because they were still pending resolution. Unfortunately, there were more circles than lines.
In the fluorescent lighting, Brix’s sun-weathered, deeply lined face looked ashen. He resembled a man who was carrying the weight of several deaths on his shoulders—the unsolved murder of his boss’s son and the pressure of going public with the Crush Killer versus the impact of keeping it under wraps. And time was running out before the decision might be made for him. Once that happened, his stress would increase several fold as the media descended on him.
Vail felt the same pressure. Billed as the expert in solving this case—the serial killer tracker, the famed profiler who has helped break the most heinous of crimes—she was impotent to provide useful, hard information that would lead to the apprehension of this