“You have my word on it.” He said this sincerely, though he was reflecting that Patrizia would outlive her husband by no more than two seconds — a humane act, in the end. She wouldn’t want to go on without him. Besides, she was a witness.
As for the children, no, he wouldn’t kill them. For one thing they weren’t due home for nearly an hour and he’d be long gone by then. Also, he wanted the sympathy of the world. Killing the blogger and his wife was one thing. The children were something else.
Beneath the camera Schaeffer taped a piece of the paper containing the statement he’d written that morning. It was a moving piece — and had been drafted in a way to make sure that nobody would associate the crime with him.
Chilton cleared his throat and looked down. He began to read. “This is a statement—” His voice broke.
Beautiful! Schaeffer kept the camera running.
Chilton started over. “This is a statement to those who’ve been reading my blog, The Chilton Report, over the years. There is nothing more precious in the world than a man’s reputation and I have devoted my life to needlessly and randomly destroying the reputations of many fine, upstanding citizens.”
He was doing a good job.
“It’s easy to buy a cheap computer and a website and some blog software and in five minutes you’ve got a venue for your personal opinions — a venue that will be seen by millions of people around the world. This leads to an intoxicating sense of power. But it’s a power that isn’t earned. It’s a power that’s stolen.
“I’ve written many things about people that were merely rumors. Those rumors spread and they became accepted as the truth, even though they were total lies. Because of my blog the life of a young man, Travis Brigham, has been destroyed. He has nothing more to live for. And neither do I. He has sought justice against the people who attacked him, people who were my friends. And now he’s rendering justice against me. I’m ultimately responsible for destroying his life.”
Glorious tears were streaking down his face. Schaeffer was in purest heaven.
“I now accept responsibility for destroying Travis’s reputation and those of the others I’ve carelessly written about. The sentence that Travis now serves on me will stand as a warning to others: The truth is sacred. Rumors are not the truth… . Now, good-bye.”
He inhaled deeply and looked at his wife.
Schaeffer was satisfied. The man had done a good job. He paused the webcam and checked the screen. Only Chilton was in the image. The wife wasn’t. He didn’t want an image of her death, just the blogger’s. He pulled back a bit so the man’s entire torso was visible. He’d shoot him once, in the heart, and let him die on camera, then upload the post to a number of social networking sites and to other blogs. Schaeffer estimated it would take two minutes for the video to appear on YouTube and would be viewed by several million people before the company took it down. By then, though, the pirate software that allowed the downloading of streaming videos would have captured it and the footage would spread throughout the world like cancer cells.
“They’ll find you,” Chilton muttered. “The police.”
“But they won’t be looking for me. They’ll be looking for Travis Brigham. And, frankly, I don’t think anybody’s going to be looking very hard. You’ve got a lot of enemies, Chilton.”
He cocked the gun.
“No!” Patrizia Chilton wailed desperately, frantic. Schaeffer resisted a tempting impulse to shoot her first.
He kept the gun steady on his target and noted a resigned and, it seemed, ironic smile crossing James Chilton’s face.
Schaeffer hit the “Record” button on the camera again and began to pull the trigger.
When he heard, “Freeze!”
The voice was coming from the open office doorway. “Drop the weapon. Now!”
Jolted, Schaeffer glanced back, at a slim young Latino man in a white shirt, sleeves rolled up. Pointing a weapon his way. A badge on his hip.
No! How had they found him?
Schaeffer kept the gun steadily on the blogger’s chest and snapped to the cop, “You drop it!”
“Lower the weapon,” was the officer’s measured reply. “This is your only warning.”
Schaeffer growled, “If you shoot me, I’ll—”
He saw a yellow flash, sensed a tap to his head and then the universe went black.
Chapter 36
THE DEAD ROLLED, the living walked.
The body of Greg Ashton — it was really Greg Schaeffer, Dance had learned — was wheeled down the stairs and over the lawn on the rickety gurney to the coroner’s bus, while James and Patrizia Chilton walked slowly to an ambulance.
Another casualty, everyone was horrified to learn, was the MCSO deputy who’d been guarding the Chiltons, Miguel Herrera.
Schaeffer, as Ashton, had stopped at Herrera’s car. The guard had called Patrizia and been told that the man was expected. Then Schaeffer had apparently shoved the gun against Herrera’s jacket and fired twice, the proximity to the body muting the sound.
The deputy’s supervisor from the MCSO was present, along with a dozen other deputies, shaken, furious at the murder.
As for the walking wounded, the Chiltons didn’t seem too badly hurt.
Dance was, however, keeping an eye on Rey Carraneo — who’d been the first on the scene, spotted the dead deputy, and raced into the house after calling for backup. He’d seen Schaeffer about to shoot Chilton. Carraneo gave the killer a by-the-book warning, but when the man had tried to negotiate, the agent had simply fired two very efficient rounds into his head. Discussions with gun-toting suspects only occur in movies and TV shows — and bad ones, at that. Police never lower or set down their weapons. And they never hesitate to take out a target if one presents itself.
Rules number one, two and three are: shoot.
And he had. Superficially the young agent seemed fine, his body language unchanged from the professional, upright posture he wore like a rented tux. But his eyes told a different story, revealing the words looping through his mind at the moment: I just killed a man. I just killed a man.