Heart of a Killer by David Rosenfelt Read Free Book Online Page A

publicly at this moment. This is a very serious matter; a young girl’s life is at stake. Just because the Corrections Department decided she is not entitled to privacy and compassion does not mean we should stoop to that level.”
    I didn’t mind taking a shot at the Corrections authorities. It was by then completely obvious that they were never going to relent; if we were going to prevail it would be in the courts. And it was just as obvious that this would be as much a public relations war as anything else, with the PR ball now obviously in our court.
    The other reason I attacked them was because I was pissed, and I wasn’t going to just sit back and take what they dished out. The desire to fight, and to win, was a feeling I hadn’t experienced since maybe never.
    It was a feeling I liked, except for the nauseous part.

 
    Ray Hennessey got the call the way he always got the call. His phone rang with a number that began with the area code 406. Hennessey had once checked and learned it was a Missoula, Montana, number. He had even called it once, from a pay phone, but the recording said it was out of service.
    He knew the drill; once the phone rang from that number, he was to turn on his laptop computer forty-five minutes later. He did so, and five minutes after that the familiar voice came through the speakers. It was a normal voice, a little tinny from the speakers, and it spoke with a fairly dull monotone. This would be the primary way that they would communicate, though Hennessey did have a number to call, albeit through a circuitous route, that could put him in touch with the contact.
    Hennessey had never met the person speaking to him, though they had talked at least fifty times. More significantly, that person had paid Hennessey more than five million dollars in the past seven years, with the promise of more to come.
    Much more.
    Hennessey had given up an earlier desire to know more about the caller, and where he was calling from. This time, as always, there was no background noise at all, as if the caller were in a sealed, silent room.
    He had no way of knowing that there were two men besides the caller in the room. Their names were Daniel Churchill and Peter Lampley, and they had quite a bit in common. Both were in their late twenties, and were workaholics. At that moment, as always, they sat at their desks, staring at their elaborate, state-of-the-art computer systems. Neither had girlfriends, other interests, or anything resembling a life away from their work; there would be plenty of time for that later.
    The other thing that Churchill and Lampley had in common was that they were both dead by the time they were ten years old.
    The man who conducted this and all conversations with Hennessey was Nolan Murray. He was considerably older than his handpicked colleagues, but he referred to them as his “partners.” He was in actually their leader, and their boss.
    Murray and Churchill knew each other first, and developed what had become their incredibly profitable “business” together. It took a while to find a third person who could meet their strict requirements to join their club, but Churchill finally found him in Lampley. Once they added Hennessey for the “hands-on” work, their workforce was complete.
    And once Murray worked his way into the Limerick nuclear plant, they knew that their business was going to expand rather dramatically.
    “Hello, Mr. Hennessey. I received your report on Sheryl Harrison,” Murray said. He spoke through a voice synthesizer, so the sound that Hennessey would hear bore little resemblance to his real voice.
    “Obviously things have since changed,” Hennessey said, referring to the media outburst that had just occurred.
    “Obviously. The situation has gone from slightly worrisome to decidedly unsatisfactory.”
    “I’m working on finding out more information,” Hennessey said. “Not just what’s in the papers.” He said this without conviction, since he really had