The Survivors Club by Lisa Gardner Read Free Book Online Page A

unloading—”
    “Boom!”
    “Ka-boom!” George amended.
    “Definitely a high-powered rifle. Nice sharp crack. I honestly thought for a second that someone was shooting deer.”
    “Then I saw red. Literally. Stuff sprayed everywhere.”
    “Kid dropped straight down. Dead before he hit the ground. You hear about this stuff, but I’ve never seen anything like it.”
    “I yelled ‘gun.’ ”
    “He did. Jerry yelled ‘gun,’ we all dropped into a crouch. You know, with the sun coming up behind the roof like that, you just can’t see a damn thing. Scariest goddamn moment of my life.”
    “I thought I saw movement. Maybe somebody running. That’s it, though.”
    “Then we could hear all the reporters yelling across the street. ‘On the roof,’ they were shouting. ‘There he goes, there he goes.’ ”
    “Distinguishing features?” Waters prodded. “Height, weight?”
    “Couldn’t even make out if it was a man or woman,” Jerry said bluntly. “I’m telling you, it was more like catching the flash of a silhouette. Moved fast though. Definitely one well-conditioned sniper.”
    Waters gave the marshal a look. “‘One well-conditioned sniper,’ huh? Well, let me run straight to my lieutenant with that. I mean, by God, Jerry, let’s get out the APB.”
    The three marshals squirmed. “Sorry, guys,” Jerry finally said with a shrug, “but from here . . . Look up yourself. You can’t see a damn thing.”
    “Try the reporters, though,” George spoke up. “They had a much better vantage point. Hey, they might have even gotten the guy on film.”
    The three marshals, not above getting a little revenge after they’d been put in the hot seat, smiled at them. While they’d been talking, the roar from the reporters had grown even louder outside the courthouse. Now they sounded kind of like King Kong—right before he burst his chains.
    Waters sighed. Looked miserable. Then morosely hung his head. He hated the press. Last time he and Griffin had worked together, he’d let a statement slip within a reporter’s earshot and paid for that mistake for weeks. Besides, as he’d later confided to Griffin, his butt looked even bonier on camera. Two fine citizens had written letters to the editor requesting that somebody in the Rhode Island police department start feeding him.
    “Are you sure you didn’t see anything?” he prodded the state marshals one last time.
    The state marshals shook their heads, this time a bit gleefully. But then, Jerry, kind-hearted bastard that he was, took pity on him.
    “If you don’t want to mess with the press, you can always go straight to the women,” Jerry said.
    “The women?” Griffin spoke up.
    “Yeah, the three women Eddie attacked. Haven’t you seen them on the news?”
    “Oh, those women,” Griffin said, though in fact he hadn’t watched the news in months and knew very little about the College Hill rape case.
    “Let’s face it,” Jerry was saying. “If anyone has reason to turn Eddie into liver pâté, it’s the three ladies. My money’s on the last one, the business one, what’s her name? Jillian Hayes. Yeah, she’s a cool one, could kill a man with her eyes alone. Plus, after what Eddie did to her sister . . .”
    “No, no, no,” George interrupted. “The Hayes woman wasn’t even raped. You want to know who did it, it was the second one, Carol Rosen, the high-society wife from the East Side. My brother’s wife works in the ER at Women & Infants and she was there the night they brought in Mrs. Rosen. Man, the things Eddie had done to her. It’s a miracle she didn’t need plastic surgery to repair her face. Twenty to one, the shooter wore pearls.”
    “You’re both wrong,” Tom spoke up. “One, no way some woman made this shot. Like an ad executive or rich socialite is going to go climbing all over the courthouse roof with an assault rifle. Key to this shooting is the first victim. The pretty young coed, Pesaturo—”
    “Oh, leave the