Free The Survivors Club by Lisa Gardner Page A

stared at her. He’d gotten good at this stare over the last year. Sometimes, especially in the first few months after the Big Boom, he’d find himself standing in front of a mirror just staring like this. Like he was trying to look into his own eyes and get some sense of the man living there.
    “I want the tape,” he repeated. “It’s evidence. And anything you do to it, including developing it or copying it, would be considered tampering with evidence. We got sixty state detectives crawling all over this one city block, Maureen, not to mention well over a hundred uniforms. Do you really think the attorney general is going to take kindly to hearing how some local reporter tampered with a potentially critical piece of evidence?”
    Maureen gnawed her lower lip, looked a great deal less certain. “I want a deal,” she said abruptly.
    “Why, Maureen, are you confessing to a crime?”
    “We cooperate, hand over the tape—”
    “You mean we seize it.”
    “We
hand
it over. In return for some kind of consideration. An exclusive interview with the colonel.”
    Griffin laughed.
    “The major,” she amended.
    Griffin laughed harder.
    “The detective commander. Come on, Griffin. This is
exclusive
footage you’re taking from me. Best damn visual of my career. We deserve at least an interview. Plus, exclusive rights to the copy of the tape. No releasing it to the general population. If they didn’t look up, it’s their own fucking problem.”
    “Your compassion touches me.”
    “Yeah, yeah, yeah. What do you say? Five minutes with the detective commander, exclusive tape rights.”
    “Thirty seconds, primary case officer, exclusive tape rights.”
    “Three minutes.”
    “One, with approval in advance of the questions. Otherwise, you’re only going to get no comment.”
    Maureen scowled. She shot him a sideways glance. “Are you going to be the lead investigator, Griffin?”
    “A lead investigator will be assigned when a lead investigator is assigned.”
    “Because that would be a good story, you know. Rhode Island’s golden boy returning to the war. A lot of people didn’t think you’d come back after the Candy Man case. A lot of people weren’t sure you’d have the interest, and others weren’t sure you’d have the guts. Do you love the job that much, Griffin, or is it one of those things that simply gets under the skin?” She changed tactics. “I understand that he still sends you letters.”
    “One minute with the primary case officer. Yes or no, Maureen. The deal is off the table in five, four, three, two—”
    “Okay,” she said hastily. “Okay. One minute with the primary case officer. We’ll take it.” She sighed, devoted another moment to looking forlorn as she saw her dream of a lead five o’clock news piece go up in smoke, then got over it. “That’ll teach us not to shoot live,” she muttered. “Well, you might as well come inside. You’re going to want to see this.”
    In the back of the van, Jimmy had his huge camera hooked up to an external monitor. He and Maureen hadn’t developed the tape yet, but had been running it over and over again, looking for the best cut. Now Jimmy hit play one last time. The visual lasted seventy-five seconds, and it showed everything. Absolutely everything.
    “How the hell did you get this?” Griffin demanded immediately, angrily. He took two steps forward before Waters could stop him, and had Maureen pressed against the control panel running along the side of the van. “Are you toying with us?”
    “No, no, I swear—”
    “Did you get an anonymous tip? A Deep Throat telling you something big was going down, but you just didn’t feel like sharing it with us?”
    “Griffin, Griffin, you have it all wrong—”
    “You never taped the ACI van! That entire footage is of the
rooftop
! There are eleven other news teams out on that lawn, Maureen. All of them were looking at the van, all of them were shooting the van. So why were you looking up?