Free Don't Look Away (Veronica Sloan) by Leslie A. Kelly Page A

room, not sparing a look at any of them.
    Daniels scratched something on his hand-held. “Think he doth protest too much?”
    Yes, he did. Either Mr. Williams was one great, understanding and sentimental boss. Or he had a personal connection with his secretary.
    Either way, when she finally began to dig through Leanne Carr’s visual memories, Ronnie was going to find out.
     
     

Chapter 5
     
     
    Taking the head had been a mistake. A definite misfire.
    Foolish .
    It had seemed such a smart idea during the planning stages of this whole thing. And those planning stages had been so thorough, precisely timed, ingeniously designed. The location—perfect. The scheduling—impeccable. The brutality—well, disturbing. But necessary.
    Everything was supposed to point to one of two things: a vicious psychopath, or a terrorist. Someone mad with rage and mental disease who had brutalized a victim as so many killers had done throughout history. Or a ruthless, driven fanatic committing the ultimate crime in order to “show” America that no matter how complacent they became, how confident they were in their security, no one was safe. No one immune. Even the president of the United States, just a few hundred yards away, could be gotten to.
    Apparently the message hadn’t been clear enough.
    How could the authorities be so damned tunnel-visioned? The dismemberment should have been something a blind person could see. The viciousness should have indicated insanity. A headless victim should have instantly brought to mind the public executions of kidnapped foreigners in acts dating back more than a decade.
    This was supposed to look like a terrorist act or, at the very least, the work of an angry, deranged, disgruntled person who’d wanted to make a brutal statement about his hatred of America.
    But it sounded as though law enforcement, in their infinite wisdom, had focused on the one thing he’d hoped they wouldn’t even be seriously considering yet: that the killer had known about the O.E.P. device. And therefore known the victim.
    “Damn.”
    Leaving it would have been the wise course of action. Better to have let them find the thing and try to make something of it. They would not have succeeded. Having been so careful, so patient, so methodical…no, the authorities would have found nothing they could use to figure out who had been responsible for what had happened in the basement of the White House on Independence Day.
    If there had been something, better to have taken the chance of a random, miniscule bit of information being discovered on the chip than to have the entire investigation focused on the stupid, cursed device implanted in Leanne Carr’s brain. And on who might have known about it. He’d wanted to cast a wide net of suspicion. Instead, that net might have landed on a much smaller school of fish—those who knew about the O.E.P. So their suspect pool would be greatly minimized…and he would be on it.
    The situation wasn’t completely unsalvageable, however. Not at all. There could be a way to fix this, to redirect attention to its proper place. The authorities could be directed back toward random terrorism and violence if they believed the chip hadn’t been intentionally taken. That should move the focus away from a personal connection between victim and predator.
    Away from the truth .
    Leanne’s pretty head would simply have to be found.
    -#-
    Though a lot of things had changed since Ronnie had joined the D.C.P.D. nearly a decade ago, some things about police work remained the same. Witness interviews were one of them. Sure, the ultimate witness would be Leanne Carr—when the O.E.P. device was found. But in the meantime, there were, oh, about fifty-five thousand people who could have seen something important yesterday.
    Needle, meet haystack.
    She and Daniels were tasked with winnowing down the list and heading up that part of the investigation…probably so they’d get out of Kilgore’s hair and he