TPG by Unknown

her that
false hope. So he said nothing.
    She looked down.
“I do appreciate you talking to him.”
    “He’s an
entertaining man,” Kyle said, feeling the need to say something.
    She took a deep
breath and smiled. “He most definitely is,” she said, then turned and made her
way down the corridor.
    After he closed
the door, Kyle slipped out his BlackBerry, having heard the ping of a few texts
during their conversation.
    Each one was from
Liam.
    “Look at your
email,” the first one read.
    “Did u look yet?”
read the next.
    The third one
said, “See it yet?”
    But it was the
last one that made his stomach turn.
    “I know who the
killer is.”

 
 
 
    CHAPTER FIFTEEN

 
 
    Before calling Liam, Kyle scrolled
through his emails to find the one Liam was talking about.
    The email had been
sent about fifteen minutes earlier and came with an Excel attachment that Kyle
opened. It was a simple spreadsheet showing eight dates. That was it. Just one
date after the other, all from the last few months. Kyle scrolled to see if
there were any other columns or notes anywhere, but there wasn’t anything other
than the dates.
    The earliest ones
dated back to April, and the most recent one was that very day. He looked at
them more carefully and realized the second to last date was the day Allie
collapsed, which meant at least two of the dates were days when someone had a
ruptured aneurysm—one when it happened to Allie and the other from
earlier in the morning. He counted them again. Eight. The number matched the
number of ruptured aneurysms he knew about. There were the six Tom had
initially given him, the guy with the broken neck, and Allie.
    But how did Liam
know about all of them? He had said he’d only known about four who had died
and, of course, Allie. That was it. Had Liam discovered them on his own? But
how could he have found out about the guy with the broken neck? It was still
being kept under wraps.
    Kyle looked at the
dates again. Maybe the email wasn’t about the aneurysms. Maybe it was about
something else. After all, other than Allie and the one from earlier in the
morning, he didn’t even know the dates. He never got that specific with Tom.
    As he continued to
stare at the computer screen, his BlackBerry started to ring.
    He checked the
display.
    Liam.
    “So?” Liam asked
as soon as Kyle clicked on. “What do you think? Crazy, right?”
    “The dates you
sent?”
    “Yes. Of course
the dates,” Liam said as Kyle continued to stare at the spreadsheet up on his
screen. “Someone in the city had a ruptured aneurysm on each of those dates.”
    “You do realize
that you have today’s date listed, right?” Kyle asked.
    “Dang right I do,”
Liam said. “There must have been another stroke somewhere in the city today.
Probably really early in the morning.”
    Kyle was confused.
“ Must have been? So you’re saying you
aren’t sure about that? You don’t know if there was or wasn’t?”
    “Oh, make no
mistake about it, I’m sure alright,” Liam said. “It definitely happened today.
Who the victim was, I have no idea. Not yet, anyway. But it definitely happened
today. There’s absolutely no question about that.”
    He was right. Tom
had already confirmed it. But how did Liam know about it?
    “What makes you so
sure?” Kyle asked while trying to decipher whether there was a pattern to the
dates.
    “Okay,” Liam said,
excited that he had Kyle’s interest. “So, one of the Crusaders put me in touch
with a guy who knows a lot of stuff, and this morning I get a return email from
him.”
    “What do you mean
‘knows a lot of stuff’?”
    “You know, the
guy’s a real heavy hitter.”
    “Heavy hitter?”
    “Yeah,” Liam said.
“He’s even been in the news before. I had to promise him I wouldn’t use his
name but, trust me, the guy is big time.”
    “Big time what,
though? Who is he?”
    “Who is he? He’s
someone the government actually contacted to say the conspiracy theories