“It is. Everything I could find in the file cabinets. I wasn’t able to check the computers.”
This was a lie. Rory had no trouble logging on to her father’s database. It was password protected, but barely, and Rory had quickly hurdled the minor security precautions to cross-reference the cases in the file cabinets with those on the hard drive. Despite that she had every right to access the computer files, being so far removed from the daily workings of the firm made it feel like trespassing.
“If it’s in the cabinet, it’s in the computer,” Celia said.
“Good, then this is everything.” Rory pointed to the desk and the first stack of folders. “These are pending cases. Should be simple enough to call these clients and explain the situation. The firm won’t be taking them on and they’ll have to look elsewhere for representation. I think it would be professional to make a list of other firms that handle these types of cases, so our clients have somewhere to start.”
“Of course,” Celia said. “Your father would want that.”
“The second stack is the retired files. A simple form letter explaining that Frank Moore has died should suffice. I’ll leave those two piles for you to handle?”
“Not a problem,” Celia said. “I’ll take care of it. What about those?”
Rory looked at the final hoard of records she had set on her father’s desk. The sight started her hyperventilating. She felt the walls of her carefully constructed and meticulously cinder-blocked existence vibrating with unwanted trespassers from beyond.
“These are all my dad’s open cases. I teased them out into three categories.” Rory placed her hand on the first pile. “Currently negotiating plea deals—twelve.” With her spoken words, she felt her underarms warm with perspiration as she touched the second group of files. “Awaiting court appearances—sixteen.” A bead of sweat rolled down her spine to dampen the small of her back. “And finally”—she moved her hand to the last pile—“preparing for trial—three.” Her throat caught when she said “three” and she coughed to hide her fear. The three cases going to trial would need immediate assistance.
A fearful look came over Celia when she saw the blood drain from Rory’s face, as if the heart disease that claimed her father surely ran in the family and might strike twice in the same month. “Are you okay?”
Rory coughed again and regained her composure.
“I’m fine. I’ll find a way to deal with the active cases if you could handle the rest.”
Celia nodded as she picked up the mound of pending cases. “I’ll start contacting these clients right away.” She carried the stack to her desk in the reception area and went to work.
With her father’s office door closed, Rory fell into his chair and stared at the files and the four empty Diet Cokes that had fueled her morning work. She clicked the computer to life and searched for criminal defense attorneys in Chicago who would be willing to take the cases.
CHAPTER 5
Stateville Correctional Center, October 15, 2019
FORSICKS WAS HIS ALTER EGO. HE HAD ANSWERED TO THE MONIKER FOR so long now that he wasn’t sure he would respond any longer to his real name. The nickname originated from the number that had been assigned to him the first night he arrived, stamped onto the back of his jumpsuit in large block font: 12276594–6.
Before prison guards knew an inmate’s name or the crime for which he had been convicted, they knew his number. His had been shortened to the final two digits in the series—“four-six”—which had morphed over the years into what most inmates and some uninformed guards believed to be his last name—“Forsicks.”
He walked into the prison library and clicked on the lights. It was his home within the walls of the penitentiary. He had run the place for decades. Lifting weights and ballooning his body had never interested him, and joining the animals in the prison yard to colonize into sects of gangs was equally unappealing. Instead, he found the library, befriended the elderly lifer who ran the place, and bided his time. The lifer started wheezing during the winter of 1989 and never saw the last decade of the twentieth century. A guard rapped on the bars of Forsicks’s cell the next morning to tell him the old man was gone, paroled to the heavens. The library was Forsicks’s to run. Don’t screw it up. He wouldn’t.
For thirty years, the library had been under his control. In total, he had logged four decades on the inside without a single incident. The stellar track record had turned him nearly invisible, like the superheroes he read about in comic books he managed to score every month. He despised comics and graphic novels, but made sure to read them just the same. They gave him a softer persona and helped hide the longings that still loomed in his soul.
Prior to jail, he had set his life around The Rush—the feeling that washed over him after he spent time with his victims. The Rush had controlled his mind and shaped his existence. It was something from which he could never escape. After he was caught, though, he had no choice but to conform to life in prison. Withdrawal had been agonizing. He longed so badly for the feeling of power and dominance The Rush had once provided, for the incongruous sense of righteousness he enjoyed when he slipped the nylon noose around his neck and offered himself up to the lure of euphoria that only his victims could provide.
But after the dizzying withdrawal had subsided and he settled into the years in front of him, he looked to something else to fill the void. It quickly became obvious what it would be. The secret that had destroyed his life lay buried somewhere outside the walls of this prison, and he decided to spend the final chapter of his life unearthing it.
He sat at his desk in the front of the library. Only in America could a man who murdered so many be given such freedom—a desk and an entire prison library over which to rule. But after so many decades in this place, only a scant few on the inside knew his story. Even fewer cared. His anonymity was another reason he never corrected anyone who called him Forsicks. It added to his cover. The world had turned the lights out on him years ago. Only recently had the halogen of the past started to flicker back to life. Alone in his library, he unfolded the Chicago Tribune and found the headline on page two: 40 YEARS AFTER THE SUMMER OF 1979, THE THIEF SET TO WALK FREE.
His gaze passed over his old nickname, “The Thief.” He couldn’t ignore what the title did to him, the subtle stream of adrenaline it provided. But he was also aware of the downside to such a perfect signature—it was sure to draw attention and stir up memories. As headlines started popping up and talking heads began discussing the summer of ’79, he would need to find a way to avoid the protestors and escape those who planned to haunt and torture him. He needed just a small window of anonymity after his release to complete his final journey, the planning of which he had dedicated his life in prison. It was a voyage he’d waited decades to embark upon, and had foolishly believed others could accomplish for him. But The Thief was the only one who could unearth the thing that haunted him, the secret that had ruined him.
This many years after his reign of terror, his victims were faceless and anonymous. Even when he visited the darkest parts of his mind and tried to conjure some of The Rush that used to fuel him, he could only scantly remember any of the women. They were all dead and gone, erased from his memory by time and indifference.
Only one remained vibrant in his memory, clear and present as if forty years were merely a blink of the eye, a single beat of his heart. She was the lone standout he could never forget. She ran through his thoughts during the quiet days in the
