Chapter 35 Chapter 35: The Trap
Webb phoned the second time forty-eight hours later, when the veteran network had another episode of questionable activity to share, in a few cities. This time, I was ready for him.
"Detective Jenkins," his voice was still firm, but I sensed a note of irritation underlying it. "Your veteran friends are being problematic."
"Good. That's the plan."
"You're keeping them safer, but you're involving them in more danger. How many need to die before you realize you're fighting a war you're never going to win?"
I motioned to Alex and Dr. Williams, who were listening in on the call. We'd practiced this call, figuring Webb would call us again once he was adequately intimidated by Operation Overwatch.
"Webb, I've been thinking. What you told me. About Harrison as an artist, about trauma birthing monsters."
"Finally ready to listen?"
"I'm ready to understand. You and Harrison were close, you and Harrison. More than foster brothers."
The silence stretched for a couple of seconds. When Webb responded, his tone had changed, more intimate, more vulnerable.
"Harrison was the only human ever to really know me. We were both broken, both left behind by all those individuals who were supposed to love us. But Harrison understood something about us, something that no one else did. Potential."
"Potential for what?"
"To demonstrate the world what abandonment really creates. To demonstrate that all the therapy, support groups, and healing programs are just beauty lies individuals employ to deceive themselves."
I realized Webb's motivation was stronger than revenge or even defending Harrison's honor. He was trying to validate a broader assumption about the nature of man, harm beingget more harm.
"Webb, what if you're wrong? What if healing is an option?"
"Look around, Detective. See the world. Trauma doesn't create healers—it creates more trauma. Harrison understood that. He was showing people their nature, their capacity for brutality."
"By murdering innocent women?"
"By showing that innocence is a fantasy. Every one of the victims had darkness within them, secrets that they had kept hidden from humanity. Harrison simply revealed the darkness."
I was sickened when he rationalized murder as some kind of metaphysical statement. But I also heard something else beneath his words—doubt, uncertainty, the voice of someone who wanted with all his heart to believe in a way of seeing that justified his actions.
"Webb, where do you want to meet?"
"You'll be coming alone?"
"No. This isn't about you and me anymore. It's about all that we've made since Harrison died."
"Then bring your reporter boy friend. Bring the FBI agent. Bring whatever you want." His voice hardened again. "But know this ends tonight, either way."
"Where?"
"Where it started. The alley where Sarah Walsh was murdered. Midnight."
The phone went dead.
Dr. Williams was already making arrangements with the tactical unit of the FBI as Alex was informing the experienced network leaders. But I was increasingly convinced that old-fashioned law enforcement tactics would not work for Webb. He had had three years to watch us, learn how we operated, prepare himself for this showdown.
"Rachel," Alex said, "this is obviously a trap. Webb knows we'll have backup, knows we'll try to surround the area."
"Naturally it's a trap. The problem is who is trapping whom."
Dr. Williams looked up at her phone. "FBI wants to flood the area with agents, set up a perimeter, take over all entry points."
"That's what Webb is expecting. He's ready for sheer numbers, probably has escape routes mapped, backstops for any event we can envision."
"So what do you suggest?"
I thought of the veteran community, the many hundreds of traumatized survivors who refused to be intimidated by Webb's threats. Of Tommy Chen, bank robber turned peer counselor. Of Captain Morrison, who had taken her military training and used it to mobilize in the community. Of all the individuals who had confronted Webb with evidence that trauma does not create just monsters.
"What if we don't play his game? What if we introduce something he doesn't expect?"
"Like what?"
"Community. The one thing Harrison and Webb never knew, never understood, never believed was possible."
Alex stepped forward. "You'd like to take veterans to the confrontation?"
"Not to fight. To witness. To represent everything Webb says is impossible—people who've endured trauma and used it to empower others to heal."
Dr. Williams looked aghast. "Rachel, that puts civilians in the crossfire."
"That's precisely who put us here. Webb's trying to destroy the idea of healing, of community around traumatic experiences. What better way to prove to him he's incorrect than to illustrate to him community in action?"
My phone buzzed with the incoming text from Tommy Chen: "Saw the news about tonight. Chicago team ready to go up to NYC if you need assistance."
The same was being read by veteran leaders throughout the network. They'd heard about the expected showdown, knew what was on the line, and weren't about to let Alex and me charge into it unassisted.
"They're already coming," I told Alex and Dr. Williams. "The question is whether we coordinate with them or let them operate independently."
"Rachel, this is insane. You're talking about bringing trauma survivors to confront a serial killer."
"I'm talking about bringing healers to confront someone who believes healing is impossible. There's a difference."
That evening, while FBI agents established their perimeter in the West Village, something else was being arranged. Veterans across the region were quietly mobilizing in New York City. Not to battle, but to bear witness to something greater than law enforcement or even justice.
Tommy Chen arrived from Chicago with three of his peer counselors. Captain Morrison arrived from Boston with two veterans who were crisis intervention specialists. Kevin Martinez arrived by vehicle from Denver with a group that included veterans and mental health professionals.
"Rachel," Tommy explained as we met at a coffee shop six blocks from where the confrontation had occurred, "we're not here to disrupt police activity. We're here to remind everyone—Webb, the FBI, the media, the world—what this is all about."
"Which is?"
"The idea that trauma does not have to define who we are. That we can survive terrible things and utilize that survival to heal others. That community is possible even for those who've been through hell."
Gunny Santos had driven up from Los Angeles in a vanload of vets, arriving just hours short of midnight. "Rachel, we've been talking about it on the way. We're aware this is dangerous, we're aware Webb is unstable, we're aware we might not all make it home tonight."
"Then why did you come?"
"Because three years ago you showed us that individual crisis could be turned into collective healing. Tonight, you're showing us that collective healing can resist evil and not be broken by it."
As the clock approached midnight, two sets of opposing forces were converging in around the alley where Sarah Walsh had been murdered. The FBI tactical unit was sending out traditional law enforcement control—snipers, communications intercepts, negotiation protocols designed to contain and de-escalate the situation.
But around them, in the coffeehouses and doorways and rooftops, was another kind of force. Veterans who had survived combat, trauma, addiction, suicidal ideation, and homelessness. Mental health care professionals who had spent their careers proving that recovery was possible. Family members who had watched their loved ones turn pain into purpose.
"Alex," I said to him as we prepared to take a walk down the alley, "when you started writing about this case three years ago, did you ever imagine it would turn out this way?"
"I expected to capture a killer. I never expected that I would build a community that could resist evil and not be consumed by it."
"And personally? Are you ready for whatever tonight holds?"
He took my hand. "Rachel, I've watched you progress from being a detective in pursuit of a serial killer to a woman who empowers survivors of trauma to be healers. If that's where it leads you, I'll be with you."
As we walked down through the West Village to the alley where it had started, I realized that Webb had gotten one fundamental thing wrong. He thought trauma bred isolation, that fractured people were destined to be alone, that recovery was a fantasy people used to avoid facing unpleasant realities.
But surrounding us, if not visible, was proof that he was mistaken. A society that had been forged through collective trauma, one that had taken disparate suffering and turned it into common purpose, one that had determined not to be terrorized or erased by an individual who thought of violence only as inescapable.
The fight that was coming would determine more than Webb's fear or the preservation of the veteran programs. It would determine whether healing was greater than harm, whether community was more powerful than isolation, whether the individuals who had survived terrible things could deal with evil and not be made evil.
As we reached the entrance to the alley where Sarah Walsh had been murdered, I knew that this was never really about apprehending a killer. It was about proving that trauma might be what created healers, that damage didn't always have to define us, that even the most broken among us were capable of healing and helping others to do the same.
Webb was holding in the darkness, as he'd said he would. But so were we, and so was he.
The actual fight was yet to be fought.