On the List

by Patricia Rosemoor

  Now he’d come for her in person.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Let this work,” Gabe muttered as he made his way into the S.A.F.E. building via the loading dock.

  It was one of the slipperiest plans he’d ever conjured, but he was counting on the late hour, on the tiredness and inattention of whoever was working on a Sunday night and on that person’s knowledge of Renata’s using the back route since her story broke in the media the week before.

  “Can I help you?” asked the security guard behind the glass window the moment he stepped inside.

  Noting he’d pulled the young man from his computer game, Gabe flashed the ID that Ned Coulter had just made for him. “I’m meeting Agent Renata Fox,” he said. “She hasn’t left yet, has she?”

  “She hasn’t been through here to leave yet,” the guard said. “But I can call her for you.”

  “Please.”

  Not that Gabe knew what her reaction would be if she actually answered the phone. The guard was under the mistaken impression—via the ID, of course—that he was FBI Agent Gabriel Martin.

  But the guard never got a chance to ask her. He shook his head and hung up when she didn’t answer. And Gabe’s chest tightened. What if she was in trouble just as Cass had predicted?

  “Why don’t I take a stroll upstairs and find her myself?” he suggested far more casually than he was feeling.

  “Sign in, then,” the clerk said, turning back to his video game.

  And so Gabe did.

  The clerk buzzed him through, and Gabe hesitated, saying, “Ninth floor, right?”

  “Eleventh.”

  He snapped his fingers as if he’d just remembered and gave the clerk an embarrassed smile. Then he swept into the hallway and headed straight for the freight elevator, where he punched the up button. This was one of those old renovated buildings in the south Loop, the old punctuated by the length of time it took the elevator to descend.

  When he’d gone to see Ned Coulter for the new ID, the man had been a case of nerves and had tried to tell him that he had to leave for an important appointment. Knowing something was wrong, Gabe hadn’t accepted the brush off. He’d made the man talk. And now he knew that Renata knew he wasn’t really Gabriel Connor.

  What she didn’t know was that he wasn’t Gabriel Griffith, either.

  The elevator arrived just as he was contemplating using the stairs. He had a sick feeling. Why had he ever let Renata’s anger push him away, even for a few hours?

  Punching 11—one floor from the top—he only hoped he wouldn’t be too late.

  If anything happened to her, he would be to blame.

  HE HAD HER AT LAST, the killer thought. She knew she was done for—he could smell the fear on her.

  “Don’t make any sudden moves,” he said, slipping his hand out of his pocket to show her his gun. “Put down the shoulder bag.”

  She did as commanded. “I don’t understand—”

  “Of course you do. You’re bright. Too bright. Too bad for you. Up with the hands.”

  She did as he said while straining for a look over his shoulder. No one was left on this floor. Even if someone was around, it wouldn’t be anyone who would lift a finger to help her. He had it all worked out in his mind. And if something went wrong—if someone saw—he could claim she’d gone off on him, and he’d simply been trying to restrain her.

  He patted her down to make certain she wasn’t wearing a shoulder holster. Good. No doubt the gun was in the leather bag now decorating her desk.

  “You can’t possibly think you can get away with killing me,” she said.

  “Why not? I’ve gotten away with much more than that. I’ve killed tougher opponents than you. But you, I think I’m going to enjoy most.”

  “You’re sick.”

  “This country is sick. I’m one of the sane ones, cleaning up the messes.”

  “Is that how you see what you’ve done?”

  “You’re not going to stall me, not here, not where someone could walk in on us.” He waved the Glock, indicating she should move out of her cubicle. “Let’s go someplace more private so we can talk.”

  If she bought that, she really was a fool.

  GABE GOT OFF on the eleventh floor and found his way through to the main hall. Now all he had to do was find Renata.

  Entering a large office filled with work cubicles, he started checking them. He poked his head inside each one as he passed it, but no sign of her.

  Empty…empty…empty…

  Then an agent looked up from his computer. “Can I help you?”

  “Wrong cubicle,” Gabe muttered, going on, hoping the guy wouldn’t follow him and demand to know his business.

  Hearing what sounded like footsteps and a low voice through a door opening, he headed that way, which meant going through the next room, a big one basically like the first. Gabe scanned this room fast, and halfway through, nearly passed Renata’s cubicle.

  But at the last minute, he caught sight of the leather shoulder bag that had been discarded on the desk. Some papers poked from the open mouth.

  Normally, he wouldn’t go through a woman’s purse, but this was an exception. When he picked it up, the weight of the thing nearly threw him until he remembered she sometimes used a holster specially built into the bottom of the bag. Unzipping it, he withdrew her Glock and pocketed the handgun.

  And heard another noise…the sound of a heavy door opening and clicking closed.

  Taking a quick look at the papers, his eye caught the red circle around one name on the list Blade had given her.

  The City Sniper…

  MORE CALMLY than she was feeling, Renata said, “You were the one who fired the first shot at Embry Lake, weren’t you?”

  He’d taken her into a stairwell and was pushing her upward. She assumed he meant to kill her somewhere on the stairs and leave her body to be found by the cleaning staff at some indeterminate date in the future.

  “You’re even smarter than I gave you credit for,” he admitted, poking her in the back with the gun to keep her going. “Tell me the rest.”

  “Russell Ackerman saw you do it,” she said with certainty. “He wasn’t the one who died in the fire. He moved to Chicago, created a new identity for himself and dabbled with the idea of writing a book about the massacre. But first, Ackerman tried to blackmail you.”

  He whistled, the sound indicating surprise. “Ackerman laid low for a while, but he knew where to find me. He started haunting me, threatening me, saying that his book would reveal everything he knew, starting with his seeing me taking that first shot. I knew I had to get rid of him and his work.”

  “So you tore up his place, trying to find the manuscript. Was there one?” she asked.

  “What would pass for one. He hid it in a zipped plastic bag in the toilet tank.”

  Renata stopped when the stairs ended at a metal door.

  “You would have been a valuable asset to S.A.F.E.,” he said, so close behind her she could feel the breath on her hair. “It’s a shame you have to die.”

  He reached around her with his free hand to open the door, then nudged her into the night with the barrel of the gun pressing against her spine. It took her eyes a moment to adjust, but the moon was nearly full and pipes and air-conditioning units on the flat roof stood out in blue-rimmed clarity.

  They were thirteen stories up. Unlucky thirteen. How appropriate, she thought, as he kept nudging her closer to the edge. The wind was stronger up here, and she was having some trouble staying on her heels.

  Her stomach knotted, she turned to him. “If you shoot me, your name will come up, you know. You had to swipe your card to get in, so they’ll know you were here tonight. You’ll be on the list of suspects.”

  “I wasn’t planning on shooting you. Why should I, when you can simply commit suicide?” He glanced over the hip-high parapet. “Poor Agent Fox caved under the pressure. No one would talk to her. Her director censured her several times. She was about to los
e her job, you know. Too bad she took the easy way out.”

  Renata’s mouth went dry as she realized he planned to throw her over the edge to fall to her death on the pavement below. She looked over the low wall and her stomach turned. That was a long, long way down. No one could survive that fall. No convenient awnings or other paraphernalia to break her fall, either, like in the movies.

  And he was right. People would think she’d committed suicide…just as her dad had done when his humiliation had been too much for him to bear.

  But she wasn’t giving up yet, Renata thought, not by a long shot!

  “How many people are you going to kill to cover up your…zeal?”

  As she spoke, Renata surreptitiously looked around her for a way out.

  “The Embry Lake Brigade had to be dismantled,” he insisted. “Killing Hague’s son first was a brilliant stroke. No way would he not order his men to fire on us.”

  He had her full attention again. “His son? What are you talking about? There wasn’t another Hague on the list of dead or wounded. And there wasn’t any information on a son in the report.”

  “Something you missed?” He gave her a mock gasp. “Why, Agent Fox, I’m disappointed. Daniel Griffith wasn’t a member of the militia. Of course, given enough reunion time with his old man…”

  Renata collapsed back against the low wall. Daniel Griffith…Gabe’s brother Danny? It had to be! And if Daniel Griffith had been Joshua Hague’s son, that meant the militia leader had been Gabe’s father as well. No wonder he hadn’t wanted to talk about the man.

  And no wonder he hadn’t trusted that information to her—a government agent connected with Homeland Security. Even though he’d run from his father and what he stood for, he’d felt tainted by the man. And he’d probably learned to be paranoid early on. He’d probably expected she would arrest him before she would help him. Then when she’d caught on to the fact that he’d been holding out on her, she’d rejected him without knowing all the facts.

  And now she was facing death once more…and Gabe didn’t even know she loved him.

  “So you’re responsible for nine people being killed at Embry Lake,” Renata choked out, wanting to know everything.

  “And not one agent harmed.”

  She hoped to keep him talking until she could figure out how to get herself free of him. Could she simply run and hide behind one of the air-conditioning units? What then? She had no weapon.

  “How many more were there?” she asked. “The five City Sniper deaths—”

  “Six, actually. You forgot Muti Hawass. I told you he was on the watch list for association with known terrorists. He hadn’t done anything yet that we knew of, but he was ready to act on behalf of his people. Poor sucker thought he was finally getting an assignment worthy of him when he picked up the rifle and scope.”

  “So that’s how he got it—you left it for him.” Renata was amazed at the lengths he’d gone to carry through with his plot. “I don’t get it. If you wanted Ackerman dead, then why didn’t you simply kill him? Why this elaborate plan?”

  “I wanted to shut him up, of course. But he wasn’t the only one who needed to be eliminated. There are so many who are a threat to this country.”

  He was insane. He was playing god with people’s lives.

  Well, he wasn’t going to play god with her life, not if she could help it. She wasn’t going to let her death look like a suicide so that the lie could do in her mother and maybe her sister, too, this time. She was going to fight back, and if she went over that wall, she would do everything in her power to take him with her.

  “How was Heidi Bourne a threat?” she asked, stalling until she could see an opening. The best she could do was inch away from him and then strike out in hopes of disarming him.

  “The Bourne woman made a deal to testify against Congressman Cooper.”

  “You’re working hand-in-hand with him, then.”

  “Alas, no, I work alone. It’s more efficient that way. But Cooper was the head of a committee responsible for creating S.A.F.E. I so admired him for that. I couldn’t let such a patriot hang out to dry for a little inappropriate conduct. So I got rid of the Bourne woman and the little prostitute who serviced him on the night in question, instead.”

  More warped thinking. He didn’t see what Cooper had done as a crime.

  “What about Maurice Washington and Gary Hudson?” she asked, shifting away from him, subtly putting a narrow margin of space between them. “Why them? Were they connected with Cooper, also?”

  “Housecleaning. I figured while I was at it, I ought to remove the personal pariahs in my life. Washington was the source for drugs my kid did. And the reason my wife divorced me. Gary Hudson was her divorce attorney. They both deserved to die.”

  Renata made her move, but he was ready for her. He blocked her attack and took a step back, then aimed the gun for her head.

  “I really would hate to use this and splatter your brains all over the rooftop. If I had wanted to do that, I would have used a rifle with a scope to bring you down long ago. I had so many chances…”

  Shaking with fury, Renata thought she must be a fool not to have recognized the clues he’d given her. She’d overlooked them because he’d been the only person who’d given her the benefit of the doubt. But now she knew he’d played buddy-buddy with her to keep tabs on her movements.

  How could she not have seen the City Sniper was none other than Agent Paul Broden?

  GABE STOOD frozen at the top of the stairs, hoping against hope that he could stop another murder from happening.

  Having heard sounds coming from the stairwell as he’d passed it, he’d cracked open the door. Renata’s voice had reached him and he’d been hard-pressed to keep his own counsel for the moment. Removing her gun from his pocket, Gabe silently moved upward and then followed them out onto the roof. He kept flat along the building and snaked behind a pipe out of sight.

  Renata was saying, “I don’t understand why you would have gone after the Embry Lake Brigade in the first place. The tip about the militia working with terrorists came from you, not from some unidentified source.”

  Broden laughed. “Militiamen…terrorists…what’s the difference? We have more than enough of both in this country. Too many for one man alone to clean up. As for the City Sniper victims, they were all undesirables, but it was not nearly as satisfying as simply killing Joshua Hague’s son and letting everyone else do the work for me.”

  Gabe stopped and tried to catch his breath. An admission. The man had admitted to murdering Danny.

  Shaking with the need to kill his brother’s murderer, Gabe aimed the gun at the bastard’s head, saying, “Ackerman wasn’t the only one who had it in for you, Broden.”

  “What the hell—”

  “Gabe, get out!”

  Broden grabbed Renata and pulled her in front of him as a shield. When she struggled, he merely shoved the gun in her side.

  Even so, she yelled, “Gabe, go!”

  “I’m not going anywhere, Renata, not without you.”

  She stopped fighting but Gabe knew she was only waiting for her next opportunity to thwart her captor. Still, knowing Broden would simply shoot them both if he lowered his gun, Gabe refused to do it.

  “Ah, such a devoted lover,” Broden said.

  “You can call me Gabriel Connor. Or Gabriel Griffith. Or Gabriel Hague.”

  “That’s it! I knew I recognized you! You look like your old man.”

  “I’m nothing like him.” Even as Gabe gritted out the words, they rang false to his own ears.

  “You have a gun in your hand. I assume you know how to use it.”

  “I was raised by a Second Amendment fanatic. What do you think?”

  Chances were he could shoot Broden between the eyes from where he stood. He would be justified…he would be killing Broden to save Renata’s life. But in the end, he couldn’t be sure the bastard wouldn’t get off a round, as well. Then Renata would die with Broden, and Gabe
loved her too much to watch her die.

  He had to get Broden’s gun away from her and pointed at himself.

  That would give her the opening she needed to get free of him.

  STILL SHOCKED that Joshua Hague had been Gabe’s father and that his brother had been killed so senselessly at Embry Lake, Renata was torn between offering the man she loved comfort and ordering him to get out while he could. The metal muzzle pressed to her side prevented her from doing either, and she feared Gabe would get himself killed trying to be a hero.

  What she had to do, then, was find a way to break Broden’s hold on her so that she could go for his Glock.

  But before she could think of something to distract him, Gabe asked, “So who gives you your orders?”

  Broden laughed. “You think I need someone to tell me what to do?”

  “Mulvihill does.”

  “Mulvihill thinks he does. He has no clue as to who I really am…or what I’ve done to safeguard this country. He’s a bureaucrat, not a man of action.”

  “Is that how you think of yourself? As a man of action? A hero, perhaps? That’s the way Joshua Hague thought of himself,” Gabe said, unable to keep the irony out of his words. “I lived with the man long enough to know that. But you’re not half the man he was. I would describe you as a lunatic who has gotten sloppy.”

  The last got to Broden, Renata realized, when he stiffened behind her. She looked at Gabe, but his gaze was focused on his enemy. He didn’t spare her a glance, couldn’t afford to.

  “Sloppy?” Broden yelled. “I got away with ridding the world of more than a dozen undesirables.”

  “But that’s it. You didn’t get away with it, now did you?” Gabe taunted. “The greenest new hire at your own agency caught you.”

  “I’m not the one who’s caught.”

  “You could have fooled me.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “You shoot Renata and I shoot you.”

  “Then I guess I’ll have to start with you!”

  Even as he moved the gun away from her side to aim it at Gabe, Renata saw her chance.