Cold Snap

by Allison Brennan

  Lucy shook her head and closed her eyes. Tom was right. They had done what they had to do. But something was going on, something she was only beginning to see. She squeezed her hand and felt the paper in her grip.

  So much loss, so much death, and all for nothing. She was going to find out what these names meant.

  CHAPTER 32

  Lucy washed her hands in hot, soapy water in the bathroom, tears streaming down her face as Charlie’s blood flowed down the drain.

  It wasn’t supposed to have happened like that. He was going to turn himself in.

  She kicked the tile wall, then put her forehead on the mirror and took several deep breaths.

  Get it together, Kincaid. You need to give your statement. You need to be professional.

  It seemed like such a waste.

  The door opened, and she thought it would be Kate or Carina.

  It was Sean. She didn’t even tease him about being in the women’s bathroom.

  He went to her and wrapped his arms around her. She held on tight, crying into his shoulder.

  “He wasn’t going to shoot. His gun was coming down,” she sobbed.

  Sean didn’t try to tell her she was right or wrong, or he was glad Charlie was down, he just held her. He gave her what she needed, his unconditional support.

  It was several minutes later when she felt she could face Tom Blade and the debriefing.

  “I want to see him,” Lucy said.

  “He’s in surgery.”

  “It shouldn’t have happened.”

  “Lucy, you did everything you could. The hostages are all alive, thanks to you.”

  But it didn’t feel like she’d done everything she could.

  Sean said, “Kate’s here with the ASAC of San Diego. They need to talk to you. Are you up for it?”

  “Yes.” She reached into her pocket and handed Sean the paper Charlie had given her. “I need you to do something for me.”

  “Anything.”

  “After Peterson went down, when I was at his side, he put this paper in my hand. I have no idea who these women are, but he made it clear he wants me to have this.”

  Sean didn’t say anything for a long minute. “I don’t want you to get in trouble, Lucy.”

  “I have no idea how Sarah Peterson died. But I owe it not only to her brother, but to Sarah herself, to find out what happened. Charlie came in with a mission. A purpose. He’s certain one of those nurses killed his sister. Accident or not, he knew something he didn’t share with me or Carina, something that he believed an autopsy would reveal.”

  There was a knock on the door. “Lucy, it’s Kate. We need you.”

  “I’m coming,” she called.

  Sean took the paper and pocketed it. “I have the security feed that shows him talking to a nurse late last night. Wendy Parsons. She gave him something. No one can find her.”

  “An accomplice?”

  “Most likely.” Sean patted his pocket. “Maybe this was it.”

  Kate said, “Lucy, now.”

  Sean opened the door and Kate frowned when he walked out. “We don’t have time for games,” she told him.

  “This isn’t a game,” he said gravely, and walked away.

  Lucy followed Kate to a conference room that had been taken over by security and SWAT. Will Hooper was there, and Tom Blade, and two people Lucy didn’t know, a man and woman, both in suits.

  They introduced themselves as SSA Ken Swan and Assistant Special Agent in Charge Danielle Richardson.

  Lucy went through the entire afternoon from the time Hooper and Blade asked her to go in and perform the autopsy in order to buy time, to why she negotiated a trade with her sister, to her reasoning behind asking for the portable lab.

  “He’d grown extremely agitated when the results came back negative. I wanted to show him that they did everything they could with the equipment they had.”

  “But he’d said if you did the autopsy, he would let everyone go,” ASAC Richardson said. “Yet you fed into his delusions.”

  “No, he had information that made him believe that the lab tests were inaccurate. I showed him that not all tests could be run on-site.”

  “Again, he was delusional,” Swan said.

  “No, he wasn’t,” Lucy said. “He was grieving. He believed that his sister’s death wasn’t natural, based on information Wendy Parsons, the missing nurse, gave him.”

  “What missing nurse?” Richardson turned to Hooper.

  Will seemed irritated with Lucy for revealing that intel. “We have a security camera showing that Peterson was talking to a nurse, Wendy Parsons, last night after midnight. We haven’t been able to find her.”

  “An accomplice?”

  “We don’t know,” Will said. “We haven’t spoken to her. But I have a warrant to search her house and bank records, and we’re also checking airports, train stations, buses. Her car was found in the employee parking area, and records of her employee pass showed she arrived at work at eleven forty-five last night, but there’s no indication that she ever left work. We’re also checking with cab services.”

  “Did you find Peterson’s vehicle?” Richardson asked.

  “Yes, ma’am, we have it secure and will be taking it to impound for a thorough search.

  To Lucy, ASAC Richardson said, “We’ve reviewed some of the audio and video footage from the morgue, and preliminarily we don’t believe you acted inappropriately, but I need to send a report to your SAC in San Antonio.”

  Lucy nodded, though she felt like she was in a bad dream. She hadn’t even started her new assignment, and her record would already be cloudy because of what happened here.

  Except, she didn’t see how she could have done anything different.

  “My one concern was your interference with SWAT when they breached the morgue. You put your life in jeopardy.”

  “With all due respect, I was there, and Peterson was lowering his hand.”

  Tom Blade spoke up. “Kincaid, I was there, too, and he had the gun pointed at the two hostages who bumped into the table. He was indecisive.”

  “Yes, but he wasn’t going to shoot.”

  “We don’t know that. And as I said earlier, I wasn’t going to risk hostages, or you, or my men, based on your psychological hunch that he wasn’t going to discharge his weapon.”

  “I understand,” she said.

  “Do you?”

  Blade was angry, but Lucy wasn’t going to keep explaining herself.

  SWAT did everything by the book, and there was no loss of life, which should have made Lucy happy, or at least relieved. But she kept going over the last few minutes of her time with Charlie, wondering what she could have said or done that would have resulted in a better ending.

  Then Blade did a turnabout that surprised her. “For the record, Agent Kincaid convinced the shooter to disable his own bomb. If she hadn’t done that, we wouldn’t have been able to enter, and the outcome could have been a lot worse.”

  Richardson nodded. “Thank you. I’ll expect a copy of your report as well, Sergeant Blade.”

  “You’ll get it from my lieutenant, ma’am.”

  Lucy wanted to see her dad, but she needed one more thing. “I’d like Sarah Peterson’s body to be sent to the county lab for a full and complete autopsy, including the tox screens that I asked for.”

  “You’re not an ME,” Will said.

  “I saw enough to make me suspicious.”

  Richardson said, “You think there’s merit to Peterson’s claim that the hospital was negligent?”

  “I don’t know if it was the hospital, or one of the nurses, or if there is a personal reason that Sarah Peterson may have been a target. If there wasn’t, then the nurse Wendy Parsons intentionally gave Peterson false information to lead him to believe that there was something unusual surrounding his sister’s death.”

  “Look, Lucy,” Will said, “we’re doing what we need to do. But we can’t follow the dictates of a terrorist, and that’s what Peterso
n is.”

  “This isn’t about Peterson, this is about a woman who died under suspicious circumstances.”

  “You’re the only one who thinks that,” Will said.

  Lucy was getting angry and she didn’t know how to pursue this.

  “All I’m asking,” she said with forced calm, “is for the county to claim the body and run tests on certain medications that would cause asphyxiation. Including the drugs she was known to have been given for her cancer therapy.”

  “That’s up to the hospital and the D.A.,” Will said.

  “The D.A.,” she said.

  “You’re not thinking straight,” Will said. “Give us time.”

  Will knew exactly what she planned on doing, though everyone else was slower on the uptake, and the feds had no idea that Lucy’s ex-brother-in-law was the district attorney.

  Lucy said, “May I be excused? My father is a patient here; he had a heart attack last night and I haven’t seen him yet.”

  “Yes, thank you for your time,” Richardson said. She seemed to be preoccupied, and that was fine with Lucy. She wanted to leave.

  Kate followed her out. “What are you up to?”

  “Getting answers.” She went outside and walked toward the south tower where her father had been admitted. There were still many police cars and the SWAT truck still staged around the north tower, and it would take time for them to clear the building. They’d brought in bomb-sniffing dogs to make sure that Peterson hadn’t set any other charges.

  Charlie Peterson was facing a minimum of twenty years in prison. He’d had a vendetta, but he wasn’t a vindictive person. He wanted the truth, but she didn’t know what he would have done had he had it. And she didn’t think he knew, either.

  She understood that SWAT had had no choice, but she’d promised Charlie that she would find out what happened to Sarah, and just because the samples were destroyed when the nurses knocked into the table didn’t mean they couldn’t get more samples. The problem was that time was crucial. Many drugs dissipated as the body decomposed. The cold storage slowed the rate of decomposition, but the longer they waited, the more likely it was that a poison would fade away. Many of the neuromuscular blockers would present in the liver for only a short time after death. After two days, there might be no more evidence.

  She called the one person who could make it happen.

  “Andrew Stanton.”

  “Andrew, it’s Lucy Kincaid.”

  “Lucy.”

  Nelia’s ex-husband was surprised to hear from her. She hadn’t spoken to him in years—as far as she knew, her family’s relationship with him was solely professional. But he had been Justin’s father, and he had treated her more kindly than her own sister after her nephew’s murder. He’d been the district attorney for the past ten years.

  “Have you heard what happened at the hospital?”

  “Of course.”

  “I need a favor. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  Lucy continued. “I don’t know how to do it, but you’re the D.A., so I’m sure you can figure it out. I need someone to order an autopsy of Sarah Peterson immediately, and specifically to look for neuromuscular blockers that would be available at hospitals. All the tissues and samples I took were destroyed during the SWAT action, but I think her brother was right to be suspicious. I think someone either accidentally or intentionally poisoned her, and then covered it up.”

  “Do you know what you’re saying?”

  “I’m not asking for anything that wouldn’t be done under normal circumstances.”

  “If anyone thinks that the city or county can be forced in some sort of terrorist act—”

  “Charlie Peterson is not a terrorist. He’s a decorated veteran who made a huge mistake that’s going to cost him for the rest of his life. But I think Sarah’s death needs to be investigated. This isn’t for Charlie, it’s for the victim.”

  “Have you talked to Carina? Or your boss?”

  “I don’t think the police understand the timeliness factor for these tests. If she was poisoned, some poisons dissipate over time and there would be no physical proof. I think Sarah Peterson was poisoned with a neuromuscular blocker. Many of them are available at hospitals, and most dissolve to undetectable levels as the body decomposes. It makes sense based on the cause of death. If we’re going to find out what killed Sarah, we need to act now. Not the day after Christmas or after the new year; tonight.”

  Lucy saw Sean run out of the south tower. She held her arm up to get his attention. He approached but didn’t speak when he noticed she was on the phone. It was clear he had information.

  “Andrew, I wouldn’t ask you if I didn’t think there was something here. I know you don’t really know me anymore, don’t know if you can trust my judgment. I’m just asking you—well, please trust me. I wouldn’t have called you if I didn’t believe in my gut that I’m right.”

  “I’ll make some calls.”

  “Thank you. I mean it.” She hung up.

  Sean raised an eyebrow. “Was that who I think it was?”

  “If anyone can get an autopsy done at four o’clock on Christmas Eve, it’s Andrew.” She took his hand, squeezed. “You have news?”

  “Big news. Those names on that paper? They’re all deceased cancer patients who died at the hospital over the last three years. Earlier, I hacked into—”

  Lucy winced. “Don’t tell me.”

  “Sorry. I have access to the personnel files for the three nurses. They were all on duty on the days these women died.”

  “They’re all women?”

  “Yes. I realized after the first two names there was a pattern. I wish I had the flash drive that Parsons gave Peterson.”

  “You’re sure it was a flash drive?”

  “Yes. And I zoomed in and enhanced the security video as best I could, and there was a piece of paper wrapped around the flash drive, which based on these folds could have been this.”

  “I need to get this information to the police.”

  “They’re going to be furious you withheld evidence.”

  “I was in shock. I didn’t realize I still had the paper in my pocket.” She took the paper from Sean. “Thank you.”

  “I’m going to dig around into their previous assignments.”

  Lucy frowned. “Kristan Otto. She told me she was a nurse for only two years.”

  “Yes, but she was a student nurse here for the year prior to passing her test. Glover and Lavargnio were both here for three years and five years respectively.”

  “And Parsons?”

  “She’s new. Arrived six months ago.”

  “And maybe she saw something strange? Heard something?”

  “And told the brother of one of the victims.”

  “Victims—that’s harsh.”

  “There are eight names on that list. They have far too much in common to be disconnected.”

  “What do they have in common other than they were cancer patients who died in the hospital?”

  Sean ticked off the similarities on his fingers. “All women under forty. All single, never been married, with no children. All cancer patients who had been in remission. All were admitted into the hospital because they had a reaction to medication.”

  “How do you know all of this?”

  “They sort of gave me access to the hospital database when I helped them set up the web cam on the morgue computer. All the information is there when they look for it.”

  “You just gave me a victim profile.”

  “Seems that it would be hard to prove because they’d all been sick.”

  “But there’s enough to make Wendy Parsons sufficiently suspicious to give it to Peterson.” She frowned.

  “What are you thinking?”

  “Why Peterson? Why not her boss? An administrator?”

  “Because she was worried about getting fired? Maybe she thought because Peterson was in the military he might know wha
t to do with the information. He lost someone, he could ask the right questions. Or maybe she didn’t know what she had, and Peterson did.”

  “He didn’t know what to do with the information. He snapped under the weight of confusion and anger and grief.”

  “You’re the psychologist.”

  “If I was any good, he wouldn’t be in surgery right now.”

  “Hey, knock that off,” Sean said. He took both her hands in his. “You did everything you could to save him and the hostages. No one died.”

  Yet.

  “We need to find out more about these women and the nurses who were on duty the night they died. Background information.”

  “What kind?”

  “Can you find out if any of the nurses has had cancer, or had a close female relative who had cancer and died.”

  Realization crossed Sean’s face. “You think one of them is a serial killer.”

  She didn’t say anything at first, then nodded. “Maybe I do. I need to see my dad. I’m hoping Dillon is up there, and I can run this by him.”

  “Let’s go.”

  While they entered the south tower, Sean took out his tablet and started a search program that would pull from multiple databases. “It’ll run without me,” he said.

  “I certainly fell in love with smartest guy on the planet.”

  “That you did.”

  “Humble, too.”

  “Yes, right again.” Sean grinned.

  No one was in the colonel’s room when Lucy arrived with Sean. Her dad looked like he was sleeping, and she didn’t want to disturb him. But as she stared, tears sprang to her eyes. She had been an emotional basket case since the SWAT action, and this was so unlike her. She usually had her emotions under so much better control.

  But this was her dad. And she hadn’t been home in nearly two years. What kind of daughter was she?

  He opened his eyes and smiled when he saw her. He looked pale and tired, but other than that he looked like her dad.

  “Hi, Daddy.”

  “Lucia. I’m glad you’re here.”

  She walked over and kissed his cheek, then sat on the edge of the bed. “Dad, this is Sean Rogan.”