No one said a word. Lucy breathed deeply. Why couldn’t she tap into her icy calm when she needed it the most?
“Sean is the smartest guy I know,” Kate said. “And I don’t say that to make you feel better. As soon as he starts moving money, I’ll see it, and we’ll be able to communicate. He needs the Internet to transfer, and he knows how to send coded messages. We’ve already worked out those details this morning, and we have a backup plan. You’re forgetting one very important thing: These people are desperate for that money. And none of them, not even that bitch Rollins, knows what Sean is capable of. They don’t have tech skills, not like me and certainly not like Sean. As soon as he’s online, I’ll pinpoint his location. They can route the feed through any security or country, it doesn’t matter. I will find him.”
That actually made Lucy feel better. Kate was no slouch, but she’d once told Lucy that if she were ten years younger she would have been raised on tech like Sean had been and would have been as good. Lucy didn’t doubt it.
“I’m counting on it,” she said and hung up.
Hans said, “Ryan sent me a message. They have Oakley. She’d been locked in the trunk of her car.”
“In this heat? She could have died.”
“She’s injured, sick and disoriented. There’s damage to her car, as if someone rear-ended her. The Astrodome is near the on-ramp toward Austin, so it’s likely her car was hit, she pulled over, and then was forced to drive into the parking lot where she was knocked out, tied up, and put in the trunk. It bought them time.”
“Did she say anything?”
“She is adamant that Elise was kidnapped.”
“You don’t believe that. Because I certainly don’t believe it.”
“Elise may have played the part,” Hans said.
Lucy nodded. “Yes, she would. If they’d killed Dr. Oakley, she would have gloated and admitted to everything because she enjoys proving to people that she’s smart. But since they didn’t kill her, pretending to be taken against her will would keep her in the role of victim.”
“Why?” Brad asked.
“She thinks that if their plan goes south, she can still walk away. She thinks about herself first. Her self-preservation instincts are better than anyone I’ve met.”
“Fucking psychopath,” Nate mumbled.
“There’s Jack,” Lucy said when they approached the white van that she recognized from outside her house. She climbed out of the backseat as soon as Nate stopped the SUV.
Jack approached immediately. She didn’t know where he’d parked Sean’s Mustang.
“I told you there’s nothing to see,” Jack said. He stared at Nate as if blaming him.
“We were already on our way,” Lucy said. “I spoke to Kate. Fill me in.”
“Sean hasn’t gone online.”
Lucy walked over to the van and looked in the back. Tossed in a pile were all of Sean’s clothes, including his boxers, socks, and shoes. His watch had been tossed on top. Other than that, the cargo van was empty.
“Did you search the front? Compartments?”
“Yes, and it’s clean. Zach traced the plates—it was reported stolen this morning.”
“Security footage?”
Jack raised an eyebrow. “You’re not the only one who knows how to do their job.”
“Sometimes I think I am, because I knew as soon as I heard about this plan that it wouldn’t work.”
Jack’s jaw tightened. Lucy supposed she was essentially saying I told you so, but if Jack’s wife Megan were in Sean’s situation and Jack knew it was a bad idea, he would be saying the same thing, and he knew it. “What is your plan now, Jack?”
“Go back to headquarters.”
“You’re not my boss, you’re my brother.”
“Same thing.”
She would have laughed if she weren’t so angry. And heartbroken. She shouldn’t have come here. What had she been thinking? That Jack would lie to her? He never had—until the lie of omission this morning when he didn’t tell her about Sean’s plan. And that, ultimately, was what hurt. She trusted Jack more than anyone except Sean. He’d never lied to her, he’d always been blunt, he’d always called her on her own fears. He’d helped her in ways he could only guess: She would never have been capable of loving Sean if Jack hadn’t helped her grow strong—physically and emotionally—after she’d been kidnapped and raped eight years ago.
She became acutely aware of the silence. That Hans, Nate, and Brad were watching her and Jack while standing around the SUV.
She didn’t have all the answers. She didn’t know what to do now, but it wasn’t going back to headquarters and waiting for word as to whether Sean was dead or alive. She turned to Hans.
“What now?”
She could feel Jack’s surprise that she didn’t address him. But he hadn’t had an answer that involved her.
“Get the watch,” Hans said.
Lucy and Jack both looked at the pile of clothes in the back of the van. Lucy reached out and picked up the watch. She’d never seen it before. “You think he left us information. I should have thought of that.”
“We’ll take it to Zach,” Hans said. “I’ve heard he’s good.”
“He is,” Lucy said. “Sean has a lot of respect for him.”
“And we call Blair Novak and tell her we need information from Margaret Hunt sooner rather than later.”
“How much time do we have, Hans? Truthfully—I need to know.”
“They’re not going straight to the safe house on the chance that they were followed, and they also don’t want Sean to know where they are on the chance he gets away,” Brad said.
“Why do you say that?” Hans said. “They want their money now, not later.”
“Nicole played me for a long time, but there are some things she couldn’t hide. She’s meticulous, she’s organized, she will not leave anything to chance.”
Lucy nodded. “Brad’s right. It’s why she gloated to Sam, then killed her when she could have left her to bleed out. Because there was no guarantee that she would bleed out before help arrived, or before Sam could get to a phone.”
“Then I’d give them an hour or two to get to the safe house. Beyond that—I don’t know how long it takes a competent hacker to break into a government bank account and transfer money.”
“Three to four hours, tops,” Jack said. “I’m sure Sean could do it faster.”
“They don’t care if he’s caught,” Lucy said, “they will move their money again as soon as he transfers it.”
“Is Sean really capable of hacking into a government account?” Brad asked, partly in awe.
“Yes,” Lucy and Jack said simultaneously.
“You’re not letting him do it, though, right?” Brad said. “If it all goes sideways—I’m sorry, Lucy, but there is the chance—then Nicole will have tens of millions of dollars and she can easily disappear.”
“The only way the plan works is if they see the money in their account, and we don’t have that information until Sean gives it to us,” Hans said. “Then it’s up to Kate to hack it on her end and get the money back.”
“That’s a lot of what-ifs and maybes.”
“We hope it doesn’t get that far,” Hans said.
Lucy said, “So do I, because as soon as they see the money in their account, Sean is dead.”
* * *
Blair Novak hung up the phone.
Hans wanted information now. She couldn’t promise him anything, but they both knew that the longer the standoff, the worse the outcome.
Still, she wasn’t going to risk the lives of her people because the assistant director of the FBI needed information she didn’t even know if she could get. The assistant special agent in charge was on his way along with the county sheriff’s elite SWAT unit and assistance from the LAPD. The hostage negotiator had been trying unsuccessfully for thirty minutes to get someone to pick up a phone.
The SWAT team leader quickly approached her. “Something’s
wrong, Agent Novak.”
“Define something.” She hated vague comments.
“When my team first got into place, we identified a minimum of seven hostiles inside the property. No one has moved for thirty minutes. No gunshots have been fired. We have no line-of-sight on any individual. The helicopter reports that five hostiles went into the barn on the northwest side of the property and haven’t left. There is no movement inside.”
“Any children?”
“Not that we have seen.”
Margaret Hunt was in her sixties, but if she had some sort of cult working out here there could be children or innocents. Blair didn’t have a solid understanding of what the Hunts were up to, and the lack of information disturbed her. In a perfect world, she would have had weeks—or at least a couple of days—to pull together everything on Margaret and Jimmy Hunt and Tamara Rollins, down to their childhood pediatrician and favorite movie.
“Do we have eyes?”
“We have one radar unit, but we’re too far away to use it on the house. I can get a team close enough to the barn—there’s natural cover on the backside.”
“Do it. I want to know how many are in the barn and what they’re doing.”
“Suggestion?”
“I’m all ears. Until the ASAC gets here and takes over.”
“There are six outbuildings—the barn is the largest.” He unfolded a piece of paper from his pocket and drew out rough boxes. “The barn is here—northwest corner. Three buildings less than one thousand square feet are between the barn and the main house. On the south side of the property there appear to be several cottages. No movement has been seen on the south side except for one of the houses. This area, we might be seeing a meth lab or another chemically or explosively dangerous situation. What I’d like to do as soon as the sheriff’s SWAT team arrives is split up—we’ll clear and secure the barn and three buildings north of the house; the sheriff will clear and secure the three small houses. That leaves the main house and we can surround it.”
“Set it up,” she said.
Blair waited, not something she enjoyed. She trusted her SWAT team—they had the best-trained SWAT in Southern California, hands down. They worked well with the LA County sheriff because they often cross-trained together. With shrinking resources, they needed to help each other as much as possible.
Ten minutes passed before Blair heard from SWAT that they were in position and would be going in after scanning the barn with the radar unit.
Chatter was minimal on the SWAT communications channel—mostly reports and check-ins and all-clears. Then she heard something that chilled her.
“Delta Team reports no movement in the barn. Repeat, five suspects, no movement.”
“This is Alpha One, where are the suspects?”
“Prone on the ground. No movement. No signs of life. How would you like us to proceed?”
“Proceed with caution. Go, go, go!”
Blair listened from the safety of the tactical station set up just outside the Hunt property gates. A minute later a command was issued, “Barn is wired. I repeat, barn is wired to explode. Do not breach any building!”
“Are the suspects moving?” another voice asked.
“Negative, we have line-of-sight, five suspects are immobile in the center of the barn. Main barn door has trip wire. We’re backing off. Everyone proceed with extreme caution. Bomb unit is on the scene. Stand down.”
A suicide pact. Either they were already dead and planned to take out as many cops as they could, or they were planning to die in the process.
But setting up explosives took both skill and time. When had they done it? After her visit yesterday? Was this the plan all along? Did Margaret Hunt plan to kill herself rather than go to prison?
Or maybe Margaret Hunt wasn’t here. She hadn’t seen the woman. She’d heard a female voice over the intercom … it could have been anyone. Blair had assumed it was Margaret.
She called Hans Vigo. “Hans, the property is wired to explode if we breach the buildings. The bomb squad is working on it now, but there have been no shots and no sightings for forty minutes. Five suspects down and presumed dead—possible suicide or murder-suicide. I can’t get to the house until it’s cleared, but my gut tells me that Hunt is not here.”
* * *
Elise laughed as she bounced in the passenger seat. “You were amazing, as always, big brother.” She leaned over and gave him a wet kiss on the cheek.
“Stop that,” Toby said. But he, too, was smiling. “You did well, kid. Everyone doubted you, except me. I knew you’d do it.”
“You’ve always had faith in me. That’s why I love you best.”
Love was a relative word. What did it really mean? She’d read all the definitions and she wasn’t feeling it. What did an “intense feeling of deep affection” mean, anyway?
But Toby loved that she liked him the most. And she did—because he was fun and smart and let her have fun when she wanted to. He’d played the part that Nicole created so well, he should win an award. Big, bad Tobias, the man no one knew but everyone feared. Elise had called him the Dread Pirate Robert, but Nicole didn’t like that. It wasn’t serious enough. Nicole, the definition of a wet blanket.
But Nicole was smart—super smart. She thought ten steps ahead of everyone else, and Elise could listen to her for hours telling stories about how she set up this informant or took out that competition or pulled another one over on the DEA.
“I didn’t want to hit you,” Toby said as he drove up the highway. He exited on a frontage road just outside the city.
“I told you we had to make it look good.”
“You think we’re going to fail.”
“No—I think we’re going to win big but it’ll fuck with that bitch fed who reads minds.”
“She doesn’t read minds.”
“Like hell. But no one will believe her. She was slapped down good. Almost got contempt of court and jail.”
“I wish she had—I could have taken care of her in jail.”
“Guess what? She’s engaged. Saw a big fat diamond ring on her finger.”
He didn’t say anything.
“What?” Elise said.
“Maybe this is going to be more interesting than I thought.”
“It’s all interesting. Nicole is on the FBI’s most wanted list! I’ll bet she’s excited and pissed off.”
“Don’t push her today, little girl.”
She stuck her tongue out at him.
“I’m serious. She’s on edge and Joseph is being a prick.”
“Big surprise there.” She rolled her eyes. Joseph was less fun than Nicole.
Toby parked behind a Cadillac Escalade in a remote area. No one was around. “Oh, I like it!” Elise exclaimed and jumped out of the car.
“I knew you would.”
They climbed in and Toby cranked up the air-conditioning as he sped off. “What did you mean about this getting interesting?” Elise said, remembering that she’d digressed.
“We have Sean Rogan.”
“Get outta here.”
“Seriously. Grabbed him outside his house. He’s the one who stole our money. Hacked in and siphoned most of it off before Everett could put it in our accounts.”
“I knew it!”
“What did you know?”
“He was there—somewhere close—when I was with horny old Everett. The bitch Kincaid said something in court today—about how I forced Everett to transfer the money. Forced. Really. It was our money to begin with.” She frowned. There was something else she needed to remember … what was it?
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t bullshit me.”
“I’m not, I just—” Then she remembered. “Mona.”
“That fucking bitch. I’ll snap her neck the minute I see her.”
“She said something to me when she picked me up. I wanted the rest of her files—she had everything on everyone. She said everything was gone, a
ll she had left was what she’d already given us. Someone destroyed her life’s work and she was going to rebuild somewhere else.”
“And you didn’t think to tell me?”
“When the fuck could I have done that? I wasn’t exactly allowed to have visitors in the loony bin!”
“You know how.”
“Johnson is a prick and I don’t like him. He almost screwed up our plans today. You should kill him. You should let me kill him. We can kill him together! That would be fun.”
“Elise—”
“Well, you know now, and that’s what’s important. I’ll bet Sean Rogan is the one who did it. If he’s all that good and shit.”
“Why would he? How would he have known that Mona had blackmail files? Do you think the feds ordered him to?”
“I don’t know. But it’ll be fun to find out, won’t it?” She paused. “How long until we get there?”
“An hour or two.”
“Why that long?” she said.
“We have to go the long way. Be careful.”
She shrugged. “No one’s following us.”
“I have to make sure. I have to do everything right—Nicole is edgy. I have to prove to her that she can trust me.”
“Whatever.”
“Don’t make her mad.”
“What’s she going to do? We’re family.”
“I have a surprise.”
“I love surprises.” She paused. “A better surprise than grabbing Sean Rogan?” She laughed. “Oh, I wish I could see Lucy’s face when she finds out!”
“Or when she finds him dead.”
“Exactly. What else? Tell me!”
“Joseph isn’t as bad as I thought.”
“You hate him.”
“He hates me,” Toby pouted. “I don’t know why. I never did anything to him.”
“He’s just jealous.” She kissed his cheek again. “So what did he do that impressed you?”
“He grabbed a fed.”
“Who?”
“That’s for me to know and you to find out.”
“Asshole.”
Toby laughed. He turned off the freeway toward a small, private airport.
“Who are we picking up?” Elise asked, half excited and half apprehensive. “Daddy? Is Daddy here?”
“He won’t come back to the States. He’s paranoid,” Toby said.
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