Stone explained about Georgia’s accident.
“Man, some guys have all the luck.”
Stone bit back a reply.
Vaughan checked his watch. “It’s after three. I’m ‘gonna head over to the construction site. You coming?”
“Not yet.”
Vaughan waved his cell. “Let me know where you are, pal.”
Alone in the conference room, Stone sagged into a chair. He knew he would track the killer to her lair. He’d even take her out if he had to. But he couldn’t summon up much hatred for Maggie Champlain—despite what she’d done. She was as much a victim as her prey.
***
Outside the ICU Matt stared at the floor. Ricki was in the clutches of a serial killer, and it was his fault. Georgia was hanging onto life by a thread, and it was his fault. He’d failed to protect the two people he cared most about. Like Sisyphus, no matter what he did, his wheel would never make it to the top of the hill.
He went into the ICU, a cluster of rooms arranged like the spokes of a wheel around a nurse’s station. He asked to see Georgia. The nurse looked up from the bank of monitors and cocked her head.
“She’s not conscious.”
“I know.”
She looked at his shield. “Five minutes. That’s it.”
He tiptoed into the small room, no bigger than a closet. A monitor at the side of the bed emitted regular beeps. That was good. But her skin, at least the portion not swathed in bandages, looked paper thin and chalky, and the rise and fall of her chest was so shallow he wasn’t sure air was flowing through the oxygen mask. Her hand lay on top of the sheet, fingers curled like the paw of a small animal. He remembered how she’d admitted in a moment of intimacy her compulsive need to tap her fingers an equal number of times on each hand. He grasped her hand.
He stayed until the nurse came in and whispered it was time to go. Reluctantly, he retraced his path down the corridor. Halfway down the hall was a yellow and black “Caution” sign. A bucket with a wet mop sat beside it.
As he veered around it, the strong scent of antiseptic stung his nostrils. He stopped. There was something about this smell. He sniffed, allowing the acrid odor to penetrate. This wasn’t a new smell. He’d smelled it before. He stared at sudsy water for a full minute, struggling to bring it to consciousness.
Julie Romano’s apartment. He’d smelled disinfectant the night he found Brenda Hartman. He forced himself to concentrate. Slowly, like a mosaic emerging from bits of colored stone, the image came to him. Romano’s place was clean the night he’d found Brenda Hartman. The bathroom was spotless. Yellow towels on the rack.
He took a step forward. Disinfectant. Yellow towels. Something was wrong. The first time he’d been there, just after he’d found Romano, the towels were blue. He squeezed his eyes shut. Yes. The towels had been blue. But the night he found Hartman, they were yellow. Somebody had changed them.
He called Brenda Hartman, who was back in Indiana, and woke her up. She wasn’t pleased, her husband even less so. She said she hadn’t changed the towels. The only thing she’d done was look for her letters. Which meant someone else—someone besides Hartman—had been inside Romano’s apartment since her death.
Matt sprinted to the elevator and slammed his palm on the call button. His gaze fixed on the red exit sign above the door to the stairs. There was a set of stairs outside Romano’s door. The stairs led to the back door. If someone had a key, they could get in and out of Romano’s apartment easily, without being seen. And the only other apartment on Romano’s floor belonged to an old woman who was practically deaf.
The elevator doors opened. Three people were inside. He pressed the lobby button even though it was already lit. The doors were agonizingly slow to close. What if Champlain used Romano’s place to murder her victims? Then cleaned up, transported the bodies, and dumped them someplace else?
The elevator stopped one floor down. A man and a little girl got on. Matt rocked on his heels. If that was the case, how did Champlain get a key? Brenda Hartman didn’t have one—she’d come in through the fire escape.
The elevator stopped at the next floor. The realty office had keys. Joanne Romano had a key. But Joanne didn’t kill her sister, and the realty office employees were a stretch. Someone else had a key to Julie Romano’s apartment.
Finally the elevator opened, and he shoved past the people and raced to his car. Champlain was cunning. What if she’d pretended to be a friend to Romano? Moved in slowly, gained her trust? He unlocked his car and slid in, trying to recall Romano’s apartment the first time he’d gone there. The clutter. The spices. The movies. He keyed the engine.
The movies. A borrowed cassette. “Klute.” As it fell into place, his stomach flipped. He knew who Maggie Champlain was. She’d been there from the start.
Chapter Fifty-three
The wind sliced through Stone like the beak of a bird of prey. The Hawk was earning its name tonight. In the distance a hound bayed.
In the alley behind Romano’s building, he waited for back up. Like so many Chicago alleys, the ground was patched and rutted and needed resurfacing. He gazed up at Romano’s apartment. A tiny sliver of light rimmed the shade. Someone was there.
At ground level twin beams of light poked through the shadows. He squinted. Brewster, Nelson, and three other officers were heading towards him with flashlights.
“Was it her?” Brewster asked, his breath short. “The waitress at Adam’s Rib?”
Stone nodded. “We think so.” After Matt’s call, he’d tracked down the owner of Adam’s Rib on the phone. Though irritable at being woken up, the man admitted that Annie Sears hadn’t shown up for work that day, which was unusual. She’d been very reliable, ever since he’d taken her off the weekend shift. As Stone hung up, he realized the man never asked whether Sears was okay.
His cell vibrated. It was the officer he’d sent to check out the Mount Prospect address Sears gave Matt. “There is no such number on East Kensington. It doesn’t exist.”
Stone went back to his car to nail down a warrant.
“I don’t know,” the judge said when he reached him. “Probable cause is a yellow towel?”
“It’s a kidnapping, Your Honor. The offender has a key to the place. And uses a lethal toxin. Ricki Feldman is the intended victim. I’d stake my reputation on it.”
Silence. Then a sigh. “I knew Helen Wexler. I haven’t forgotten you got the son of a bitch who killed her last year. I hope you’re right.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“I’ll have someone at the station fax it over.”
Stone went over the plan. He would divide the officers into two teams. Brewster would be in charge of one; he would lead the other. Brewster would take his men up the fire escape for an assault through Romano’s bedroom. Stone’s team would go in the front. All of them would wear masks and gloves. He would rather Matt lead the other team, but he wasn’t around.
Nelson passed out gas masks and gloves and instructed each officer to cover all their skin. “A precaution against ricin,” she said. “Or whatever the fuck they’re using.”
“We don’t know that the pathogen will be airborne. It might be in liquid form or even powder,” Stone added. “But we don’t have time to bring in a hazmat team. It’s up to us. The key is not to touch anything. Keep your hands on your weapons. Nothing else.”
He glanced at each officer in turn. He knew he was asking a lot. If any officer didn’t want to go in, he told them, he would release them. No one asked.
Brewster and his men started toward the fire escape. A minute later Stone’s radio squawked. “This is Brewster. Over.”
Stone pressed his radio’s talk button. “Go ahead.”
“We’re at the base of the fire escape.”
“That’s a ten-four. Now, listen to me. We don’t know what ‘s waiting for us inside. Let’s avoid confusion. You go up on my command only, okay Brewster? No one else. Over.”
“Got it. Your command only.�
�
Stone pocketed the radio and took a look around. This part of Glenbrook, with its white picket fences and tidy lawns, wasn’t high end, but it wasn’t blue collar either. You could see “Neighborhood watch” signs in some of the windows. An uncontrolled ricin emission could take out the whole block.
Stone led Carrie Nelson and three officers to the front. Two men carried a battering ram. Stone ordered them to put on their masks. It would be hard to talk through them so they should watch for hand signals. He waited while they slipped them on.
The door to the lobby was locked. Not having a pick handy, he took a couple of steps back, swung his foot forward, and kicked. The glass shattered. He reached in, turned the latch, and stepped through. The others followed.
He pulled out his radio and pushed the send button. “Brewster. That’s a go. Over.”
He heard static in response.
“Brewster?”
More static.
“Shit.” Stone shook the radio in frustration. “What the hell—?”
Nelson cut in. “Could be the repeater. One of the receiver sites may be down.”
In Glenbrook police radios used a system in which a series of sites captured electronic signals, fed them into a central location, and sent back the strongest one. If one of the sites was down, however, static, cross talk, even dead air might result.
Stone turned the radio over. “So, where’s the simplex switch?” Radios usually had an alternate system for these kinds of situations.
“These radios don’t have one.”
“How am I supposed to talk to Brewster?”
“I’ll go.”
“No. “Stone pointed to another officer. “Send him.”
But Nelson had already backed out the door. She said she’d call back over the radio once she gave Brewster the go-ahead. Stone would wait for her call.
He waited, each second feeling like an hour. He punched the call button of the elevator, heard the gears grind as it lumbered to the lobby. He checked his watch. Two minutes passed.
“Where the fuck is Nelson? She should have called by now.” He shifted his weight. The elevator arrived. Carrie Nelson didn’t. He tried the radio again.
“Brewster? Come in. Over.”
No response.
Stone faced the lobby door.
“Brewster, if you can hear me, get up there. Now.”
Still nothing. Thirty seconds passed. They had to move.
Chapter Fifty-four
“Okay. We go,” Stone said.
He put his mask on, scrambled up the stairs, and sidestepped down the hall to Two-B. The men with the ram followed.
The door to Romano’s apartment looked like heavy wood, but it probably was just pressed board. Stone thought he heard a thump. Someone was in there. He tried to press his ear against the door, but the mask got in his way. He ripped it off and heard a muffled voice.
“Dusty, bring the backpack.” A female.
“Okay.” A male voice.
“Hurry. We’re behind schedule.” Silence. A loud thump. “Did you hear that?” The female voice was high strung. Tense. “Dusty, what –”
Her words were cut off by a shout, followed almost immediately by the blast of a shotgun. Then another scream. And a burst of staccato shots.
“Fuck it. They’re in. Let’s go!” Stone motioned to the men with the battering ram.
Cursing the failed radios, Stone threw his mask back on. The officers took a running start and smashed the ram against the door. The door splintered with a loud crunch, and the door fell off its hinges. Stone slipped his Sig Sauer out of his holster and pushed inside, followed by his team.
A woman wearing a black warm up suit and a fatigue jacket stood in front of the couch. Behind her on the cushions lay Ricki Feldman, her eyes closed. The woman’s blonde hair was pulled back from her face, revealing shallow, colorless eyes. She was in a shooter’s stance, one foot in front of the other. She aimed a Beretta at Ricki’s chest.
“Drop your weapons,” she said, “or I’ll put a bullet through her brain.”
Stone dropped his Sig. It skittered across on the floor, coming to rest at the edge of an area rug. He heard the other men’s weapons hit the floor behind him.
The woman jerked her head toward the bedroom. “Dusty? What happened?”
“A man’s down,” a man answered. “The others backed down the fire escape.”
Stone tensed. Brewster or Nelson?
The woman loosened her shoulders, as if confirming what she already knew. “You shouldn’t have tried to do an end run. Your timing sucks.” She smiled. “But never mind, you’re here now. Welcome, men. Or are there ladies, too? Hard to tell under those big scary masks.” Her tone was eerily calm. She waved her gun at Stone’s mask. “They’re about as effective as toilet paper, by the way. You may as well take them off.”
Stone took his off. The sound of a window sliding on its track squeaked from the other room.
“Dusty?”
“Someone’s bleeding out on the steps,” he called.
Stone stiffened.
“Forget about them. Bring me the backpack.”
“They’ll storm the window.”
Champlain flicked her gun at Stone. “Not if our leader here tells them to stand down.”
Stone angled his head toward Ricki. “Not until I know she’s all right.”
She shook her head. “Not until you give the order.”
Stone hesitated, then spoke into his radio. “Brewster, this is Stone. I want you to back off. Do not, I repeat, do not attempt to come back up the fire escape. They have us covered. Over?”
Static. Shit. Not again. Come on Brewster, Stone pleaded. Then there was a squeak, a squeal, and a voice came through the radio.
“We got a man down. It’s Nelson. Over.”
Stone winced. “Brewster,” he said slowly. “Take her down. And back off. You hear me, over?”
“Got it. We will not attempt an assault.”
Stone heard a slight emphasis on the word “we”. His eyes moved to Champlain. Had she heard it too? When her expression didn’t change, Stone dared to hope. He lowered the radio, motioning toward Ricki. “Okay. Let me see her.”
“Dusty,” she called, “cover me.”
A powerfully built young man in jeans and fatigue jacket appeared from the bedroom. A police riot gun was slung across his shoulder. It looked like a twelve gauge, maybe a Remington. Probably held about four rounds. He trained it on Stone. Stone walked to Ricki, aware that two guns were dogging him. He felt for a pulse, found it. Placing his hands on her belly, he started a makeshift physical exam. Champlain stopped him.
“That’s enough. Back off.” She gestured to Dusty, who fished out a vial of what looked like clear fluid from a backpack on the floor. Dusty pulled out a syringe. They were going to shoot her up.
Stone had to do something. He watched as Dusty plunged the cannula into the vial with his thumb and drew back. The syringe filled with fluid. Then he noticed something. Dusty wasn’t wearing gloves. That was crazy. Ricin, or whatever she was using, was fatal on contact. Was this some macho thing he’d learned as a survivalist? Dusty handed the syringe to his mother. Her hands were encased in thin plastic gloves. Dusty pointed the shotgun at Stone.
Stone looked at Ricki. Her arms and legs were tightly bound, but a faint tremor seemed to pass through her. “What did you do to her?”
Champlain smiled. “Does it matter? All you need to know is that she’s not dead. You’ll have the pleasure of watching that happen.”
Stone calculated what would happen if he rushed her. He wouldn’t make it, but the men behind him might have a shot before she splattered the poison on them. Dusty pumped a round into the chamber. Stone needed more time. Get her talking, he thought. He had to get her talking.
“You killed that dog and put it on the Feldman site, didn’t you?”
The woman narrowed her eyes, as if surprised.
“It was a good move. You caught
us off-guard.”
“That was my intention.”
“Were you responsible for the dog shit too?”
She frowned. “What dog shit?”
Stone raised an eyebrow. That had been CEASE after all.
She saw through him. “Shut the fuck up. You’re trying to distract me.”
“No, Maggie, I’m just trying—” He stopped, turned and faced Dusty. “I met a friend of yours the other day, Dusty.”
Suspicion flared in Dusty’s eyes.
“Mira Peckinpah. In Joliet.”
Dusty blinked.
“I know you haven’t seen her in a while so you might not know.” Use his name as much as possible. “She’s got a son, Dusty. His name’s Brandon. “
Dusty’s eyes filled with doubt. And something else. Curiosity.
“He’s about four years old, Dusty.”
“I said shut the fuck up,” Maggie barked.
Stone ignored her. “You know what Mira told me? She said you’re Brandon’s father, Dusty.”
Dusty shook his head.
Champlain cut in. “He’s lying.” Her voice was harsh. “They do that. They tell cunning, vicious lies. Don’t believe him.”
Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, Stone saw a flash of color race across the bedroom window. He made himself stay calm. “You never knew, did you Dusty? You never came down to see her after she got pregnant. But Mira knows. It’s your child, Dusty.”
Champlain swung her gaze from Stone to her son. “Dusty, don’t listen. These men are your enemy. Their purpose is to make you weak. Make you doubt yourself. Be strong.”
Stone turned to the woman. “You might be right, Maggie. I could be lying. But there’s always the chance I’m not. There could be a little boy out there… a little boy like TJ.”
“You’re lying.”
“Dusty’s child, Maggie. Your grandson.”
For an instant, Champlain’s eyes wavered, and uncertainty washed over her. A faint groan came from the couch. Ricki was coming to. Champlain’s eyes caught fire. “Keep the gun on him, Dusty.” She slipped the Beretta into her waistband and held up the vial of ricin.
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