by Nancy Mehl
Ruth nodded at Mike. “Then you have to stay out here.”
“Not a problem,” Mike said, then turned to Logan. “But Nettie made it pretty clear she would talk only to Alex. I’m not sure she’ll want you in there.”
“Let’s try it,” Alex said to Logan. “If she objects to having you in the room, you can come back out here. I’d like you there for backup. I don’t want to miss anything.” Having two behavioral analysts was better than one in Alex’s mind. The truth was she’d been shaken by Willow’s death, and she hadn’t slept. She felt the need for another set of eyes and ears.
“Is Nettie’s sister-in-law still here?” Mike asked.
Ruth shook her head. “Once Mrs. Travers was conscious, she went to a hotel to rest a bit. She’ll be back a little later.”
“Okay, let’s go,” Alex said.
Ruth gestured toward a large door. “Come with me.”
Alex and Logan waited for her to step in front of them, then they followed her through the door and past several rooms before she finally stopped in front of one. She pushed the door open and waved Alex and Logan inside. Nettie was hooked up to both an IV and a heart monitor. Her face was bruised so badly Alex wouldn’t have recognized her. Both her eyes were swollen almost shut.
“Come . . . closer . . .” Nettie croaked as soon as she saw them. “Who are you?”
Alex had stopped a few feet from the bed, trying to acclimate herself. Years of working with the FBI had placed her at quite a few horrific scenes with mangled bodies and the evidence of man’s hate. But this was the first time she knew the person lying in the bed. Nettie was such a kind, gentle woman that somehow the realization that someone had this much cruelty in their heart struck her like a slap in the face.
She walked up next to the bed. “Nettie,” she said softly, “it’s Alex. How are you feeling?”
Nettie blinked several times as if she couldn’t see clearly. “Alex?” she whispered through her bruised lips. It sounded more like Aless, but Alex nodded.
“Yes, it’s me. I was told you need to talk to me.”
Nettie sighed deeply and nodded. Then she reached for Alex’s hand and mumbled something Alex couldn’t understand. She leaned closer, trying to hear.
“Say it again, Nettie. I missed what you said.” She looked back at Logan, who’d been staying back so Nettie wouldn’t see him. Now he took a step closer.
“He . . . he . . .”
“He?” Alex repeated.
Nettie nodded slowly. “Here.”
Alex looked around. Here where? Wondering if Nettie meant there was something she wanted her to hear, she said, “I’m listening.”
Nettie suddenly thrashed in the bed as if in frustration. “He . . .” she said again. “He . . .”
“Not much longer,” Ruth interjected. “She needs to rest.”
Frustrated by her inability to understand whatever Nettie was trying to say, Alex reached into her jeans pocket and took out her sketch of the man she’d remembered. She held it in front of Nettie’s face.
“Do you recognize this man?” she asked Nettie.
Her eyes grew wide, and she nodded.
“Who is he, Nettie?” Alex asked. Even if she didn’t know his real name, anything she could tell them might help to determine who was responsible for the attacks.
“No . . . no . . .” She started to breathe quickly as if she couldn’t get enough air. “He . . .”
“I think you need to go,” Ruth said. Alex noticed her watching the numbers on the monitor next to Nettie’s bed. It was obvious she didn’t like what she was seeing.
Alex, not knowing what else to do, leaned down once more, putting her ear next to Nettie’s mouth. “I can’t understand you, Nettie,” she said quietly. “Try one more time.”
Nettie was trying to talk, but she couldn’t seem to catch her breath. “He . . . here. He . . . here . . .” Suddenly, she bolted upright in the bed, her eyes full of some unseen terror. “He’s here!” she gasped. “He’s here!” Then she collapsed back on the bed, and the machine next to her began to beep loudly.
“Out now!” Ruth commanded them. She pushed a button near the bed, and immediately they heard a voice coming from a loudspeaker in the hall. “Code blue, room 7. Code blue, room 7.”
Ruth pushed them into the hall. Several medical personnel ran into the room and pushed a large cart next to the bed. Alex and Logan hurried toward the ICU’s exit to the waiting area. Mike had come in from the front desk, and when he saw them, he jogged over.
“What’s going on?” he asked. “Is Nettie okay?”
Alex shook her head. “I think she’s in trouble, Mike.”
They stood off to the side, waiting to see what would happen. A few minutes later a doctor walked out of Nettie’s room. Behind him, the same medical personnel who’d rushed in came out and walked past them.
“You’re the FBI agents who spoke to Nettie Travers?” he asked.
“Yes,” Alex said. “Is she okay?”
“I’m sorry, no.” His eyebrows knit together in a tight frown. “Can you tell me how she acted before we were alerted to a problem?”
Was he blaming them? “She was trying to tell us something,” Alex said. “It seemed important. Then she sat up. It was like she was . . . I don’t know. Shocked?”
“In pain?”
“Not really,” Alex said slowly, “but it’s possible. I had the feeling she was reacting to something that happened suddenly.”
“Okay, thanks.” He grunted. “She shouldn’t have died. She was getting better.”
“Will there be an autopsy, Doctor?” Logan asked.
“I’m sure there will be. Her sister-in-law is already here from out of town. I’m about to call her. Relatives can say no to an autopsy, but I’m sure they’ll want to know what happened too. She only left after Nettie regained consciousness because I said she was improving.” He sighed softly. “This isn’t a call I want to make. Excuse me.”
“We’ll want to see that autopsy,” Alex said.
“You’ll have to go through proper channels.”
He pushed the door to the ICU open, leaving them standing there.
“I don’t like this,” Alex said as they made their way back to the front desk and waiting area.
“What do you mean?” Mike asked. “People don’t make it sometimes. It happens.”
“But he said she was supposed to recover. Maybe whoever wanted her dead came back to finish the job.”
“In the ICU?” Logan said. “That would be difficult.”
“Yes, it would,” Alex said. “But not impossible.”
Ruth returned with a piece of paper in her hand. “I found this drawing on the floor in Mrs. Travers’s room. Does it belong to you?”
“Yes, it’s mine,” Alex said. “I must have dropped it when the monitor went off.” She took the sketch from the nurse. “Ruth, how difficult would it be for someone to get into one of these rooms without your knowledge?”
“Not possible,” she said without hesitation. “We watch who goes in and out very carefully. If you’re thinking about Mrs. Travers, no one went into that room who wasn’t supposed to be there.”
Alex thought for a moment. “Do you check every doctor who enters the ICU?”
This time Ruth hesitated a moment, obviously uncomfortable with Alex’s question. “No,” she said slowly, “but we know our doctors. We’d notice if a strange one went into a patient’s room.” She pulled her shoulders back and straightened her spine. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”
As she walked away, Mike said, “I don’t like the way she answered that question. It seems clear to me that someone could get past them if they were wearing a doctor’s coat.”
“I agree,” Alex said.
“Do you think Ruth recognized the man in the sketch?”
“I don’t think so. She didn’t display any signs of dishonesty.”
“Excuse me.”
Alex turned around and fou
nd a young woman in blue scrubs. Her name tag indicated she was a nurse. “Can I help you?” Alex asked.
The woman looked around her. “I . . . I doubt it, but I might be able to help you.” She moved a little closer to Alex. “We really thought Mrs. Travers was going to make it.”
“Do you have any reason to suspect that someone . . . helped her along?” Alex wanted to be careful. She didn’t want to spook the girl.
“A man came to the desk asking about Willow LeGrand. She was friends with Mrs. Travers, right?” Alex nodded. “Well, I couldn’t give him personal information about a patient, but I did tell him the survivor from the attack wasn’t Ms. LeGrand. He was very, very upset. He hung around out here for a while”—she gestured toward Mike—“but he left around the time you arrived. It’s possible he got through the ICU entrance when we had an earlier code blue. Everyone was concentrated on that. He might have slipped into Mrs. Travers’s room unobserved.”
Alex held up the sketch she still held in her hand. “Could this be the man you saw?”
The nurse stared at the drawing for a few seconds before nodding. “Yes, that’s him. I’m certain of it.”
14
As Adam sipped coffee in his favorite all-night diner, he reflected on the fifth sacrifice. He’d chosen a different spot, but he’d had no choice. The train yards were being closely watched now.
The older man destined to be offered had fought back like he was twenty. Adam had been surprised, but of course he prevailed.
He wasn’t worried about putting himself or his family in danger. The prophecy said the demon who unleashed judgment on the world would be protected, as would those he held close. Besides, he planned to take Sally and the children someplace safe. He’d saved quite a bit of money, and he had his eye on a place in Switzerland. No extradition treaty with the U.S., and the chalet he’d found was far enough away to keep them separated from those infected. He could still watch the results of his achievement on TV. It would be perfect.
He was usually very careful during the ritual, but the man’s struggles resulted in blood on Adam’s coat. It wasn’t a problem, just an inconvenience. Unfortunately, he’d accidently smeared some of the blood from his gloves on the steering wheel of the car.
After the sacrifice, he’d pulled into the alley behind a butcher shop in a strip mall. No one was around. He’d tossed his coat and gloves into a dumpster filled with the remnants of raw meat the place threw out every day. The blood on his belongings would mix with the blood on the meat, so it was the perfect place to get rid of them. He glanced at his watch. The dumpster would be emptied in about an hour, and the evidence of his deed would be gone for good.
Before he left there, he’d removed a clean coat from the trunk of the car. When he got home, he’d clean the steering wheel with bleach. No sense taking chances. He was certain the police knew his name by now, but he didn’t need to give them his DNA. Even though he never worried about the police tracking him, he was careful. And if they ever did question him, they wouldn’t learn anything. Not only was he much smarter than everyone else but he was also convinced the Master would ensure he was left alone to carry out his divine purpose.
He took a bite of his scrambled eggs as a man entered the diner to drop off several copies of the local newspaper. He smiled to himself. Today’s issue should be interesting.
Mike had notified his SAC about the situation at the hospital and then left right after faxing Alex’s sketch to the command post from the hospital administrator’s office. They’d use facial recognition to try to identify him.
When police detectives arrived to find Nettie dead instead of conscious for questioning, they called in the chief, who ordered his team to close all the entrances and exits to the hospital. They let in only emergency personnel and relatives of those patients in critical condition. They searched every nook and cranny, but they didn’t find anyone who didn’t belong. And no one on the night shift in the ICU remembered seeing the man in Alex’s drawing except the young nurse.
“We’ve done all we can,” Chief Rogers told them. “He’s not here now, but we’ve put out an APB on him. We’d rather have a photo, though. Hopefully, we’ll get something soon.”
“Good,” Logan said. “We need to question him. We don’t know if he had anything to do with Nettie Travers’s death, but he may still have important information.”
“Understood.” The chief turned and left. Slowly, all the police cruisers and unmarked vehicles began to pull away from the hospital. People were entering and exiting now. Some people had been upset about being kept in or out of the building, but most seemed to understand—although they had questions. Law enforcement was instructed to say that a wanted criminal might have been spotted inside the building but that it wasn’t confirmed. This seemed to mollify almost everyone except the news media that surrounded the chief as soon as he walked outside.
“I guess we’d better call Keith,” Logan told Alex after they’d watched the flow for a few minutes. “Hopefully, we can get out of here within the next hour or two.”
“I want to know what’s going on at the CP. If they’ve found Walker yet.”
“So do I. Let’s call in.”
Logan had just taken his phone from his pocket when it rang. He looked at his caller ID. Harrison. He quickly showed Alex the phone’s screen and then answered.
“Logan, what’s going on there?” Harrison asked. “I’m sorry to hear about Mrs. Travers.”
“We think someone from the Circle might have killed her. It’s wild that the one man Alex saw at one of her aunt’s Circle meetings could be involved in all this, but there it is.”
“You’re right. Chief Rogers wonders if the Circle is involved too. Listen, we already got a hit on that sketch of Alex’s through our facial recognition software. The man we’re looking for is Jimmy Gedrose. He used to be with the Wichita PD.”
Logan’s mouth dropped open. “He was in law enforcement?”
“Yes. Money went missing from a big drug bust on his watch. The other officers involved swore all the money was there when they turned it over to Gedrose. The story was leaked to the media. They never could prove anything, though, so the charges were dropped. But most everyone on the force was convinced he’d done it. That was thirty years ago. Seems he was pretty angry about being kicked off the force.”
“This guy was part of the Circle,” Logan said. “Maybe that incident decades ago is what threw him their way.”
“Could be.”
Logan looked at Alex, who was watching him closely. “We’re on our way back to the hotel,” he said. “We can be at the airport in an hour.”
“No. I want you to stay in Wichita,” Harrison said. “The weather’s pretty bad here. I’m not even sure Keith can take off, but I don’t want to chance it either way. I need you two to keep working, see what you can come up with on Adam Walker. I’m sending you what little we have on him. See what jumps out at you. Get your thoughts back to me as soon as possible. Monty has done what he can here, but Alex has more experience with this cult. We’ve run Walker through everything, including dark-web sites to see if he’s expressed his odd beliefs online. We’ve also checked to see if he tried to buy equipment or biological weapons somewhere. We’ve researched phone records and done deep searches on the people he worked with at the lab.”
He took a deep breath. “Nothing so far. It’s like he was living in the shadows. We really need your help. I want to know what he’s planning next. It might be the only way we can stop him.”
“All right,” Logan said. “Has someone informed Keith?”
“I’ll take care of that next. Look, I need you to work closely with the local police too.”
“Okay. Did you tell Chief Rogers we’re staying?”
“Yes. He’s a good man, and he’s more than willing to have the help. They’re also dealing with an influx of drugs tainted with Fentanyl. Two people have died so far, and several more have been hospitalized.”
“
We’ll do what we can,” Logan said. “When we get back to the hotel, we’ll get to work.”
“I’ve got to go, but have you seen the local paper there?”
Logan frowned at Alex. “The local paper? No. It’s pretty early here.”
“Read it when you can,” Harrison said. “I’m sure they picked up a story from Kansas City.” Then without a good-bye, he hung up.
Logan looked at Alex, who was still staring at him with a worried look.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
Logan told her about Jimmy Gedrose and Harrison’s instructions.
“But whatever we can come up with should be presented to the team at the CP in person,” Alex said.
Logan shrugged. “I know, but we’re not in charge.”
“We’ll just have to do the best we can. What was that about the local paper?”
“My guess is there’s already been a fifth killing. After that, the Train Man needs only one more before he unleashes that virus, right? Let’s head over to the hotel. They should have papers in the lobby. If not, we’ll just check online. We also need to tell the hotel we’re staying.”
“What about Keith?”
“Harrison’s taking care of that. I guess we’re stranded here for a while.”
“I hope the WPD makes finding this Gedrose guy a priority.”
“I’m sure they’ll do the best they can, but they’re overloaded with some kind of Fentanyl-laced drugs that are killing people.”
Alex sighed. “Too many of those cases. The bad guys never take a day off, do they?”
“I guess not. We’d better get going.”
They went out to their rental car and drove to the hotel—slowly. The streets were slick, and the snow kept coming. Logan finally pulled up in front of the building that housed the hotel’s office. “I’ll be right back,” he said.
Inside, a young man walked up to the counter, and Logan asked about extending their stay a few more days. Thankfully, they had vacancies, and they wouldn’t have to change rooms.
“Can we get some extra coffee?” Logan asked. The clerk grabbed several packets from under the counter and put them in a plastic bag. “I couldn’t get by on one cup a day either,” he said with a smile. Logan thanked him and then asked about a local newspaper.
