Before It's Too Late

by Sara Driscoll

  “Patience, Grasshopper.” Meg sent McCord a sharkish grin in response to his outraged expression. “Frustrating, isn’t it?” She laughed when he sat back in his chair and took a long pull of milk shake, glaring at her from under his brows. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be teasing you, but this is the first time today we’ve had anything lighthearted to enjoy.” She lay her burger down on its wrapper and studied her sister. “Are you okay discussing this?”

  “If you try to handle me like I’m made of glass, we’re going to have words.” Anger glinted in Cara’s eyes and she struggled to keep it under control. “He hurt me, and tried to kill me, but I held on until you got there.” Her voice wobbled. “I knew you’d come for me. It was just a matter of holding on.”

  Meg grabbed her hand, holding on tight. “I will always come for you. He knocked you back a step, and, God knows, he knocked me back. But we’re a team and we’re going to catch him.”

  “I’m still a part of that team. I want to know everything. And then I want to help catch this son of a bitch and get some of my own back.”

  “Deal.” Meg turned to McCord, but didn’t release her sister’s hand. “Okay, all the cards on the table so the four of us are on the same page. Her name is Julie Moore, and, no surprise, she looks very much like me. She’s a pulmonary care nurse working with lung cancer patients at Georgetown University Medical Center.”

  “And there’s your tie-in to the site and the kill method,” McCord said around a mouthful of fries. He chewed and then swallowed. “Goddamn, but he does his research. Where did he grab her? There wasn’t a dog found running loose this time, was there?”

  “She owns a dog, but the dog wasn’t with her when she was grabbed. She and her husband live in Silver Spring. She said she got up this morning to go to the gym, like she usually does. Tries to get there about five-thirty in the morning. She was running a little late today. When she got to the gym, it was dark. Dawn was still twenty or so minutes away. She parked in her usual spot, got out of the car . . . and that’s all she remembers.”

  “There’s your anesthetics at work,” Webb said. “And the same pattern Cara reported. No interaction with the victim, just a quick snatch and grab in a predictable, but mostly untraveled, spot.”

  “I parked behind the school, like I usually do, to leave the parking spots out front free for clients. No one was around to see him grab me. I don’t even know where his truck was, but it must have been nearby. Maybe parked near the empty unit next door.”

  “I’d really like to talk to Agent Rutherford about the change in pattern—he’s either escalating or devolving. Clearly, he’s seen McCord’s article in the Washington Post and he’s changed his MO accordingly. And there’s one other thing I haven’t had a chance to tell any of you. Karen Teller, the victim from Saturday, got a look at him. A good-enough look for one of our artists to do a forensic sketch. When I had a meeting with Peters this morning”—Meg tossed a quick look at Cara—“he told me he’d arrange for me to see it, in case the sketch rang any bells. Needless to say, I haven’t seen it yet. Been a little busy.”

  Cara gave her a long look, like she was afraid to ask the question. “Did your meeting go well?”

  “I didn’t get fired.”

  “ ‘Fired’?” McCord froze with his burger an inch from his open mouth. “Because of us working this case?”

  “No, it’s more than that. I told you we got the victim safely out on Saturday before the building blew. But I didn’t tell you the whole story. I kind of disobeyed a direct order from my supervising agent to not go in, when it became clear the demolition team wasn’t in control of the explosives anymore. We made it out of the building with only seconds to spare, and then got caught in the shock wave from the blast. And I got concussed.” She shrugged, as if to say, What can you do?

  “And your supervisor was pissed. Even though you nearly got blown up.”

  “Oh yeah. So his boss, the executive assistant director, called me in for a little chat this morning. That’s where I was when Cara was grabbed. When I called you, I was on my way back from that meeting at the Hoover Building.”

  “And he didn’t fire you,” McCord stated.

  “He suspended me for a week, but he didn’t fire me. And since I was supposed to take a week off for the concussion, he was basically making sure the department took a hard stance that didn’t really hurt me in the end. He did, however, tell me under no circumstances to work the case while I was suspended. He’s going to have some pretty big problems with what happened today.”

  “He doesn’t know yet?”

  “He probably does by now. I had no choice but to call Craig when we were on our way back from Antietam and tell him what happened after I left Peters’s office.”

  “How did that go?” McCord asked.

  “Let’s put it this way,” Webb interjected. “I was on the other side of the truck and I could hear every word he bellowed for a full two minutes.”

  “He wasn’t happy,” Meg translated. “Not only had I involved myself in the case while suspended, I hadn’t informed anyone else at the FBI and insisted on trying to carry the whole thing off without the assistance of law enforcement.”

  “You told him Clay and Todd were involved?” Cara asked.

  “I wasn’t about to try to hide anything this time, so yes. Then I told him the unsub threatened Mom and Dad.”

  Finished his burger, Webb started on his fries. “He got quieter after that.”

  “I think I made my case there. This may sound stupid, but I think I’m getting a feel for how the unsub thinks. We play along within the rules he’s set, and he’ll respect them as well. If I’d cheated, if I’d called in the team, our parents’ lives would be in his hands—today, tomorrow, or next week. We played by his rules, so I think they’re safe, at least for now.”

  “But what will the consequence be to you?” Cara asked. “Mom and Dad wouldn’t want you to lose your job because of them. They’d argue they could take care of themselves.”

  Meg just stopped herself from snapping out an answer and made herself take a breath. Cara didn’t deserve to be the victim of her blinding headache and short temper. “With what you know of the man, do you really think they’d manage to keep themselves safe?”

  “Not a chance, because this guy is insane and has zero boundaries.”

  “Exactly.”

  Webb tossed his empty wrappers into the paper bag and sat back with his milk shake. “We’ve learned something important about this guy today.”

  “That he can be in two places at once?” McCord asked.

  “That’s not what I meant, but you’re right, he’s organized and can move fast. No, I mean he’s got medical training of some kind. When we found Julie, she was tied to a table, and all he’d done to her was a single stab wound. A single extremely precise stab wound in exactly the right place, at exactly the right depth, and with exactly the kind of weapon needed for the results he wanted. He didn’t want her to bleed out and die. He wanted to collapse her lung and for her to suffocate slowly. In fact, his game was dependent on the fact she would die slowly. He set it up so it would take hours, allowing him to drive back to Arlington, take Cara, and put her life in danger, all long before Julie’s condition became critical. That kind of precision requires very specific knowledge.”

  “You could do it?” Meg asked.

  “Yes. You’re likely looking at someone within the medical field, or with medical training—a paramedic, nurse, doctor, or med student. That also ties into the use of anesthetics. Before, we just thought we were looking at someone who had some sort of access to anesthetics. But this is someone who also knows specifically about human anatomy.”

  “Keeping the profile in mind, Rutherford would disagree with the paramedic, doctor, or nurse,” Meg said. “But maybe you have something with the student. Maybe someone who washed out, couldn’t cut it, and then had to fall back on another career?”

  “And then there’s the keywords,” McCo
rd added. “The first two you were able to pass off as general knowledge that would be found online or in newspapers. But we’ve gone past this now, haven’t we? I think we’re looking at someone with a personal connection to you.”

  Cara frowned, her brow deeply furrowed. “I don’t like how personal that connection is. Like inside-our-house kind of personal. Knowing what Maimeó called me, that’s beyond any keyword we’ve had so far.”

  “I know. I need to totally reevaluate that list I made. No one on it seems right now.”

  “That was really solid work by all of you though. Real teamwork. Meg, you figured out the keywords and then you and Hawk found both your targets.” Cara turned to McCord. “You solved the ciphertext and then the riddle—and were right both times—without having ever done it before. Amazing!”

  McCord’s cheeks flushed a ruddy red at her praise. “Couldn’t have done it without watching you do it first. Though I’m sure I wasn’t as fast as you.”

  “You were fast enough to save two lives. And Todd—” She met Webb’s eyes from where he sat at the end of the bed. “I don’t know how to thank you. Your quick thinking and skills saved my life. And Julie’s.”

  “All in a day’s work.” But Webb bent his head in acknowledgment. “I’m just happy I could help. But that brings something else to mind. I think McCord is right— this is someone you knew. But not necessarily someone you know now, or at least know well. I don’t think he knows who you interact with now.”

  “Meaning someone with the kind of medical skills that could save someone from a life-threatening pneumothorax? No, I imagine not.”

  “I think he was counting on both women dying.” Webb glanced at Cara. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize,” she said. “We need to reason this out. So you think he was counting on it to wreck Meg?”

  “Yeah.” He pinned Meg with a laser-sharp look. “He takes two women, and one of them is your sister. He threatens to kill your parents if you bring in any official help, so you’re between a rock and a hard place. Someone is going to die.”

  “You mean may die,” Meg interjected.

  “No, I mean will die. I’m trying to put myself in his perverted shoes. You’re without your team at the FBI. So even if you can crack the code, you’re going to be in over your head. Let’s say you manage to get to your sister in time. Lots of people know CPR, and if you ever took lifesaving in swim class, you may even know how to deal with a drowning victim. In this fictional version of events, you get to your sister, save her from drowning, because you get there before she goes under, pass her off to the Coast Guard, and then get to Antietam. At that point, there’s no way in hell you save that victim. Hell, if McCord hadn’t figured out her condition before we got there, I wouldn’t even have been able to save her without the ability to dart her.”

  “ ‘Dart’?” Meg asked. “Is that what you call that procedure?”

  “That’s what paramedics call it. Officially, it’s a ‘needle decompression of the chest.’ ”

  “What on earth did you have to do to this woman?” McCord looked horrified.

  Webb quickly outlined what he’d done to save Julie’s life. “I got the supplies from the Coasties while they were picking up Cara. Without your call on the pneumo, I wouldn’t have asked for the right equipment, and I’m not sure she would have made it. I could have done CPR to try to hold her, but I don’t think it would have worked. And I’m a professional.” He turned to Meg. “Julie would have died. And that would have torn you up, which was the whole point.” His expression turned speculative. “I think I might know what he has in mind.”

  “Really?” McCord leaned forward. “Enlighten us.”

  “What if this whole thing today was to crush Meg? Working under the assumption that what he’s been trying to do all along is get her off her game, what if this is the penultimate move? She’s his final target, but unless he’s an idiot—and I don’t think he is—he knows she’s smarter and stronger than he is. He’s not going to win against her if she’s at the top of her game.” His gaze dropped to Hawk, lying on the floor with his ears perked, listening to every word. “He’s especially not going to win against the team of Meg and Hawk. So he needs to boost himself on the playing field by putting her at a disadvantage. And what better way to do that than two women, two carbon copies of herself, dying because she failed to save them.”

  “You think he’s ready to move on her,” Cara stated. “That she’s the next target. Or, more sensibly, that Hawk might be the next target just before he takes Meg out.”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” The cardboard sleeve that had held her fries crumpled under the force of Meg’s clenched fist. “Bring it on. Not that I’d let him get within fifty feet of Hawk.”

  “We’ve already had this conversation today.” Webb’s tone held a warning.

  “I know, I know. ‘Smart, not stupid.’ But I’m tired of playing his game and waiting. I’m ready for him.”

  “So why don’t we force his hand?” When everyone stared at him, McCord continued. “Let’s set up a sting. Make him think poor little ol’ Meg is a shattered shell of her former self because Julie Moore died. Maybe she’s even been fired from the FBI because she went rogue and tried to work the case on her own.”

  “Better still,” said Cara, “what if her sister died? Then she’d really be a mess.”

  Meg leaned back in her chair, her lips twisted in a grimace of horror. “Don’t even say that.”

  “But you would be. You’d be a mess. And vulnerable. In other words, the perfect target. But how do we get that message to him?”

  “That’s where I come in,” McCord said. “What story do we want? I’ll put it on the front page of the Post so he can’t miss it.”

  “That would be perfect.” Cara’s smile was full of calculation. “He’s been in control up to now. This time, we’ll be calling the shots and setting it up.” Her face clouded. “But what if he’s been watching somehow and knows I survived?”

  “That’s easy,” Webb said. “McCord’s article will tell the story of your death tonight from secondary drowning. It’s rare, but it does happen. You have a drowning, or near drowning, and you think the victim has come through with flying colors. But up to twenty-four hours later, there can be water still trapped in the lungs that causes pulmonary edema. If untreated, it can cause death. So the story is Meg tries to save both vics on her own and fails spectacularly. Julie dies on site. Even if he was watching at Antietam, all he’d have seen was a body on a stretcher rushed down the stairs and into a waiting ambulance. We can’t call death at the scene, so you get to the hospital to be pronounced DOA. Then Cara dies after being rescued. She has one brief moment of hope that her sister made it, which then is cruelly crushed when Cara suddenly dies at the hospital. The FBI fires her, and then what does she do? Where does she go?”

  “I can tell you the answer to that because it’s happened before.” Meg’s voice was expressionless. “I tuck my tail between my legs and go home to my parents’ rescue.”

  “Hey!” Webb’s tone was sharp with rebuke. “We’ve had this conversation before too. You didn’t tuck your tail between your legs. You lost a partner violently and you needed to get your balance back. There’s a difference.”

  Cara nodded, but McCord simply looked confused, his gaze jerking from Meg to Webb and back again.

  Meg took pity on him. “He’s referring to when my K-9 Deuce was killed on the job with the Richmond PD. I resigned from the force and went home.” She turned to smile down at her dog. “To you, as it turned out.”

  Hawk’s tail thumped happily on the floor.

  “Maybe we can use that. With your permission, of course,” McCord added quickly. “What if the story is that you’re suspended and under review, so you quit in retaliation? You’ve done it before, so you do it again, that kind of thing. We tell him exactly where you’ve gone, maybe through a quote from one of your team members, and then we wait for him to show up.”
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  “How exactly are you going to convince your bosses to do this?” Meg asked.

  “Am I going to get an exclusive and be able to talk about my own part in this case as soon as it’s all over?”

  “You know I have to get Bureau approval for it, but I think we can swing it.”

  “Then I won’t have any problems selling it to my editor. He lights up like a Christmas tree whenever the word ‘exclusive’ is uttered.”

  “I need to call a meeting tomorrow.” Meg picked up her milk shake from Cara’s side table, fiddled distractedly with the straw, and then set it down again, untasted. “Everyone needs to be in on this. The whole team, including Craig, Rutherford from the BAU, and any involved agents. And I’d really like Peters to be there.”

  “You don’t think he’ll just shoot the whole plan down?”

  “Maybe? But he suspended me, so for me to attempt to do an end run around that suspension, even with the goal of saving other lives and trying to protect my own, I’m going to need his blessing if I have any hope in hell of keeping my job.”

  “And if he doesn’t give you his blessing?”

  “Then my life is worth more than my job and we’re still going after him.” She pulled out her cell phone. “I need that sketch. Hold on, I’m going to see if Brian has access to it.” She shot him a quick text. The reply came back almost immediately. “He’s got it. Craig sent it out to the team—well, the active members of the team—this afternoon. He’ll forward it to me in a few minutes.” She sat back in her chair, her phone in her hand, waiting for the e-mail to arrive. “Cara, let’s think about this. Deuce, Hawk, and Haven, those are names that are easily accessible.”

  “It wasn’t until Marlowe came up that we started to suspect someone with deeper access. I was about three-and-a-half when we got Marlowe.”

  “And I was five. But he lived to fourteen. So there are potentially a lot of people who came in and out of our lives during that window.”

  “You said Rutherford thinks the suspect is about the same age as us, right?”