by Karen Rose
Decker nodded soberly. ‘The threat against one’s child can be a powerful motivator.’
Rawlings’s smirk had faltered, becoming an angry scowl.
Kate smiled up at Decker again. He knew where she was going and was playing along. ‘Exactly. Also, find out if Agent Novak spoke with anyone in the jail infirmary. Same questions. Oh, and one more thing.’ She crooked her finger, asking him to stoop a little so that she could whisper in his ear. ‘Be ready with your phone to snap a photo.’
Decker turned his head so that his eyes were only inches from hers. He lifted his brows in question, but he nodded. He’s baiting you, he said with his eyes.
I know. Don’t worry. Kate had a firm grip on her temper, mainly because she didn’t want the guy to walk and he might if she did what she really wanted to. Well, he wouldn’t walk because his legs would be broken. Maybe he’d crawl. But he’d be free, and that was not okay.
She approached Rawlings slowly. ‘What does your wife do for a living, Mr Rawlings?’
He blinked, not anticipating that question. ‘She’s a teacher.’
‘Oh. She has good benefits, then. That’s good for your son, assuming he lives.’
He narrowed his eyes. ‘What is that supposed to mean?’
‘They did tell you the long-term effects of ricin exposure, didn’t they? Liver failure, kidneys . . . Your son could be looking at a long recovery. Assuming he lives.’
Rawlings’s nostrils flared. ‘If you want to arrest me, then arrest me. Otherwise, leave me the hell alone. Don’t try to make me so angry that I confess. I haven’t done anything wrong.’
‘I understand,’ Kate said, then sighed. ‘Those crime shows on TV make getting a confession look so simple. Unfortunately the smart criminals won’t fall for it and the stupid criminals leave so much incriminating evidence that we don’t need to resort to such trickery.’
‘Is there a question in there, Detective . . . whoever you are?’
‘Oh, my bad. I’m Special Agent Coppola, FBI. I’ll be the one taking over Agent Novak’s role in the investigation. You know,’ she said in a conspiratorial voice, ‘talking to the ladies in the jail. Woman’s touch and all that.’
He looked at her with contempt. ‘They won’t tell you anything. There isn’t anything to tell.’
‘They may not have been willing to talk to Agent Novak, but they may be a lot more willing to talk to me. Especially once I tell them that you’re in custody.’
‘You can’t arrest me. I haven’t done anything.’
‘Yes, I heard you the first time. I don’t actually have to arrest you. I just have to tell them that I did. Although I suspect I’ll have enough to arrest you once we get back the lab results on your son’s stomach contents and compare them to Alice’s. If the ricin is a chemical match, then you’re the common denominator. That will be enough for a warrant. Once I spread the word that you’ve been detained for questioning and likely won’t return to your job, anyone who owes you a favor will know you won’t pay it back, and anyone you’re extorting will know you no longer have leverage against them. They’ll spill their secrets fast enough. No loyalty.’
He smiled pleasantly. ‘You’re full of hot air, Agent Coppola.’
She gave him a brilliant smile, grabbing his hand and shaking it. ‘Thank you. Thank you.’
‘What the fuck?’ He yanked his hand back. ‘Don’t touch me.’
Kate looked over at Decker, pleased to see him holding his phone in front of his eye. ‘Did you get it?’
Decker lowered his phone. ‘I did.’ He walked up to her, showing his phone’s screen. It was exactly as she’d hoped – a friendly exchange with Kate looking grateful.
Rawlings’s mouth fell open. ‘You can’t do that. It looks like I cooperated.’
Kate shrugged. ‘I can do pretty much what I want. Unless you tell me what I want to know.’
Rawlings went pale. ‘He’ll kill me. He’ll kill my family.’
Kate regarded the guard coldly. ‘He tried to kill Agent Novak’s sister. He killed your son’s best friend and at least four other people that we know of. They had families who are grieving them. He tried to kill your son. You’d let him get away with that?’ She gave him a few seconds to answer, but realized he wasn’t going to. ‘Tell me what I want to know, or I’ll make copies of that photo and distribute them to every goddamn cell in that jail. And then I’ll send you back to work with a smile and all my thanks. I’ll make an announcement over the PA about how glad we at the FBI are to have a willing, cooperative, talkative public servant like you.’
Rawlings was breathing hard. ‘You’d sentence the rest of my family to death?’
Kate shrugged. ‘No. You will. Either way you go with this, I’ll make sure he thinks you cooperated, so you might as well tell me what I want to know.’
She expected him to lunge, but was a bit surprised when he actually did, because he didn’t attempt to escape. Instead he kicked at Decker’s cane, knocking him down and snatching the phone from his hand. Without breaking stride, Rawlings threw the phone against the wall as hard as he could. It splintered, raining to the floor in shards.
The two uniforms charged him, cuffing his hands behind him and pushing him to his knees. Decker sat on the floor looking annoyed but unhurt.
‘I’m fine,’ he snapped before Kate could ask. ‘Just my pride and my ass. In that order.’
Rawlings looked grimly satisfied. ‘Now that photo goes nowhere.’
Decker snorted. ‘Except to the cloud. I sent it to my email at work. Yours too, Kate.’
‘You gotta love technology,’ Kate said lightly, allowing herself to breathe. She’d had a moment of panic on seeing her leverage smashed to smithereens. She pulled her own phone from her pocket and checked her email. ‘Here it is. Let’s add another one to it.’ She handed the phone to one of the officers as she took her place next to the kneeling Rawlings. ‘Make sure you get our faces and the cuffs in the frame.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’ The officer snapped the picture. ‘I can take another if you need me to.’
She checked the photo. ‘It’s good. Very good.’ Borrowing from Decker’s manual, she sent the photo to her work email before showing it to Rawlings. ‘You look a little pale, but that’s probably because you are. Which will just make the photo that much more effective when I distribute it.’ She set up her phone to record video, then handed it back to the same cop. ‘Hit the red button, please, and tell me when to start.’ She waited for the officer’s signal. ‘Tim Rawlings, you’re under arrest for assault on a federal agent and the destruction of government property.’ She recited the Miranda, then nodded at the officer, who stopped the recording and handed her back her phone. ‘This will convince them if the photos don’t.’
Rawlings looked up at her with hate in his eyes. ‘My family’s blood is on your hands.’
‘I’ll put your wife and kids in protective custody if we can find them,’ Kate said. ‘You just worry about you, Mr Rawlings. And your son in there.’
She looked over at Deacon, who’d surged to his feet when Rawlings had gone after Decker, but was now smiling at her. Grimly, but it was a smile.
He walked back over to them long enough to pull Decker to his feet. ‘You two make a good team,’ was all he said before sitting back down between Faith and his brother to wait for news.
She met Decker’s eyes and smiled, and he smiled back. They did make a damn good team.
‘What do we do with him, Agent Coppola?’ the officer asked.
‘Search him,’ she said. ‘Make sure he’s not armed with anything.’ She patted down his pockets until she found his phone. Two phones actually, which was no shock. One was probably a burner. She put them in evidence bags and sealed them. ‘I’ll call Agent Troy to take him in. Let him sit in a chair until then. I don’t want any a
ccusations of mistreatment.’
She heard raised voices behind her and saw a man and woman dressed in suits, the woman in hysterics. Both were demanding to see their son, Charlie Chalmers. Kate’s shoulders sagged.
‘I can do it,’ Decker offered quietly.
‘I’m tempted to let you. Let’s do it together.’
Cincinnati, Ohio,
Friday 14 August, 6.45 P.M.
It’s like a cop buffet. He parked his car at the far end of the ER parking lot after driving up one aisle and down the other, studying the cars as he passed. Both Dani Novak and Tim Rawlings Junior had been brought to this ER versus County’s.
Not that he could blame their people at all. Bad things had happened at County. All directed by me, true, but still.
He didn’t have his own people inside this hospital. Not yet. But he was all right for now. Dani Novak had been taken to surgery, so she wouldn’t be talking for a while. He had time to deal with her. In the meantime, everyone and his brother had flocked to this ER. Cops and Feds and reporters . . .
It was truly a fucking buffet. There was Deacon Novak’s SUV, Marcus O’Bannion’s Subaru, Adam Kimble’s Jeep, and Kate Coppola’s rented Toyota. There was no telling when they’d all come out of the ER, but when they did, he’d be able to follow them. Or one of them, anyway. He’d removed the tracker from JJ’s car before having Mallory store her body in the trunk, so he had one in his pocket.
The choice was pretty straightforward. Kate Coppola seemed to have adopted Griffin Davenport. The woman had spent days by his side in ICU and had run the hallways like an obstacle course to save his life at County yesterday. If anyone knew the location of Davenport’s safe house, it would be Coppola.
So of all the vehicles on the buffet, Coppola’s was the one to watch. He put on a cap, pulled the brim over his face, snapped on a pair of gloves, then strolled past the cars, stopping to pretend to tie his shoe when he reached the rental Toyota.
He slipped the tracker under the car, then strolled back. If he was going to go head-to-head with Coppola to get to Davenport, he needed to be better prepared. The woman had quickly built a reputation as a crack shot. He looked at his arm with disgust. And at the moment, I am not.
Give it up. Davenport’s already told them everything he knows.
He shook his head. Trouble was, he didn’t know what Davenport knew. The Fed had been undercover, spying on Alice and her father, for three years. A man could hear a lot in three years. And what if Alice had lied about not leaving a paper trail? The woman had lied easier than she breathed.
No, Davenport was still a threat. Besides, now it was a matter of professional pride. If he didn’t snip that thread, it would gnaw at him forever. He’d always be looking over his shoulder, wondering if they’d learned something new.
I won’t be able to get back to business until he’s dead.
And to make sure that happened, he had to go through Coppola. Until his arm healed, it would be smarter to deal with her remotely, where he was nowhere near her line of sight. Luckily he had just the thing back in his storeroom.
Cincinnati, Ohio,
Friday 14 August, 8.10 P.M.
‘Decker. Decker, wake up. We’re here.’
Decker blinked awake slowly, turning his head to find Kate leaning over the console between their seats, her hand on his shoulder, her face inches away from his. Big brown eyes and soft lips that tempted. He grabbed her by the back of the neck, pulled her closer, and kissed her, feeling her stiffen at first but quickly go pliant under his hand.
She pulled away reluctantly, licking her lips in a way that made him want to go back for seconds. She smiled ruefully. ‘At least you’re awake.’
He blinked again and realized a few things. First, he hadn’t woken that peacefully, that smoothly, in more years than he could recall. He’d been dreaming of her and then she was there. No jolting awake. No gasping for air. No clenching of fists or grabbing for an M16 that no longer stood ready by his cot. Just a lovely waking. Like a normal person. He’d have to think on that more later.
Because he also realized they were in her car. In a driveway. In front of a massive house that might even be a mansion.
‘Holy shit,’ he whispered. ‘This is where Stone O’Bannion lives?’
‘His dad does,’ Kate answered. ‘Stone’s recuperating here. I got the impression that staying with his mother wasn’t the best option.’
Decker tilted his head, waiting for more explanation, and Kate sighed. ‘She drinks,’ she said. ‘A lot. I met her last week and she was barely functional. She’s lost two sons, both to violence, and her two surviving sons were both nearly killed in the last nine months.’
‘You said that Stone and Marcus’s brother was murdered nine months ago.’
Kate nodded. ‘Mikhail, who was Faith’s cousin, so she and Deacon have been helping the family heal. But the mother lost another son to kidnappers when he was only a toddler. Stone and Marcus were also abducted. Marcus was eight, Stone six. I’ve only read the newspaper clippings, but I can’t see how anyone could emerge from that unaffected.’
Decker digested that. ‘That’s what Diesel meant when he said he and Stone were both stuck at age six. And another reason you didn’t judge Stone for getting . . . well, stoned. I figured it was because of all the shit he reported on during the war. I know what he saw, because I saw some of it too, and it would have been enough reason to get sucked into using.’
‘Lots of my friends did,’ Kate murmured. ‘We MPs didn’t see combat so much as the after-effects. The fights, the drinking. The violence. We were all changed when we got back.’
He swept his thumb across her cheek in a caress. ‘Do you knit them camo yarn blankets?’
She rolled her eyes a little in embarrassment. ‘Yeah. Why, do you want one too?’
‘Only if you’re under it.’
She cleared her throat. ‘I think we need to go inside and work. They’re probably watching us right now.’ She pointed at a camera hung from the eaves of the garage. ‘Not so subtle.’
‘Then we should go for broke, Special Agent Coppola, and give them a real show.’
She eased away from him and gathered her bag. ‘As tempting as that is, I think it’s a very bad plan, Special Agent Davenport.’ She checked her eyes in the visor mirror and sighed. ‘Still red. I hate notifications, especially when it’s kids.’
She’d informed Mr and Mrs Chalmers that their son Charlie was dead with compassion and respect. Then she’d come out to the car with Decker and cried as she drove them out of the parking lot. All he could do was hold her hand. Once again, she hadn’t let herself cry for long, done by the time they’d hit the interstate. She’d pulled herself back together and gone on to the next task, because she had a job to do.
‘Maybe I should start carrying makeup,’ she murmured, then snapped the visor shut with a sigh. ‘Did you hear me on the phone when you were asleep?’
‘No. I was out like a light.’ As soon as she’d stopped crying. He couldn’t sleep while she grieved.
‘You should be in bed right now,’ she said with a small frown. ‘Resting. Alone,’ she stressed when he perked up. ‘Anyway, I got a call from Deacon. Dani’s out of surgery. They closed up the wound and she’s in Recovery. She’ll be in ICU tonight. We have a guard inside her room, and Carrie and her surgeon friend have hand-picked the nursing staff, every one of whom submitted to a drug screen. Hopefully the Professor hasn’t sunk his hooks into any more nurses.’
‘More?’ he asked, completely serious now.
‘Troy called me too. There may have been another nurse being controlled by the Professor, other than Eileen Wilkins. Troy had just gotten Mr Rawlings settled in a holding cell when he heard from his security contact at County Hospital. He worked with them to track Eileen’s movements through the hospital after
she tried to drug you yesterday. He’d asked the security guy to keep an eye on the cameras and the computer entry logs, to let him know if anyone used their badge to get in who wasn’t on duty or if any of the staff didn’t show up for work. One of the ER nurses did both – used her badge yesterday when she wasn’t on duty, and didn’t show up for her scheduled shift today. Janet Jungers. The security guy had been watching footage from the floor where you were drugged and noticed Miss Jungers hanging out. In fact, she was one of the nurses I passed when I was running to get to you yesterday.’
‘When you cleared staff like hurdles,’ he murmured. ‘Do you have a photo of her?’
Kate produced her phone. ‘Troy said he’d email it. Yep, here it is.’ She downloaded the photo and leaned over the console again so that Decker could see her screen too.
Damn, she smelled good. Focus, Davenport. He blinked hard, then studied the photo and compared it to the pictures his mind had cataloged from the day before. Usually the pictures were sharp and clear, but yesterday’s pictures were spotty and sketchy. He hated the after-effects of anesthesia. He’d be fuzzy for days. ‘I don’t remember . . . Oh, wait. Maybe . . .’ The picture in his mind fell into place. ‘The elevator. She was waiting for the elevator when Dani, Troy, and Trip took me downstairs. They told her she’d have to wait for the next one.’
Kate looked impressed. ‘Damn, Decker. That’s really good. Troy only remembered her after the hospital security guy told him that the camera had picked her up in the elevator area. So now he’s looking for her. He put a BOLO out on her and her vehicle and he’s running backgrounds. So you’re up to speed now. Let’s go talk to Stone.’
‘Do you think they have a butler? Even the traffickers didn’t have a butler.’
She grinned at him as he’d hoped she would. ‘I don’t know. Let’s find out.’