by Steven James
Who thinks that far ahead?
My thoughts went once again to Sevren Adkins.
But he was dead—
They never found his body, Pat.
What is obvious is not always what is true.
You can never be sure you’ve eliminated the impossible, remember?
Okay, eliminate this possibility.
I speed-dialed Cheyenne.
IPR-OMI.
SED-UAR.
The body size of the male suspect matched Sevren’s, the scars made sense, both men were left-handed, the male suspect favored his right leg—Remember, Tessa stabbed a scissors into Sevren Adkins’s leg after he attacked her.
Sevren knew explosives . . . he liked to watch . . .
I waited for Cheyenne to pick up. What’s taking her so long?
The plates: IPR-OMI.
SED-UAR.
Six letters.
Each plate has six letters.
Denver plates.
Cheyenne lives in Denver too.
Six letters—
She picked up.
“Cheyenne,” I began—
It’s either you or her. Your car or hers.
But I wasn’t about to stop and check my plates.
“Pat? What’s up?”
“Is your car in the driveway?”
“What?”
“Outside. Your car!”
He leaves clues that point to the next victim.
“Can you see the plates without going outside?” I punched the gas.
A moment passed as she crossed the room. “No, I’d have to go outside.”
“Don’t, it’s—”
“Pat, what’s going on?”
“Tessa’s room. Try from Tessa’s room. The sight-line will be more direct.”
Only one killer had ever challenged me to a rematch. The same one who left clues to future crimes. Sevren Adkins.
“Pat—”
“Go, Cheyenne! Take her with you.”
I heard her call for Tessa and then there was a pause and a door banged open.
It’s going to say EMA-TCH.
And if it does—
“Okay.” Then shock. “What the—?”
I spelled it out before she could tell me what it was: “E-M-AT-C-H.”
Exasperation in her voice. “How did you know?”
“Get away from the window!”
IPR-OMI SED-UAR EMA-TCH.
I-PROMISED-U-A-REMATCH.
“He’s there!” I whipped around a curve in the road and nearly skidded out of control. A bomb. A car bomb? “Don’t go near your car!”
“Who’s here?”
“Sevren Adkins. Get to the center of the house, away from––”
“Pat, he’s dead.”
I heard Tessa in the background. “Who’s dead?”
What is obvious is not always—
“I think he’s alive. I think he’s back.”
“But he fell to the bottom of a gorge.”
“He promised me a rematch, Cheyenne. No one else knows about that.”
As I was finishing my sentence she gasped; I heard Tessa cry out.
A jolt of fear. “What is it?”
“The lights,” Cheyenne said. “They just went out. All of them.” The clock in the car: 9:26.
Three minutes.
I floored it.
Call dispatch, you have to call dispatch!
“I’m going to have a look around,” Cheyenne said.
“Be careful. Don’t go outside. And don’t leave Tessa alone.”
I was still nearly four minutes from the house, but because it was in the country, the response time for the sheriff’s department would probably be at least that long, I called them anyway.
This time I definitely wanted backup.
“What’s going on?” Tessa asked Detective Warren.
A moment ago she’d drawn her gun. “Get down on the floor, Tessa.”
“What is it?”
“Please.”
“Tell me.”
A pause. “It’s Sevren Adkins.”
“What!”
“Pat thinks he’s back.”
Tessa felt a terrible shiver slide through her. “It can’t be.”
The man who kidnapped you. The man who cut you. The man who tried to kill you. He’s here. He came back. He came back for you. “But I don’t understand—”
With one hand, Detective Warren gently but firmly guided Tessa to the floor. “Stay low,” she whispered and then headed toward the front door. “And follow me.”
Margaret noticed something.
The rolling chair in front of the computer desk was not positioned as it should have been, as she always left it, directly facing her keyboard.
Rather, it was swiveled to the right about forty degrees, as if someone had been sitting in it, then turned from the desk to get up, forgetting to straighten the chair again.
She surveyed the room. Everything else was in place.
But not the chair.
To avoid disturbing any prints that might be on her keyboard, she tapped her fingernail on the space bar to wake up the computer screen.
A document appeared.
Someone had left her a message. Just four words: “Check your trunk, Margaret.”
Tessa glanced out the dark windows. With the lights out and the moon full, she could see part of the backyard, but only faintly. The inside of the house was even darker. “Detective Warren, where are you?”
A voice came from a shadow eight feet from her. “I’m here. Quiet now. Shh. Just stay down. Your dad’s on the way.”
Cautiously, still in stocking feet, Margaret left the house.
Her thoughts flashed back to Sevren Adkins, the man who’d left the torso of one of his victims in her trunk in North Carolina.
But she was sure Adkins was dead. A copycat?
She studied the neighborhood. Saw nothing unusual.
Her Lexus was less than a dozen paces away. She pressed the keyless unlock button twice, and the car made two soft blips as the four-way flashers blinked on and then off.
Weapon out, she approached the driver’s side.
Made sure no one was under the vehicle.
Clear.
Checked the front and back seats. Clear.
She surveyed the area one last time, steadied her gun. Then pressed the trunk release button: the trunk clicked open slightly, but not high enough yet for her to see inside.
Margaret steeled herself and reached for the handle.
105
2 minutes left . . .
9:27 p.m.
A DVD was in the trunk, a note beside it: “I hope you enjoy watching this as much as I did filming it.” She felt a surge of dread, gazed around the neighborhood one last time, then took the DVD inside to watch it, thinking only of what Adkins, or his copycat, might have done to Lewis.
Out the back window, Tessa saw someone in the backyard.
Just a glimpse of shadowy movement along the edge of the rock wall.
“Detective Warren! He’s in the yard!” Even though she couldn’t see his face, she knew.
It’s him. It’s him. It’s Adkins!
Cheyenne leveled her gun, slid to the back door, opened it a crack, yelled, “Stop and put your hands to the side!”
The figure fired a shot toward the house and dove for cover.
We still didn’t know what would happen at 9:29.
An attack on Cheyenne? On Tessa? On me?
A bomb?
So far we only had evidence of C-4 found in the back of the van that the killers had used to transport their victims.
That was all. Nothing else.
But they transported more than their victims back there, Pat. They transported—
What is obvious is not always what is true.
No, it’s not.
But sometimes it is.
They’d also transported the wheelchair in the back of the van.
And now it was in the FBI Lab. I
whipped out my phone.
Punched in Angela’s number.
A second gunshot, and the doorframe just inches from Detective Warren’s face shattered. Tessa cried out, but Cheyenne hardly flinched, just crouched to a shooting stance. Studied the yard.
Tessa noticed a smear of movement in the deep shadows, a figure edging carefully toward the house. “There!” she cried. “By the wall!”
“Stop!” Detective Warren aimed.
The man flicked his hand up, fired. The window above Tessa blistered apart, showering glass onto her.
And then, time froze.
Ice covered everything, stilled everything.
For a fraction of a second, Tessa saw Detective Warren’s body tense.
And then she took a shot.
Another. A third.
The ice of the moment shattered, and Tessa felt as if fragments of time and sound and fear were falling all around.
Then silence.
The night was still.
Her heart was hammering, hammering. She peered out the window.
“Stay low,” Detective Warren warned.
But before she ducked down, Tessa saw a man sprawled near the rock wall skirting the woods. He was on his back, his gun a few feet from his right hand. His face turned the other direction.
“You got him?” Tessa said. Dry, airless words.
“Yes.” Detective Warren still had her gun aimed at him.
“You sure?”
“Yes.” To Tessa she seemed unbelievably calm. “You stay here.”
“You’re not going out there!”
“I have to see if he’s still alive.”
“So you might have missed?”
“I didn’t miss.” Detective Warren opened the door and, gun ready, arms taut, stepped onto the back deck. “I’ll be right back.”
Brad thought of the murders at the Styles house last month. Thought of the woman and the two cops. Thought of how he had laid so still on the carpet, waiting for one of them to approach him, the shotgun just within his reach.
He thought of those things now. Everything coming full circle.
But this time with a little twist.
His watch vibrated on his wrist.
Time’s up.
106
It happens now . . .
9:29 p.m.
The bomb at the FBI Lab exploded.
Chelsea positioned the unconscious woman in the tub and opened a second bottle of drain cleaner.
Tessa stared out the window, watching Detective Warren step careful and catlike toward the body.
Margaret Wellington popped the DVD into her computer.
I swung the car to a stop.
Only seconds ago I’d heard gunshots from behind the house.
I leaped out. Unholstered my weapon.
Sprinted around the corner of the house and saw a woman.
“Stop!” I yelled.
“It’s me!” Cheyenne’s voice. “I got him. Over here.”
“How many shooters?”
“Unknown.”
I eyed the tree line, looking for movement. Covered Cheyenne. She was approaching the rock wall that fringed the lawn. A body lay on the ground. “Is that Adkins?”
“I didn’t see his face.” She was less than five meters from the body.
“Where’s Tessa?”
“In the house.”
“I’m going in.” But I’d only made it two steps when Cheyenne gasped. “Hurry, Pat! It’s—”
A gunshot erupted from the shadows near the back deck. I heard a deep, solid slap! behind me, and knew instantly what it was—a bullet hitting a human target.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Cheyenne crumple against the stone wall.
No, no, no, no!
Darkness seemed to breathe on me.
Inhaling.
Exhaling. Shadows panting all around me. I sprinted to her.
Scanned the woods. The deck. Still no movement.
She’d been shot in the right side and was gasping for breath. She had her left hand over the wound, but bright, frothy blood was oozing between her fingers. Her lung. She’s hit in the lung.
I heard sirens, but they were too far away to get here in time.
No visual on the shooter.
She’ll bleed out!
As quickly and carefully as I could, I moved her three meters to the opening in the wall so she wouldn’t be exposed in the field. Then I called 911.
Darkness.
Breathing.
Get to the house, Pat. You have to find Tessa!
In a handful of seconds I told the dispatcher what I knew about Cheyenne’s GSW and explained exactly where she was.
“Go,” Cheyenne coughed. “I’ll be all right . . . just . . .” Her voice trailed off.
She was still pressing against the wound, but when I put my hand on hers I realized she wasn’t applying enough pressure to stop the bleeding. She’s too weak. “You need to press harder,” I told her urgently.
Get to Tessa, you have to get to Tessa!
Cheyenne’s eyes fluttered, then closed. She went limp, unconscious. “Cheyenne!” I slapped her cheek, but it didn’t rouse her.
You can’t stay. You have to go!
I saw a glimmer of light in the house. A flashlight moving through the living room.
No!
Tessa would lay low, wouldn’t use a flashlight.
I tilted Cheyenne to her side, wound against the ground, so her body weight would at least provide a little pressure, maybe slow the bleeding, keep it from pooling, flooding the other lung. Maybe it would buy her a few extra minutes until the EMTs arrived.
I rose to sprint to the house and finally saw the face of the person Cheyenne had shot.
Paul Lansing.
No!
Hastily, I knelt beside him, felt for a pulse. Nothing. No pulse. No breathing. Cheyenne had put three shots center mass, and his chest was shredded, blood-drenched.
He was gone.
Tight, hot anger shot through me.
Sevren set this up! He lured him here!
Sirens, blaring sirens. Distant but growing stronger.
I bolted toward the house.
MagLite out, gun level, I entered from the back deck. Moved slowly through the doorway. “Tessa?”
No reply.
I tried the living room lights. Nothing. “Tessa!”
I don’t pray often, but I did now, and it was as raw and real as they come. Please, please let her be okay. Both her and Cheyenne. Please!
Then I heard it. Muffled sounds coming from the hallway.
Flashlight in my left hand, SIG in my right, I flared around the corner.
Tessa was standing, gagged, at the far end of the hall, just outside her bedroom. A man was hiding in the room, clenching a handful of her hair with his right hand, holding a Walther P99 pressed to the side of her head with his left. She had a welt on her forehead, blood trailing down her cheek; he must have hit her with something when he overpowered her.
Anger. Prowling. Roaring.
She tried to cry out. The gag stopped her.
“That’s far enough, Bowers.” His voice was a hiss. Though I couldn’t see him, I pictured him: dark hair. Medium build. Stained, primal eyes.
“Drop the gun, Sevren!”
I stepped forward lightly, but he jerked Tessa’s head backward and she cringed.
“I said that’s far enough!” he shouted.
I froze. Somehow he was watching me.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” he said. “You’re going to throw your gun to Tessa. She’s going to pick it up. And then you’re going to watch your stepdaughter die.”
There are many kinds of death, Sevren thought. Physical, spiritual, emotional, psychological.
And this would be the most fitting kind of all.
107
Sirens outside. “You hear that?” I called. “It’s over. There’s no way out of this. Let her go.”
“Throw her your gun
.”
I eased forward slightly, but he yelled, “Take another step and she dies!”
How does he see me?
I studied the hallway. No mirrors. No windows.
Tessa had her teeth clenched. Eyes squeezed shut.
“I’ll give you three seconds,” he said.
“Sevren—”
“One.”
Do not relinquish your weapon, Pat. He will kill you both!
I scrutinized the hallway, in front of me, behind me. And saw a cell phone on the floor of the living room, behind me, propped against the wall, taking video.
He’s got another phone in the bedroom. He’s watching—
“Two.”
I flicked off my flashlight so he couldn’t see my movement, then sprinted toward Tessa, but Sevren yanked her backward into the room. Slammed the heavy oak door shut.
I grabbed the doorknob, tried it. Locked. Behind the door, I heard Tessa struggling, trying to get free. I backed up, raised my heel, smashed it against the door, but it held.
Sevren’s voice: “Kick that door again and I’ll start playing with your stepdaughter.”
My hands squeezed into fists, one tight around the grip of my SIG, the other around my MagLite. Inside of me, a terrible fire roared to life, one I did not want to put out.
There’s no other door to the room—
“Sevren,” I called through the door. I could hear movement, then a swishing sound that was probably the curtains being pulled shut. A small, gentle light flicked on, shimmered through the crack beneath the door. He set his flashlight down. “There’s no way out of this,” I yelled. “It’s over. It’s done.”
“I want you to tell her,” he said. “Who that is. Outside. Who Detective Warren shot.”
No.
Stall.
“We found the bomb, Sevren. We found your partner.”
“You’re bluffing.”
“No I’m not.”
“Prove it.”
“You used the metal tubes of the wheelchair. It was smart. Even if the lab guys had x-rayed it, the explosives wouldn’t have been visible. But we got to it in time.” I wasn’t sure about that last part.
A pause. “And my partner?”
“Chelsea Traye.”
Silence.
“She did specials on both the assassination attempt and the Gunderson facility. Then at the hotel on Wednesday she announced that the shooting was in the basement, but that was before Margaret revealed the location during the press conference. No one else knew where I’d been shot. Making the 911 calls in Maryland at the Styles’s house was sloppy. We matched her voice. It’s all over.”