Over the security net he could hear each step of the hunt to pin the shooter down. Men were moving to seal the entire wing of the hotel. “What was he wearing?”
“A dark suit, navy, and a red tie.”
He relayed the information as fast as she gave it. “Did you see his face?” When she flinched he momentarily hated himself.
“Gray eyes. They were so violent. And his hair was dark, almost black, really thick.”
“Glasses, beard, mustache?”
“A thin mustache, wider than his mouth, no beard or glasses.”
“Anything else about him? Did he say anything?”
She shook her head. “I remember thinking ‘I surprised him,’ then Josh hit me.”
Marcus glanced again at the open connecting door, the overturned furniture, and this time he was the one who flinched. Shari must have been the one to open the connecting door. The splintered wood on the door frame was level with that gash on her face. The shooter had tried to kill her. Marcus felt his hands go cold at the realization.
Quinn swore over the security net. “He’s out of the stairway. Repeat, the shooter got out of the stairwell. He’s somewhere on floors eleven to fifteen!”
“Rule out floor fifteen, we’ve got the corridors covered,” another deputy called.
Several moments later, another voice came across the secure channel. “I’m on fourteen. There’s a merger meeting going on in the telecommunication conference center. The security guard says it’s been quiet. The shooter’s got to be somewhere on floors eleven to thirteen.”
Three floors were still an eternity of space. There were service elevators, guest elevators, two sets of stairs, and that didn’t even consider the hotel rooms. Marcus broke into the security net traffic. “We need a hostage negotiator located. Now,” he ordered. “See if Kate O’Malley is in the hotel.”
Dave turned to give him a frustrated glance. “Why does it always have to be Kate who’s around when trouble breaks?”
“Tell me about it,” Marcus replied, feeling a growing anxiety that this situation was so rapidly spiraling out of control. He knew the risk he had just potentially dropped into his sister’s lap. “Nobody handles barricade situations better than Kate, we both know that. The shooter is pinned; he’s not likely to give up without a fight when he’s got rooms of hostages available to choose from.”
“Someone shoot him before then, please,” Dave replied tersely.
Marcus silently agreed, knowing if this became a barricade situation, they were facing high odds there would be another innocent victim. Kate had the nasty habit of putting herself between a gunman and a hostage. She was still getting over a hairline rib fracture from the last time she had done it. The Kevlar vest had stopped the bullet and she’d walked away from the situation annoyed with all the fuss he and Dave made. Marcus didn’t think she had any idea how much gray hair she had given them in those twenty tense minutes.
He listened as men began to evacuate the hotel rooms one at a time. “How’s William doing?”
“Not good,” Dave replied. “Joshua?”
“Not much better,” Marcus replied grimly. “Shari, keep pressure right here.” He took her hands to show her what he wanted, felt the coldness in her long fingers as he placed them over the towel. “I need to get his feet elevated.” Anything to stop Joshua from bleeding out. Over the security net came word the paramedics were passing the seventh floor. Finally.
The bleeding was slowing. “Just keep it steady there, okay?”
She nodded.
They had a shooter loose. Judge Whitmore had died facing into his room. Someone had been inside. And according to Shari, it hadn’t been a lady. Marcus broke into the security net traffic again. “The shooter may have a room pass key. Maybe even a master.”
“Any other good news?” Quinn asked.
“He likes to wait and take his victim by surprise.”
“Wonderful. We’ll try to avoid walking into one of his surprises,” Quinn promised. “Clearing these rooms is going to be slow work. It would be nice if we could get a sketch of this guy. From the description, it could still be one of many guests. Mustaches are in favor this year.”
“It’s a priority,” Marcus promised. He looked over at Shari. She was biting her bottom lip and her face was pasty white. He hoped she was a fighter like her mom. As soon as they got this situation stabilized, he was going to have to take her through the last twenty minutes in detail. There were times he hated what he had to do in his job. It was not how he had wanted to get to know her.
“Shari.” She finally looked up. “The phone call to the desk, helping Josh, describing the shooter—you did good.”
Tears flooded her eyes. “Thank you,” she whispered.
Chapter Three
The paramedics arrived, and with them came enough help to secure the ninth floor. For Marcus the relief was palatable. The paramedic who joined him lifted the pressure pad from Josh’s shoulder to get a quick look. He shook his head. “Jim, get the stretcher over here and get me an ETA on that medivac helicopter.”
A paramedic was helping Shari’s mom. Two paramedics had begun working on William, their words terse and their actions fast as they worked to get the bleeding stopped and his breathing stabilized. Shari had moved to join them and looked lost as she knelt near her dad and watched them. As soon as Marcus was sure Joshua was taken care of, he moved to her side.
He was finally free to wrap his arm around her and try to stop the shivers. “Hold still.” He reached over to the open case the paramedic had brought up and tore open one of the gauze packages. He used it to wipe at the blood on her cheek. Her blue eyes were wet, the pupils very dilated. He changed his mind; she was beautiful. A guy could drown in those eyes. It was a nasty gash. She winced when he taped the bandage in place. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“We need to get your mom out of here,” he said, knowing it was the best way to get her out of here as well.
“I know. But I don’t want to leave Josh and Dad.”
“They are going to be medivaced to St. Luke’s. We’ll meet them there,” he promised. She didn’t protest when he lifted her back.
Marcus motioned Officer Young over. “Is there an empty hotel room nearby?” Marcus quietly asked the officer.
She checked on the security net, then nodded. “966.”
“Shari, I want you to go with Tina and change clothes, wash up, then get together what you think your mom will need.”
It wasn’t much, but at least the blood on her hands and clothes could be dealt with. She looked down at her hands, turned them palm up, and flexed them as if they hurt. She seemed to be seeing it for the first time.
Tina encouraged her to turn toward the back bedroom to get her things. Using a different room was necessary, for this suite was now a crime scene. Marcus watched until they disappeared in the bedroom, and then he had to take a deep breath, letting it out slowly. He’d just watched Shari’s life disintegrate. In a few days, his might be the last face in the world she would want to see as he became part of the memory of what had happened tonight.
The paramedic with Shari’s mom motioned him over.
“Mrs. Hanford?” Marcus knelt down beside the stretcher to be at her level. The lady was beautiful, but the last half hour had aged her severely. She’d been lying when she told Shari she was okay; it was there in the strain on her face and the faint labor of her breathing. But when his gaze met hers, any suggestion of fragileness disappeared. There was anger there.
“Tell me how Josh is, they won’t tell me anything.”
“He’s not as badly hurt as your husband.” It wasn’t much, but to a mother it would mean something.
She searched his face, then nodded, relieved. “Thank you.” Her eyes closed. He would have moved back but she took a deep breath and opened her eyes, and what he saw in her gaze made him go still.
“Find the man who did this.” It was an order.
“We will.”
It was the one thing he was certain of. They had a judge murdered; they would find the shooter. “Did you see him?”
She shook her head with regret. “I was in the bedroom. I heard Shari scream, and then I saw Bill. . . . I wish I did have something that could help you.”
The paramedic, out of her sight, shook his head and indicated they had to get her out of here. Marcus eased back to disengage, only to stop when Beth’s hand closed on his arm, gripping it with surprising strength. She was fighting to keep tears from weakening her voice. “Shari’s going to need me tonight and I’m going to be worthless to help her once the doctors get hold of me. Promise me she won’t be left on her own while Josh and Bill are in surgery. Promise me.”
“Beth, you’ve got my word,” Marcus reassured softly. Shari was a witness; there would be security with her around the clock. But even if that security hadn’t been necessary, he would have still stepped in to make arrangements for her. The guilt already hung heavy. There should have been a way to prevent this from ever happening. Shari wasn’t going to be left to pace a waiting room alone tonight.
Beth’s hand on his arm loosened. She even gave a glimmer of a smile. “Don’t let one of the political ‘close friends of the family’ sit with her either. They’ll want to distract her by talking about the governor’s race. That’s the last thing my daughter needs. Her guy is losing, and she absolutely hates to lose. She’ll end up in the hospital bed next to me.”
Marcus couldn’t help but return her smile. “No politicians, no press.” He eased free, aware of how gray her face was even with the oxygen the paramedics now had her on. “They are going to take you to St. Luke’s hospital; I’ll be bringing Shari there in a few minutes.”
Beth nodded, and Marcus rose to let the paramedics take her out. He liked Shari’s mom. Stubborn grit, his sister Jennifer would have said, and said it with admiration.
Shari would be a few moments. Marcus moved across the suite to the connecting door, turning his attention back to the victim.
Within the hour, the national news would have the details and this investigation would become a coordination mess. The only way to survive the firestorm was to solve the case fast. When he found the shooter . . .
“What do you think?” Marcus asked Dave.
“The shooter had the nerve to walk into a place full of cops; the hit was well-planned. He got surprised and didn’t finish off the witnesses, so he’s not an ice-cold, paid professional. This was personal,” Dave replied, thinking out loud.
Marcus began to string together what he saw. “The shooter waits for the judge to enter the room; kills him with three shots to the center of the chest. He’s surprised when the connecting door opens. He hits the door frame instead of Shari, and the other shots fired into their suite appear to be scattered, so he’s acting panicked. A little more control and all of them would be dead.”
“His plan is blown. And for him, the plan was everything.”
Marcus went back on the security net. “Quinn?”
“Go ahead.”
“This shooter had a plan, a detailed one; it got blown by unexpected witnesses and his reaction shows a distinct lack of control. He’s running now without his plan. Anything is possible.”
“Permission to give this manhunt back to you?” Quinn asked dryly.
“I’ll get you a sketch of the shooter. I’ve got witnesses to get out of here,” Marcus replied. Anything was possible. Including the shooter doubling back to try and eliminate his mistake. Shari might be the only one who had seen his face, and that made Marcus very uneasy. “How bad are you hurt? I can send up a medic.”
“The shot grazed my left arm, it can wait.”
Marcus had no choice but to accept his word for it. Taking Quinn off the manhunt was the last thing he wanted to do. There were very few marshals with his expertise. “Make sure you get a firewall established below floor nineteen; moving Justice Roosevelt is more dangerous than it’s worth. How’s the evacuation going?”
“About a third done. We’re moving the guests to the Paris conference room, doing interviews there to see if anyone saw or heard anything.”
“Has Kate arrived on scene?”
“She’s with me now.”
“Hi, Marcus. Thanks for the business.”
Her voice over the net was her working one: clear, calm, not yet bored. She only sounded bored when she had a gun pointed at her head. “Kate, quit chewing gum on the security net. It’s annoying.”
“Sorry. Are you under control down there? I could use a look at the scene. I need to know how this guy thinks.”
“Emotionally,” Marcus summed up in one word. “As soon as the paramedics get done, Dave’s going to own the crime scene. He can arrange a walk-through.”
“I appreciate it.”
“Marcus, it’s Quinn again. We’re flushing these three floors. We’ve got this hotel wing secure, but this shooter was moving fast.”
“You think he might have slipped through.”
“We’re coming up on fifteen minutes and I haven’t been shot at again.”
“Point well taken. Consider this situation no longer contained.”
“Got it.”
With that simple decision, the response had just leaped from the hotel to six blocks around the hotel and all the airports, train stations, and other means of exiting the city.
Marcus dropped off the security net.
Beth and Joshua were wheeled out. The paramedics moved to transfer William to a stretcher.
“William doesn’t have much of a chance. He took two hits to the center of the chest,” Dave said softly.
They had a witness to a murder who might lose members of her own family; it complicated matters enormously. If William died—it could either strengthen Shari’s resolve to help or create enough fear that her memory would become vague. Marcus had been around witness protection long enough to know there was no way to predict how someone would react to such an event. Shari’s world right now was her mother, father, and brother. Getting them somewhere safe was critical.
“I’ll stay with them at the hospital, work with Shari,” Marcus decided. “You’ve got this crime scene; tear it apart. And let’s hope we’ve got another witness somewhere on this floor. I don’t know how much more Shari will be able to give us.”
The paramedics headed out with William. Marcus watched them leave, then turned back to Dave. “Talk to Mike down in the command center. We need the full file on Judge Whitmore: Get men digging into his past cases, and find out everything there is to know about who knew he was going to appear on that short list and when they knew it. Then get men working on a profile of William Hanford and his family. They were friends of Carl. The shooter got surprised. I want to rule out any possibility he had them further down on his master plan.”
“You’ve got it, Marcus.”
Marcus slapped him on the shoulder, more grateful than he knew how to say that Dave was here. Almost family counted. Six months, he figured, probably less, and Dave and Kate would be engaged.
He picked up one of the extra towels left in the living room to wipe the blood off his hands, pulled his signet ring off to drop it into his pocket until he could clean it. His watchband would need to be soaked to come clean, he recognized with some dispassion.
Officer Tina Young appeared in the suite doorway, and Marcus turned, expecting Shari. The expression on the officer’s face had him abandoning his task to cross the room. “She washed up, changed, and then—” The officer stepped aside and pointed to room 966.
Marcus moved to the other hotel room.
Shari was standing by the sink in the bathroom, one hip resting against the marble countertop. She’d changed into jeans and a pink sweater but was still barefoot. She looked painfully young.
The tears were falling unchecked. She wasn’t making a sound, but her shoulders were shaking. Her right thumb was rubbing at the remnants of dried blood on her other palm, trying to erase it from the crevices of her hand. She�
�d washed, but not all the blood had come off.
Even knowing this was inevitable, that the controlled calm during the crisis would give way to the shock, didn’t ease the impact seeing it had. Words weren’t going to help. Marcus bent and picked up the wet towel she had been using that had dropped to the floor. He slid his hand firmly over the back of her wrist, capturing the offending hand in his, feeling her fluttering pulse under his long fingers. The wet towel had grown cool. He turned on the water faucet, made sure it got no more than moderately warm, and picked up the soap.
It didn’t take an expert to know what seeing her brother’s blood on her hands was doing to her. He finally got her palm clean. He spread her fingers and washed the faint traces of blood from between them. He could do little about the blood under her nails. Very neat nails with light red polish, two now jaggedly broken.
“The water always stays pink.”
“Shari, look at me.” He had to repeat it twice before she raised her head. The tears were ending, but behind them was a heavier blackness. “You can’t help your family if you fall apart.”
He had to stay blunt. She needed a reason to focus and the best thing that could happen would be if this despair could be replaced with anger at the shooter. It would give her the ability to get through the coming hours.
She drew in a deep breath as if he’d slapped her. “I’ll be okay.”
He squeezed her hands, regretting that he couldn’t step in and coddle her. He would love to wrap her in cotton right now and deny the world any chance to get close to her and cause her more pain. That wasn’t possible. “I’m going to need your help in the next couple hours.”
“I’m having trouble with my own name right now.”
“The shock will fade,” he calmly replied. Her hands were clean now, her fingertips had even begun to wrinkle. He reached for a dry towel and folded her hands in his, drying them. “Ready to leave?”
The first stark glimmer of a smile appeared. It was a painful reminder that the lady he had met and found so enjoyable earlier that evening was now gone; her smile was fractured. “Absolutely.”
The Guardian Page 5