by Karen Rose
Ken had no plans to walk up and meet the man. There would be no exchange of pleasantries or threats. No face-to-face final confrontation. He didn’t need O’Bannion to know who was killing him. He simply wanted the man dead. He knew the park like the back of his hand. He’d grown up here. He knew where to hide for the best shot that would drop O’Bannion in his tracks and still allow for a speedy and unnoticed escape.
Because he did not want that man following him to the ends of the earth. Ken wanted the freedom to live where and as he pleased.
He reached down to grab Sean’s ankles so that he could drag him out of the garage, but hesitated. There were still a few things he needed to know. He met his son’s furious – and helpless – gaze. ‘So nobody was stealing money, Demetrius was loyal, and you really don’t know where Reuben is?’
‘Go to hell.’
He tapped Sean’s shot-out knee with the toe of his boot, making his son moan in pain. ‘I’ll kick it. You won’t like that, I promise. What about Reuben’s wife, Miriam? Was she really saved by an anonymous 911 call?’ He held his knife poised over the knee wound. ‘Don’t give me attitude.’
‘There was an anonymous 911 call,’ Sean gritted. ‘But Miriam was already dead. Nobody pumped her stomach or made her vomit. She died because you drugged her.’
Ken clenched his jaw. ‘So you lied about Burton double-crossing me, too.’
‘No. I didn’t lie.’ Sean’s baring of teeth was a gross parody of a smile. ‘You assumed.’
Ken’s rage roiled within him. ‘I ordered Burton’s death. Decker killed him and disposed of him.’
‘You have a conscience?’ Sean scoffed.
‘No. But you cost me a man I could have depended on later.’ And that pissed him off. Losing a loyal man who’d kill his friend’s wife on Ken’s command? Burton had been an asset. ‘What about your sister?’ he asked. ‘Was Alice in on this with you?’
Sean pursed his lips like he wasn’t going to answer until Ken pushed the blade further into his knee wound. Sean’s eyes rolled back and Ken slapped his face hard.
‘You will keep it together,’ Ken snarled. ‘You’ll die when I decide it’s time. Was your sister in on this with you?’
‘No!’ Sean cried out shrilly. ‘She was loyal.’ He panted, his face ashen. ‘She wanted to buy you out.’ His mouth twisted. ‘Pay you money.’
‘But you didn’t,’ Ken said quietly. ‘You wanted to steal it.’
‘I wanted you to die knowing you’d lost it all.’ Sean spat the words as tears ran down his face. ‘But she loves you,’ he sneered. ‘And I hate her for it.’
Ken blinked, momentarily stunned. ‘You would have killed her too?’
‘No. No. I couldn’t do that.’ Sean shook his head, sobs now shaking his body. ‘So I got her out of the way.’
Slowly Ken came to his feet, his mind numb, yet racing. Alice was out of the way. In custody. Because I sent her to take care of the tracker supplier. Because Sean had told him that the supplier was being brought to police headquarters. He grabbed his son by the collar of his blood-soaked shirt. ‘You set her up to go to prison?’
‘I was going to get her out!’ Sean shouted. ‘I was going to get her the best lawyer money could buy!’
Ken shook him hard. ‘When?’
‘After you were dead,’ Sean said flatly. ‘And I’d put you through the goddamn woodchipper.’
Ken twisted Sean’s collar with one hand as he drew his other back and backhanded his son so hard that his head hit the floor with an audible crack. ‘You little bastard,’ he said quietly. I want to kill him. Want to break his fucking neck. But that would be too quick. Too merciful. ‘Tell me, Sean,’ he continued, still quietly. ‘Had you planned to kill me before you put me through the woodchipper?’
Sean blanched, able to see where this was going. The boy was smart that way. ‘I hadn’t thought about it,’ he replied, struggling for bravado.
Ken smiled. ‘I have. And I don’t.’ He had the satisfaction of watching his son’s bravado drain away, leaving Sean shaking in a pool of his own blood and tears.
But he couldn’t do that right now. He checked the time and cursed. He needed to get clean. O’Bannion was no idiot. He’d most certainly bring all kinds of law enforcement with him. The woods would probably be crawling with cops. And if any of them had called in a canine unit, the dogs would smell him a mile away as he was right now, all covered with blood.
Checking the security of Sean’s bonds, he shoved a cloth gag in his son’s mouth before cleaning his knives and putting them back in their case. Then he took them and his laptop back into the house. He started the hot water in the master bath as he stripped off his fouled clothing. He’d throw the clothes in the pit with what was left of Sean.
Ken climbed under the hot spray, feeling every one of his forty-seven years. His daughter was in prison and he needed to find a way to get her out. And he had to do it from a long distance away. Because only one thing was crystal clear: he would be on that plane tomorrow when it left for Papeete, no matter what. He’d do what he could for Alice from there.
He considered his options as he lathered off the grime. He could—
Suddenly the lights went out and the AC motor whined as it shut down. No power. The power had gone out. Which it wasn’t supposed to do. They had a backup generator. It should have kicked in already, but it hadn’t.
Something was wrong.
Ken quickly rinsed himself off and crept from the shower.
Cincinnati, Ohio
Wednesday 5 August, 11.10 P.M.
The wall with its iron gate, evenly spaced cameras and high voltage was exactly as Kate had described, Marcus thought as he and Scarlett followed the agent through the woods. Scarlett lurched forward to tap Kate’s shoulder, bringing them all to an abrupt halt.
Scarlett pointed to the mounted camera. ‘How did you know they were live?’ she whispered.
‘The red lights were lit on each of them,’ Kate whispered back. But the lights weren’t on now. She cocked her head. ‘The hum of the high-voltage wire is gone too, and there was more ambient light overhead because of spotlights inside the wall.’
‘Someone didn’t pay their power bill,’ Marcus said. ‘If the back fence is also dead, we can go in that way rather than waiting for Sweeney to come through the gate.’
Kate checked the time again, then sent a quick text from her phone. ‘To Deacon,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m telling him that we’re going in. We don’t know if the power outage is planned or accidental, but it could come back on. Let’s cut our way through the chain-link. If the power comes back on, retreat to the forested area until backup arrives. I’ll check the two sheds in the back, then I’ll find a good vantage point with the garage in view. If he leaves while you’re in there, I’ll fire as soon as the car clears the garage.’
They set off at a jog through the trees until they reached the point where the wall ended and the chain-link fence began. Marcus plucked a leaf from a tree and dropped it on the fence, relieved when there was no fizzle. He pulled the bolt cutters from the pack and cut a section of fence, three feet wide by five feet tall. The fence curled away, leaving an opening large enough for them to dive through. Even if the power came back on, they had a quick escape route.
Kate disappeared to the left, into the trees in the direction of the two small sheds that she’d seen. Scarlett had already run to the chain-link gate set into the back wall and was cutting away a portion of the gate similar in size to that which Marcus had cut in the fence itself.
She handed him the bolt cutters and he slid them back into the pack. She crawled through the hole she’d cut, fearless but careful. Marcus was right behind her.
Hold on a little longer, Gayle, he thought. I’m coming for you.
Cincinnati, Ohio
Wednesday 5 August, 11.15 P.M.
Special Agent Kate Coppola looked over her shoulder to see Marcus and Scarlett disappearing behind the wall of the compound. She silently
wished them luck, starkly aware that they’d taken the more dangerous search. Back here in the forested area, there was cover galore should she need to hide, but inside the compound there was a house, its attached garage and a lot of wide-open space.
Marcus O’Bannion was here to save Gayle first and to stop Sweeney second. Scarlett’s priorities mirrored his, but Kate’s were reversed. Kate was here to arrest the traffickers the Bureau had been following for three years now. Her secondary priority was to make contact with – and to extract, if required – their agent who’d gone deep undercover. They hadn’t heard from the agent in weeks. That wasn’t too unusual. What was more worrisome was that they hadn’t heard from the undercover’s handler in several days. The handler was long overdue for his check-in.
She moved through the forest as soundlessly as possible, headed for the larger shed because it was the closer of the two. The structure was about as large as a high-school gymnasium, the walls made of corrugated metal. The roof was a big canopy that rose to a peak in the middle, like that of a circus tent. There was no foundation that she could see and the walls were of the prefabricated type that could be quickly put together and taken apart.
A temporary structure? Probably. But what were they using it for?
She heard the loud crack of a twig and ducked back into the trees. A man was approaching from the large shed, but it wasn’t Sweeney. Sweeney was in his forties, with dark hair. The man walking toward her was blond and fucking huge. Nearly as big as Marcus’s friend Diesel. She didn’t want to have to shoot him and alarm anyone in the house, but she also didn’t want to have to tangle with him hand-to-hand unless she got the drop on him.
Sliding her rifle over her back, Kate grabbed the limb of the nearest tree, swung herself up onto it, then climbed a few limbs higher until she was certain the man wouldn’t see her.
She waited until he’d gotten a few body lengths away from the tree before dropping from the limb to land nearly soundlessly in a crouch. She shoved the barrel of her rifle into his back.
‘Hands in the air.’ Slowly he complied. ‘Higher.’ She dug the rifle barrel a bit deeper into his back. ‘Higher, I said. On the ground, face down, Blondie. Do it,’ she hissed, and he dropped to his knees, flattening his body on the ground. ‘Arms spread, palms down, fingers straight.’
Once again he complied, and she snapped cuffs on while he put up relatively little resistance. ‘Where’s your boss?’ she asked.
‘Depends. Who are you?’
She gave the rifle another shove between his shoulder blades. ‘I will shoot your fucking head off, make no mistake. Boss. Where?’
‘Inside the house, I think. At least he was a few minutes ago. Don’t shoot.’ He turned his face to the side so that he could look up at her from the corner of his eye. His very blue eye. ‘Who are you? Please.’
Her rifle was steady in her hands. ‘Special Agent Coppola, FBI. Who are you?’
He let out a breath. ‘Finally. You need to send a message to your SAC ASAP. Tell him “Pineapple under the sea”.’
‘“Pineapple under the sea”?’ Startled, Kate went down on one knee to study his face more closely. It could be him under all that grime. Carefully she pushed up his pants leg to his knee and checked for the identifying scar. It was a match. Quickly she unlocked his cuffs. ‘Well I’ll be damned. Special Agent Davenport, we’ve been looking for you.’
Cincinnati, Ohio
Wednesday 5 August, 11.15 P.M.
Scarlett and Marcus ran from the back gate toward the garage attached to the house. There were six bay doors, with one open. Hopefully that meant that Sweeney hadn’t left yet.
She figured the bastard would bring Gayle to the meet, just to get Marcus to come close enough to be grabbed or shot. Once Sweeney had gotten Marcus, Scarlett had no doubt that he’d kill Gayle next, then anyone who happened to be in his way. He’d already sprayed bullets throughout the Ledger building. He was an indiscriminate killer.
But if he hadn’t left yet, they still had a chance to grab Gayle and avoid walking into what might be a trap. Although leaving his garage door conveniently open was probably a trap, too. It couldn’t matter. Marcus was right. Based on the look of the cage in the video, Gayle was in the basement. They had to go in.
The house itself was simply massive. Built in the Tudor revival style so popular in Cincinnati pre-World War II, it was easily twice the size of Scarlett’s house. Partly brick, partly half-timber, it had six windows across the top floor and . . . Scarlett frowned.
There was a large picture window along the back wall whose glass had been shattered. Shards of glass littered the grass, and the opening was now covered with plywood. The window had been broken from the inside out, the broken area visible against the plywood as no one had finished removing the remaining glass. The hole was large. Body-sized.
A strangled gasp caught her attention, and she turned to find Marcus staring at the corner of the driveway closest to the open garage door. Blood stained the concrete in a wide swath, as if someone had dragged a body through the open door.
Marcus’s face had grown pale in the growing moonlight. ‘Not Gayle,’ he whispered. ‘It can’t have been Gayle.’
‘No,’ she agreed softly. ‘They won’t kill her until they get you. So let’s find her before that happens.’ She drew her weapon and started for the door, keeping her back to the wall, but Marcus hadn’t moved.
He frowned. ‘This feels too damn convenient,’ he said, his whisper almost silent. ‘The power going off just when we need to get through the fence? Leaving the door open for us?’
She’d thought the same thing. ‘He doesn’t know we know about this place.’
‘Or he didn’t. He could have seen Kate doing her perimeter check. Hell, he could have seen us approach on the main road.’
She blew out a breath, trying hard not to be exasperated. ‘Entirely possible. This could totally be a trap.’
‘I’ll go in,’ he whispered. ‘You stay here.’
Ah. He was protecting her. I don’t think so. ‘No. You go high, I’ll go low. Now.’
He closed his eyes for a second, and when he opened them, she saw utter focus and concentration. Gun in his hand, he eased around the garage corner and through the open door.
Soundlessly he crept through the enormous garage, following the bloodstain that stretched from the corner of the driveway to the middle of one of the empty bays. In the bay was a pool of drying blood. Clearly a body had been moved from the garage. The forensic guys would have to determine where it went after being dragged off the driveway.
Scarlett took a photo of the bloody swath, then used her hands to measure the width of the stain. She held them up to show Marcus that whoever had been dragged was much wider than Gayle.
Understanding flickered in his eyes, followed by relief. ‘Not Gayle,’ he mouthed, then grimly pointed to the van parked in one of the six bays. Scarlett recognized the vehicle from the security video taken outside the Ledger’s loading bay. Sweeney had driven it to slaughter the Ledger’s employees and to abduct Gayle.
The license plate was different from the one captured in the security video. Someone – likely Sweeney – had changed the plates. Scarlett snapped a photo of the new plate in case things went south. If Sweeney managed to get by them and escape, she’d have to call in a BOLO.
Marcus moved quickly and quietly, opening the van doors to shine his flashlight around the interior. No Gayle. There was a bloodstain on the carpet, but the blood had dried. Had it been Gayle’s blood, it would have still been damp. Whoever had bled there had done so fifteen hours or more before.
‘Demetrius?’ she mouthed, and Marcus shrugged, then reached into the open driver’s-side window and brought out a set of keys, pocketing them. Scarlett gave him a nod of approval.
Marcus proceeded to the door that led from the garage into the laundry room. Again he took high, she low. For the first time she was truly seeing the former Army Ranger at work, and she was more than imp
ressed. She’d known he was stealthy and capable, but while she’d had to develop a relationship with her other partners, she and Marcus seemed to flow together like two streams meeting in the woods.
They encountered no resistance, the house having a too-quiet, abandoned feel. With the power out, there wasn’t a single sound – not a hum from the fluorescent lights nor the low drone of an AC fan. The silence was oppressive.
Marcus’s lips thinned and she knew he was worried that Sweeney had already moved Gayle. She shook her head. ‘Think positive,’ she mouthed, and he nodded and squared his shoulders.
They moved from the laundry room into a grand foyer. Twin staircases curved upward, where they were connected with a balustrade that provided a bird’s-eye view of the lower floor and the front of the property through a large window over the front door. There were bedrooms upstairs. If they didn’t find Gayle in the basement, they’d check those rooms next.
They found what they thought was the door to the basement off the foyer, but it turned out to be the kitchen. Marcus went in first, giving her the sign that he’d located the basement door. Scarlett pulled the kitchen door closed behind them, covering Marcus as he opened the door to the basement. Steep stairs disappeared into inky blackness.
This would be the dicey part, walking blind down a flight of stairs, not knowing what they’d find below. This could be the trap. Scarlett pointed at Marcus to take the stairs. If Gayle was downstairs and incapacitated, he would be able to carry her. She pointed to herself and the door. She’d stay up top and guard the entrance. It would be too easy for someone to lock them in if they both went downstairs.
She listened intently, not hearing a sound as Marcus navigated the stairs as silently as he did everything else. She drew a breath and prepared to wait.