The Third to Die

by Allison Brennan

  He drove ten miles east, almost to the state line, before his heart slowed down. He took a deep breath. Then another.

  Okay. He was okay.

  He had to assume that the cop got his license plate. If she didn’t, the cop cars’ dashboard cameras would have, so he had to assume they could get his plate.

  He’d hidden the car and rental house under his shell corporations, but this was the FBI—they had more resources than local law enforcement. He’d never seen anything like this before, an entire team working practically 24-7. Why him? Why couldn’t he have just made his last kill before the feds got involved? He could have been back in his house. He’d been saving up for it for years. He had a plan to get those interlopers out of his house, then he would buy it. It would be his forever.

  The way it should have been.

  He’d feared this day would come that he wouldn’t be able to punish the man who deserved it most of all.

  No. No! I will kill Brian Maddox. He will bleed.

  He would get him. He had to. Then everyone else who messed with his plan.

  First Maddox, then the interlopers who stole his house, and of course the feds. Especially that bitch cop who made him hit that kid. Glen didn’t want to hit that kid. She made him do it.

  His head ached as the same questions kept coming back to him. Over and over.

  How had she even noticed him? How had she known?

  His father’s voice rang in his head. “Because you’re a weak, stupid kid. Because you are an idiot. If it weren’t for you, boy, your mother wouldn’t have gone out that night and got killed. You are a failure.”

  “I am not a failure! I am not weak!”

  It was time to draw the line in the sand.

  43

  Liberty Lake

  8:30 a.m.

  Andy Knolls met with Bernard Younger at the Liberty Lake branch of a major national bank. It was the only national bank that had an office in the small town, and everyone did their banking here. Andy knew Younger from the Chamber of Commerce, where the manager was active, and the bank sponsored the town’s softball and baseball teams.

  “Thank you for coming in before opening,” Andy said.

  “Anything to help,” Younger said. “All the information is online, but it would take you hours to get information out of headquarters. I know what I can share, and if you need additional information, provide a warrant and I’ll have it ready.”

  “Appreciate it.”

  Officer Tolliver waited in the bank lobby while Younger took Andy to his office. Younger logged into his computer, but it took a good fifteen minutes before he was able to retrieve the file and print it out. “It’s archived,” he explained. “We don’t keep print files anymore, and sometimes computers make you jump through hoops.”

  “No worries, Bernard. Anything leap out at you?”

  “To be honest, Andy, no. I was here at the time, but it was handled out of our legal department at headquarters.” He rose and walked over to his printer as the machine spat out multiple pages. “Mr. Hamilton stopped paying his mortgage after his incarceration. He’d lost his job at the high school before this, and we helped him refinance his house. There was equity, which helped. After his incarceration, he couldn’t keep a job and there was no more equity to refinance. He refused to sell. We never want to foreclose on anyone, and we have several layers of help we offer, plus a counselor who can work with the homeowner in finding government programs to assist until the individual can get back on their feet. Mr. Hamilton didn’t take advantage of any of these. Then came the unfortunate situation of the police having to be called in to remove him from the home.”

  “Did he threaten you or anyone at the bank?”

  “No. We hired a realty company to prepare the house for sale.” Younger pulled the papers off the printer and sorted through them. “I can’t give you everything here—but this should help.” He pulled a short stack of paper and handed it to Andy. It was the court order of foreclosure, the eviction, the sale report, and the police report. It had been signed by Liberty Lake Senior Officer Brian Maddox.

  Andy read through the sale report. The realty company packed up all the furnishings and personal items and stored them. It was a facility in Spokane that Andy knew had closed down several years ago, but that would have been long after the unit had been sold off. He doubted it would be easy to get those records.

  “Is there anything else you need?”

  “Not right now.”

  “Do you really believe that Hamilton is responsible for the two recent murders in town?”

  “No. This isn’t public information yet, but we’re looking for his son. Just to talk to him for now.” Andy pulled out his phone and showed the manager Glen Hamilton’s DMV photo. “Have you seen him?”

  Younger shook his head. “No. I hadn’t even remembered that Mr. Hamilton had a son.”

  Andy looked at the address—369 Vine Street wasn’t far. Maybe Andy should drive by, or talk to the owners. He couldn’t think of a scenario where Hamilton would go there, but maybe he had driven by, been seen in the area. It might be worth talking to the neighbors and ask them to be watchful, especially before the storm hit full force.

  “Thank you for your help,” Andy said, and rose. “Be safe out there.”

  “We never like to close the bank during business hours, but I’m going to assess the weather at noon. We can get by with a bare-bones staff. Both myself and the head teller live close by.”

  Younger let Andy and Tolliver out, and Andy said, “I want to drive by this house on the way to Spokane.” He knew where it was, but typed the address into his GPS to confirm. “It’s not even ten minutes away.”

  “While you were in with the manager, there was a report that the suspect was spotted outside Deputy Chief Maddox’s house. Detective Quinn pursued and lost him when the suspect drove into a group of children.”

  Andy’s stomach fell. “Injuries?”

  “One serious, a nine-year-old boy on his way to the hospital.”

  “And the suspect?”

  “Driving a dark gray Toyota Camry, approximately five years old, license and description in the system.”

  Andy looked at the report. “They already have a statewide APB on the vehicle. Good. Where did they lose him?”

  “Heading toward the interstate.”

  He called Matt Costa.

  “Costa,” Matt said.

  “It’s Andy Knolls. I just saw the APB on the Camry.”

  “Did you learn anything at the bank?”

  “Nothing that’ll help us find Hamilton, but I’m going to drive by the house on Vine, talk to the current owners. They may have seen Hamilton if he has been in the area for as long as we think he has.”

  “Debriefing has been postponed an hour.”

  “If it’s all right with you, I’ll stay here. If Hamilton was in Liberty Lake just an hour ago—I know all the places he might hide.”

  “Be safe, Andy. Don’t confront him. He’s agitated and volatile. He was sitting in his fucking car down the street from Maddox’s house when Kara spotted him. He hit a kid to get away. If you see the vehicle or Hamilton himself, call it in and wait for backup. I’m going to release his photo and a sketch Kara is working on to the media, then I’ll be in the field. He’s going to make a mistake, and when he does, I want to be in his fucking face.”

  * * *

  Costa and Maddox were at the debriefing at Spokane headquarters while Kara worked with the sketch artist. As soon as the sketch was done, she knew exactly where she’d seen Glen Hamilton.

  Hamilton had done something to tweak his looks for the driver’s license photo. The whole shape of his face was different. In subtle but important ways. Now he appeared leaner, to the point of being gaunt. Instead of shaggy brown hair that almost hung in his eyes and over his ears, it was now short and cut
conservatively. It was the same person, but he’d changed the things people would notice first—the shape of his face and his hair.

  She asked for a copy of the sketch and immediately went to the debriefing. Costa was finishing up, and Packard gave everyone their modified assignments. Maddox had two cops on him; she knew he wasn’t going anywhere.

  Costa made a beeline to her when Packard dismissed his officers. “You have something?”

  She showed the picture to Costa. “He was at the hotel bar,” she said. “When I was having drinks with Brian Saturday night.”

  “You sure?”

  Of course she was sure. “We’d been there about twenty minutes. He came into the bar and ordered a beer. I didn’t think much of it, but when you work undercover, you have to know every face you see. Shit.”

  “What else?” said Matt.

  “Brian left alone and I went up to the war room. This bastard could have gotten to him then.”

  “It would have broken his pattern, but I agree—that was bold, coming into the hotel where every FBI agent is staying.”

  “Fuck the pattern. He nearly killed a kid this morning. The kid is nine years old, just walking to the bus stop, and he gets mowed down by that psycho.”

  “We need to get this out far and wide, along with the DMV photo. Good work.”

  “Is Ryder an agent?”

  “Analyst.”

  “Can he carry? Is he protected? Hamilton could have a room in the hotel for all we know. Ryder’s at the hotel by himself most of the day.”

  “I told him to be alert, and he has a sidearm. He was in the military for three years. He can protect himself. But I’ll call again—we need the feeds from the hotel not only on Saturday, but all week.”

  “Any update on the kid?” she asked.

  Matt’s face softened, just a bit. She didn’t want to read too much into it, she didn’t want to be coddled. She wanted information.

  “The hospital knows to contact us, and Harris will follow up. We know he’s stable right now, and awake, and that’s good.”

  “The bastard didn’t think twice about running into those kids. He’s not going to care about collateral damage, not anymore. We took his prize off the table. Does your shrink know what he’s going to do next?”

  “My gut? He’ll do anything he has to in order to get to Maddox. And that means he’ll have to engage us, because Brian Maddox is not leaving this police station until we have Glen Hamilton in custody. I’m going to make damn sure that every cop in the Spokane Valley is prepared.”

  44

  Liberty Lake

  9:30 a.m.

  PJ Richmond turned five last month and he really, really wanted to go to school with his sisters. But he had to wait until August 24 to start. He had the date circled and starred on his calendar because he wasn’t a baby. Sheila was a baby. She wasn’t even one and she couldn’t walk and the only words she knew were no and mama and dada and cookie.

  PJ was proud of the fact that he taught his baby sister how to say cookie. It was a very important word. Cookies were PJ’s favorite food and he loved helping his grandma bake them when she came over to babysit. It was the only good part of not going to school.

  His sisters walked to the bus stop at seven-forty every morning. Sometimes his mom went with them and he got to push Sheila’s stroller. But not today because it was cold and had started to snow.

  His dad was working from home today because the roads would be crap coming home tonight. His dad said crap, which made PJ giggle, which made his mom frown, which made PJ laugh even more. And the best thing was that his mom said that school would probably be canceled by noon because the storm was coming in faster than the stupid weatherman predicted. His mom said stupid, and that made him giggle more, and then his dad laughed.

  Noon couldn’t come fast enough for PJ because his sisters would be home and play with him. Maybe even in the snow. Their mom made them play with him and they pretended to not like it. Jilly pretended—sometimes she would play with him even when Mom didn’t tell her to. Ashley said she was getting too old for playing kids’ games. She was almost twelve, which meant that she was almost a teenager, which meant she didn’t need a little brother and sister following her around.

  He was only allowed to watch one hour of cartoons in the morning and he’d already had his hour. He got to go to school three days a week for the whole morning—but not Tuesday and Thursday. And it was Tuesday; his calendar said so. He marked off each day before he went to bed, and yesterday was Monday, March 8.

  He wandered through the house because he was bored. His mom was on the phone and sounded upset.

  “Is he okay? Debbie must be frantic! What hospital? Good—I’ll come over as soon as the girls get home. Did they catch the driver? What was he thinking? On purpose? Really?”

  “What happened Mommy?” he asked.

  She turned to him and put a finger to her lips, then pointed to the phone she held to her ear.

  PJ frowned and walked back to the den, where his dad was working. He was reading his spreadsheets. His dad was an accountant, which meant that he helped people with their math. He was really, really good at math and people paid him lots of money to help them with their math so they didn’t get in trouble with the IRS. PJ didn’t know what the IRS was, though his dad tried to explain to him. All he knew was that if you made a math mistake you could get in real big trouble and have to pay lots of money.

  PJ vowed to never make a mistake in math ever.

  “Daddy, Mommy is on the phone and I’m bored.”

  His dad looked up. “It’s a workday for me, buddy. And it’s a busy time.”

  “Because it’s almost April 15.” That was his dad’s busiest day.

  “Exactly. You’re so smart. Your mom’s probably right and the schools will close at lunch, and by then I’ll need a break. You can come with me to get the girls, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Go play with Sheila.”

  “She’s boring. She doesn’t do anything but drool and laugh.”

  His dad smiled, then turned back to his work. PJ walked out.

  His mom was still on the phone. But she was talking to someone else. “Now? They’re closing the schools now?”

  “Can I come? Mommy? Can I come with you? Please?”

  His mom put up her finger. “Yes, I’ll pick them up.”

  PJ was excited—his sisters were coming home now. He turned to Sheila, who was sitting—drooling—in her high chair. He tickled her and made her laugh.

  “PP!” she said.

  “PJay.”

  Her head bounced up and down. “PP! PP!”

  She was never going to say his name right.

  He glanced at his mom. She wasn’t paying attention. He sneaked a handful of cookies and put them in his pocket. He would teach Sheila to say his name right or he was going to change it.

  “Mommy, I’m changing my name,” he said. “I want to be called John. Sheila, say John!”

  “PP!”

  He sighed.

  His mother finally got off the phone. “I need to go get your sisters.”

  “I wanna come.”

  “Honey, the roads are a mess, and this storm is really coming in fast. Your dad is working, and I need you to be a big brother and play with Sheila upstairs in the playroom. You can get your dad if there are any problems.”

  He frowned. “Mommmmmy.”

  “Please PJ?”

  “Call me John.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s part of my name. Peter John. Sheila calls me PP. That’s like when you pee and I don’t like it.”

  “All right, John,” his mother said, and laughed. She picked Sheila up and carried her upstairs. The playroom was babyproof. All the small toys were way up on the shelves. His mom put Sheila in her playpen
. “I’ll be back in thirty minutes, and then we’ll all play. If you have any problem, just get your dad. You’re a good big brother, PJ.”

  “John.”

  She smiled and kissed him on the head. “Love you, John.” She kissed Sheila. “Love you. Be good for your brother.” Then she left.

  Sheila gurgled in her playpen and PJ moped. He didn’t really mind watching his baby sister—his mom trusted him. She always told him that he was an “old soul,” whatever that meant. But Dad said it was because he was responsible and he knew that he couldn’t give Sheila Legos and that he couldn’t carry her down the stairs and that he couldn’t leave her alone even for one minute to go pee because Sheila might climb out of her playpen and fall down the stairs and hurt herself.

  He talked to her about what they would do when their big sisters came home, then he read her a book with simple words that even he knew.

  “Bear!” she pointed to the Brown Bear.

  “Bear, that’s right!” She said a new word, and PJ couldn’t wait to tell his mom that he heard it first.

  “Cat?” He pointed. “Say cat.”

  “Bear!”

  He frowned. Did it take him this long to know the difference between a bear and a cat? He heard the front door close. It was loud, maybe because of the wind. He looked at the clock. It was digital, so he could easily read it—9:34. It couldn’t be his mom. She just left at 9:21, and it hadn’t been thirty minutes.

  He wanted to go downstairs and see who the visitor was. Ashley would tell him that he was nosy and to mind his own business.

  There was a loud crash and PJ jumped. It sounded really big, and he couldn’t even think about what had broken. Then a thump-thump! and he heard his daddy’s voice. It didn’t sound right.

  “Please! No! What do you—”

  Then his daddy screamed, and tears burst into PJ’s eyes and he didn’t know what to do. He was so scared. He looked at Sheila. She wasn’t laughing and she wasn’t saying bear and she looked like she was going to cry.