Cold Snap

by Allison Brennan

  “What are his demands?” Kate asked.

  “He wants a full autopsy by someone not affiliated with the hospital.”

  “Wasn’t an autopsy done?” Lucy asked.

  “According to her records, she died while under a doctor’s care. She had an adverse reaction to a new medication and was admitted to the hospital. They changed her meds and thought she was responding, but she died that night. She’s been in and out of the hospital for the past year.”

  “We need all her records, and her doctor—” Lucy began.

  “Her doctor left on vacation before she died. He’s unreachable. What Peterson wants is to witness the autopsy.”

  “He won’t know what he’s seeing.”

  “Carina told him you’re a pathologist and could do it. He asked for you specifically.”

  “Why would Carina put Lucy in the middle of a hostage situation?” Sean said. “That makes no sense.”

  “It seems she told Peterson that Lucy was her sister and a pathologist, but made no mention that she’s also an FBI agent,” Will said.

  “I’m not qualified,” Lucy said. There had to be a good reason that Carina would bring her into this.

  “But you know what to do,” Tom said.

  “Yes, I’ve assisted in dozens of autopsies, but it’s been nearly a year since I left the medical examiner’s office. And unless there’s something visually noticeable, the lab work is what’s important.”

  “We need to buy time,” Will said, “and the best way to buy time is to go through the motions of performing an autopsy.”

  “You don’t have to do this,” Tom said. “We’ll think of something else.”

  But even as Tom said it, Lucy couldn’t think of another way. Carina was a smart cop. She had to have a logical reason for wanting Lucy down there—she wouldn’t intentionally put her in harm’s way. She might feel that this was the best way to talk the shooter out of hurting anyone else, if he thought someone was really listening to him and getting him the answers that he wanted.

  “Carina wouldn’t have told him I was a pathologist unless she had a plan. But I need to be fully prepared to perform the autopsy and take samples. There are protocols that need to be followed.”

  “Absolutely.” Will squeezed her hand. “Let’s get you geared up.”

  “Whoa,” Sean said, looking from Will to Dillon. “You’re okay with this? With sending Lucy down there with a gunman?”

  “No,” Dillon said. “Will, I need access to all Peterson’s files. I need to put together a profile quickly. But what you’ve said doesn’t make sense. He took hostages because he wants an autopsy done on his sister’s body? There’s something more to this.”

  “Until we get him talking, we don’t have anything other than what he’s already said.”

  Tom said, “We have a tablet with wireless access. Lucy can use it as a resource for the autopsy, but its primary purpose is to give us an audio recording of everything in the room. That’s going to give you what you need, Dr. Kincaid. I’m happy to have you consult, but we need eyes and ears in that room. We have blueprints, but he has a bomb on the door and we’re moving ahead with caution before we try to access the vents. The ventilation system in the morgue and lab is separate from the main hospital’s. This is good in that we may be able to send in a harmless sleeping gas, but if he suspects—and he might because he’s special forces—he has a fail-safe. He’s set a C-4 charge on the main door. We need to see the charge, get a good description, to figure out how to disarm it or interrupt his transmission.”

  Tom handed Lucy blue scrubs and a medical bag. “This should have everything you need. There’s also a key to the supply cabinet in the morgue. Your job is to do the autopsy and get out. He’s agreed to let you leave when you’re done.”

  “And Carina?”

  “Carina seems to have built a rapport with him. We need more information before we can decide a plan of action. But know that we will have a plan, and we will get you all out.”

  Will caught her eye. “Can you fake it?”

  “Fake it? I thought we agreed I was going to actually do the autopsy.”

  “Go through the motions, but that’s secondary to getting everyone out safe.”

  “Maybe,” Lucy said, “if he gets the answers he wants, he’ll give himself up without anyone being hurt.”

  “We can’t count on that. We’re going to run tests on the samples, but it’s all for show—we’ll give him nothing, but tell him whatever it takes to get him to release the hostages.”

  Lucy understood why, but she still wasn’t certain it was going to work.

  She caught Sean’s eye. He didn’t want her doing this, but he didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to.

  She took his hand. His whole body was tense. “I hate this idea,” he said.

  “I know.”

  “But you have to do it.”

  She nodded. “It’s going to work.” She sounded more confident than she felt.

  One of the uniformed officers approached Will. “Detective, the supervising nurse is here to talk to you.” He gestured to a diminutive older woman standing just inside the barricade.

  “Thanks, tell her I’ll be right there.” Will turned to Tom. “It’s the floor supervisor. I need to talk to her about the hostages and debrief her.”

  “Go. I’ll finish with Kincaid.”

  Will left, and Tom escorted Lucy inside the SWAT truck and gave her the supplies she’d need, then activated the tablet. “He won’t be able to tell that it’s recording. Even if he inspects it, it won’t appear to be recording anything. The feed will come directly to me. When you leave the room, leave the tablet.”

  “All right.”

  She went through the medical bag and felt confident that everything she needed was there. Then she stepped out of the truck and Sean was waiting for her.

  He took her hands and pulled her to him. “Luce—”

  She kissed him. “I’ll see you in a couple of hours, okay?”

  His jaw tightened.

  She glanced around and saw Dillon but not Kate. “Where’s Kate?”

  “She’s talking to the SAC in San Diego,” Sean said. “Calling in the cavalry. You’re one of theirs now.”

  “Really, Carina must have a plan, otherwise she wouldn’t have mentioned me.”

  “Ticktock,” Tom said.

  “I’m ready.” She hated leaving Sean angry and worried, but Tom said he could stay in the truck and monitor the audio if he kept out of the way.

  Tom whistled to Will, who was still talking to the supervisor. Will rushed over. “Sorry—that was Marilyn Todd, the RN in charge of the cancer wing. She didn’t have anything to contribute, except the identities of the three hostages. She also stated that Peterson was distraught when he found out his sister had died, but left the hospital before she had to call security.”

  “Did she know him?” Lucy asked. “Talk to him? Have anything to contribute as to what might have led him in this direction?”

  Will shook his head. “She feels guilty, because she was scared of him but didn’t tell anyone. You saw her; she’s a small woman, Peterson is a burly two-hundred-pound soldier.” He glanced at Lucy. “Ready?”

  “Yes,” she said. She glanced at Sean and gave him a smile. He wasn’t smiling back.

  “I’m going to walk you to the basement,” Will said. “We have SWAT positioned at each corner of the hall, but you have to go to the door alone.”

  “Dillon,” Lucy said, “walk with us, I have some questions.”

  As they walked toward the north tower entrance, she asked, “What do you think he really wants?”

  “He wouldn’t go through with this elaborate plan unless he had an idea of what the autopsy would find,” Dillon said. “That’s what I’m thinking, without more information. I suspect—and this is a guess, because I don’t have any more information than you do—that he thinks the hospital made a mistake and his sister died because of it. He doesn’t trust the hospit
al, which is why he feels the only way to get answers is for someone independent to come in. My primary concern is what he’ll do if he doesn’t get the answer he expected.”

  “If it was a hospital error, they have liability insurance, but if it was truly an accident, no individual is going to be punished, at least in his eyes.”

  “Do what you do best, Lucy—empathize with him.”

  They were at the top of the staircase leading to the basement. “I can’t let you go any farther,” Will said to Dillon.

  Lucy hugged her brother, and whispered, “Keep an eye on Sean.” She didn’t have to explain why. Sean was a man of action; waiting for others was not in his nature.

  “I will.”

  If Lucy was down in the morgue with a shooter and a room full of victims, she didn’t want to think of the trouble Sean could get into up here with the cops. She didn’t want him to be ejected from the hospital. Or worse—arrested.

  Nick approached and was immediately stopped by two uniforms when he breached the line. Will frowned, but Nick said, “I need Lucy for ten seconds.”

  Will didn’t stop him from pulling Lucy to the side. “Carina’s pregnant,” Nick whispered. “We haven’t told anyone yet. I just wanted you to know before you go down.”

  She hugged Nick. “She will be fine.” She gave him a stiff smile. She had to believe everything would be okay, even though she had no idea what she would face in the morgue. She couldn’t let anyone know she was scared.

  Then she went with Will down the cement staircase into the quiet north wing basement.

  CHAPTER 28

  It had been thirty minutes since Charlie last spoke to SWAT. He’d told them not to call again until Lucy was in the building. It was quiet. Too quiet for Carina. The three nurses were sitting together, heads down, resigned to the fact that they would be stuck here a little longer. Carina sat on the floor in the middle of the room, handcuffed to the autopsy table, and prayed she’d done the right thing. Charlie stood calmly by the phone, waiting, his ears pricked for sounds Carina couldn’t hear. She knew SWAT would be coming in from all angles—they could be in the ventilation system for all she knew. But she heard nothing.

  Carina hadn’t seen her younger sister in nearly two years, and while she had reports from Dillon that Lucy was doing great, and she knew that she’d graduated from the FBI Academy, and had heard about all the other things she’d faced over the last year, Carina still remembered her as a traumatized rape victim. Lucy had intentionally pulled away from her family in the aftermath. Except … not the entire family. She’d lived with Dillon for the past seven years. She and Patrick were as close as Carina and Patrick had once been. And Jack had flown to D.C. to visit Lucy more often than he’d come to San Diego to visit her.

  Dear Lord, that thought seemed like jealousy.

  Maybe in the back of her mind she was a little jealous of Lucy. Not that she wanted her life, just that she wanted their family to be together in the same city. Nick had given up his career as sheriff in Montana to move to San Diego so Carina didn’t have to give up her family. She wanted roots, and she had them in San Diego. She wanted family, and for a while they’d all been here, in San Diego. Now … it was just her and Connor. She wanted her child to have the same large-family upbringing she’d had, but instead of being an army brat, he or she would have cousins and friends and family a bike ride away. But … this little guy was going to be the only one for a long time. And when her brothers and sisters had kids, they would be far away.

  Damn, Carina, your hormones are working overtime.

  The phone rang and Charlie calmly answered it. “Good. When I see that she’s alone, I’ll bring her in.… No, I’m not disarming the bomb. She’ll have to step carefully.” He hung up and walked over to the door. He didn’t disarm the bomb, but he adjusted the detonator so that when he opened the door it wouldn’t go off. Then he pressed the lock release on the wall and the blue light turned off.

  Carina didn’t know if this calm was good or bad. He hadn’t spoken more than half a dozen words after SWAT agreed to send in Lucy as a pathologist.

  Rena, the older, dark-haired RN, slowly rose from her spot on the cement floor. “Please,” she pleaded with Charlie, “let us go.”

  He turned and pointed his gun steadily at her chest. “Sit. Down.”

  “You have a cop and a pathologist, you don’t need us.”

  “Sit.”

  Carina tried to catch the nurse’s eye, but Rena was looking nervous, like she was going to make a run for it.

  Charlie saw the same thing. “You were good for so long. It’s not much longer. Unless you have something you want to confess?”

  “We’ve done nothing!” Rena said. “None of us did anything to your sister. Just let us go.”

  “Rena,” Carina said, hoping to calm her down, but the nurse wasn’t listening.

  Charlie strode across the morgue and grabbed Rena. He put the gun to her head. “What are you hiding?”

  Rena sucked in a breath and closed her eyes.

  Charlie easily held on to the nurse, moving the gun to the back of her head. He walked back over to the doors and looked through the window. “Ms. Kincaid, you may open the door on your left. Push it slowly. If you have equipment, toss the bag into the room in front of you. Watch your step. There is a detonator on your right. I also have a switch in my pocket that will set off the bomb. Understood?”

  “Yes,” Lucy said through the door.

  “Then come in.”

  Lucy took a deep breath. There was no backing out now. She pushed open the door and threw her bag in front of her, then stepped over the threshold as Peterson had instructed.

  To the left was a row of refrigerator drawers. Straight ahead was Peterson, holding a gun on a nurse. The woman, in her forties, looked terrified and angry at the same time. Peterson was dressed in khaki pants and a black T-shirt. He looked like any number of physically fit soldiers and cops that Lucy knew—clean-cut, tattoo on his biceps, experience sharpening his eyes.

  Carina’s right wrist was handcuffed to the autopsy table. Lucy breathed easier when she saw that her sister was okay.

  “Lock the door, Ms. Kincaid.”

  She did. Blue lights over the door flashed again, and the windows darkened.

  “Leave your bag where it is and walk over to the desk. Stand still and no sudden movements.”

  Peterson said to the nurse, “I’m going to let you return to Brian and Kristan. Don’t do anything else but sit between them, exactly where you were before. Next time you get up without my permission, I will shoot you in the leg. Do you understand?”

  She nodded and Peterson watched as she moved back to her spot and sat down. Kristan tried to take her hand, but Rena swatted her wrist away and put her head between her knees. Lucy assessed the three hostages. They were scared but, except for Brian’s bandaged leg, appeared unharmed. Carina looked okay, too, other than being restrained to the leg of the autopsy table.

  Peterson frisked her. “Good, you obeyed the first rule.” He walked over to the door and moved the bomb so that if anyone opened the door, it would detonate. The bomb scared Lucy more than the gun.

  Next, he picked up her bag and put it on the table. He dumped everything out and inspected the tools. He held up the tablet. “What’s this?”

  “I’m not a medical examiner. I’m a pathologist. I might need to look up information. I also downloaded a checklist for the autopsy. I don’t want to forget anything.”

  “What’s the difference?” he asked.

  She didn’t know if he was really interested, or if he wanted to catch her in a lie. “I’m not a physician. I have a pathology certificate, not a degree. That essentially means that I took a year of forensic biology in college and passed a qualification test. I assist in autopsies, I don’t usually perform them myself.”

  “But you can do it.”

  “I’ve assisted in over one hundred autopsies back in D.C.”

  “Why are you here in San
Diego?”

  “It’s Christmas,” she said. “I came to be with my family.” She looked at Carina. Carina gave her a very small nod. Good. They were on the same page.

  He seemed to accept her answers and said, “I know you’ll need tools, such as a scalpel. However, I still have a gun, and I have a detonator that will set off that bomb.” To prove it, he held up a small black box, before putting it back in his pocket. “I promised Detective Kincaid that when you’re done, you can leave. If you behave, I will keep my promise.”

  She nodded. “I need someone to help me. Usually, there are three of us, but I can do it with one person. Will you let Carina assist?”

  He shook his head. “She’s a cop. I want her to stay right where she is.” He motioned to Kristan, the blond nurse. “Kristan will help you.”

  Lucy didn’t argue the point. It was best to give him what he wanted, and then when she needed to have her way, she might have more leverage.

  She said, “Where’s the body?”

  “Sarah,” Charlie said.

  Lucy said, “I try not to personalize the victim, otherwise I can’t be clinical in my examination.” This wasn’t completely true for Lucy—she always saw the victims as people—but she wanted to show Charlie that she was here as a scientist and nothing more.

  He stared at her and nodded, understanding in his eyes. He was a soldier; he knew what she meant.

  “Drawer eight,” he said, and walked over to the desk, far from the drawers, far from the autopsy table.

  Lucy motioned for Kristan to take the portable gurney from its hook on the wall. She pulled open the drawer. Sarah Peterson had been in her early thirties. “I need her records,” she said to the nurse. “Can you access the hospital files from here?”

  “I don’t know that I should,” she said.

  “Yes, you should. I can’t do this without having as much of her medical history as possible.”