Cold Snap

by Allison Brennan

  “Understood. Will’s a good guy, Sean, we were close when I lived in San Diego. He knows what he’s doing.”

  “He hates me.”

  “What did you do?”

  “What I do best.”

  “Sean—I’ll call Will, smooth things over. You rub cops the wrong way. Aren’t you buddies with his brother?”

  “Brother?” Sean snapped his fingers. “Dean? Will and Dean Hooper with Sac FBI are brothers?”

  “Yes. Just—go easy with Will.”

  “I’ll try.”

  Patrick hesitated, then said, “Peterson couldn’t have thought this out.”

  “I have some ideas. Hopefully, this will all be resolved before you get here.”

  “Jack wants all the info you have on the guy. He’ll talk to his commanding officer and friends, maybe get more insight.”

  “I’ll send it to you now.”

  Sean hung up, shot Patrick a copy of his data, then turned to the cop. “I’m done here.” He really needed to be alone so he could check his facial recognition program. “I need to use the facilities.”

  “Sergeant Blade wants you back at the SWAT truck.”

  “Do you have a bathroom there?” His lingering good humor after sneaking his downloads by the two cops disappeared.

  The SWAT guy walked him down the hall. “Blade told me to keep an eye on you.”

  “I’m sure.”

  He went inside the restroom and closed the door. He immediately pulled out his tablet and launched his program.

  It had finished running. And immediately, he found what he was looking for.

  Wendy Parsons, the nurse who’d given Peterson a flash drive the night before, never left the hospital. She was supposed to have gotten off duty at eight A.M., but she wasn’t ID’d on any security cameras thirty minutes after she met with Peterson. She went from outside the emergency room to the lobby to her desk, left—then never returned. From Sean’s cursory examination of the hospital system, the lobby and main areas were well monitored, but the individual floors—other than the maternity unit in the south wing—were on minimal camera surveillance.

  “People don’t just disappear,” he murmured.

  Sean sent Dillon what he found. Dillon responded immediately.

  Parsons isn’t at home, and she doesn’t appear to have come home after her shift ended.

  Pounding on the door told Sean his time was up. “Rogan, Tom Blade wants us back at the truck now.”

  He burst out, “What happened?”

  “Your girlfriend refused to accept the lab test results, said they weren’t accurate.”

  “My girlfriend is a federal agent who knows what she’s doing.”

  The cop snorted. “This could have been over ten minutes ago.”

  Sean followed him out of the building. If Lucy had refused the tests, she had a damn good reason for doing so.

  But the stakes had just gone up, and Sean needed to find Wendy Parsons ASAP.

  CHAPTER 31

  Charlie’s calmness didn’t bother Lucy; in fact, she was glad he remained calm because it showed that he could be reasoned with. He was patient. He didn’t talk to her, and she didn’t push him, deciding that right now he was still processing all the information from the day, plus his reaction to his sister’s autopsy.

  But the silence disturbed the three nurses, and they’d been growing increasingly agitated as time ticked by. Kristan had jumped up three times and Charlie was upset with the young nurse’s constant chatter. The third time she jumped up, Charlie went over to her and held a gun to her head. She slid down, against the wall, crying.

  Charlie returned to his post at the desk. Lucy said, “Let me go over and talk to them, please. They’re scared.”

  He eyed her cautiously. “Why aren’t you?”

  She looked him in the eye. “I am.”

  “You don’t act scared.”

  “Honestly, I’ve faced things worse than death and survived.”

  He eyed her with interest. She’d spent the last hour slowly working on getting him to trust her. When the test results came back—too early, and he knew it—it was her idea to bring in the portable lab. If he thought he wouldn’t get answers, he’d finally realize that his freedom was over. He was a soldier at heart, and while he could mentally put himself into the role of the attacker, he wouldn’t be able to survive this way for long. He’d see what he was doing. She feared he would kill himself, or kill the hostages and then himself. In his mind, one of these three people was responsible for his sister’s death, and if he had to kill all of them to see justice done, he would. She could practically see him working up the justification for murder.

  She was the neutral third party, the one whom he viewed as impartial. It was clear that he admired her forensic skill, even though she was no more competent than any other trained pathologist who took pride in her work. It had been nearly a year since she left the ME’s office, but she’d done so much during her internship there that the skills came back, just like riding a bike.

  Medics in the military were in the middle of action, even when they weren’t soldiers, and they saved lives. They earned the respect of the soldiers around them, according to her brother Jack. She had a sense that Peterson equated her with army medics, someone he needed to protect.

  The problem was, she wouldn’t be able to do all the tests. The basic tests were easy, but they’d need access to a high-end lab to run the sorts of tests for medications in quantities that could kill. What she hoped to do was show him that the tests that were returned were not falsified, and explain the limitations to testing. It was her only idea to buy them a little more time so that SWAT could make a move. Because had she told him the tests were fine, he would have known she was lying.

  But the only way SWAT could act was if Lucy could get Peterson to dismantle the bomb.

  He didn’t say anything, and she didn’t push him. The silence actually calmed her. The ventilation system was purring. There were no sirens. No sounds of anyone attempting to breach the morgue. The one problem was Kristan’s sobs. Just when Lucy thought she was relaxed, she started crying again. Brian would try to soothe her, then say something that pissed off Charlie, usually calling him a psycho and saying how SWAT was going to put a bullet in his head. Rena was the only one who had completely kept her head, after her initial outbreak at the beginning of the ordeal.

  The situation had lasted well over five hours now, and Lucy had been in here for three of those hours. But the waiting seemed to keep Charlie calm as well.

  “Go ahead,” he said. “I’m watching.”

  “I know.”

  She walked around the autopsy table and kept her distance from the other hostages. “This is almost over. Kristan, I know you’re scared, but it would help everyone if you could get yourself under control.”

  Rena stared at Lucy with an anger and hatred that surprised her. “Are you working with him?”

  “I’m trying to get to a peaceful resolution.”

  “You’re taking your sweet time. I didn’t think Stockholm syndrome worked that fast.”

  Lucy wasn’t going to explain herself to Rena or the others. “Kristan? Do you think you can do that for me? Be calm?”

  Kristan nodded, her eyes red and swollen.

  “Good.” She turned to Brian. “How’s your leg?”

  “Numb.”

  Rena said, “We’re nurses. We’ll take care of our own.”

  “You know he’s going to turn on you,” Brian told Lucy. “He’s a nutcase.”

  Hardly. He had a clean and logical methodology for what he was doing. He wasn’t crazy, and he wasn’t going to turn on Lucy as long as she was honest with him.

  “Just hold on a little while longer. We all want to be home for Christmas.”

  “If you really wanted to help, you would have gotten us out of here, not your sister,” Rena said. “She’s a cop, more capable of dealing with someone like him than you are.”

  Lucy wasn’t going t
o reveal any of her training, outside of the ME’s office. She didn’t know if they would say something, and she’d already built a level of trust with Charlie that she didn’t want to jeopardize.

  She walked back to Charlie. “They’re doing their best,” she said.

  “I don’t really care.”

  “You do care. I understand how you got to this point. In your grief, you didn’t see any other option. But there are always other options. We all do rash things sometimes.”

  Charlie almost smiled. “You’re a cool cucumber. Have you ever been rash?”

  “More than once.”

  “Name one time.”

  “I don’t want to talk about me.”

  “You sound like some psychologist or something. Trying to get me to talk about my past. I already told you everything. There’s nothing more to me. I doubt you’ve ever done anything without thinking it through—except maybe trading yourself for your sister. That you did out of love.”

  Partly. But Lucy had never worked with her sister. She didn’t know how Carina would have handled the situation, and from the minute Lucy walked in, she had a feeling she could fix this without anyone dying. And Carina had thought so too, or she wouldn’t have told Charlie that Lucy was a pathologist.

  The phone rang and Kristan yelped. Charlie answered it. “Yes, sir. Thank you. You can leave the cart outside the door. I’ll send Ms. Kincaid to retrieve it. I’ll be watching, I want her back inside.”

  Charlie moved the bomb. Every time he got near it, Lucy’s heart raced. She’d been stabbed and shot and knew what that felt like. She didn’t want to know what it was like to be caught in an explosion. She didn’t want to die. He’d asked why she wasn’t scared, and she’d been honest with him. She was. But fear wouldn’t help her resolve this situation. The panic attacks that had plagued her for so many years had almost disappeared. She still had claustrophobia, but had learned to control the physical reaction after years of practice and therapy with her brother Dillon.

  Charlie looked at her. “I have to do this.”

  “We all have choices.”

  He pulled up Kristan and held her in front of him. The gun was at the back of her head.

  “Go.”

  Lucy stepped out. Down the hall she saw several SWAT team members with guns pointed in her direction. A cop dressed as a lab tech wheeled over a cart. It had everything she needed to confirm the tests, except for the equipment that couldn’t be moved. Basically, it was a microscope and some test strips.

  She brought it inside and Kristan continued to sob. Charlie told Lucy to lock the door. She did. She set up the equipment on the autopsy table. Charlie ordered Kristan back to the floor, then replaced the bomb.

  “Here’s the printout from the lab,” she said, and handed it to Charlie. “They tested for all standard toxins, and the tests came back negative.”

  “What about other things? Like overdoses of her medicine? A wrong medicine?”

  “Labs have to know what to look for, then they are extremely accurate. But if they don’t know they’re looking for a specific type of drug, they’ll never find it. Most drugs will still be present in the blood or liver even after a few days. Because I think she died of respiratory failure—though I’m not an ME and I can’t swear to it—I asked them to run screens for any neuromuscular blocking agents. These are the types of drugs available in a hospital that have medical uses, but in the wrong person or in too high of a dose or mixed with the wrong medication, they can be fatal. But they can’t run those tests in an hour, or even a day. The samples will need to be sent to an outside lab that has the capacity to run these specialized tests. The lab here in the hospital can’t do anything beyond basic screenings.”

  “So what are you doing?” Charlie said. “Do you think I’m stupid?”

  “I wanted to show you the process, so you understand.”

  “But you’re telling me you can’t give me answers.”

  “No. I can’t. Not with the limited equipment. I thought you would want to see what a lab needs to do. I filled out all the paperwork, told them the types of drugs to screen for—” She stopped. Charlie was pacing and growing agitated. She didn’t want him to think she was trying to deceive him.

  “Hypothetically,” she asked him, “if we could have tested for those drugs, and they came back positive, what would you do?”

  “I would know how my sister died.”

  “But you’re holding the three nurses who were on duty that night.”

  “Because one of them did it.”

  “And if the tests came back negative?”

  “Then it would be a trick.” He stared at her, and in his eyes she saw the truth.

  “Charlie, what do you know that you haven’t told me?”

  He reached into his pocket and handed her a piece of paper with names and dates. It was written in flowery script, likely by a woman.

  “Who are these people?”

  “Women who died when they shouldn’t have. The same way that Sarah died. When these three nurses were on duty.”

  “Why didn’t you take this to the police?”

  “Because they wouldn’t have done anything! And it would have given the hospital time to cover it up.” He was upset. “This was supposed to be easy. Why can’t you just look and see?”

  She had to remain calm to keep him calm. “Because only specialized lab tests can register most of the drugs that would trigger the asphyxiation that caused your sister’s death.”

  “Then we’ll wait for the results.” He stared at her. “I don’t like being made a fool of.”

  “That’s not what I intended to do, Charlie. I wanted to show you what has been done and what still needs to be done.” She pulled out the lab chart. She stared at it and frowned.

  The lab had run all the tests. They’d just told Charlie everything came back negative. Had they even looked at the results?

  She double-checked the name and numbers at the top and they correlated to Sarah Peterson.

  “What’s wrong?” Charlie asked.

  “I think the police—who don’t know how to read these types of reports—didn’t understand what this meant.” She pointed to a line item. “This is a standard screening. Her histamine levels were high. That indicates there may have been a neuromuscular blocker administered. Not for certain, but it’s one indication.”

  “What are all these Xs here?”

  “Those tests weren’t run. They don’t have the capabilities in this lab.”

  “Then I want those tests run. You asked for them, they run them, or we’re staying.”

  Lucy put down the chart and looked Charlie in the eye. “I promise you, I will follow through on this. I will make sure all these tests are done. If anyone accidentally or intentionally poisoned Sarah, I will prove it.”

  He believed her. She could see it in his eyes. “You keep your promises.”

  “Always. You’re going to need to face the consequences of your actions, but no one died here today. That means something. It means something to me, and it will mean something to the court.”

  “I just want to know the truth,” he said quietly.

  “I have a friend who works in the FBI lab in Quantico. I’ll pack these samples up myself and make sure he gets them. We’ll find out what happened to Sarah. I’m truly sorry for your loss.”

  Charlie reached into his pocket and pulled out the detonator. He typed in a code and the light went off. He put it down on the table. “Go.”

  Lucy nodded to the three hostages. They slowly rose. Rena helped support Brian’s weight as he limped across the room. Kristan practically ran to the door. She opened the door without thinking, and Lucy cringed, expecting an explosion. There was nothing.

  Kristan ran out, crying.

  Rena and Brian stumbled and collapsed against the autopsy table. Lucy turned in time to see all the trays crash to the floor.

  Charlie’s eyes widened. “You did that on purpose. You destroyed evidence because it was you
—”

  He raised his gun.

  “No, Charlie, it was an accident!” Lucy shouted. But she didn’t know that. The autopsy table was heavy, it was bolted to the ground. They would have had to bump it extremely hard to cause the trays to fall. But Brian weighed over two hundred pounds, if he fell against it he could have …

  Rena screamed as Charlie aimed the gun at her.

  SWAT stormed in, guns pointing at Charlie.

  “Drop your weapon!”

  Charlie stared at the destruction in front of him. His sister’s chart, the lab results, the slides and samples.

  “Down, down, down!”

  “Charlie, lower your weapon,” Lucy said. If he would only look at her, she knew she could get through to him.

  “They did it on purpose,” Charlie said. He still held his gun, but his hand started to dip down.

  “Give me your gun,” Lucy said.

  He stood there as if he didn’t know what to do.

  Rena screamed again.

  Then there was gunfire and Lucy hit the ground as Charlie collapsed in a heap.

  “No!” she cried. She crawled over to him. Tom Blade was at her side as another pair of SWAT team members got Rena and Brian out.

  “Come now!” he ordered her.

  “He has a vest! Get a medic, he’s bleeding!”

  He’d been shot in the upper torso multiple times. He was bleeding profusely.

  There was chaos all around her. She tried to stop the bleeding. Charlie was mouthing something, and she felt his hand in hers. She squeezed.

  The SWAT leader picked her up and carried her out, even as she fought him. She had to help Charlie. Save him.

  “Put me down!”

  Tom Blade put her down and pushed her against the wall. “Agent Kincaid, get hold of yourself! That man shot two people and would have killed you.”

  “He was giving himself up.”

  “He had a gun on the hostages.”

  “He was lowering it.”

  But he had been so shocked when the blood and tissue samples had been knocked to the floor. Would he have killed the hostages? Lucy didn’t know for certain.

  “I will not put the hostages or my team at greater risk. He was a threat, we took the threat out. If you have a problem with it, take it up with my superiors.”