“I can see wanting to kick him myself. Don’t worry about it. What about the guy you said wasn’t shot in the head? Shot in the body?”
“Not shot at all, best I can tell. Young guy. He was in front of me, dived for the floor as soon the shooting started. Now he’s just lying there trembling and crying. I think he’s had a breakdown of some kind.”
“You make sure he doesn’t have a weapon?”
“No. I was afraid you wouldn’t want me messing with evidence.”
“Yeah, I’d better do it,” Fred said, getting up and walking that way. He found the sobbing mobster and patted him down. The guy did have a gun in an underarm holster. Fred removed it without any reaction from the kid. Fred walked over to the limo and picked up his stuff, especially his cell phone. He called his task force, took still photos of the room, then swept his surroundings with the video camera. Walking out into the middle he started taking pictures or Romano and his guys from closer up.
“How’s Martin?” Scott asked hesitantly.
Fred shook his head. Seeing Scott’s eyes starting to glisten he went to the young man and squatted to put a hand on his shoulder. Not able to think of anything better, he said, “Sorry buddy. At least the assholes that did it are dead.”
With a catch in his voice, Scott said, “All of them?”
“All but one.”
Scott looked up at Fred wonderingly, “How’d you do it? I thought we were goners.”
Fred looked up at the sound of approaching sirens in the distance. “I didn’t do it. It was that guy that was dressed in black.”
Scott frowned, “What guy?”
“Tall, skinny, all dressed in black, even a balaclava? Amber shooting glasses?”
Scott shook his head slowly.
“I guess you must have been facing the wrong direction.” His eyes jumped to an open office doorway, then widened. A couple of frightened-looking young girls stood in the door. They were wearing, of all things, high heels and big shapeless jackets. Fred glanced down at Scott and said, “There’s a couple of young girls in here. I should go over and check on them. You okay?”
Scott turned to look the same direction Fred was. He said “Sure,” as surprise spread over his face.
Fred approached the girls slowly, getting out his badge. “Hi. You’re safe. I’m from the FBI.” They only stared so he asked, “Who are you?”
Sandra and Mary were fourteen and seventeen years old. They’d been captured by some of Romano’s thugs a couple of weeks ago and kept in the room behind the office, forced to perform sexually. They’d heard the gunshots, then, a while later, the door to their prison opened a crack. When they pushed it open farther they’d found two men’s jackets lying on the floor outside the door. Apparently, though Fred couldn’t see it, they were nearly nude except for the jackets and shoes.
Ambulances, police, and Fred’s task force were arriving and Fred grabbed the first woman cop he saw to sit with the girls. He sent the paramedics to check on Martin, then looked around the room. A little shiver went up his spine when he realized that two of Romano’s dead men weren’t wearing jackets.
He’d have sworn they’d had coats on before.
He realized he could check whether they’d had jackets on by looking at the pictures he’d taken earlier. He reached into his own jacket pocket for his cellphone.
Real icicles shot down his neck when his fingers told him the cellphone was gone.
In its place he found a Springfield 9mm automatic pistol and an empty magazine.
The gun was warm—as if it’d been recently fired.
The magazine in the gun only had three bullets left.
Its serial number had been filed off.
What in God’s name happened here?! he wondered. Glancing around, he saw Scott staring at the gun. He didn’t know what to say to the agent so he kept looking around. There was a security camera up near the ceiling. He also saw Joaquin, the tech guy from the task force. Calling Joaquin over, he assigned him to find any recordings the camera might have made.
***
Roni sat, bent over the computer in Romano’s office, rubbing the bump on her head and squinting at the screen. Hax stepped into the room behind her and said, “You find the CCTV recordings?”
“Yeah, they’re on this computer. Best I can tell; they aren’t being copied to any other locations.”
“Have you got them deleted yet? The head FBI guy just told one of his minions to find the recordings. He might look in here pretty soon.”
“It’ll be a few more minutes. Close and lock the door. That’ll hold ‘em up.”
As Hax stepped to the door, he said, “You’re keeping them from noticing the door closing, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Sorry, I know you must have a bitch of a headache.”
“Yeah.”
Hax sat down and, thankfully, stopped talking. Once Roni’s program had finished copying other files over the video recordings, she turned off the computer, stood up and said, “Okay, we can go.”
Hax was bent over his phone. He said, “Just a sec.”
Irritated, Roni said, “You can’t wait to text your girlfriend till we’re out of here?”
Her brother patiently said, “This is the FBI guy’s phone. He photographed the room and got a couple of pictures of me when he did it. I’m trying to figure out if I can delete them.”
“Oh crap,” Roni said, gently touching her goose-egg again. “I agree you don’t want him seeing those pictures, but merely deleting the pictures won’t keep the FBI from retrieving them if they’re any good.”
Hax looked up at her, a chagrined look on his face. “You’re right. Sorry, I should’ve known that. Besides, it’s locked and maybe encrypted. I can’t even get in.” He held the phone out, “Do you know how to do it?”
“Probably not. I might be able figure it out, but not till I’ve had a couple aspirin and a good night’s sleep. You’d better take it with you.” She turned toward the door and turned off the light, saying, “Okay, no one should notice us opening the door. Have a look-see to make sure one no one’s taking pictures right now.”
Once Hax had confirmed that no one else was taking pictures out in the main warehouse, they crossed the room and exited. A few minutes later they were getting into Roni’s anonymous gray Civic and heading for home.
Epilogue
Roni felt so crappy from getting hit on the head that after she’d driven Hax home, she decided to sleep there. When Hax knocked on her door early in the morning and checked on her she felt touched, saying, “Hey, I appreciate you checking on me. Makes me feel loved, you know.”
Hax grinned, “More loved than saving your life when you let that ladder knock you out last night?”
She gave him a sheepish grin, “I guess I didn’t say thanks for that, did I? I’ll have to blame it on getting knocked loopy.” She gave him a brief hug, but then he had to get ready for school.
Roni waited to slip out of the house till after her dad was in the store and her mother was in her office. Despite the delay, she only missed one class.
Before going into her dorm room after her classes, Roni stopped in the hall bathroom to make sure her hair still covered the abraded lump the ladder had left on her forehead. When she opened the door to her room, she found Madison and Indigo sitting on Madison’s bed. “Hey guys.”
Madison grinned at her, “Where the heck were you last night? You haven’t got a boyfriend you’re hiding from us, do you?”
Roni shook her head, “Sadly, no. I drove home last night to work on a project with my little brother. It got to be too late to drive back.”
Madison studied Roni. Now she waved at her forehead, “I’m not sure I like the new hairstyle.”
Roni shrugged, “Okay, that’s one ‘thumbs down.’ I’m going to try this look for a week though. I’ll want to see how everyone votes before I give up on it.”
Indigo, practically squirming with excitement, burst in, “Have you heard the
news?!”
“No, what?”
“Last night the FBI tried to arrest Romano and his gang. There was some kind of shootout and Romano’s dead. So are most of his enforcers!” Indigo came up off of Madison’s bed and lifted her hand for a high five, “We did it girl! Decapitated the snake!”
Roni’s stomach lurched for a moment, thinking Indigo knew what’d really happened. As she gave Indigo a weak high five she realized that Indigo attributed the whole thing to the list of dealers Indigo had acquired and Roni had transmitted to the police. Pasting on an enthusiastic smile she hoped didn’t look as fake as it felt, Roni said, “Yeah girl! We rock.”
“And,” Indigo said happily, putting a hand on her chest, “I’ve been invited to a party this weekend. The guy said I could bring some girlfriends. I figure, who better than my buddies who’ve already defended each other. You guys up for it?”
Roni glanced at Madison, worried that she’d be afraid, but Madison had an enthusiastic expression. “Sure, I’ll be good to go.”
“Hey, I forgot to ask. You went to your brother’s football game last weekend, right? Did he get to play?”
Roni grinned, “About half the game. Pretty good for a sophomore.”
“Did you guys hear that one of the players at a high school game last weekend knocked a gun out of some guy’s hand?”
Roni said she’d heard about it, then listened as, without really getting any of the details right, Indigo expounded on the particulars of the event. Roni simply nodded along.
***
Roni and Madison were walking to the cafeteria for dinner when her phone rang. Pulling it out, she looked at the number, but neither she nor her phone recognized it. Letting it go to voice mail she continued on to her dinner with Madison. Sabine met them at the cafeteria. She seemed to be in a good mood, something that’d been sorely lacking since the incident between her brother and Madison.
Madison told Sabine about the Romanos and Sabine’s spirits rose farther. She even agreed to go to Indigo’s party that weekend. Sabine and Madison decided to go to the Student Union after dinner, but Roni wanted to get back to her room and do some studying. She also needed to finish wiping the FBI agent’s phone. Its encryption had defeated her so she’d had to do a factory reset, then encrypt the entire phone herself to make sure all the previous data had been overwritten. She still needed to do another factory reset to make it usable again before she returned it to the agent.
As she walked, she checked her voicemail from earlier. Roni’s heart skipped a beat when she heard Casey’s voice, thinking the girl was in trouble again. But Casey’s message said, “Hi Kita. Before I get to my issues, I wanted to say thanks once again for all you did for me.” Her voice cracked with emotion as she said it. “You’ll have my number now, so if there’s ever anything I can do for you…?” After a brief pause, Casey continued, “We’ve heard that something happened to the Romanos, but we haven’t been able to learn much about it. What’s been in the news hasn’t been very informative and we really don’t want to call people back home to ask them, but I figured it’d be safe to call you. Do you know if it might be safe…” she choked up for a moment, then she continued, “safe for us to go back home?”
Roni’d stopped walking to listen to the message. Now she called Casey back. “Kita!” Casey’s voice said excitedly. “Thank you so much! My whole family wanted me to tell you how much we appreciate what you did.”
Trying to keep her own voice from breaking, Roni said, “Tell them they’re very welcome.”
“Do you know anything about what happened to Romano? We… heard he might even be dead?”
“That’s true. He’s dead and so are a lot of his lieutenants and enforcers. I think you probably can go back home, but if I were you I’d give it a couple of weeks to make sure no one rises up in his place.”
“How will we know?”
“I’ll try to call you.”
“Oh! Thank you, thank you, thank you… Um, my mom’d like to talk to you, would that be okay?”
Roni hesitated, then said, “Okay but on the speaker function of your phone and hold it where she can’t see my number if it’s displayed, okay?”
“Yes, just a sec…”
“And, Casey? Be sure you erase my number out of your phone’s memory after this call, okay? Do you know how to do that?”
“Um, no.”
“After your mom’s done talking to me, stay on the line and I’ll tell you how to do it?”
“Sure. I’m putting you on speaker now.”
Roni heard Ms. Allen’s voice. “Hello, Kita?”
“Yes, Ms. Allen.”
“I guess that probably isn’t your real name, but whoever you are, you have our undying gratitude for what you did for Casey. If there’s ever anything we can do for you, please let us know through Casey, okay?”
After a few more platitudes Roni walked Casey through deleting her number and then hung up, feeling warm and fuzzy throughout.
***
Will Jennings got home after a long day of dealing with fallout from the events of the previous night. Half of his people were ecstatic about the demise of Romano’s reign of terror. However, about forty percent viewed organized crime like a multi-headed hydra, expecting some other mobster to pop up in Romano’s place. The other ten percent weren’t sure. Those people fretted more than the rest of them, because they weren’t sure which way to jump.
Will felt pretty ecstatic, but, deep down inside, he too worried that someone else would take over, just like Romano had taken over from Castano. Nonetheless, he’d shown everyone a cheerful face and tried to reassure people that things were going to be good.
Then he entered his strangely quiet house.
An envelope was propped against a vase in the middle of the otherwise empty table.
As icy fingers stirred through Jennings’ guts, he opened the envelope and pulled out a thick sheaf of papers. Is she filing for divorce? he wondered. Right after I barely escaped with my life from that Romano debacle?! I thought we were getting along pretty well.
He opened the tri-folded papers. She’d written just twenty-one words. “I and the kids have moved to a hotel. I’m filing for divorce. You’d better not try to demand visitation rights.”
An even sicker feeling came over him. He pulled away the paper with the message to see the first of the pictures of the young girl with her head down in his lap. With dismay, he remembered Romano telling him they’d be delivered even if, or perhaps because, something happened to Romano.
At a sudden thought, Will shuffled through the pictures thinking that they should show his pants weren’t undone. But, no, as the girl raised up out of his lap—in its effort to show her unbuttoned blouse—the camera swung quickly enough with her that his pants never came into view. Sadly, he thought, Well, there might be a frame or two missing that would have shown my pants, but pictures missing from the series aren’t going to save me.
He wondered if his wife would make the pictures public even if he went along with her divorce demands. Or would she keep them secret so he could keep his job and pay child support? It’d be an ethical dilemma for her.
After brooding for an hour, he wiped his eyes and tried calling her cell phone.
Francine didn’t answer…
***
Fred arrived at the hospital in a bleak mood. He’d just spent an agonizing couple of hours at Martin’s home, trying to console the young man’s widow. He’d had this horrific duty twice before in his career and kept thinking that he’d rather kill himself than do it again.
Scott had surgery for his broken leg early in the morning and Fred thought the agent would be too goofy from the anesthetic to even remember if Fred came by. However, Scott had a family, and they deserved to have Scott’s boss come by and express concern.
As Fred walked up to the door, he heard Scott say, “It was Agent Rector!” He didn’t sound confused or doped up at all.
Fred paused, wondering what Scott was talk
ing about. Inside the room a voice Fred didn’t recognize said, “I thought you said you didn’t see it. You weren’t looking the right direction, right? After all, you had to have been on the floor ‘cause you’d been shot in the leg.”
“Yeah, but after the shooting, that gun, the Springfield you’re thinking all those guys got shot by? SAC Rector pulled it out of his pocket.”
Fred walked around the corner into the room and, as if he’d only heard the last few words, said, “What’d I pull out of my pocket?”
Scott gave Fred a look full of hero worship. “The gun that shot all those mobsters.”
Fred shook his head, “I’ll admit I don’t really remember when I picked up that weapon.”
The other man in the room stepped forward with his hand extended to shake. “Hello SAC. I’m Special Agent Hollis of the Officer Involved investigation team.”
Fred shook his head again, “There weren’t any officers involved in the shooting last night. It’s in my report. I didn’t even have a weapon!” He shrugged, “I mean, I did. But Romano’s men took it away from me.”
Hollis tilted his head curiously, “And yet, Special Agent Warren here,” he pointed to Scott, “says that after the shooting you had the weapon we believe was used for the shooting in your pocket. Only your fingerprints were on the gun. Also, there was significant gunpowder residue on your hand…”
Fred interrupted, “From handling the weapon! I didn’t shoot it!”
Hollis lifted his hands, palms forward and said, “Try to relax. No one’s accusing you of anything untoward. If you shot all those guys, you probably deserve a medal.”
“I didn’t shoot anyone,” Fred said stubbornly.
“Then, who did? Martin Silverman died, almost certainly before the shooting happened. No significant gunpowder residue on his hands. Scott here’d been shot in the leg and was lying on the floor. No gunpowder residue on his hands either. The only other good guy in the room was the mayor and he was also on the floor. In addition, he says he doesn’t know how to shoot and he didn’t have any gunpowder residue.” Hollis frowned, “Well, that isn’t quite true. So many weapons had been discharged in that room that just about everything that got tested had a little residue on it. But your right hand was the only thing on any of our team that was above that background level.”
The Boy Who Couldn’t Miss (Blind Spot #2) (Blind Spot Series) Page 20