by Lisa Harris
“Thank you.” Madison started to flip through them.
“Whatever her motivation has been,” Michaels said, “our number one priority is to find out who they’re working with. Without IDs on our last two fugitives, we’re moving ahead blind. Get that information from her.”
“Yes, sir. I intend to.”
Jonas walked into the office as Madison was standing up to leave.
“Jonas.” She pulled the files against her chest. “What are you doing here?”
His hands clenched at his sides. “Have you already interviewed Kira?”
“Not yet.” She glanced back at Michaels before continuing. “I was just about to go in, but you don’t have to be here.”
“She’s right,” Michaels said. “Go back to the hospital and wait with Hazel. We can handle this.”
“No.” Jonas waved away his boss’s comment. “I need to be here doing something to find the rest of the team. They’re just as responsible for what happened to Felicia as Ben is for shooting her.”
A new wave of guilt washed over Madison. “I agree,” she said, “and we will find them. But Hazel—and Felicia—they need you right now. And you need to be there for your own sake as well.”
He shook his head. “Hazel’s sister is staying with her, and she’s promised to give me an update when the surgery’s over. So it’s either that or my wearing a hole in the waiting room carpet. Something you should be able to understand more than anyone else.”
Her jaw tensed at the comment, because she understood his desire to stop whoever was behind this. She didn’t want him to later regret that he hadn’t been there with Felicia and her grandmother, but sometimes . . . sometimes waiting on the sidelines wasn’t an option.
ELEVEN
Madison dropped her empty coffee cup into the trash outside the interrogation room, then stopped in front of the one-way mirror where she could see Kira sitting, her gaze glued to the table, hands clamped together in front of her.
Madison turned her attention over to her partner, who had filed in behind her, his expression stony. “Jonas, if there’s anything I can do—”
“I really don’t want to talk about it,” he said. “Let’s just focus on what’s going on right now and get the information we need from her.”
Madison opened her mouth to say something, then stopped. She knew he was torn. That there were unresolved issues between him and Felicia that might never be solved if she didn’t make it through the surgery. There would be a time and place to address her concerns, but this clearly wasn’t it.
“How do you want to approach this?” she asked instead.
“I’ll let you take the lead, but if we’re going to bring in our other fugitives, we need information from her as quickly as possible. She needs to realize she’s in way over her head. That her boyfriend just let her take the fall for a long list of felonies that very well might put her in prison the rest of her life. We also need to know what they planned to do if things went south.”
She nodded at his matter-of-fact statements. “Let’s go then.”
Jonas opened the door to the interrogation room without further comment, letting her go inside first. She dropped the file she’d carried in with her onto the table, then took a seat across from Kira. Jonas stayed standing behind her.
“Kira, you’ve already been read your rights and understand them, correct?” Madison asked.
The woman raised her head. Tears welled in her eyes. “I understand.”
“Good,” Madison said. “We don’t have a lot of time, so I’m going to make things very clear for you. You need to know two things. One, whether or not you decide to cooperate, we will find your other two friends. Two, lying to a federal marshal is a felony, and so is aiding and abetting a fugitive. So in case you were planning not to give us the information we need, I would suggest you think twice and remember just how much is at stake.”
“Wait.” Her eyes widened. “You found Ben?”
“He’s currently undergoing surgery, though I’m surprised you sound worried about him,” Madison said. “He didn’t seem to have a problem leaving you to take the fall on your own.”
Kira’s face paled. “He . . . he didn’t have a choice. He knew I would want him to try and save himself.”
“Really?” Madison sat back. “He’s in surgery because he made the choice to rob a bank today. He shot a security guard, who’s now dead, then decided to take hostages in a clinic, including two federal marshals. Those were his choices. Now let’s look at yours.”
She flipped open the file, then pushed a photo across the table. “This is Vincent. He was a retired police officer who worked security at the bank. He has three kids who are now planning a funeral instead of his sixty-first birthday party. All for trying to help one of the hostages this morning.”
“I didn’t know. I never went inside the bank. I was just supposed to drive the car.” Tears slid down her cheeks. “I never killed anyone.”
Madison pressed her hands against the table. “Except that doesn’t really matter. You know what it means to be an accessory to a crime? Because that’s what you are. You’re just as guilty as if you pulled the trigger yourself.”
“No . . . No one was supposed to die.”
“Because you thought you had it all planned out, didn’t you? Every detail of what needed to be done even if things went wrong.”
Kira reached up to wipe her cheek, smudging her makeup. “They made the plans. I just . . . I agreed to help, but I can’t go to prison. I don’t know what happened.” Kira started picking at a broken fingernail. “The plan was just to get in, take the cash, and get out, but—”
“But people got hurt,” Madison said. “The plan was to walk into a bank full of customers with loaded weapons, Kira. What did you think was going to happen if something went wrong?” Madison pushed the photo of Vincent closer to her. “I need you to tell me the names of the other two people who you have been working with and what their escape plan is.”
Kira pressed her lips together. “I can’t.”
“Sorry,” Madison said, scooting back her chair. “Wrong choice.”
“Wait a minute.” Jonas slipped into the seat next to Madison. “Despite what you’ve already said, I don’t think she realizes just how much trouble she’s facing.”
Kira choked on a sob. “You don’t understand. I can’t.”
“Can’t, or don’t want to?” Madison caught Kira’s gaze. “Because the bottom line is that not telling us what we want to know isn’t going to lessen the charges the DA is about to formally bring against you.”
“We already have a slew of evidence,” Jonas said. “The ammo from your houseboat matched the ammo in a previous bank shooting, as well as a stash of cash we found in your car.”
“Enough.” Kira stared at the table. “There was a detailed plan we were supposed to follow if things went wrong.”
They waited for the woman to continue, but when she didn’t, Madison asked, “What was the plan, Kira?”
Any arrogance she’d seen from the woman earlier that morning was completely gone.
“They had a plan to get out if the cops showed up. No hostages, no one hurt, they were just going to leave. There were smoke bombs in their backpacks for a distraction, so they could slip out with the crowd. And it worked, but then . . . then one of you saw us leave and started following us and everything went wrong.”
“And their names? The names of the other two who were there with you?”
Kira bit her lower lip. “I can’t tell you.”
Madison frowned, but she could read the fear in Kira’s eyes. It was only a matter of time before her resolve failed. “They must be pretty good friends, if you’re willing to go to prison for them.”
“We made a pact. If things went south, we’d cover for each other.”
Madison placed her hands on the table, trying to control her temper. She took a deep breath. “You’re out of options. Your solid exit strategy has left you with one o
f your teammates in emergency surgery, and the other two on the run. If you ever want to see a blue sky outside a prison yard again, I need the names of the other two and where they’re heading. Because the longer they run, the worse off they’re going to be as well. And any opportunity to make a deal for a reduced sentence for you will be gone.”
Kira’s leg bounced under the table. “I can’t.”
“Do you really think if they were in your place that they would be protecting you right now?” Jonas asked.
“Yes.”
“Surely you don’t really believe that,” Jonas said. “I’ve been working in law enforcement for over a decade, and it’s always the same ending. No matter how close you think you are, no matter how many promises you make each other, someone always ends up caving to save themselves. It’s human nature. Which means all of those good intentions to stay loyal to each other suddenly vanish.”
“Not this time.”
Madison slid the photo off the table and stood up. “Just know that we will find them. And the fact that you refuse to cooperate will only make the DA work even harder to ensure the long list of felonies against you sticks, especially considering that someone is dead because of your group’s actions.”
Kira turned away, refusing to meet Madison’s gaze.
“Oh . . . and I do have one other question,” Madison said. If asking Kira flat out wasn’t going to work, they were going to have to come up with a different angle to narrow down their suspects. “I saw where you live. That place has to be worth at least a million dollars. Why did you feel the need to risk everything and rob banks?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“You know what I think?” Madison said. “I think you and your friends were bored. You dropped out of college and were living off your parents’ money, but for whatever reason that wasn’t enough.”
Kira just stared at the table in front of her.
“There’s a saying that an idle mind is a dangerous one. You went from no criminal record—not even a parking ticket—to robbing banks. So I’m guessing it started out innocently. Illegal drugs in college and drinking for a rush. Cliff diving over spring break and—”
“There were never drugs involved, but yeah.” Kira shrugged like it was no big deal. “We did a lot of risky things back then.”
“So you went from cliff diving to robbing a bank?”
“I’m done talking. They’re long gone by now anyway. You’ll never find them.”
Madison stepped outside after Jonas, then shut the door behind them. “So there’s a high probability that the four of them went to college together.”
There was a connection out there. All they had to do was narrow it down.
“Piper.” Madison signaled to the intern. “I want you to scour Ben’s and Kira’s social media posts and Facebook friends and compile a list of mutual friends, and mark in particular on that list those who went to the same university together, or those they did extreme sports with.”
“I can do that.” Piper was already typing away on her phone. “Plus we have another lead as well.”
“What did you find?” Jonas asked.
Piper handed over a black-and-white photo. “I was able to pull a frame of the other two suspects off security footage at the parking garage. It’s grainy, but it’s better than nothing.”
“Searching their social media accounts in combination with the photo might get us exactly what we’re looking for,” Michaels said, walking up to them. “I want the BOLO updated and sent out to every police department in the state as well as to news channels. Let’s ask the public for their assistance. Someone is going to recognize them.”
“I’d still like to talk with Kira’s brother again,” Madison told Michaels. “Even if he isn’t involved, he has to know something.”
“I can arrange it now.”
Jonas turned to Madison. “We need to talk first.”
“Okay.”
“In private.”
She followed him into an empty meeting room, then shut the door behind them.
“I need you to know that I don’t blame you for what happened,” he said as soon as she’d turned to face him. “I just . . . I didn’t handle things well with Felicia the last time I saw her. I’ve always felt guilty the way I left things between us.”
“You don’t have to explain—”
“Yeah. I do.”
She waited for him to continue, not missing the layer of anger simmering just under the surface over what had happened. She also knew how a sequence of decisions could force you toward a moment that was impossible to escape no matter how bad you wanted to go back and change things.
“Today was too close to that raid a few years ago,” he said finally.
Madison didn’t need any clarification as to what he was talking about. Or about the pain that resurfaced today.
She waited silently as he detailed the rest of the story she’d heard him tell once before, wanting to tell him that the guilt he felt wasn’t worth it. She’d played the same “what-if” games with herself when Luke died. If he hadn’t walked through the garage at that moment. If he’d taken one more patient. If he’d called in sick that day . . .
“Why don’t you go back to the hospital,” she said. “I’ll handle Kira’s brother.”
“I’ll go if I’m needed, but for now, I can work this case and leave the emotions out of it.”
She nodded, grateful that he’d opened up to her.
His phone rang, and he pulled it out of his pocket and took the call, taking a few steps away for privacy. She watched his face and tried not to eavesdrop. His frown deepened before he hung up a few seconds later.
“Jonas?”
“That was Hazel. Felicia’s out of surgery. She’s stable at the moment, but not out of the woods. She asked if I would come.”
“You need to go,” she said.
“I will. Just keep me in the loop.”
She nodded, then watched him walk out of the room. She knew firsthand how essential it was to distance themselves emotionally from their work, but today had made it impossible.
TWELVE
Jonas walked down the hospital corridor past a row of windows overlooking the parking lot. It was overcast again, as the city hunkered down under gray skies for another few days of rain. The weather fit his mood perfectly. He’d wrestled with the fact that he hadn’t been able to understand what Felicia was going through after her accident all those months ago. In the end, he’d had to let go of his anger toward her for distancing herself and for leaving him. Even if they never spoke again. But this . . . how could he forgive himself for not protecting her better—again?
Hazel was sitting in the waiting room with two women on either side of her. She looked up as he stepped into the room, then hurried toward him.
She pulled him into a hug for a long moment before taking a step back. “I’m glad you’re here.”
He took in her tired smile, her normally perfect hair a little disheveled after a day of worry. “How is she?”
“I just saw her. She’s groggy and worn-out, but she made it through surgery.”
“What are the doctors saying?” he asked.
Hazel lowered herself back into a chair between the women and took a deep breath. “There are a few symptoms they are monitoring, including the infection at her amputation site. There is also some swelling in her other leg, and her oxygen levels are low. Overall, though, her vital signs are stable at the moment. She’s in good hands, Jonas, and there are a lot of people praying for her.”
“I know.” He glanced at the hallway before turning back to her. The urgency he’d felt on the way over had morphed into a heavy anxiety over seeing Felicia again. Despite Hazel’s assurances over the phone, his mind buzzed with worry. Would Felicia really want to talk to him after so much time had passed?
“Can I see her?”
Hazel nodded. “Just for a few minutes, though. They want her to rest as much as
possible. Her body’s been through a lot.” She reached out and squeezed his hand. “This isn’t the way I would have ever wanted things to play out, but the two of you need to find closure. Things have been unsettled between you for far too long.”
“And I’ve always felt guilty about that. I’m still not sure what happened.”
“My granddaughter’s stubborn,” she said, dropping her hand from his and leaning back, “but I have a feeling she’s not the only one. And looking for closure isn’t always easy, is it?”
“No. I just wish I could have understood her better.”
“So you could fix her?”
Hazel’s words pierced straight through him. “Did she tell you that?”
“I know it was part of why she walked away.”
“I just wanted to support her.”
“I know. And I think she knows that now as well. Losing a leg was a steep learning curve for her, but she’s come a long way.” Hazel nodded toward the hallway. “She’s in room 420 if you want to see her.”
A moment later, he stood outside her room, trying to gather enough courage to step inside. He didn’t have any romantic feelings for Felicia anymore, but that didn’t mean he didn’t still care about her.
He drew in a deep breath and stepped into the room, then stopped in the doorway. She was sleeping. Something he knew she needed. Monitors beeped behind her, and she was hooked up to an IV pole and an oxygen cannula. In the hectic confrontation at the clinic, he hadn’t had much time to look at her. Her long, dark hair was shorter now, hitting right at her chin, but other than that, she’d hardly changed at all.
He started to leave, then heard her voice. “Jonas . . .”
“Hey.” He took an awkward step forward. “How are you feeling?”
She shot him a weak grin. “Like I just got hit with a bullet.”
He looked down. “I’m sorry.”
“Me too.” She shook her head. “Funny how I thought lightning couldn’t strike twice in the same place, and yet here I am once again, getting a bullet dug out of me. I guess I have a bad habit of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”