Bad Girl and Loverboy
Page 53
She thought about it before answering. “I might be able to, maybe, but I’m not sure. I’m not convinced this is our man. Our house.”
“Why not?” Benton asked. She could sense frustration, but he was keeping it in check.
“I don’t know. It’s just not quite—”
Benton’s frustration broke loose. “Shit, Imogen, what do you want? A sign on the doorbell? A welcome mat?”
“I want more than this. Everyone in America eats at McDonald’s. Everyone drinks Coke. This could be anything. I don’t want to mount a SWAT operation and endanger agents’ lives and possibly the lives of innocent civilians without more.”
“What about Rosalind’s life?” Benton asked quietly.
“We still have time,” Imogen pointed out. “We still have eleven days.”
Benton studied his hands like he was wondering how they could be so useless. “I keep thinking about the six circles on the collage and what Martina Kidd said. About how he’s going to torture her.” He looked at Imogen. “You’re right that we have time. But that gives him time too. What do you think he’s doing with it? What do you think he’s doing to Rosalind right now?”
Imogen’s mind fixated on the holes in Louisa Greenway’s cheeks. The words of the ME’s report—wounds show signs of healing. Best guess for time of puncture is eight days before death—flashed in her mind.
J.D. stepped in, saying, “I agree that we don’t want to put anyone needlessly at risk, but if there is a chance we can spare Rosalind one day of torture, we have to take it. A warrant gives us that chance.”
Benton pointed to the LOVERBOY PROFILE list. “Your team has made a good start there, but those are all just guesses. Right now we could be on to something concrete. I don’t want to lose it.”
Hell, now they were tag-teaming her. She liked it better when they were fighting. Their posture was identical, both sitting with their forearms on the table, leaning forward. It was called mirroring, Imogen knew, and it meant they were in agreement.
At that moment she would have called it bullying.
“If we had anything else—” Benton said.
“But we’re stuck,” J.D. finished.
Stuck.
God, she hated that word.
Imogen tossed the Tootsie Pop into the trash, put her elbows on the table, and leaned forward. “You alert the SWAT team. I’ll find a way to get a warrant.”
It was noon.
CHAPTER 24
The SWAT team began deploying in a strip mall parking lot a quarter of a mile from the operations site at 12:50. The shopping center was slated for destruction to make way for a housing development, so most of the tenants had long since left. This gave the patrons of Rick’s Ball and Stick an unobstructed ringside seat all to themselves.
At first they moved their stools under the awning and sat drinking beer and watching as the SWAT guys practiced their maneuvers, waiting for something exciting to happen. But Benton had stayed at the Bellagio to oversee things there, and J.D. had disappeared down to the Department of Records to get a blueprint of the house for the team to plan its entry, so there weren’t even any celebrities to hold their attention. There were jokes about the guys’ dopey outfits, of course, but jokes about how many SWAT guys it took to screw in a lightbulb—or screw Anna Lightbulb—stopped being so funny when one of the SWAT guys in question demonstrated the accuracy of his firearm on the neck of a bottle of beer en route to someone’s mouth.
After two hours they dragged their stools back inside and returned to darts.
In her suite at the Bellagio, Imogen was calling in every favor she had to get a warrant.
“No, we have nothing concrete, but the circumstances—”
“No, I would not want you to lose your job—”
“No, a negotiator is no good because we don’t know what he would do to her if he knew we were out there—”
“No, I am not kidding, I do still have that note you wrote about the director—”
“Yes, I swear if you— Hold on.”
Dannie was holding the hotel phone out to her.
“Where the hell is my goddamned warrant?” the SWAT coordinator boomed at Imogen when she took it.
“I’m working on it,” she said.
“My men are ready and in position. I don’t want to blow this because some asshole in Washington wanted a long lunch.”
“I’ll get your warrant. I promise.”
She called Benton and J.D. to see if either of them had anything more she could use, got bounced into voice mail both times, and decided it was time to bite the bullet. She swallowed hard and dialed her least-favorite number.
“Hi, Lex, it’s Imogen. Got a minute?” She knew Lex had the pull it would take, but she also knew he’d only do it if he thought it was his idea.
Slumped on the couch, her elbows on her knees, head down, she gave him a report about what had happened so far that day, ending it saying, “I don’t know, I’m beginning to think it might be better to let this go. Or just let the Vegas cops deal with it.”
He took the bait. Imogen smiled to herself as Lex launched into a lecture on interagency rivalry.
She interjected an “I agree, of course, but—” and one, “No, you’re right, we wouldn’t want that,” winding it up with, “I don’t know, it seems pretty impossible. Still, I guess if someone knew the right people—” At that point, Lex said he’d find a way to get them their warrant. As she said good-bye, promising to stay right by her phone, she could already hear him flipping through his Rolodex, getting ready to make a few calls.
She hung up with a sigh. Tom, Dannie, and Harold all looked at her.
She nodded and put up a hand. “It’s not definite, but . . .”
“But we’re going to get it,” Tom said.
“I think so.”
“Good,” Bugsy said, putting down the hotel phone and coming to join them. “Because that was the SWAT commander again. He called to say the eagle had returned to the nest.”
Imogen frowned. “What?”
“The suspect just went inside.”
CHAPTER 25
“Honey, I’m home!” Loverboy sang out as he came into what he liked to think of as the family room. He smiled at her. “How are you today, Ros? Did you miss me?”
Rosalind blinked her eyes in reply.
“Silly me, I forgot about the tape on your mouth.” He put two bags on the floor and bounced over to the recliner. He stopped short. Rosalind probably expected him to rip it off, like he had the other times. This time, though, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a knife.
Her eyes watched the blade flick open.
“Stay very still, Ros,” he cautioned as he inserted the tip of the blade into the tape. He was having trouble keeping his hand level. If he lost control just once—just once!—he could cut her lips off. Oh, that was a lot of responsibility.
Very slowly he sawed a hole in the middle of the tape. He stood back to survey his work. Not bad.
“We’re going to give you a makeover today,” he told her. He grabbed the bags he had brought with him and dragged them toward the chair. The smell of fried chicken hit Rosalind like a tropical breeze.
Loverboy reached into the bag for a drumstick and started gnawing on it. “This stuff is so good,” he told Rosalind. “Want a bite?”
She nodded.
He pulled off a tiny piece and shoved it through the hole in the tape. “How was that?”
“More,” she tried to say.
“What?”
“More.”
Loverboy began to laugh. “You sound just like a seal, Ros. ‘Moooh, mooh, mooh.’ You could do impressions.”
Rosalind tried to get him to look at her but he turned away. “Besides, there’s no time for you to eat now,” he said. “We’ve got to make you up pretty. Time to give you a whole new look.”
When he turned back, he was holding a long pair of scissors.
When he was just about ready to leave, Loverboy b
ent over Rosalind and kissed her forehead. “Sorry to eat and run,” he told her, “but I’ve got a date. Do I look okay?”
Ros didn’t move. Not even her eyes. He really couldn’t blame her, he guessed. She had passed out right at the very beginning, an hour ago, and hadn’t come to yet. It was too bad, because she didn’t get a chance to see how pretty she looked once he was done.
He gave himself a once-over in the mirror to make sure there was no blood on him. Sure he was all clean, he carefully stepped over the trip wires that ran to the explosives under Rosalind’s chair and out the door. It was easy to avoid them if you knew where to step, but if you didn’t—well, then, things could get messy.
He whistled as he walked down the corridor. He was in a great mood. Everything was going so well.
CHAPTER 26
She was already naked between the sheets when he came in, her Barbie-doll breasts making twin alps. He had been feeling tense and on edge all day, and when her phone call came he knew this was exactly what he needed, but he had about a dozen other things to be doing. He looked at his watch. He had seventeen minutes.
“Howdy, partner,” she drawled. “How’s cows?”
“Busy. I can’t stay.”
She pulled him to her with a French-manicured hand. “I know. But I can’t seem to stay away from you.”
He smiled despite himself.
“I’ve only got a few minutes myself,” she said, “so don’t waste time. These are coming off.” She reached up and slipped his dark glasses off with one hand. With the other she unzipped his pants, rolled him onto her palm, and teased him toward her mouth with the tips of her nails.
His hands went to her nipples, dark and the size of silver dollars, then farther down, and they were really at it. He liked being with her, no lies. No “I love you,” no promises, no disappointments. Just “Wanna fuck?” and “See you later.” Everything a man could want.
Some men.
When they were done he went into the bathroom and took a quick shower, then started running a bath for her.
She lay on her side in the bed, watching him dress. “I’m not sure this is a good idea, what we’re doing,” she told him.
He looked at her in the mirror. “I’m sure it’s not.”
“I mean it. I wonder if this should be the last time.”
Putting his glasses back on he moved over to her, kissed her lips, and let his hand rest on her neck. “If that’s what you want, just say the word.”
CHAPTER 27
Two Metro police officers in yellow bike shirts turned back the residents of Melville Drive as they began to filter home from work around dusk. On the rooftops of the empty and emptying houses, FBI sharpshooters appeared, little black shapes against the encroaching darkness. In the minimall parking lot, the SWAT team was attracting the attention of the Rick’s Ball and Stick night shift. Everything was in place. Everybody was ready.
“Where the hell have you been?” Imogen demanded as her team and J.D. pulled into the shopping mall parking lot simultaneously.
J.D. pointed to the passenger seat of his car. The scent of KFC wafted out from the buckets stacked there and every officer in the parking lot was suddenly gathered around him.
“I was buying undivided attention. Can’t have a SWAT operation without KFC.” He lowered his voice and added confidentially, “Actually, I didn’t have to buy it. I convinced them to give it to me for free.”
“Why aren’t you taking it out?” Imogen asked, suddenly ravenous.
“The KFC is for after the operation,” he explained as if she were slow. “Otherwise it makes your gun hand greasy.”
When J.D. had finished his briefing and handed it off to the SWAT commander to begin the deployment, he came over and stood next to her. “You can sneak a piece of chicken now if you want,” he whispered. “When the boys get at it, it goes pretty fast.”
Gun hand, Imogen thought. She swallowed and said, “Thanks, I think I’ll wait until I see how this turns out.”
“Do you want to go over with the team?”
She nodded. “I’ll stay behind the lines but I want to be nearby when they go in.”
It was dark when they got to Melville. There were no lights on in the buildings on either side of 1112, and the streetlight right in front of the house had been disabled. But more than anything, it was quiet.
No skin showed on the six operators who would penetrate the room. They wore all black, down to their goggles and gloves. Against the asphalt of the street, they were nearly invisible.
Imogen counted ten snipers and guessed there were probably a few more. Hostage rescue was the most difficult job a SWAT team did, Imogen knew, but this SWAT commander had done his job well. His team was ready. Everything was perfect.
A tiny, metallic ping reached her ears through the night. This was it. They were going in. Please let it all go right.
That was her last thought before the world exploded into blinding white light.
CHAPTER 28
Imogen had known what to expect. She’d trained with flash-bang grenades and knew all about lag, about the way the brightness and the noise overloaded the senses. It was the key to the rescue attempt, the three-second window when the hostage taker would be overwhelmed and could be disabled. But even though she was ready for it, knew all about it, the explosion of the stun grenade shook her out of all thought. For a few moments she could not think or breathe or see or hear. Her consciousness came spilling back in and she heard the walkie-talkie of the SWAT commander crackle to life with the message, “We’ve got them both. All clear!”
And then, against all regulations, Imogen heard the operative start to laugh.
Imogen couldn’t blame him when she stepped over the welcome mat in front of the bungalow door and saw why. Against one wall was a man, about her own age, handcuffed, with his pants around his ankles. Duct-taped to a recliner was a naked and hard-used blowup doll with an elaborate wig and a lot of makeup. The recliner faced a TV that was playing a nature video about otters. A dozen other animal videos were lined up against the wall.
J.D. took in the room without saying anything. He and Imogen did not make eye contact. There was nothing to communicate. They had been wrong.
It was over, at least this attempt. Incredibly, no one had gotten killed. Even Joe Smith was fine—or would be, when he was allowed to change his underwear. So why didn’t Imogen feel any better?
Benton pushed his way into the room and said, “Where is she?”
J.D. shook his head. It was all Benton needed to see.
“Where were you?” Imogen asked him.
“Someone forgot to tell the cops that I was not a civilian,” Benton hissed, looking at her.
“Talk to J.D.,” she said. “I had nothing to do with Metro.”
“I’m sorry, Benton,” J.D. said. “I thought I took care of it, but I must have forgotten.”
Benton wasn’t letting up. “I tried to call you but you didn’t answer. I’ve been standing out there wondering what the hell was going on for almost two hours.”
“I said I’m sorry. It was a mistake.”
Benton nodded to himself, then said, “The place is swarming with press. That’s how I got in. I don’t know which of you thought it would be a good idea to alert the networks, but—”
It was one thing to have made a mistake. It was another to have made it on national television. Imogen turned to J.D. “I thought we agreed, no press.”
“So did I.”
“My people didn’t leak.”
“Neither did mine.”
“This is a fun game, children,” Benton said, “but it’s not going to get us anywhere.”
J.D.’s second in command, a woman Imogen had been introduced to that afternoon as Rachel, approached them from the window. “Mr. Arbor is not exaggerating. Everyone’s out there. I bet they picked it up off the police scanners.”
“Or from someone in Bellagio security,” Bugsy suggested, coming over to flank Imogen.
J.D. and Rachel exchanged looks. “Meth lab?” she asked.
“Meth lab,” he said. To Imogen he explained, “We use the same kind of deployment when we bust drug labs, but we do it often enough that no one wants to write about it. When the press hear it was just a standard raid like a hundred others, they should evaporate.”
Imogen nodded and didn’t say anything. She stood to one side of the window facing the street, and watched as Rachel came out and crossed the dead lawn toward the reporters.
The cameras and questions sounded to Imogen like feeding time at the aquarium she and Sam had visited in Hawaii—snapping jaws hungry for fresh meat. She shivered and turned away from the window.
“I want to know who leaked, and how,” she said to Bugsy. “They’re going to pay for this.”
She felt Benton’s eyes on her and she swung toward him, defiant. But he was just staring out the window at the press.
He said, “I think Bugsy’s right. Bellagio security is the best place to start.” Then, “If you will excuse me, I’ll see you at your suite in a few minutes.”
J.D. gave Imogen a ride back to the hotel. It was the first time they’d been together, just the two of them, and Imogen felt a little awkward. It was because of seeing him without his glasses on earlier that day, she realized. It had felt like seeing someone naked.
She noticed a baseball mitt and one of those baseball jackets, a royal blue one, scrunched behind the driver’s seat and said, “Do you coach a team?”
He shook his head. “No. I just travel around the country giving speeches. Stay in school. Don’t do drugs. Don’t get girls pregnant, that kind of thing. The glove and jacket are more of a costume now than anything.”
“What about a hat? I thought all baseball players wore their hats until they died. Got buried in them. But I haven’t seen you in one.”
“My ex-wife liked the cap too much.”
“You were married?”