by Debra Webb
Pierce continued to look at McBride as if he expected him to have something to add. But he didn’t. They would know where Grace was when Fincher was ready to tell them.
Unless McBride could bargain with him.
Inspiration fueling his stride, he rushed to another of the computers and opened a link to the Internet. He typed quickly, anticipation building with the possibility of making a deal with the bastard.
Fincher,
The fact is, if you hadn’t used a faulty pulley, then Worth wouldn’t be dead. So, let’s not pretend you’re innocent in all this.
“That could be a mistake, McBride.” Pierce stood next to him now. “The last thing we want to do is piss him off.”
McBride ignored him, kept typing.
Release Grace and I’ll deliver Deirdre back to you. I’ll sweeten the deal by making it a two for one, you can have me to boot.
If you don’t want the world to believe you’re a murderer, then release Grace. She hasn’t hurt you. It was me, and only me.
McBride
He hit send.
More of that choking silence hovered in the room.
By the time the signal that he had mail sounded, the others, one by one, had gathered around him and Pierce. McBride opened the e-mail and read the response.
McBride,
Your offer was touching. But I’m afraid nothing I could do to you would trump knowing how you will suffer as an innocent takes your punishment.
I am not a fool. I know that you cannot deliver Deirdre back to me. I will see that we are together soon. Our family will not remain torn apart.
And as for the other one, I found him lurking in Grace’s garage tonight. So you see, I’ve already gotten two for one. A pleasant surprise that will provide an opportunity for a truly exciting finale. I’ll have to thank Ms. Goodman for sending Grace’s old friend Nameless an invitation. You’ll get an invitation as well, McBride, and when you do, you’ll understand exactly what you must do.
You are right, though. This is entirely your fault. You let Deirdre and me down and you let Grace down … too bad she trusted you.
You have two hours, starting now.
Fincher
Two hours.
Defeat sucked at McBride.
“Nice try,” Pierce said before stepping back. “Let’s get the source of that feed triangulated,” he announced. “It’s coming from somewhere close by. There wasn’t enough of a time lapse between when Grace disappeared and now for Fincher to have gotten far. A twenty- or thirty-mile radius, tops. Pinpoint it so we can get this bastard. Time is short.”
McBride got up slowly. No clues, an impossible deadline. This wasn’t going to be about finding her … this was going to be about a fight to the death—live and uninterrupted. That video feed hadn’t been initiated for nothing. This sick son of a bitch had every intention of putting Grace in the room with that twisted fuck.
“Wait …” Talley shook his head. “We’ve got … the images are still now. No more live feed.”
McBride rushed to Talley’s station and took a look at the screen where the two images remained frozen. “He knows we’ll try to triangulate his position,” McBride said, hope funneling out of him. “He’s too smart to let that happen.”
Expecting any less was a strategic error. They wouldn’t have nailed this guy’s identity at all if he hadn’t written those fan letters back before he planned any of this. That he hadn’t considered the possibility that the letters would be found was testament to how far into the abyss of insanity he’d obviously gone.
McBride walked out of the room. He needed to think. He couldn’t do it in here.
“Where’re you going, McBride?” Pierce shouted after him.
When he didn’t answer, Pierce double-timed to catch up with him. “I asked you a question.”
McBride stopped, faced the persistent prick. “I’m going to the can. You want to join me?”
Pierce leveled a warning glare on him. “Don’t you leave this building. We’re going to need you. Grace is going to need you. You be back here in five.”
McBride raised his hand as if he intended to salute but he gave him the finger instead. “I know what I have to do.” He left Pierce standing there with his mouth gaping and headed for the stairwell.
Taking the stairs as fast as he could, McBride burst into the lobby and headed for the men’s room. Instead of lighting up as he went in the way he usually did, he stalked straight over to the counter and braced his hands there. He closed his eyes and took a moment to fend off the panic clawing at him.
When he could breathe normally again, he opened his eyes and stared at the man in the mirror.
He looked like hell. His clothes were wrinkled. A lack of sleep and his indifference to shaving had contributed to his overall rode-hard-and-hung-up-wet appearance. That Grace had wanted him at all was a miracle. One he didn’t deserve.
He was a burned-out has-been. A nobody who had tried to pretend to be someone again. And now Grace was going to pay for that lapse in reality.
He had to find a way to help her.
The shaking started deep inside him. He told himself it was the fact that he hadn’t had a drink in … he couldn’t remember how long. Twenty-four hours? Forty-eight? But that was a lie. It wasn’t about the alcohol. He didn’t give a damn about the alcohol. He used it because it was easy. No one expected anything from you when you were nothing. The fastest way to give that impression was with alcohol.
He was afraid.
No, he wasn’t afraid. He was fucking terrified. Terrified that she would die and he couldn’t stop it.
He’d stopped believing in God a long time ago, about his fourth case, as he recalled. To his way of thinking, what kind of God would allow a person to do to children what some of the sick bastards he hunted down did? Just didn’t make sense.
But right now he wanted to believe in a higher power more than he wanted to have his next breath.
“I’ve never asked you for one damned thing.”
He took a beat, steadied his voice. Could hardly believe he would bother with prayer.
“Just let me do this right. Don’t let her pay for my mistakes.”
He swiped the wetness from his eyes and barked out a laugh. This had to be some kind of cosmic joke. After all he’d seen and done, who the hell would have thought he was capable of emotions this deep?
“You’re fucked up, McBride” He stared at the pathetic reflection. “Majorly fucked up.”
Then he pulled his shit together and walked out.
He had a bottom-feeder to find.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Time and place unknown …
Vivian still felt groggy. Fincher had given her a shot of something to sedate her once they had gotten into her Explorer. She couldn’t be sure how long ago that had happened. He had taken her cell phone … her weapon … everything but the clothes on her back.
But how had he gotten her keys? She’d left her purse upstairs. The only other set of keys were in her kitchen … at home.
She felt her way around the walls of the pitch-black room. Ten by ten feet, she calculated. Walking around it so many times she was fairly sure of the measurements. The walls felt like metal. Cool, ribbed. Corrugated metal maybe. No windows. No door. Wait. She backed up a step. There was something else attached to the wall. A metal … track that went from the floor to a point above her head and then curved horizontally.
An overhead door? She dropped to her knees and felt around the lower half of that section of wall that was in actuality a door. She found the handle. Her heart skipped a beat. She pulled at it with all her might. Wouldn’t budge. But it was definitely a garage-type pull-up door.
What she would give for a flashlight or McBride’s damned Zippo. She sat down on her butt, leaned against the door that wouldn’t open, and closed her eyes.
She couldn’t let this bastard win.
He was responsible for Worth’s death, dammit. No matter how painful his own pas
t, murder was murder.
Get up and think, Grace!
She scrambled back to her feet, swayed a little, then started feeling around the walls in case she had missed something else.
Overhead door.
Small space.
Smelled stuffy … like a used-furniture store.
Metal construction.
Storage unit?
Her pulse picked up its pace. Yeah. A storage unit. It was deadly quiet. Probably deserted. Could be security somewhere on the property.
She rushed back to the overhead door and banged her fists hard against it. “Hey! Is anybody out there?”
For ten or fifteen seconds she listened. Nothing.
“Hey!” She started banging again. “My name is Vivian Grace. Special Agent Vivian Grace of the FBI! If you can hear me, please call 911!”
There were a lot of storage facilities around Birmingham. Some were close to businesses, gas stations, and convenience stories. Someone could hear her … maybe.
“Hey!” She banged some more.
“Vivian Grace?”
She froze. Listened.
Where the hell had that come from?
“Is that you, Vivian?”
Cocking her head in that direction, she moved toward the wall that separated her cubicle from the next one. The voice was a little muffled but definitely real.
“Talk to me some more,” he whispered.
Male. Vaguely familiar. Too low to tell for sure.
“Who’s there?” She touched the metal wall standing between her and the voice. Leaned her ear close to it. “Is Fincher holding you too?”
“It’s good to hear your voice,” he said, loud enough for every single nuance to filter through the wall.
Vivian drew back sharply. “Who …” She moistened her lips. “Who are you?”
A quiet laugh. “Surely you haven’t forgotten me already. I know it’s been a long time, but we knew each other so well. Didn’t we, Number Thirteen?”
Vivian stumbled away from the wall. Impossible! Oh my God. She fell back another step. Oh no. Oh God, no.
“Only in my head,” she murmured, her body quaking.
“Only in my head.” Not real. Not real. Please, God. Not real!
“When I close my eyes I can still see your lips. Such perfect, beautiful lips,” he murmured through the wall. “I want you to do to me all those things you did for him. Only this time, after I’m done, I’ll kill you.”
She shook her head. This had to be a sick joke. The story. Goodman. This was her fault. Fincher had gotten the idea from her story and he was playing a trick on her.
But the voice … oh God, the voice was the same.
“I know you’re there,” he singsonged in the breathy voice she remembered all too well. “Come closer to the wall so I can imagine touching you.”
Her feet tripped over each other as she backed as far away as possible … all the way to the metal wall on the other side. Her chest verged on rupturing as the organ inside slammed against it mercilessly.
No. She knocked the fear away. Grabbed back her courage. She was not that same hopeless, helpless seventeen-year-old girl. She damned sure wasn’t a victim. Not anymore.
“All we ever wanted was for you to make us happy, Number Thirteen. Was that too much to ask?”
Fury hurtled through her and she charged back to the thin metal wall that separated them. Yeah, she was in trouble here. But, by God, he would have to kill her first to keep her from killing him.
Vivian bit back her rage and forced a soft, calm voice. “Let me tell you what I’ll do for you,” she whispered.
“Tell me,” he urged, his voice excited. “Please tell me. Just thinking about those lips has me hard.”
Another eruption of rage roared through her. She gritted her teeth to hold back what she really wanted to say. “I’ll suck you just like I did him. I’ll make you come so fast your head will spin.”
“Oh … yes … yes … that would be nice.”
“And then I’ll tear out your jugular with my teeth just like I did your fucking friend’s.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
1:30 A.M.
1000 Eighteenth Street
90 minutes remaining …
“The feed has gone live again!”
McBride rushed to Talley’s station. Every government office and private business known to utilize exterior surveillance devices had been canvassed. No sign of Grace’s Explorer on any of their systems. They had reviewed that initial feed over and over and had come up with nothing.
As the images began to move again, McBride’s heart, the same damned one he’d thought had turned to stone, shattered like glass. He hoped this was live and that she was safe. But time was running out. He didn’t want to be standing here watching when that final minute came.
Nameless or whoever the fuck he was had his hands and the side of his face pressed against the wall. His mouth appeared to be moving as if he were speaking.
Grace was pacing. Every few seconds she glared at one wall and said something. Shouted something, judging by the furious expression on her face.
“The rooms are next to each other,” McBride said, mostly to himself. His mind immediately started ticking off the possible scenarios.
“What’s she doing?” Pierce shouldered in closer between McBride and Pratt.
Grace went to the wall farthest from the camera and bent down. She appeared to be pulling on something.
“There isn’t a door there,” Talley noted.
“Maybe there is,” McBride argued. “Can you lighten that at all?”
“I can try,” Talley said. “I’ll freeze a frame to memory and then try lightening that frame.”
“Do it,” Pierce ordered.
Talley reduced the live screen and opened another to which he copied the frame. He clicked a few keys then said, “That’s the best I can do.”
McBride leaned closer. “Is that a track?” He pointed to one side of the wall where Grace appeared to be pulling at something. “And over here?” He pointed to the other side.
“A garage door?” Pierce suggested.
“An overhead door,” McBride agreed, anticipation igniting inside him. “But not a garage. Look at the size of the room in both screens.” Talley maximized the live views. “Same size. It’s as if he’s talking to her through an adjoining wall.”
“Public storage,” Pierce said as if the epiphany had just dawned.
“We need a list of every public storage facility in this town,” McBride said to Schaffer. “Start with the ones closest to our location and work your way out.”
McBride’s gaze returned to the screen, where Grace had given up on the door and started pacing again. “Hang on, Grace,” he murmured. “We’re going to find you.”
“Here we go,” Schaffer called to him from a computer station. “I’m sending the first dozen locations to the printer now.”
McBride headed for the printer. “Pierce, we’re going to need Birmingham PD for this.” There would be far too many for them to hope to cover in ninety minutes.
“Done.” Pierce was on the phone as he said the word.
The cell in McBride’s pocket vibrated. He pulled it out, didn’t recognize the number. “McBride.”
“Ah … sir, this is Aldridge.”
That the agent sounded hesitant ratcheted up McBride’s tension level. “Yeah, Aldridge, what’ve you got?”
“I don’t know if this means anything and I almost ignored her considering what happened, but she says it’s urgent that she speak with you.”
“Who?” McBride’s instincts went on point.
“Nadine Goodman. She says she has information about Agent Grace but she won’t talk to anyone but you.”
“What’s her number?” Instinct revved up the tension a little higher. McBride grabbed the closest pen and wrote the number on his hand. He thanked Aldridge and ended the call then quickly entered Goodman’s number. As soon as she answered, he said, “What do
you want?”
“McBride?”
“Don’t waste my time, lady,” he snapped. If she hadn’t dug up that story on Grace this might not be happening. He started looking through the map printouts of the nearest storage facilities even as the Anticipation of what Goodman might have pumped up.
“When everyone else was covering Worth’s home and Fincher’s residence tonight,” the reporter began hesitantly. “I was watching Grace’s.”
He didn’t bother asking how she got into the gated community. Scavengers like her had their ways.
“I followed the two of you back to the field office.”
McBride set aside the page he’d just picked up. “And?”
“I saw Grace leave with someone.”
McBride closed his eyes, fought back the ache in his throat. “That was more than an hour ago, what did you do next?”
“I followed them.”
Anticipation fired inside McBride. “Where are you?” This could be the break he was looking for.
“I’m over on Highway 31 across the street from Trusty Todd’s storage facility.” She exhaled a shaky breath. “He locked Grace into one of the units. And then …” Her voice faltered. “He forced me to make this call.”
McBride absorbed the impact of that statement. “He’s there with you now?”
“Yes.”
McBride surveyed the room. For one split second felt unsure of what he should do. But there was no reason to hesitate. Fincher had said he would get his invitation. This was it. “What’s the message?”
“Come alone. He’ll be waiting.”
“What’s your position, Ms. Goodman?” Again McBride looked around, this time to ensure no one was listening.
“I’m in a blue Windstar minivan across the street at the Shop and Go. My cameraman is with me. As long as you come quickly and alone, he won’t hurt us or Agent Grace.”