“But I proved I can be trusted,” she whined. “Been doing this for days, and I haven’t tried a thing.”
“I appreciate that,” Sean said. “But I can’t afford any mistakes.”
“And you still think I might contact Phantom?” She grimaced. “Unbelievable.”
Sean didn’t respond, but Taylor could read his thoughts just by the pinched look on his face. He didn’t trust Dustee because he didn’t trust anyone.
No one. Not even Taylor.
CHAPTER 25
HOURS PASSED while they finalized the assault plan with all the players involved. Sean and Taylor now stood near the SUV just down the street from Jorgenson’s house, along with Agent Kemp, who held a heavy battering ram. They awaited the signal that Mack and Kiley were in position, and Sean was amped. Not only from adrenaline, but also from hopefully outsmarting Phantom. The team never had the opportunity to make an arrest in the Montgomery Three investigation, and somehow he felt vindicated by at least bringing in the man who had the potential to expose thousands of witnesses to people who wanted them dead.
“In position,” Mack said over Sean’s earpiece. “All quiet.”
One down, one to go.
“You’re jonesing to get in there,” Taylor said.
“Aren’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“In position. No movement inside.” Kiley’s voice rang clear. “Still no vehicle in the garage. Curtains are closed. Do not have eyes on suspect.”
“Roger that. Stay alert. We’re headed to the door.” Sean looked at Taylor. “Let’s do this.”
She nodded, and he took off, knowing she’d be right behind him. He kept his head on a swivel, his assault rifle up. They took hurried but careful steps down the street and up the sidewalk to the door. He only hoped the neighbors didn’t come outside. In a perfect scenario, Sean would have evacuated the nearby homes, but he didn’t want to take any chances with tipping off Phantom. He’d informed PPB of the op, as residents often spotted guns and called 911. Then local police came screaming to the scene, ruining the op, and Sean wouldn’t let that happen here.
He pounded on the door with the side of his fist. “Police! Open up.”
Taylor cocked her head and listened. Sean thought he heard movement inside. He pounded on the door again. “Police. This is your last chance, Jorgenson, before we break down the door.”
Sean listened. Nothing. Silence. Maybe they’d heard a cat or dog. Or maybe Phantom was taking a defensive stance. If so, they needed to be ready. Sean lifted his assault rifle and signaled for Taylor to do the same. She’d told him she rarely used one in her years as a deputy, but she stayed current on her skills at the firing range. Still, her injured arm could affect her shooting accuracy.
Sean counted to ten. No response. He wouldn’t stand around any longer. He leaned down to his mic. “We’re going in on my signal. Stay alert.”
“Roger that,” Mack replied, as did Kiley.
Sean stepped to the side and signaled for Kemp to use his battering ram.
He slammed it against the door, splintering the wood. The door burst open, hit the wall with a sharp bang, and flew back. Sean pressed it out of the way and signaled his plan to enter first. Kemp gave a swift nod and stepped back. Taylor met his gaze and gave him a be careful look.
Heart pounding hard, Sean burst into the foyer. A small living area with a tall fireplace and overstuffed furniture sat to the right. Dining room to the left.
“Clear,” he called out and headed left, the three of them packed into a tight trio of firepower. He swept the dining room. “Clear.”
They moved into a small kitchen with an eat-in area and door to the backyard, with steps to the basement and the tunnel. He wanted to race down to it, but first they had to check the main floors to remove any threat from above. In the hallway, they cleared two bedrooms and a bathroom. The final bedroom was set up as a basic office with expensive computer equipment filling the desks lining the room’s perimeter. The sound of whirring hard drives brought Sean to a stop.
Protocol required that he wait for computer techs to image the hard drives before he or his team touched them. The computer snapshots in their current condition would be used as evidence when Phantom sat before a jury. But with the hacker’s past history of wiping drives clean, Sean couldn’t risk losing the data and had to act now.
“Cover the door,” he said to Taylor. Her rifle was raised in a defensive position. “Phantom likes to erase drives. I can’t let that happen here.”
Sean rushed over to the desk and jerked power cords from the backs of the machines. The drives powered down and stilled. “Okay, good. Any disk-wiping programs he kicked off have been stopped. Attic next.”
They moved to the hallway hatch, and Kemp made quick work of clearing the attic space.
Sean turned to Kemp. “Agent Mills and I have the basement. You’re up here watching our backs.”
Since SWAT often led the way, Kemp looked skeptical, but he nodded his understanding.
Sean marched to the walled stairwell and took a breath before descending. He reached the solid concrete floor at the bottom and swung left. Found an empty, unfinished space. No Phantom. Swung right. Saw a washer and dryer in the corner. Laundry basket overflowing with clothing. A clothesline strung across the room, but still no Phantom or tunnel.
Had Hall lied?
Sean stepped to a door on the far wall and pulled it open. An ancient oil furnace took up most of the space, but in the corner he found a gaping hole in the floor. A sheet of plywood serving as a hatch lay open, and a padlock dangled from a hasp.
“Bingo,” Sean whispered.
Taylor crept up to the plywood. “You think he’s down there?”
“Police!” Sean directed his voice into the tunnel. “Show yourself now.”
He waited. Counted.
Ten. Nine. Eight.
“Not a sound,” Taylor said.
Seven. Six. Five.
“He might not be down there,” she added.
Four. Three. Two. One.
Sean looked at Taylor. “I’m going down. You wait here.”
“No. I’m not letting you do this alone.” She eyed him.
He shook his head. “It could be an ambush, and I won’t take you or anyone else with me. I’ll toss a flashbang and go.”
“But it—”
“Will be fine. The flashbang will blind Phantom for at least five seconds, and the afterimage will impair any aim he might have. Likely disorient him for longer. Plus the blast will disturb the fluid in his ears, deafening him and leaving him off-balance. Gives me plenty of time to get down there and point a weapon at him before he recovers.”
“The explosion could make the tunnel unsteady or even cause it to collapse.” Panic sharpened her tone.
Sean appreciated her concern, but this wasn’t negotiable. “That will happen before I go into the tunnel.”
“It could still be unsafe to enter.” She bit her lip. “SWAT should do it.”
“Trust me, I know what I’m doing. I have more training and experience than any of them.”
Her eyes widened. “You want me to trust you when you can’t trust anyone else?”
“I trust . . . never mind. This isn’t the time for that conversation.” He intensified his expression. “Promise me you’ll stay here until I give the all-clear.”
Her stern expression wavered. “Oh, so you trust me to follow through on my promise?”
“Taylor, not now, okay? Just promise.”
She solidly met his gaze. “I do promise. And you can trust me.”
He nodded and took a step toward the tunnel. And then it hit him. She could be right. The tunnel could be unsafe and collapse on him. If that happened . . .
He turned back, pulled her against his chest, and gave her a hard, swift kiss, then released her. “I’ll be okay. Don’t worry.”
She stood there breathing hard. “Promise?”
“I promise.” He lowered the face sh
ield on his riot helmet and tossed a flashbang into the hole.
The flash grenade exploded, the harsh sound rising up from the tunnel opening. He started down the rickety ladder. He was on the hard-packed dirt floor in seconds; the dirt walls were barely high enough for him to stand. The air cleared slightly and revealed a wide-open area with a narrow tunnel ahead. No sign of Phantom, and no place to hide.
Sean took a quick look around the space, which held a microwave, refrigerator, porta-potty, and a table with two chairs just like Hall described. Dirt clods were scattered on the cot, but no sign of Phantom.
Sean crept down the tunnel, expecting to find Phantom cowering at the end. It went on for a long stretch, curved a bit to the right, then continued on. Sean believed he’d walked the length of the property and had to be moving under the alley behind Phantom’s house. The tunnel kept going.
He continued walking, step after step. The tunnel curved again. Then the end appeared with a ladder leading up to the surface.
Sean stood staring at it. Hall said it served as an escape tunnel, and Sean had hoped it would’ve been Phantom’s end, but he’d finished it. Odd. Why arrange for Hall to dig today? Did he fear Hall had seen something that could lead to this place and planned to kill him? Sean wouldn’t put it past Phantom. Didn’t matter now.
Sean quickly climbed the ladder. The exit opened on the opposite side of the alley, three houses down from Phantom’s place. No way would Mack have seen Phantom exit the tunnel here. Not with the tall privacy fence circling the property. If Phantom had parked his truck in this location, he could be long gone by now. If on foot, the team still had a chance to catch him.
At this point, Sean didn’t care if Phantom figured out they’d hacked his phone. Sean got out his cell and opened the spyware app to access GPS. The app whirred, and a red dot displayed the location of Phantom’s phone.
Sean enlarged the map. “No way.”
The ping registered from inside this house. Phantom wasn’t there, so he had to have left behind the phone he used to communicate with Hall.
Sean bent down to his mic. “Suspect completed tunnel and escaped in the rear alley. Could be on foot or in a vehicle.” Sean provided the information on Jorgenson’s truck. “Could have exited the alley in either direction.”
Sean released his mic and took a moment to process. Phantom was in the wind, and there was no way to track him. Sean had failed. When the stakes were so incredibly high. Even more lives were on the line than with the Montgomery Three investigation, and he failed again.
He had totally failed.
CHAPTER 26
SEAN FINISHED THE INITIAL WALK-THROUGH of the house to devise a plan for processing the scene. He’d noted the presence of potential evidence and would assign the forensic staff to begin working in those spots. The only surprise was the evidence of a female living in the home. Looked like Phantom had a girlfriend. But Sean hadn’t located any pet hair, and the hair found in Dupont’s car was unrelated, unless Phantom had picked it up elsewhere.
Priorities set, Sean stepped onto the porch and took in the crime scene. Officers had parked PPB patrol vehicles behind wooden barricades, blocking the road, their headlights spiraling into the foggy air that smelled of fresh rain. Nearby sat a sergeant’s SUV with the husky sarge leaning against the hood, phone to his ear. The ERT van, a larger version of Anna’s state vehicle, was parked at an angle just ahead of him. An FBI photographer stood on the lawn, snapping shots of the house’s exterior and property, the flash a blinding light in the sky.
In a word, it was a circus, and Sean was the ringleader, trying not to fall from a high wire and botch the investigation. Cam was still researching Jorgenson, and Sean had sent Mack and Kiley back to the office to review Eisenhower’s new information. Taylor remained on-scene to help keep the forensic staff on target.
He crossed over the damp grass and eased through swirling fog illuminated by Klieg lights brought in when the sun dropped below the horizon. He stopped next to the photographer. “You’re free to shoot the inside.”
He nodded. “Good timing. Just finished out here.”
Sean continued on to the vans where he approached Anna. He’d been so impressed with her skills that he’d quickly brought her in to handle the top-priority areas. “You have the office. I want every bit of computer equipment dusted for prints and processed for DNA.”
“Seriously,” a male FBI tech grumbled. “We should do that.”
“When you’re in charge of an investigation, you can make that decision.” Sean eyed the guy, and he backed down. Sean returned his focus to Anna. “You should know, I found both male and female clothing in the master closet.”
She snapped on gloves. “Two occupants then.”
He nodded and turned to assign the other techs to the remaining key evidence areas. He left them and approached the beefy sergeant with dark hair and wearing a pressed and crisp navy-blue PPB uniform.
Sean stopped in front of him. “How’s the neighborhood canvass going?”
“Nearly finished.” The sergeant clamped a hand on his holstered weapon, his expression carrying the heavy weight of catching this investigation. “One neighbor across the street reports seeing both a male and female coming and going from the house for months. Always late at night. The witness has insomnia and is up at odd hours. She tried knocking on their door several times during the day to welcome them to the neighborhood, but no response. She figured they worked nights and were sleeping, so she gave up and left them alone.”
“Can she describe them?”
The sarge flipped open his small notepad. “Male is six feet and muscular. Woman a few inches shorter, of average size and build. Both have dark hair. The woman’s is cut short.”
Sean made a mental note of the details but would jot them down later to make sure they became part of the case file. “And did you show her the suspect’s sketch?”
He nodded. “She couldn’t confirm anything. Like I said, she only saw them from a distance.”
“What about security cameras?”
“None in the neighborhood pointing at this house. I’ll request traffic cams in the area and review them.”
“I’d like a copy too.”
“Sure thing.” The sarge’s phone rang, and he reached for it on his vest holder.
Sean had hoped the neighbors would help more, but he wouldn’t let this get him down. With a girlfriend in the mix, he was hoping she wasn’t as crafty as Phantom and would mess up. Or she could even have a record, and her DNA or prints would reveal her name.
He turned back to the scene and spotted Taylor stepping behind the ERT van. She’d been trying to get his attention since he’d come back from the alley, but he’d had too much to organize to talk with her. With everyone assigned now, he could take a few minutes away from the madness to clear his head and see what she wanted.
He found her seated on the vehicle bumper in the dark, her phone in her hand. She looked up and gave him a soft smile. He took a seat next to her. “Looking for some quiet?”
She held up her phone. “Called to check on Dustee.”
He hadn’t even thought about that. “Everything okay at the office?”
“Fine, but with Phantom still on the move, I can’t be too careful.” She ran her gaze over him. “How are you doing?”
“Trying not to let my anger over missing him take over,” he said honestly.
“Yeah, I’m struggling with that too.” She touched his hand for a fraction of a second, like a butterfly briefly landing and lifting off again. “I’m here for you if you want to talk.”
“Thanks.” He expected her to bring up the kiss in the basement, though that was the last topic he wanted to discuss.
Her eyes narrowed. “You don’t look convinced of that.”
“No, I’m grateful, it’s just . . .” He shrugged.
“You thought I would want to talk about the kiss.”
He couldn’t believe how well she’d come to know him, and i
t was clear she had him pegged. “Yeah, I thought you would.”
“A crime scene’s not the time nor place.”
Okay, she was acting exactly as he’d hoped, leaving it alone. So why did he feel disappointed? “Just so you know, I didn’t plan it. Just acted. A spur-of-the-moment kind of thing.”
“Yeah, I get that. Probably fueled by adrenaline.” She seemed to shrug it off. “I keep wondering if Phantom really was here when we arrived.”
“Honestly, I’d rather think he wasn’t than he used his tunnel to evade us. But there’s ice in the glass on the desk, so someone was recently here. Could be his girlfriend.” Sean explained the clothes and other feminine stuff he’d found in the house. “Both of them could’ve bailed through the tunnel, I guess.”
She frowned. “I didn’t like you going into that tunnel.”
“Far tamer than a lot of places I’ve been.”
“I don’t like that thought either.” She released a shaky breath. “The thought of you getting hurt is almost too much to bear.”
He had to play it down. “You’ve known what I do since we became friends.”
“Yeah, I didn’t like it then, but now . . .” She shrugged and looked away.
“Right.” He took her hand. It was cold but soft. He held it tightly, a lifeline, letting her know he understood. “I thought the same thing about you when you insisted on coming along again. I can’t lose you.”
She put away her phone and took his hand. “What are we going to do about us?”
He knew she meant the feelings they were developing for each other, and he had no answer. Not a single one. “I’d like to think we could find a way to move on without hurting each other when this is over.”
“What would you say if I told you I don’t want to move on?” She transferred her focus to their hands. “That I like what’s developing between us.”
Say what? He wished she’d look at him so he could read her expression, but she kept staring at their hands. “Are you ready to let go of the no-dating edict?”
“Closer than I’ve ever been.” Her words came out on a whispered breath.
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