Cold as Ice

by Allison Brennan

  “Lucy,” he said. “I should be surprised, but I’m not. You are, truly, one of the most intelligent, insightful people I’ve ever met.”

  “I came for Sean.”

  “Please sit,” he said, motioning to one of the couches that sat, face to face, in front of a two-story window. “I’d like to talk.”

  She weighed her options: be forceful and demanding or listen and be ready to act.

  Dillon had always told her that she could learn more about a psychopath by being observant.

  Watching, listening, sensing his physical response. Tension, relaxation. Sociopaths are liars by nature but everyone—even the best sociopath—has a tell. Mostly, listen. They want to be understood, accepted, revered.

  And for Jonathan Paxton, he wanted her love.

  She sat on the couch that faced the door. There was another door, smaller, almost hidden, embedded between two built-in bookshelves. She could see that from here as well. Plus she had a line of sight outside the windows. She saw no one.

  But someone was watching. Another bodyguard? Colton Thayer?

  She sat. She was armed; no one had searched her. She would have given up her gun if they had. But Jonathan must know she was armed. And he also must know that she didn’t come alone. Yet he was calm, almost at peace.

  A sliver of fear worked its way up her spine.

  Is Sean already dead?

  She almost pulled her gun and demanded to see her husband. But she didn’t. She sat quietly, waiting for Jonathan to talk.

  To listen. To assess. To find the truth.

  “I have missed you, Lucy,” he said. “I hate how we left things.”

  “Jonathan,” she said, using his first name for the first time. She’d always called him senator, out of respect and position. But they were peers now. “I admired you, believed in you. You used me and betrayed my trust. That is why I walked away.”

  “I never wanted to hurt you, Lucy. It pains me that I did.”

  “I believe you. What is it called, the law of unintended consequences? Yet, I can’t imagine that you could think that I would accept murder. You hid that from me because you knew I wouldn’t participate; that I would in fact turn you in.”

  “Would you have?”

  “Yes.”

  “The system is broken. You and I both know that.”

  “No. The system is imperfect, not broken.”

  He leaned back on the couch, as if they were having a philosophical discussion over a glass of wine, and there wasn’t an imprisoned man somewhere in this compound, or an FBI SWAT team surrounding the place.

  He didn’t live in reality.

  “Shouldn’t we do everything in our power to fix what’s imperfect?”

  “At what cost?”

  “What is the cost of a rapist going free versus his death? Should other women suffer a horrific fate because the system released a predator early?”

  “When you were a prosecutor, you lobbied for tougher penalties for sex offenders. You won many battles. That’s where our focus needs to be. But deciding the law is wrong—and it might be—and then creating your own laws and executing them—where does it end?”

  “In justice.”

  “No. It’s not justice. It’s vengeance. It’s a slippery slope to anarchy.”

  “An eye for an eye.”

  “And you are destroying your own soldiers. I talked to Michael Thompson. He didn’t betray you—he’s a true believer. He is so filled with pain over the loss of his daughter that he is but a shell of a man. A steel shell, fighting your battles.”

  “They are his battles.”

  “He should have gotten help. He’s still suffering, every day. He lost the most precious thing in the world to him, his daughter, to an evil predator who should have been locked up. Yes, the system fails. I hate that it does. But you destroyed Michael’s soul.”

  “Had someone killed the evil that raped and murdered little Sarah when he first committed his heinous acts, she would still be alive. She would be graduating from high school this year.”

  This was where Jonathan could sway her. The old adage, if you could go back in time and kill baby Hitler, would you? Who said no?

  It wasn’t an argument she could win with him so she said, “I am working within the system to change it.”

  “A noble, if imperfect, calling.”

  “I take pleasure in putting bad guys behind bars. Criminals like Jimmy Hunt. While I wasn’t a part of his investigation, I helped take down his criminal network and I’m damn proud of that.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “You worked with Hunt for the last year to orchestrate this plan, and I don’t understand why. You, of all people, working with someone like Jimmy Hunt.”

  “I would consider the relationship akin to, say, a criminal informant.”

  “Who has his own twisted way of looking at the world. And you helped him escape from prison.”

  “Did I?”

  “Don’t lie to me, Jonathan. Do you remember Kate Donovan?”

  “Of course. She married your brother, didn’t she?”

  “She’s traced your shell corporations. She’s brilliant, and more, she’s determined. So we can prove that—financially—you gave $300,000 in two installments to Jimmy Hunt. We’ve traced the money that Michael Thompson was paid. We know, for example, that you’ve created a trust for his other daughter and paid into it every year that he has been working for you. We know that Colton Thayer works for you. We know that he met with Jimmy Hunt at Victorville prison. We’re getting the surveillance logs from Houston for the visitors that Michael Thompson had—we have the names, and one name is, not surprisingly, fake. My guess? It’s Colton. It’s only a matter of time and persistence before I find the truth. And I will.”

  She was bluffing on the Thompson surveillance. Houston didn’t have video surveillance from a year ago. Victorville did and Megan had already requested it. Colton made one big mistake—he used the same false ID both times, but she didn’t say that.

  Wisely, Jonathan didn’t speak.

  She said, “Why, Jonathan? Even though we had differences, I never thought you’d hurt me.”

  “I would never hurt you. Lucy, please don’t think that Sean’s crimes had anything to do with you.”

  “Are you really going to play that game? Sean didn’t kill Mona Hill; we now have evidence. A witness who saw Elise Hunt. The woman who planted the gun in Sean’s plane confessed. Sean didn’t set up the escape; we have evidence that it came from a corrections officer in Beaumont. Kate proved the phone in Sean’s cell was a plant, that it wasn’t used to hack into the system. Sean didn’t kill the guard in the bus; we will have the evidence because the best people in the FBI are working on retrieving the corrupted digital files. Everything on that bus was recorded. So I ask you, Jonathan, why did you want to punish me?”

  “Sean does not deserve you.”

  “Shouldn’t I be the judge of that?”

  “Sometimes, our children are blind to the truth.”

  “I am not your child.”

  He stared at her. There was pain and heartbreak and more in his eyes. She shielded her empathy for him. She’d always empathized with Jonathan because he lost his daughter. Because he understood things about her that she had only been figuring out when she was in college. She missed her past relationship with the senator she admired so much … but he was gone. Had it all been a lie?

  “You will be better off without him. I know it’ll hurt for a while, but you’re strong, Lucy. You’re a survivor.”

  Her fear grew exponentially. “Where is Sean? Jonathan! What did you do to my husband?”

  Lucy heard laughter. She had been so focused on Jonathan that she hadn’t heard the door open; neither had he.

  She turned and couldn’t have been more surprised to see Elise Hunt walk in. She had a gun and she aimed it right at Lucy.

  Chapter Fifty-one

  “Hello!” Elise said with false cheerfulness. Or maybe i
t was real. Lucy wasn’t sure.

  Jonathan said, “This is a private conversation, Ms. Hunt.”

  Didn’t he see the gun in her hand?

  Why wasn’t he surprised to see Elise?

  Lucy was missing something.

  “First, this is just so rich to have you both here. I gotta tell you, Lucy, he really, really, really hates Sean. Maybe even more than my daddy and my daddy really hated Sean, too. Sometimes, I think my daddy hated Sean more for stealing our money than he hated Kane for killing my brother.”

  “Put the gun down, Elise, and we can have a conversation,” Lucy said. She spoke distinctly, hoping the FBI who were listening to this conversation would realize that they were in a volatile situation. Elise was not someone who could be reasoned with.

  “Right … put it down. Sure.” She rolled her eyes. “I hate you,” she said to Lucy.

  Then she turned to Jonathan. “But I hate you more. You killed my daddy. You know how I know? Because it’s all on tape. I knew something was wrong when I got here, but couldn’t figure it out. Maybe because you were being all nice to me. Maybe because you kept asking me what I thought of her.” She waved her gun toward Lucy. “And then about your arrangement with Daddy, and I remembered my conversation yesterday. And how he promised to let me kill her once we got everything settled down. Then I saw all the cameras and the security and your guy seemed … just off. Like he couldn’t quite look at me. I thought he might kill me, but he didn’t seem to have it in him. He seemed more … sad. So I started looking around and found the security room. You actually have a camera in here.” She looked around and then grinned. “There, right? I know from the angle because I saw you stab my daddy in the stomach, you fucking prick. Why? Didn’t want to pay him what you owed him?”

  “What did you do to Colton, Ms. Hunt?”

  Jonathan sounded so calm, didn’t he see that Elise was extremely volatile?

  “‘What did you do to Colton, Ms. Hunt?’” she mimicked. “I didn’t do anything. You’re the one who told him to give me the car.”

  “What does that mean, Elise?” Lucy asked.

  “You can read my mind,” Elise said. “You tell me.”

  Lucy didn’t have control of this situation, and Elise was angry and … lost. She didn’t know what to do, Lucy realized. She had depended her entire life on first Tobias then Jimmy telling her what to do. She certainly played her own games—like torturing Brad when she was supposed to kill him—but she always went back to her family.

  And now she had no one.

  “I think you left Colton unconscious in the garage,” Lucy said. She hadn’t shot him because Jonathan had too many people around. They would have heard, alerted him.

  “See? You can read my mind. Fuck, how the hell do you do that?”

  “Educated guess.”

  “No, you did it in court. And when we were talking. You, like, know me and, like, don’t and it freaks me the fuck out.”

  “Elise, I know Jonathan hired you to frame Sean for murder. Why Mona Hill?”

  “You know why.”

  “Because she left you behind.”

  “She abandoned me when I needed her the most. And you know why? Because your husband told her to leave. He told her to leave me. And why is that? Because he blackmailed her. Prick. Then I get arrested and that sucked. It totally screwed with our plans.”

  Was that enough? Did the FBI believe based on what Elise said that she had been the one to kill Mona, not Sean?

  It won’t matter if Sean is dead!

  Elise said to Jonathan, “You owed my dad a quarter of a million. You were going to give me a fucking thousand? Nope. I want the money we were promised. Then I’ll get out of your hair.”

  “All right. I will have Colton transfer it to you.”

  “Really? Transfer it? You’re a fucking joke. Like I would trust you to transfer me the money. Like, tonight? Next week? Never? I’m not an idiot. What do you have in your safe? I know a guy like you will have money in your safe.”

  She waved the gun around.

  Jonathan rose and headed over to a picture embedded in one of the bookshelves.

  “Stop,” Elise said.

  He stopped.

  “Lucy, get up.”

  Lucy rose.

  “Together,” Elise said, “go over and open the safe. I need to keep you both in my sight.”

  Elise had a look in her eye.

  Lucy followed Jonathan to the safe. “Was this worth it, Jonathan? Was setting Sean up worth all this?”

  He looked at her. “Yes. I only regret that I couldn’t prove to you that he’s no better than any of them.” He waved his hand toward Elise.

  Elise laughed. “That’s funny. Open the safe, Mr. Senator.”

  Lucy had to call in the FBI. They should be close, if they’d been listening.

  Of course they were listening.

  She gave the code phrase.

  “Jonathan, I love my husband. I will never forgive you.”

  How long was it going to take? Where were they? How many of Jonathan’s men would attempt to stop them?

  Jonathan put his finger on the safe and it clicked.

  “Back off,” Elise said. “How do I know you don’t have a gun in there or something?”

  She kept her gun aimed at them and walked to the safe. Looked inside. “Wow, fabulous. Good-bye, Lucy.”

  She pulled the trigger.

  The bullet hit Lucy in her chest, pushing her to the ground and knocking the wind out of her. If she hadn’t had her vest on, she would have been in serious trouble.

  “No!” Jonathan screamed and rushed Elise.

  She fired twice, hitting Jonathan both times.

  Lucy struggled to pull her gun from her rear holster. She watched as Jonathan staggered backward, his chest red. She aimed at Elise and fired three times in rapid succession. The third bullet hit her in the face.

  Elise fell to the floor, dead.

  Lucy crawled over to Elise, pushed her gun away though she was clearly dead, then crawled over to Jonathan as she fought to catch her breath.

  “Jonathan,” she breathed awkwardly. “Stay with me. Oh God, dammit! Where is everybody?”

  She put her hands on his chest, trying to stop the blood.

  His eyes were wide.

  “Lucy.”

  “Where’s Sean? Dammit, don’t die! Where’s Sean? Please, Jonathan—please tell me. I love him so much. Tell me what you did to him.”

  “You. Don’t need him.”

  His eyes closed.

  “Don’t you die! Don’t you dare die!” She shook him. “Tell me where Sean is!”

  “Monique,” he whispered. Blood dripped from his mouth. “I love you, Monique. Forgive me.”

  “No!” she screamed.

  She hadn’t heard SWAT burst into the house, but they now came through the library doors. Steven Pierce led the team.

  “Kincaid! Are you shot?”

  “He wouldn’t tell me. Dammit! Jonathan!”

  One of the cops checked his pulse then shook his head.

  Lucy jumped up.

  “Kincaid, you’re bleeding.”

  “It’s his. She shot me in the vest.”

  It hurt and it would bruise, but it didn’t hurt a fraction as much as her heart right now. “We have to find Sean.”

  Though the radio, Pierce ordered his team to search the grounds for additional hostiles and one hostage.

  “We got most of his team, if not all of them. No one engaged us. They put down their weapons as soon as we approached. One unconscious suspect in the garage. We think she hit him with a shovel. One unconscious woman in the kitchen. Ambulance is on their way. Do you need a medic?”

  “No. Let me search the house.”

  “With me,” Pierce said.

  They started downstairs and were halfway down when Pierce got a call on the radio. “Sir, I found something, come to the gatehouse at the front of the garage stat.”

  Lucy followed Pierce o
ut and they walked briskly across the courtyard to the gatehouse, right outside the interior gates.

  It was a security room. Cameras were everywhere, inside and out, rotating images on four screens. “I don’t know how this works, they rotate, but this one”—he pointed to one—“will show what you need to see.”

  The next thirty seconds nearly killed Lucy as she waited, staring at the screen, as it rotated through five second shots of multiple places on the property.

  Then, there was Sean.

  He was chained in a prison. An actual cage, somewhere on the property.

  Pierce relayed this discovery to his team. No one had found it yet.

  “Where’s Colton Thayer?” Lucy asked.

  “Detained in the garage, we have a man on him,” Pierce said.

  Lucy went out; Pierce followed. He didn’t try to stop her. “We’ll find him—there are only so many places he can be.”

  She went to the garage. Colton was leaning against the wall, eyes closed, blood caked on his head.

  He looked at her. “The senator.”

  “Elise Hunt killed him. Where is Sean?”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “You were his best friend. You did this to him? Locked him in a cage? Framed him for murder? Why?”

  “Jonathan loved you, Lucy. He knew you’d be better off without Sean. We all would have been better off without Sean in our lives.”

  “Revenge. Petty revenge. Hurt feelings. And once you were closer to him than his own brothers. You make me sick.”

  “I don’t know why you love him. Jonathan saw Sean as I did. Selfish and disloyal. Jonathan was a great man. I can’t believe he’s gone. He’s…” Colton sighed, put his head down on his knees. Then he said, “There’s a basement under the guesthouse. The code on the door is oh-two-one-seven.”

  Lucy turned, then looked back. “Oh-two-one-seven?”

  “Your birthday. Jonathan used it for everything.”

  She forced that thought out of her mind and followed Pierce across the courtyard and behind the garage to the guesthouse.

  She let Pierce go first, though it almost killed her to wait. “Clear,” he said.

  She ran down the stairs. The basement was dark, a single bulb lighting the narrow hall outside the cage. Sean’s ankles were shackled, his hands cuffed, and he was still dressed in the orange prison jumpsuit—it was bloody and filthy. His face was bruised and he was pale. Tears ran down his face when he saw her.