* * *
The one real possibility they had to discover exactly who was pulling the strings on the case lay with Jimmy Baron.
And while his condition was no longer described as a coma, his state of sedation was such that he couldn’t really talk much. According to the doctors, if he was pressed, he could go into shock and die.
Lily Baron remained at her husband’s side, holding his hand.
Craig stood at the window into Jimmy’s room at the hospital.
Mike came to stand by his side, handing him his phone. “It’s Marty,” Mike said. “He’s been digging into records, looking at everyone.”
Craig took the phone and nodded. “Hey, Marty,” he said. “You have something for me?”
“Yeah...no. What I have for you,” Marty said, “is that I can’t find anything. I swear, I’ve gone through applications, service records... I can’t find anything that would suggest that a single cop or agent or anyone in our circle could be dirty.”
“What about Holmes? The new guy? Speaking of which—were you ever able to reach Beard’s old partner? The one who caught the original case with him?”
He liked Holmes. But some of the world’s most heinous serial killers had supposedly been likeable people.
“Can’t find anything. He was an Eagle Scout, for God’s sake.”
“Maybe that means he liked to camp and kill creatures.”
“Not that I can find.”
Craig thought for a minute. It wasn’t McBride—they had worked with McBride before. He was solid as hell.
Jacob Wolff? He’d been undercover in the area. He was the closest to what had been going on.
“Jacob Wolff?”
“He went to high school in Manhattan and graduated from Columbia. He has a service record and a Purple Heart. He went into the academy soon after he left the military. He speaks several languages, by the way, not just Russian. Ukrainian, Polish, as well as Albanian, Italian, French and Spanish. He’s just about a walking encyclopedia and could have worked just about anywhere.”
“Let’s hope he’s not at the head of this!” Craig murmured.
“Well, whoever is doing this has some kind of internal intelligence,” Marty said. “We’re running out of possibilities. Lance Kendall has been a cop for nearly twenty-five years and has all kinds of commendations from a number of mayors. You know Larry McBride. I mean, there are others involved. I checked out Kieran’s guard squad with a fine-tooth comb, even though they came on later.”
“Keep looking. There’s got to be something.”
“There’s something, Craig. But damn if I know what! Maybe I’m looking in the wrong place.”
“Maybe I’m making you look too hard. Take a breath.”
“Yeah. Then I’ll be back on it!”
Craig hung up. Mike looked at him. “What is it?”
Craig hunched his shoulders and shook his head. “I don’t know. I keep getting the feeling that something is right in front of us, and I’m missing it.”
“Then we’re all missing it.”
“It would be damned convenient if Jimmy Baron would come to and just tell us what is going on,” Craig said.
“Yeah, now, that would be nice. And, from what they’re saying, the guy has a good chance at survival. In another week or so, he could be talking.”
“And how much more will happen in a week?” Craig asked. “Alexandra Callas, dead, Sister Teresa, dead, Paco, dead, the guy in the car... Alyssa Ryan under attack just because the baby’s mother—who is still missing—might have talked to her. And last night... Lily and those little girls under attack. We can’t wait any longer,” he added quietly.
Mike was silent, staring through the glass. “I believe they’ve gotten Riley and Tanya to finish up with a sketch artist. I guess it took our artist some time because they didn’t always agree on what people looked like. And then Tanya thought one person was the Queen, and Riley was convinced someone else was the Queen...anyway, we should have something today.”
“Could help.”
“And could just be pictures.”
“Then the public might help.”
Craig nodded.
What the hell was it that he wasn’t seeing?
His phone rang. It was US Marshal Hank LeBlanc. “We’ve got the alert out everywhere. They’re gone, Special Agent Frasier. Riley and Tanya. Don’t know how the hell it happened, except that they ripped out the ventilation system. A dozen cops and agents and us here, and somehow, they’re just gone!”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“Kieran!”
She wasn’t sure why Craig sounded as rough as he did; she’d answered her phone on the first ring.
“Yes, I’m here.”
“And everything is fine?”
“Yep. Harding and Chopra are in reception. They’ve got their eyes—and their guns—on anyone who walks in. So...what’s wrong?”
“I’m at the safe house. We have techs poring over the place, trying like hell to figure out how this was possible. Someone broke into the safe house. Riley and Tanya are gone.”
“It’s surrounded—that would take an army!”
“We’re figuring that whoever is responsible got their hands on the architectural plans, and that they got in and out through the airshafts. They came while the women were supposedly sleeping. It’s bugging the hell out of me, though, I got to say. Even with the plans, unless...”
“Unless what?”
“Not sure yet. I’m working on an idea.”
“What about the kids? Jimmy and Lily Baron’s kids.”
“Kids are fine. Just the two women are gone.”
“Thank God about the children, at least!” she breathed.
“Yes, but I want to get back to the hospital. The key player in all this now is Jimmy Baron—for everyone’s sake, we’ve got to keep him alive. I want to see our situation there firsthand—we’ll be doubling up guards and keeping it within the FBI. I’m worried that we’re going to find corpses somewhere soon. Kieran, I want you here. Egan and some of our best and brightest are going to be at the hospital. Mike and I have to get out there, find witnesses, find the women—” He paused. “Dead or alive. So I’d like to get you over here. Not sure how and exactly when yet. I’ll let you know when I’m on the way or when I have someone coming for you.”
“Okay. What about Drs. Fuller and Miro? Are they going to be all right here, Craig?”
“We’ll leave them with a few agents on detail. They weren’t targeted the way that you were. We’ll make sure that you leave the building with a full escort that is clearly seen. We’ll bring Harding and Chopra with us, and leave the doctors covered, as well.”
“Okay. I’m ready to go wherever you want me to be.” She hesitated. “I just had Besa Goga in here.”
“Who?”
“Besa Goga. I know that I’ve talked to you about her—there was no client privilege since it hit the back burner in the news. She’s the one who bit the cable man.”
“Oh, yeah, right.”
She could tell that he was being polite, but wondering why she was worried about one of her relatively ordinary clients when people seemed to be dropping like flies with a murderer on the loose.
“She was horribly used and abused when she first came to this country, Craig. She said that even then there was a king and a queen, and that it’s kind of like the saying, ‘meet the new boss, same as the old boss.’ She also strongly suggested that some kind of cop or law enforcement officer was involved. We never want to think that, but—”
“We have thought it. You’re good with Chopra and Harding. Marty stripped down their credentials, their lives...stripped them bare.”
“See you soon,” she promised him. “Go to work. I have to read a half-dozen character references regarding custody in a divorce case.”
“See you soon,” Craig said solemnly.
Then he was gone.
She did have reports to read; she had to try to understand people through the written word before meeting with them. This area of what she did was her least favorite. Divorce was always sad—divorce with children involved was worse. Leaving children in a household where everything was a fight was equally as bad.
She needed to concentrate.
There was no way in hell she was going to be able to focus—not right away, not after her last conversation with Craig. People were dropping like flies.
That thought scared her.
It suddenly occurred to Kieran that she had first come across the young women because of Mary Kathleen and her work at the soup kitchen.
That could put Mary Kathleen—and Finnegan’s and everyone in it—in danger.
She reached for the phone again. Declan, Mary Kathleen, Chef and the cooks would be at Finnegan’s.
Declan answered. Then she had to hold it a few inches from her ear; he had apparently called her yesterday. She had not called back. He’d been forced to call Craig to make sure that she was all right, and he’d been ready to call Egan.
She winced, listening to her older brother yell. She apologized and asked anxiously about Mary Kathleen.
A second later, Mary Kathleen was on the phone with her.
Kieran explained what had happened—the best she could, anyway.
“The safe house, you say? That just doesn’t sound possible, except with a team of navy SEALs!” Mary Kathleen said.
“It seems they got in through the inner workings of the building. Took the girls and got out in the middle of the night. I guess they were late sleepers, and the officers just discovered them missing about an hour or so ago.”
Mary Kathleen was suddenly gone and Declan was back on the phone. “We’re fine here, Kieran. This is a pub. Our precinct is still filled with good old Irish cops. And other cops who just love a good old Irish pub. I’m calling Craig. He needs to get his FBI ass over to get you—now!”
And suddenly, she was holding a phone connected to empty air. Declan was gone.
She sighed and set the phone down on her desk. Her fault. She should have been paying attention to her family!
As she set the phone down, she realized that the office seemed very quiet.
The office was often quiet.
Not this quiet. People came and went.
She glanced at the calendar on her wall. Well, for one, Dr. Fuller was over at NYU, giving a speech. Dr. Miro had probably gone to lunch. She had told Kieran she was on a “petite person’s” diet, and that meant very regular meals. But even if the doctors were both out, Jake, in reception, wouldn’t have left without telling her. Although, come to think of it, he might have told Harding and Chopra. While Harding and Chopra were great at reading and occupying themselves, even they had to stretch their legs or use the facilities sometimes.
She didn’t know if she would have felt quite so nervous if it hadn’t been for Craig’s call.
These people had even gotten inside a safe house in order to kidnap Riley and Tanya.
She rose, very quietly and very carefully.
There were two cops with Jake out in reception.
Except that they weren’t.
Kieran tiptoed from her office and down the hall, and peeked out, and all around.
And there was no one there; no one at all.
She heard a soft groan. She ran around behind Jake’s desk. Jake wasn’t there, but Harding was, down on the ground, a streak of blood running from his temple.
She almost screamed; she caught the sound.
Because as she’d run to the desk, she realized she’d passed someone searching around in Dr. Miro’s office.
She rose, ready to streak for the door.
Instead, she raced back into the offices, back to the little kitchenette at the far end of the space. Because the front door was opening.
* * *
Craig had been through every inch of space at the safe house when they’d initially set it up.
Now he went through it all again.
There was no question that whoever had gotten to the women had used extraordinary measures. The grate was still out of the airshaft through which the women had been dragged or forced to crawl. The officers, agents and marshals were, to say the least, completely humiliated. They were passionate in their certainty that no way in hell had anyone gotten past them.
Craig was in the midst of his discussions with the US Marshals—Smyth and LeBlanc—when his phone rang. Declan Finnegan was on the other end. He was trying hard not to be governed by anger or fear as he spoke, Craig could tell. He was angry, though. Craig and Kieran had not been keeping in touch with the rest of the family under these circumstances. Yes, it had only been a day or so, but nevertheless. And he was worried sick about his sister at that moment, and to make matters worse, Mary Kathleen wanted to take off to find Riley and Tanya, and Declan was doing just about everything he could to keep her at the pub.
Craig promised him that he’d shortly be with Kieran and that he’d send help to the pub. Declan assured him that the pub would be just fine, that he just had to see to Kieran.
Craig noticed that Egan was watching him as he spoke, and he couldn’t help but wonder if his superior wasn’t thinking that he allowed his personal life to interfere with his work.
He was wrong.
Egan walked over to him. “Kieran Finnegan is key in this case. Our involvement in a massive pile of ants began with that poor woman, Alexandra Callas, shoving the baby into Kieran’s arms. I’d say it all rests with her, and with Jimmy Baron. While they’re working here, I’m going to suggest you head back to the hospital, and hang tight next to Baron, with Kieran. I’ll be there soon myself.”
Craig nodded and looked around.
“I can’t figure it,” Hank LeBlanc said.
“Not at all,” Madison Smyth said, and she flushed, glancing at Craig. “We didn’t hear anything—anything at all. You’d have thought...”
“We should have been in that bedroom.”
“Oh, come on, Hank!” Madison protested. “We can’t take a leak with everyone! No one would accept witness protection at all if we literally stared at their every move.”
“There were a dozen people here,” Craig reminded them. He didn’t say that they weren’t at fault; someone was at fault, or, at the least, someone would be made to be at fault. That was the way the system worked—someone was going to have to take the fall.
And he knew that every officer and agent there felt responsible, and was frightened.
They had all liked Riley and Tanya.
They could all imagine them dead.
He turned to head out, but something pulled him back. He looked around the living area, the kitchen and the passage out.
He walked into the bedroom and saw where the grating to the shaft lay.
And it hit him.
He walked over to Egan, ready to explain what he feared just might be the truth.
* * *
The office had been so quiet; now it seemed to be filled with noise.
She could hear every little whisper of movement, she was so attuned.
And there were people in the office; she wasn’t sure who they were at first, but she could hear talking—heated, angry whispers—coming from Dr. Miro’s office.
“You said that she was here. You said that she hadn’t left the building. You were supposed to be watching her!”
“I was watching her—she didn’t leave the building. And I got rid of the one cop and took the other down. I did what I was supposed to do!” The second voice wasn’t angry.
The second voice was scared.
Hunched down behind the little Formica work counter, Kieran tried desperately to figure
out a way to get back down the hallway to the exit.
But someone had also come in through the office entry.
Who the hell was it?
She hadn’t shut the door. She suddenly saw that someone was coming back out into the hallway. She nearly gasped aloud, she was so startled.
Ralph Miller!
He had been downstairs, day after day, watching her, watching the cops, watching all of them, every time they came and left the building. Of course, Alexandra Callas had slipped by him with the baby. Had he let her? How long had he been working for these guys?
Kieran needed her cell phone.
Which she had left on her desk.
“Stop!”
The sudden command came from the reception area. Kieran flattened herself to the floor, trying to see who had arrived.
Jacob Wolff.
She wanted to cry out in warning, to let him know that Ralph wasn’t the only one in the offices.
But, too quickly, she heard the sound of a bullet whizzing by.
Ralph was suddenly down on the floor. He let out only a grunt of sound.
Was he dead?
Had Wolff fired? Had someone else fired at Wolff? Whoever was in the office had been the one who had been threatening Ralph Miller, but now she wasn’t sure who was in charge.
From her vantage point, she could see down the hall, past the offices—her office, Dr. Miro’s office, Dr. Fuller’s office and the storage room. She could almost see the front door.
“This place is going to crawl with FBI in about five minutes!” Wolff cried out. “Cops, agents, deputies...you name it! Time to get out!”
Was that a warning that the killers were about to get caught?
Or a warning that they needed to get out before they were caught?
“Wolff, stand down. I’ve got this,” a male voice called from Miro’s office. And then, as Kieran watched, Detective David Beard stepped into view.
David Beard! Yes, of course, the head cop on the case five years ago.
And all these years, he had been using people.
Abusing them.
And killing them.
“I’ve got this, Wolff,” Beard repeated.