“Seventeen-oh-nine Belmont…”
“Near Georgetown?”
“Y-yeah.”
They disappeared, turning right at the edge of the alley.
“Get the body out of here,” Dante ordered the team around him. “And I want a unit to head with me to Belmont.” He fired a glance at Max. “You in for this, Ridgeway?”
Try to keep me out.
Sam went with the uniforms to 1709 Belmont. The officers immediately went to work searching the one-bedroom apartment. Max came with them, but Luke ordered him to remain outside until they’d secured the scene.
Ignoring the team around her, Sam sat at Veronica’s keyboard, tapping quickly. The password was eliminated in five seconds. Veronica’s favorite band. Luckily, Veronica had left a stack of their CDs near her desk.
She scrolled through the files. Nothing. Nothing. E-mails flew past her, names, dates. She checked as fast as she could, looking for something that would tie Veronica to the kidnappings.
“Anything?” Kim asked from behind her.
Sam shook her head and went deeper into Veronica’s search history on the computer. Wait… driving directions.
She pulled up the archived file. Directions to 2917 Kyler Boulevard in Fairfax, Virginia. Directions that Veronica had looked up the day before the first victim went missing. The day before.
Fairfax was right in the middle of the kill zone. They’d mapped out a geographic zone for the kidnapper, and that area of Fairfax was within driving distance to every disappearance. She glanced back at Kim, who already had her cell out.
“Pull up this address,” Kim said into the phone. “Two nine one seven Kyler Boulevard. In Fairfax, Virginia. Yeah, yeah, that’s right. Now tell me who owns that property.” After a few moments, Kim’s eyes widened. “No shit.”
Sam’s heart thudded against her ribs. Hurry, hurry. Kim whistled softly. “Guess who owns an old warehouse in Fairfax?”
Sam wasn’t in the mood to guess.
“Frank Malone.”
What?
“Seems he bought some property over there about five years ago. Bought it, used it, then forgot it. The warehouse has been boarded up for the last six months.” A brief pause. “Interesting, don’t you think?”
Sam jumped out of the chair. “I think we need to get to that warehouse.” Because Jeremy Briar had been left in his father’s driveway. Because Adam Warrant’s body had been found in a garage owned by his father.
No, Christ, no.
Fairfax would be a perfect kill site.
Frank had taken Beth’s car and slipped away without the guards. Frank had his gun—he wasn’t stupid—but he was scared.
The warehouse waited at the end of the street. Darkened windows, tall walls. Abandoned.
He reached for his phone. Hesitated. Call Max. The whisper in his head. He should let Max know where he was. What was happening.
Would you trade your life for his? Is he worth that much?
His hands curled into fists, and Frank sucked in a sharp breath. No, he wouldn’t call Max. Time for me to do something right.
He shoved open the car door and climbed out slowly. “Hello!” His voice echoed back to him. There were no cars here, no lights. Nothing but the night and that damn warehouse.
Was this a trick? Another sick, twisted joke to pull him in and leave him with nothing?
But then a low moan filled the air and he froze. No, not a moan. The slow grind of a door scraping over old wood. The front entrance to the warehouse… the door had opened.
He couldn’t see anyone, but someone was there and inviting him in. “Who’s there? Dammit, come out here! Bring Quinlan out!”
“Come in…” Was the taunt he got in return.
His jaw clenched, and he loped forward. If he had to, he’d kill every sonofabitch in there, but he was getting his son.
His hand closed around the old door handle, and he wrenched it all the way open. As soon as he stepped over the threshold, the scent of blood and bleach burned his nose.
Quinlan?
Please, son, be alive.
“What’s going on?” Max demanded. They were in the back of a government SUV, racing behind two other units toward Fairfax. “What do you mean, we’re going to one of Malone’s properties? Why?”
Sam glanced at him, knowing that she had to be careful. “We found the address on Veronica James’s computer.”
“Malone’s warehouse?” He shook his dark head. “That doesn’t make sense!”
“By all accounts, it’s an abandoned building. No other businesses close by. It seems like…” She wet her lips. “Like it might be the perfect place to keep someone locked up.” Or to dump a body.
Max’s eyes narrowed, and she knew that he understood the unspoken words. “Faster,” Max barked at Luke. “Can’t you drive this damn thing faster?”
They were already flying past the speed limit.
“We’re going in silent,” Luke said, and she knew that he was talking into his phone, giving orders to the locals on scene. “We’re not giving these bastards any warning.”
“Samantha.” Max’s fingers brushed hers.
She held his gaze.
“Is he alive?”
Her breath came on a slow rush. “We’ll know soon.”
“That last guy… Adam… they found him on his father’s property, too, didn’t they? That was where they dumped the body.”
She curled her fingers around his. She wanted to give him hope. “Quinlan could be alive.”
He squeezed her hand, but didn’t speak again. And neither did she—Sam didn’t like lying to him.
“Quinlan? Are you here?” The scent of blood was so strong, filling Frank’s nose and making bile rise in his throat. He fumbled and drew out his gun. The Feds had confiscated the Glock that he’d had earlier. But lucky for him, there’d been plenty of other guns waiting at home for him.
His feet shuffled forward. The warehouse was too damn dark. He should have leveled the place months ago. “Are you here?”
Frank’s right foot kicked something. Something big and soft. His breath heaved out. “Quinlan?” He slipped and fell to his knees. “Quinlan!”
A flash of light hit him right in the face. The bright light blinded him. “Not your boy, old man,” a hard, male voice rumbled from behind the light.
Frank lurched forward but froze when a gun barrel pressed against his forehead. No mistaking that, not even in this black pit.
“Wanna see him one more time?”
Frank was on his knees before the bastard holding the gun. His body shook, but he wouldn’t back down. “Let him go.”
“Shouldn’t have brought the FBI in.” That voice rumbled.
“Dad!” Quinlan’s scream had his heart slamming into his chest.
Still alive. Quinlan’s still alive.
Frank’s right hand was behind him, his fingers curled around the gun. The bastard hadn’t seen it yet. He’d have to move fast. “I-I want to see him.”
The barrel eased back. “And he wants to see you. One more time.”
The flashlight beam bounced. Frank lurched up. He didn’t take time to aim, just fired. Again. Again. Two fast booms. A scream.
The flashlight hit the ground. So did the bastard. “Fuck you,” Frank snarled and followed the sound of his son’s screams.
“You have to stay here.” Sam stared up at Max’s tense face. They were about fifty feet away from the warehouse, in the safe perimeter that the agents had just set up. “Stay with the uniforms until we come back.”
His eyes were on the building as he strained to see. “It’s so damn dark.” Why weren’t there any streetlights?
“Stay here.” Sam squeezed his hand. “And don’t give up.” She wanted to say more, to do more, but too many eyes were on them.
Sam turned and fell into line behind Luke and Ramirez. They’d be the first team in. They’d tried to leave her out, but hell no. She wasn’t being left out anymore.
L
uke lowered his hand, giving the order to move. The officers behind them were silent as they waited. Tension filled the air, so thick it seemed to weigh her down.
The SSD had gotten a warrant. Fast. They’d tried to reach Malone for permission to go in, but he had been unavailable. More pills, according to Beth. He’d dosed up and gone down for the night.
When she got the signal, Sam’s feet seemed to fly over the gravel driveway. Her breath blew out in cold puffs of foggy air. Her heart thudded in her chest. Was this what it had been like for Monica and Luke? When she’d been taken and they’d been desperate to find her, had this icy fear filled them?
Hurry. Can’t be too late. Hurry.
Now that they were so close, she was afraid of what she’d find. Jeremy’s mutilated body flashed in her mind’s eye.
Hurry.
Ramirez kicked the door open. Sam went in behind him, staying low, her gun up. Her left hand held a flashlight above her weapon. The place was pitch black.
And it smelled of death. A heavy, deep odor of blood and bleach. Someone had been killing and trying to clean up the mess.
Sam found the wall. She stuck to it like glue and started moving quickly.
The second that the kidnappers heard them—if they were there—they’d run. Or kill Quinlan. Probably both.
Quiet.
Luke was in the lead now, slipping around the corner. She followed. Her light swept the ground.
And landed on the body.
A man lay slumped on the ground. Dark black liquid pooled near his body. No, not black. The blood just looked black in the darkness.
She bent and pressed her fingers to his throat. Nothing, noth—A jerk of his pulse beneath her fingers. Jesus, still alive.
She stared at his face, then her eyes darted to his left ear and the line of piercings. She knew him. Recognition clicked instantly. Kevin Milano, the bouncer at The Core.
Well, damn. The kidnappers had been using an inside man there, someone who could contact them when their prey came by for a drink.
“We’ve got a man down,” she whispered into her mike. “Get the EMTs ready. We’re clearing the scene and—”
A shout echoed in the warehouse. A deep, guttural cry of fury, and Sam rushed into the gaping darkness.
Max paced the lot, his gaze sweeping from the left to the right.
“Easy,” Agent Kim Daniels told him. “I know it’s hard, but in just a few minutes, this will be over.”
That was what scared him.
His gaze raked to the left once more. There was one car parked in the shadows near the edge of the street. One lone car. He frowned, staring at it. A BMW that looked so out of place. Nothing else was there. No one. But that car…
He squinted, struggling to see a bit better. No streetlights, but there was a reflective decal on the back of it. Kinda looked like a dolphin. Beth had a decal like that. She’d gotten it when she and Frank went to Orlando for a business trip last fall.
What were the odds?
“That car… it’s Beth’s.” Same model. Same damn decal. Same position on the far left of the bumper. Dammit. Dammit. He whirled away from the car and raced for the warehouse.
But Kim jumped in front of him and slammed her hand onto his chest. “What are you talking about?”
“That car!” He pointed back to the BMW. “It belongs to Frank’s assistant, Beth Dunlap.”
But why would she be here?
Pitch black. The only light spilled from their flashlights. Sam rushed into the darkness, twisting and turning as she followed the beam.
A soft squish of sound. Ragged breathing. Groans.
Her flashlight revealed an open door before them.
Luke went inside first. “FBI! Freeze. Stand down, it’s—fuck.” Horror there, and Luke wasn’t a man to be horrified.
Sam sped in after him, the glow from her light joining his on the floor. Quinlan. Quinlan was there, covered in blood. Slashes on his arms, his bare chest. Deep, oozing wounds.
He had a knife in his hand. A bloody knife. His tight fist gripped the hilt of the knife that he’d shoved into another man’s neck.
The man gasped, and it was a choking, watery gurgle of pain. Her flashlight fell on the man’s face. Not the kidnapper. Not him.
Frank.
Tears leaked from Frank Malone’s eyes. The knife had plunged, hilt-deep, into his throat. Blood poured from the wound, soaking Quinlan’s hand and staining Frank’s shirt.
“D-Dad?” Quinlan’s broken whisper rasped out as he stared at his father, now illuminated in the pool of light. “Dad!” Quinlan started shaking, hard, his whole body trembling.
Luke grabbed Quinlan’s arms and heaved him back. “Get the paramedics in here, now!” The order was yelled into his mike. He put his hand over the knife and held it in place. Removing the blade would just make the wound bleed faster. “Secure the scene,” he barked to Sam and Ramirez. “Check every damned room. Find them!”
But she couldn’t move. Quinlan was still in that small bubble of light. He lifted his hands, torn, bloody hands. “The b-bastard told me… s-said… I’d hear the gunshots… s-said… said… my dad would be d-dead….” He lurched forward and grabbed his father’s hand. “Dad! No!”
“Get more units in here,” Sam spoke quietly into her mike. “We’ve got three victims.” Her voice grew stronger. “We need uniforms searching every room. Move!”
Ramirez was already moving. He headed back into the dark hole of a hallway.
Malone’s eyes were on his son. Wide. Desperate. His lips trembled but only groans and gurgles came out of his mouth.
Sam fell to her knees beside him. “Malone, Malone, stay with me. Focus. You’re going to be all right.” Lie, lie. He wouldn’t make it. His skin had already started to turn ashen. So much blood.
A gun lay on the ground at his side.
Quinlan began to rock back and forth. He had on a pair of jeans, nothing else. Sobs shook his shoulders.
Attacked his father.
Another watery gurgle tore from Malone’s lips.
“What was he doing here?” Luke demanded, putting pressure on the wound, but the blood wasn’t slowing.
“S-sorry…” Quinlan’s wild cry. “So… fucking… sorry, Dad!”
Frank’s lips moved. Max.
“He’s here,” she told him. “Just hold on, okay? He’s here.”
“Dad, don’t die!”
But he was dying. She knew it. Luke knew it. There was too much blood. The wound was too deep.
Her fingers curled around Frank’s. His lips moved, trying to soundlessly form the words that he couldn’t speak.
Footsteps thundered outside. The EMTs. Coming to try and save Malone.
“Frank?” Not the EMT. That was Max’s desperate voice. No, no, he couldn’t be there.
“I-I did it!” Quinlan’s scream. “Oh, God, me!”
Frank spasmed. The EMTs pushed through the doorway and shoved Sam away. She grabbed Max, holding onto him, smearing his stepfather’s blood on his shirt. “You can’t be here.” Crime scene. Evidence. But more… You can’t see this.
“Quinlan?” Max whispered his name.
His brother’s head wrenched up at the sound of Max’s voice. Quinlan tried to stand, but his legs gave way, and he hit the floor again.
The EMTs swarmed around him.
“M-my fault…”
Max shook his head and lunged for his brother.
“Get him out of here!” Luke ordered.
And Sam had to do it. She grabbed Max and held tight when he fought her. “Come on.” He couldn’t be there now, couldn’t see—
Frank die.
Two officers helped drag him outside. Outside, into the air that was already too chilly for the fall but didn’t reek of blood and death. But it wasn’t so dark outside now. Lights spilled from the cop cars that had swarmed the scene. Spotlights had been brought from some of the vehicles to illuminate the area as they searched for evidence and secured the perimeter.
“He’s alive.” Max’s hands were clenched into fists. “Sam, he’s alive.”
Quinlan was.
“Frank.” He said the name and shook his head. “I-I saw him. H-he’s going to be okay, right?”
He hadn’t seen, not in the darkness.
“He was hurt, Max. Badly.” She tried to pull him away, needing to shield him from what was coming. But his shoulders just stiffened in a move she’d seen him make so many times now.
“He tried to save Quinlan.” Certainty there, in his voice and eyes. “When I saw Beth’s car; I knew it was him. The way he acted at headquarters, trying to get out so fast…” Max broke off, shaking his head.
The front door burst open, and two EMTs ran out, pushing a gurney. Their patient was the man from the hallway. His eyes were closed, and his dirty blond hair was matted with blood.
A gun had been on the floor next to Frank. Had he shot Kevin? Kevin fit Monica’s profile… early twenties, definitely strong build. And he’d been at The Core, so he sure would have had plenty of opportunity to commit the crimes.
Another gurney emerged from the warehouse. This one carried Frank’s still body. Too still.
The lights from the cars hit him and revealed too much.
“What the fuck?” Max’s startled cry. “Frank!”
The EMTs pushed the gurney into the back of the ambulance. The lights flashed on as the siren screamed.
Frank Malone wouldn’t have long.
“Go with him,” Sam whispered. Quinlan would be out next. Max shouldn’t have to choose between them. “Go.” She pressed her hand against his back.
Quinlan would make it. He’d better. But Frank…
Max hurried forward and jumped into the back of the ambulance. Before the doors closed, his eyes met hers. Held.
Sam didn’t blink. Not until the doors slammed closed. Then her eyes squeezed shut, and a shudder shook her body.
When Quinlan was wheeled out moments later, he was calling for his father, a broken, weak cry because he knew what he’d done.
“Take him,” Luke said from behind her. “We’ve got the scene.”
Sam climbed into the ambulance. Quinlan’s chest looked like hell. The flesh was red and criss-crossed with knife marks. His left arm had been slashed from shoulder to elbow. And his left hand… bandages had been looped around his knuckles, but the EMT was cutting them away and revealing the small stump that used to be his ring finger.