DRAKE HAD NOTHING to do.
Activity swirled around him as Prescott called in the rest of his troops. Texas was waking up Interpol contacts halfway around the world, getting more details on Kasanov’s past crimes and known associates. The smart-mouthed kid, Taylor, turned out to be some kind of cyber-wiz and was coordinating the local search while simultaneously scanning CC camera footage along Kasanov’s escape route. Jimmy was arranging interviews with Alicia Fairstone as well as the people who’d been seated at Kasanov’s table at the gala last night.
Drake couldn’t stop staring at the photos of the murdered women who’d been found in Kasanov’s wake. Nickolai Kasanov, born 1940 or 1941—same time Hart’s grandparents had been in France, working against the Nazis. Meant nothing. After all, how many millions of boys were born during those two years?
Still. Rosa. He’d never met her—she’d died four years ago, long before he met Hart. But he’d seen photos of her and Padraic. Hart looked so much like her grandmother it was uncanny.
He jerked upright. All those dead women. They all looked like Rosa.
No. He blinked, looked again at the grainy photos, scoured from ancient police and autopsy records. No, they didn’t really look like Rosa, did they? Same dark hair, same high cheekbones, but that was commonplace in the locales where Kasanov had hunted.
God, he was losing it. He slumped against a corner of the room, watching Prescott fire orders into two phones he juggled. Was it only two nights ago that he’d been happy? Two nights ago he’d had the promise of Steadfast’s debut, the promise of money to build upon the dream come true that was the Liberty Center, the promise of Hart, marrying her, having her for the rest of his life.
The bang of a phone being slammed down shot through the room. Drake jerked upright, hand falling to his gun.
“Son of a bitch,” Taylor said.
A spike of terror impaled itself in Drake’s heart. Dead. They were both dead.
He turned to the window, hiding his face, blinking back emotion, pretending to be absorbed in the twilight-cloaked skyline visible across the river.
God, what was he going to do? He wanted to howl, scream, to pummel and destroy—to inflict the pain he felt on someone else.
Instead, he turned, spine held ramrod straight, shoulders hunched against the expected blow. “What?”
Taylor finished his notation in the log and looked around, surprised every eye in the room was on him. “I found where they made the first car switch.” His fingers tapped and a map appeared on the screen, tracing Kasanov’s route. A red arrow blinked.
“Three Rivers Medical Center,” Jimmy said. “The arrogant sonofa—”
Drake closed his eyes for a split second, trying to reorient his soul. There was still a chance, they may still be alive, a whisper of hope blew through his mind.
One way or the other he had to know—he didn’t think he could survive much more of this.
“Do we have visual confirmation?” Prescott barked at his junior G-man.
“Yes, sir, downloading from the security office at Three Rivers now. Their cameras are on a three-second scan, so it’ll look little choppy.” He shut up as the images filled the screen.
Drake felt his heart lurch as he saw his mother being manhandled from the back of a Town Car and then placed into the rear seat of a Toyota Avalon. She looked fine, other than the look of terror etched into her face. They drove off and vanished from sight.
A few frames later Kasanov jerked Hart from an identical Town Car. Even in the grainy black-and-white images, Drake could see blood splattering her face and dress, more than what he’d seen in the earlier images of her at Tessa’s. His fists tightened and he took an involuntary step forward as if he could vent his rage on Kasanov in person instead of observing impassively from a distance.
The image flicked again, the men leading Hart to a pale gray minivan.
“That a girl,” Jimmy whispered in the silent room. Prescott nodded in agreement—somehow in the few seconds it had taken her to cross the pavement, Hart had spotted the security camera and made a point to stare at it, her back momentarily to her abductors. In the next frame, she was being shoved into the rear of the Dodge Caravan—her hand planted firmly on the roof of the gray vehicle.
The same blood-smeared hand she’d held out to the camera in the previous frame.
“What was the time on that?” Prescott asked, his eyes cutting to the window and the rapidly setting sun. He didn’t wait for Taylor’s answer but grabbed his phone. “Tell the copters to stay out, sweep a pattern from Three Rivers Medical Center. Gray Caravan, don’t bother with the plates, they’ll change them, but there’s a bloody handprint on the roof. I know they won’t be able to see that in the dark, so tell them to hustle before it is dark!”
“Sir, this footage is almost two hours old,” Taylor said, his voice contrite.
“Goddamn it! Why didn’t those rent-a-cops at Three Rivers pick this up earlier?” Prescott flared.
“Kasanov was there during change of shift,” Taylor explained. “And the parking level they used was supposed to be closed. It’s scheduled to be repainted, so it wasn’t on the live feed monitors.”
“Who knew about the painting? Let’s get someone working on that,” Texas suggested. Drake still hadn’t caught her name—and really didn’t care.
The older law enforcement officers in the room merely shook their heads. “It’ll be a dead end,” Jimmy told her. “We need something to give us an idea where Kasanov is heading next, not how he knew where to go hours ago.”
“Oh.” She looked crestfallen as she returned to her own assignment.
Drake glanced out the window, the sun setting a new speed record as it slid to the horizon. Think you could cut us a break here? he sped the prayer out to the heavens, not really caring who or what was there to hear it, as long as it was answered.
<<<>>>
AS CASSIE SPUN her tale of that first wild night when Rosa rescued Padraic and then together they plotted to rescue the rest of his crew, she realized there was one good thing about being held captive by a madman while wearing your wedding dress. The billowing skirts hid her legs along with the shards of glass she slid beneath them every time she shifted position.
That glass bottle Kasanov had broken in order to torment her was going to win her a chance to escape.