THEY NEEDED TO FIND out who had drugged Bree’s grandmother. Jack watched as the manager typed in the time stamp on the nursing home’s surveillance system, starting thirty minutes ago, in the hallway outside her room.
“Fast-forward slowly,” Jack said, describing the man they were looking for.
At the fifteen-minute mark, Jack motioned for her to stop. “There he is. Entering her room with the pills.”
He watched it play out. Thirty seconds later he and Bree entered the room. The man talked with them for thirty seconds, then he left, managing to avoid any clear shots of his face. But unfortunately for him, they didn’t need the footage to be able to identify him.
“Do you have any cameras outside?” Bree asked. “Any of the parking lot? We need to see what he’s driving.”
“Give me a second . . .” The manager switched to another camera, then pulled up footage of the parking lot after the guy left Mary’s room.
They waited for him to emerge from the building. “There he is.”
“I think his goal was to enter without anyone seeing him and take her,” Bree said. “He was hoping by the time someone discovered she was missing, he’d be long gone.”
Jack could hear the panic in her voice. Two of the staff plus a security guard were with her grandmother right now, ten feet away from them, waiting for the ambulance that had been called. He’d encouraged Bree to stay with her, but Bree had said there was nothing she could do right now. She’d insisted on helping him find whoever was behind this.
“Here we go,” the manager said. “Looks like he got into a white van.”
“What about the license plate?” Bree asked.
“I can try to zoom in, though I’m not sure our system is good enough to pick it up.”
Jack drummed his fingers on the desk while he waited. The camera zoomed forward.
Bingo.
The license plate number came into view.
He picked up his phone and called his contact at the local FBI headquarters in the city. “Kate, this is Special Agent Jack Shannon again. I need you to put out a BOLO for this vehicle, and I want you to also try and track it down for me using city surveillance cameras.”
Jack gave her the model and license plate number of the white van that had left the facility.
“I’m on it, sir.”
“What’s the ETA on my backup?” Jack asked.
There was a slight pause on the line. “I’m estimating another minute, sir.”
“Give them directions to escort the ambulance to the hospital and stay with our victim until I get there.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And call me the minute you locate the vehicle.”
He hung up and heard the wail of a siren getting louder outside. “There’s the ambulance now. Kate said our backup should be here in a minute.”
Bree went to say goodbye to her grandmother.
His cell phone rang.
“Kate, what have you got?”
“The van’s stolen, but I’m working with OnStar to track it. Right now they’re heading south toward the Riverwalk.”
Jack signaled at Bree while Kate gave him the location. “We’re on our way. Keep us updated.”
Backup arrived as he and Bree reached the parking lot. Jack quickly made sure they knew what to do, then unlocked his car. Bree slid into the seat next to him and he started the engine.
“They’ll keep her safe.”
She stared out the window as he backed up. “I know.”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Me too.”
They rode in silence for a few minutes, headed toward the location where the van had last been spotted. Thankfully, Jack was relatively familiar with the city, having spent three months in San Antonio working on a joint task force between local PD and the FBI.
“Seeing Nana always brings back so many memories. Like how much she loved to bake,” Bree said, breaking the silence between them. “She always made the best cherry pie with cherries from the trees in her backyard. I remember standing on a chair watching her rolling out piecrust when I couldn’t have been more than four or five. There was always homemade fudge and caramels for Christmas dinner along with all the trimmings. And she also made the best homemade jams. She was a stay-at-home mom who kept the books for my grandfather’s gas station. She wore hats on Sunday to church, and never went out without her stockings.” Her voice broke. “I’m sorry . . .”
“You have nothing to be sorry about.”
“Do you remember coming with me to visit her that one summer?”
“Of course. She eyed me up and down until you assured her—in private—that the two of us were simply friends. Then I remember her telling stories about the Depression.”
Bree laughed. “I’d forgotten about that. She was always so protective of me until her memory started to fade. Now . . . now she doesn’t even know who I am half the time.”
He reached out and squeezed her hand. She’d already experienced so much loss. Her father had deserted her family. Her mother had died. And now, not only was the senator involved in all of this, her grandmother had just gotten dragged into it as well.
His phone rang and he pushed the button on the steering wheel to answer it. “What have you got, Kate?”
“I’m not sure where he’s heading, but we’ve got him close to the Riverwalk on Alamo Street. I’m working with OnStar to remotely slow down the vehicle.”
Jack made a right-hand turn, still scanning the street for the van. It had to be here somewhere.
“Jack,” Bree said, “stop the car.”
He glanced to the right where she was looking. A white van had just pulled into one of the side streets in front of them.
“Do you see the driver?” he asked.
“He just got out of the van and is heading east.”
“Bree, wait . . .”
But she was already out of the car. She slammed the door shut and started running after him toward the Riverwalk as Jack pulled up next to the curb.
Bree shouted at the man. “Stop! Police!”
Jack parked the van and headed after them. Dozens of people were dining along the famous Riverwalk in the middle of San Antonio that was lined by shops and restaurants. Bree was already twenty yards ahead of him, and their suspect another ten in front of her.
Jack groaned. Did the guy really think running was going to make things easier? They came to where the sidewalk split and continued on both sides of the river. Bree had taken the left side, in pursuit of the suspect. Jack took the right, crossing the narrow river. He sprinted down the sidewalk, running parallel to Bree and the man. A boat filled with tourists floated down the river between them. Pedestrians window-shopped and ate an early lunch at outside tables. Dozens of tourists hurriedly stepped out of his way as he dodged between and around them.
He was gaining on the man. If he could get ahead of him and cross over . . .
A woman pushing a stroller was in front of him, oblivious to what was going on. Jack shouted again, trying to get her attention as he barely managed to squeeze by her without knocking her over.
He kept running, watching out of the corner of his eye. He was ahead of the man now. Ten feet . . . fifteen . . . Jack ran up the steps and crossed a short bridge back over the river, then turned toward their suspect. With Bree seconds behind him, their suspect was trapped. Realizing his options had just run out, the man tried to dodge past Jack. Instead, he lost his balance and fell into the waist-deep water.
The man staggered to his feet, then started to wade toward the other side.
“Really?”
Jack jogged back across the bridge, his irritation growing. The man hesitated again, then held up his hands in surrender. A moment later, Jack pulled him out of the water and forced him facedown on the sidewalk, ignoring the crowd of people forming around him capturing everything on their cell phones.
“You okay?” Bree asked, coming around behind him.
“Better now, considering we caught this lowlife.”
Bree handcuffed the suspect, then turned him over. “What did you give her?”
He turned away and spit out a mouthful of water. “Who?”
“Don’t play games. We were there. At the nursing home.”
“Nothing, I—”
“We saw you give her medicine. What did you give her?”
The man’s British accent that she’d noticed back at the nursing home was gone, replaced by a thicker Russian accent.
“It won’t hurt her. Just a mild sedative.”
“Why?”
He still refused to look at her.
“Answer my question.”
“I was supposed to deliver her to a certain location. That was it. The pill was just to make sure she didn’t freak out on me. I know how difficult old people can be.”
“Do you?” Bree asked him. “Do you really know how terrifying that would have been for her? Your plan was to push her out of there in her wheelchair and kidnap her.”
“No one would have noticed, if you hadn’t shown up. And I’m sure they would have returned her. She probably never would have known.”
“None of that matters. You’re facing charges of attempted kidnapping and assault at a minimum.”
The man just looked away, ignoring her glare.
“One more question,” Bree said, helping him to his feet. “Where were you taking her?”
“I’m done talking.”
“That’s not a problem,” Jack said. “We’ll take you down to our local field office and see if you can come up with the rest of the story. Because if you don’t, you’ll take the fall for whoever hired you.”