Owen sat in traffic, like he did every morning when he hadn’t been called out of state to view a slaughtered body. So really traffic was a good thing. It might be composed of different cars every day, but it was always the same thing. It was only the cares in his brain that truly seemed to differ.
This morning one thing kept tumbling in there, like laundry in a dryer, softening as it went. While he and Charlotte had been discussing the latest developments on her favorite cartoon over raisin bran, Annika had casually mentioned an article she had found. It seemed the drug trade through Texas had remained significantly low these past months, having dwindled from huge movements of cocaine to merely a trickle with the unexpected death of Ling Mai Na.
If the courts hadn’t been able to pin anything on the woman while she was alive, the correlation when she died was enough to know she’d been guilty. The authorities had gotten smart and jumped. Having seen their chance, they managed to plug the hole, fill the gap, whatever, before the next head sprouted up to take Na’s place.
Interesting.
The Christmas Killers, who’d again left no bows or tags, or anything other than dead bodies and footprints, had done something the DEA hadn’t been able to do for years.
Wanting to close his eyes and absorb some of his thoughts, Owen thought better of it. FBI Agent Closes Eyes During Rush Hour, Causes Pile-up wasn’t the headline he wanted to read from his hospital room. Still with his eyes open, he could imagine himself throwing open a door, gun trained into the space, and finding them . . .
What?
Mid-kill? Would he stop them if he found them, say, putting the final touches on a barely breathing Kolya Kurev? Owen’s sworn job was to stop them and get an ambulance to help the man. But Kurev’s lawyers would surely get him acquitted and he’d go free again.
No, that didn’t sit well.
Maybe Owen would find them sitting in a room somewhere, plans in front of them. And then he’d know how they did it. How they got inside, how they got around the Kurevs’ alarm systems, and beyond the dogs the times they had. But again he couldn’t picture himself slapping cuffs on either of them and hauling them in. Even in his own head the image got away from him. He saw his hand come out as he introduced himself, his head leaning over their shoulders to look at their plans, and his voice saying, ‘what happened to the seven slugs from the .357s at Na’s? Where did they go?’
He couldn’t even imagine himself arresting them at this point.
He was beginning to wonder if he just had to keep them from getting caught before he left in September. He pulled into his parking spot, not remembering the trip, but able to recall every thought he’d had along the way. Apprehending the Christmas Killers would make his career. He’d get an Agent in Charge position most likely. He’d be free of Blankenship. But he didn’t really want all that. He didn’t want to be a budgeteer, didn’t want to have to tell his men that their surveillance was cut short. Even if he went off to teach, he’d have a remarkably better salary, and a lot more options, as ‘the Agent who caught the Christmas Killers’ than as Owen Dunham.
But Owen Dunham had a problem climbing high on the backs of those who didn’t deserve to be stepped on. It was why he’d gone into the FBI in the first place. He would have been a cop if he could have gone straight into homicide, but knew he didn’t have what it took for the climb through the ranks.
His cell phone rang even as he entered the front doors. Of course he dropped it, like a bumbling fool, because it was difficult to answer the phone and press his thumb to the glass pad and his magnetized ID to the reader while looking into the camera all at the same time. A smarter man wouldn’t have tried it. Wouldn’t be looking at the tiny screen at his feet that read “Agent Bean”, which it didn’t need to say, because the phone had popped open when it hit the ground and Owen recognized the voice yelling up at him.
The beep of the machinery meant he’d been cleared and he swiped the phone up even as he passed through the opening doors. Talking over the dressing down he was already getting from his superior, Owen inserted a false note of cheer. “Good Morning, Agent Bean, what can I do for you?”
“You can answer your phone without a hammer-”
“I dropped it, my apologies.” Summer. University. A roomful of young faces wanting to learn about crime scene investigation and research. He promised himself this and breathed deeply.
“Regardless,” Agent Bean’s voice was rough, but the one thing Owen knew was that it wasn’t about a dead body, and it wasn’t like he was late for a meeting or anything. Or was he? In a panic he pushed buttons on the phone to call up his schedule. But Bean’s words stopped him. “There’s a package here for you. Where are you?”
“Downstairs. I’ll get in the elevator when it shows up. Package?”
“Just get the hell up here.”
A click in his ear signaled the disconnect, leaving him staring at the calendar that showed, no, he didn’t have a meeting today. Apparently he did have a package. But from whom? And what the hell would give Bean that tone?
It seemed someone had to get off at each floor, and Owen almost bolted at ten and ran the rest of the way up. He talked himself out of it, thinking that arriving sweaty and at a dead run wouldn’t look good to his superior. Even if the man wouldn’t be his superior that much longer.
When the doors finally opened on his floor, he pushed through and managed a fast walk down the hall, bypassing his own office entirely, going all the way to the end, where the door was open into the office. He could see Agent Bean at the desk, the wall of windows behind him displaying both the city and hills, as well as the importance of rank that the man had achieved.
In a blink, Owen saw that he was the last to arrive. There was an assembly for the opening of his package, it seemed. Blankenship stood to one side, hands clasped behind his back, looking every inch the junior agent out of his league. Nguyen waited in a chair, in a full sterile paper get-up. Three other agents that Owen didn’t recognize at all waited at the periphery, although one carried a large metal kit with him. He didn’t have to read the letters on the side to know what they were about.
Words fell out of his mouth. “Someone sent me a bomb?!”
Bean didn’t react much. “Doesn’t look that way. None of the sniffers found anything, not in DC, and not here.”
“DC?” Owen was at loss. Confused, he simply stayed on his feet, unable to make any decisions at the moment, even the small ones.
“It went to D.O.J.” Bean gestured at the FedEx box on his desk.
“For me?” Yeah, that stroke was going to happen . . . any . . . minute . . . now.
Figuring the bomb squad hadn’t suited up, and the box hadn’t exploded on the trip to or from the Department of Justice, Owen leaned over to look at the innocuous looking tag.
From: The CKs
A Chicago address followed, one he should have recognized, but it didn’t get further than tapping on his brain, because he was busy reading the rest of it.
To: The Agent on the Case, FBI, Department of Justice, . . .
That address he recognized. Pennsylvania Avenue, DC, yada yada. But that wasn’t what was important. It was filled out by hand on a standard FedEx air bill. It was the handwriting that made Owen’s breath stop. “It’s from the Christmas Killers. That’s her handwriting. From the tags.”
Bean just nodded. “It was sent from a Highland Park drop box. Two blocks from the return address, which is for Black and Associates. An accounting firm who handles -”
“most of the accounts for the Kurev family.” Owen heard his voice take over, not that he’d really willed it. He wasn’t functioning on all cylinders here. “The Christmas Killers sent this to me?”
Bean shrugged. “It says ‘Agent on the Case’, that’s you.”
“Holy shit.” He said it two more times. Killers contacted newspapers, tried to publish manifestos, left taunts at the scene. He couldn’t think of the last time an Agent had been FedExed by their quarry. Maybe they’d sent him an ear. A finger. He shuddered. A tip? He wouldn’t get so lucky. His fingers itched. “Can I open it?”
Owen looked at Bean. Bean looked at the bomb guys. Blankenship looked wide-eyed with equal parts fear and excitement. Nguyen’s eyes held none of the fear‒the scientific, bomb-squad check had likely been enough to convince him it would be exciting rather than explosive.
When no one protested, Owen grabbed the pull tab and ripped open the end of the box. A small black case emerged into his hands. It sported a big red bow and a handwritten tag.
Owen’s mouth hung open.
He blinked a handful of times before being able to read the tag. “Perhaps the most effective way to kill Kolya Kurev.‒The Christmas Killers.”
Bean looked at him from under partly lowered lids. “Does that mean anything to you?”
Owen shook his head, but his hands were ahead of his brain. They slipped off the three inch wide red velvet ribbon, the same stuff Owen knew was untraceable. He didn’t worry about his fingerprints. There was no way they’d left a fiber or even a hint of a breath on this thing. From the note they clearly weren’t turning themselves in.
Bean started to protest his handling of the package, gift, whatever. But Owen heard Nguyen, a soothing sound like ocean in the distance, telling the Agent in Charge all the same thoughts that had been slamming through his head. Owen unzipped the edge of the case, finding it was a CD case, just as he’d suspected.
Inside were five, unlabeled, shiny, silver discs.
Spring was in full swing and Cyn was unable to keep her nerves down. It had been five weeks, and nothing‒nothing‒had surfaced on the Kurev family.
The FBI wasn’t taking them down‒quietly or noisily. They didn’t seem to be mounting a case. And her heart was beating a little faster each day. She was anxious now. Ready to get out. Itching with the desire to be done.
That, in and of itself was dangerous.
Previously she’d enjoyed the job. The act of killing Leopold had been a very satisfying experience. A pleasure in many ways. Not just a means to an end. Now the end was all she was in it for. Her brain wasn’t on the present, but somewhere in a nebulous future she saw. A future that held Wendy’s dreams of an ordinary life.
For the first time she wasn’t angry at her sister for giving up and leaving her. She wondered if Wendy had been afraid of getting pregnant the night Leopold and Janson had come. The thought had never crossed her own mind. Cyn wished she’d been old enough, or understanding enough, to feel more for her sister when she’d told of Robert Listle. Cyn had only ever been able to rail at the injustice of it. She’d never been able to feel or even think of Wendy’s pain and fear. She wished she’d been knowledgeable enough to demand testing. To prove that Wendy’s baby belonged to the man, to maybe bring him down alive.
Cyn also had new respect for Lee.
He had achieved Wendy’s dream, then had it ripped away from him. And would never believe that wasn’t his fault.
She hadn’t felt anything other than drive and anger since she was eleven. Cyn had forgotten she knew how. So now she shuddered under the deluge that threatened to drown her, the sweep of softer, simpler emotions making it that much harder to think about going back in and doing another job.
“Lee?”
He shook his head, looking up from the small screen TVs he held in each of his big hands. He spoke even as she pulled away her ear protectors and holstered the Heckler she’d been killing the trash with. “Nothing.”
Her heart slipped into the bottom of her belly. “Do we go back?”
They’d been talking about it for three weeks. Each day deciding to wait.
Lee had written everything he remembered of Black and Associates encryption programs on one disk before they had gone into the building. They knew all the files they would need were coded, and that it would be easier if the FBI started with the code in hand, rather than trying to break it. Lee had given them everything he could. But maybe it wasn’t useful anymore. Maybe it wasn’t enough. Even though he said the code hadn’t changed in the five years he worked there, maybe it had in the four since he’d left. There was no reason to change it. They thought he was dead. They didn’t know they had a rogue accountant running around with a good part of their encryption system in his head. But then again maybe they did.
He was looking at her face, seeing the resignation, and making decisions. “Let’s go into town first. Do more online research. Dig a little deeper before we decide we have to go back.”
She nodded. He didn’t want to any more than she did. “What town?”
“Asheville?”
“We’ve been there twice.”
“Charlotte’s beautiful this time of year.”
Cyn nodded. And by nightfall they were checked into a sleazy no-tell motel beyond the borders of the pretty southern city and she had spent an hour and a half in a café with wireless access.
Having learned nothing, Cyn wound the cords and pushed her new laptop down into her old carrying bag. Necessity had dictated that she throw the old computer away and purchase a new one, in cash, by walking into a big store that wouldn’t remember her at all. The new one was silver and non-descript just like the last, and it too was going into a landfill as soon as she was finished.
She waited at the corner, chewing gum and keeping her face tucked under the bill of her navy blue ball cap. Her Duke University sweatshirt and loose cotton pants made her look athletic and would keep anyone who wanted to remember her from being able to describe her weight or shape accurately.
After an interminable two minutes, Lee pulled up in the kitty and reached across, swinging the passenger door open for her. She slid in and saw his face immediately. “Nothing?”
He shook his head.
“So, Chicago then.”
“One day.” He combated her resignation. “We get up tomorrow morning, pack everything in the car, and tool around for the day. We eat a nice sit-down lunch. Take the day off.”
Cyn nodded.
She woke the next morning, brushed her teeth, packed her gear, and stashed it in the trunk. She climbed into the passenger seat while Lee dumped the keys at the front desk. Then she didn’t know what to do.
She hadn’t had a day off.
Ever.
The last time, she’d been a kid, and she’d had nothing but days off.
Lee knew what to do.
So Cyn followed along. They walked around downtown. They window shopped. They shopped with money and bought things. They ate a lunch at a small café where a girl in a white apron offered them steaming bread and asked what they wanted to drink. Lee ordered crab cakes and Cyn practically moaned while she ate them.
He had laughed at her, and kissed her there in public. Still keeping the old façade in place, she managed to keep her eyes from flying open. Then she distracted them both by suggesting that if they were going all out they ought to get wine. Lee laughed as he shook his head at her. “No IDs. Besides,” he leaned over close to her ear, “you’re not legal ‘til next month.”
They walked further, ate ice cream in the middle of the afternoon, and her head swam with memories of being a kid, things she’d shut down a long time ago. Things she’d forgotten she ever knew. He bought her a t-shirt that said “Charlotte” across the front and laughed at her when she held it up.
They got up the next day and packed for Chicago.
Lee drove most of the trip, once again missing the music that Sin played. She wasn’t playing it this time. Instead they were planning. They went down lists they had memorized, debating each possibility.
Of the people they’d mugged, Robert Graff was the highest up in the organization. They knew where he lived. His route home. They knew they could get him. Cyn liked the idea. Lee was afraid the man might remember him. Although the possibility was slight, the risk was probably too much to take.
He shook his head. “If he recognizes me, then they know exactly who they are looking for. They can use photos. Best case anyone probably has right now are those police artist sketches of us. And we both know those are worth crap. But if they know who I was . . .”
Sin put in her two cents. “Besides, he has a family. I’d rather hit someone single. Especially if it’s in their own home. I’m not going to have his wife, or god forbid, kids, find him. They don’t deserve that.”
They both mentally scratched him off and went to the next name on the list.
By the time they reached the edge of the city and checked in, they had a victim chosen and knew where they were going.
Taking the biggest gamble he ever had, Lee walked into Black and Associates the following night, Sin at his side again. They pulled the same don’t-pester-me routine they had the first time. And this set of badges passed inspection just as the first had.
They went into the elevator with Lee’s knees shaking.
He’d been afraid that they would be stopped right there in the lobby. That the company would know they’d been breached and have pulled the tapes from their previous visit. They wouldn’t have seen his face, but they would have heard the whole in-from-New-York thing. And they would know that a man and a woman had come after the rest of the employees had gone home.
But this wasn’t the same guard‒something he and Sin had waited for. And the man had let them in.
Part of Lee’s brain argued the entire time that this was ridiculous. Unnecessary. They didn’t have to come back, but the other part was afraid of not finishing the job. They needed every bit of evidence they could gather. That part won.
He let himself into Graff’s office and sat at the desk while Sin worked down the hall, hacking more files. They had to work from the same desks as before as they didn’t risk getting more keys. Lee pulled documents from other sources. He worked at cracking passwords to get into other places he hadn’t even tried before.
Then he realized that the footsteps coming down the hallway weren’t Sin’s.
His head snapped up, his ears alert, listening for long enough to realize it didn’t sound like the heavy-set security guard, either.
There wasn’t time to do much of anything. But a moment later he was ready.
When the doorknob turned, Lee knew things were going down. He would have alerted anyone who was walking by if he’d flipped the light off. So he hadn’t, and he’d prayed the person would pass. It hadn’t been enough.
The key twisted in the lock, and the door swung open obscuring Lee from view.
“What the-?” Robert Graff walked into the room like the accountant he was. He had no street savvy, hadn’t even thought to look behind the door, or simply leave. Clearly, someone had been in his office. Lee felt some kind of sympathy. Especially when the man’s stupidity put him right back at the top of their list.
With a Heckler firmly in his grip, Lee stepped out from behind the door. Knowing he made an odd picture, in his suit and the dark ball cap he’d pulled out to cover his face just a moment ago, Lee used the look to his advantage. He didn’t look right. And that would make Graff wary.
Lee raised the gun into the man’s line of sight. The silencer stuck out from the muzzle long and menacing, every inch of it very out of place in the rich office. As he watched, Graff’s entire body tensed. Lee whispered. “You shouldn’t have come back tonight. But now you’re going to help me.”
Graff answered in a whisper, unconsciously mimicking the man in power. “What do you want?”
“Open the accounting files where you hid the laundered money. Pull up any offshore accounts you have access to, show the series of deposits and withdrawals as far back as you can go. Save it all to disk.”
“No!” The man’s spine jerked. “They’ll kill me.”
Robert Graff wasn’t as stupid as he looked. He was smart to be more afraid of the Kurevs than of anyone else. Unfortunately, Lee was the immediate danger.
With the gun not aimed directly at him, Graff made a play. He turned and grabbed for the muzzle, managing to get his hand fisted around the silencer only because Lee wasn’t willing to shoot him. But Lee wasn’t above hurting the man.
Yanking back on the gun extended Graff’s arm, and Lee’s left fist came down on the nerve cluster just below the elbow. The man’s hand lost all ability to grip, and Lee regained control of the Heckler. Which was a good thing because Graff was already swinging his right fist to connect with Lee’s face.
Not smart.
Like most non-fighters, he pulled back, alerting everyone around him what he intended to do, and he swung wide, hoping to gain momentum as his fist careened around.
With no wasted movement, Lee flicked his wrist and brought the long nose of the Heckler down across the tendons near Robert Graff’s neck.
As the swinging arm lost all form, Graff opened his mouth to howl. Lee had moved by the time the gathered inertia brought the limp arm to its original destination. Another quick snap of a movement brought his left hand slapping over the man’s mouth, his own harsh “Shhhh!” drowning the start of the man’s cries.
Wide blue eyes darted to the doorway, alerting Lee that someone was there. He glanced up to see Sin standing against the frame, her own ball cap pulled low to cover her face, and easily identifying her as his partner. Graff stepped back, flexing both hands to be certain that they still worked. The man looked like he was about to piss his pants, and for all their sakes, Lee really hoped he didn’t.
Sin gave a quick nod from the doorway.
They would have to take Graff.
Sin’s voice was an even harsher whisper than Lee’s had been. “Do you know who you work for?” She didn’t look up from under the cap. Her short strawberry hair flipped out from under the edge, making her look like she was spending the day out at a game until you looked at the neat suit.
Graff nodded. “Black and A-”
“Who you really work for.” She didn’t let him finish the half-truth. She was pissed and Lee wondered where she was going with it. But he’d always enjoyed watching her work.
Graff’s voice was little more than a mumble of concession. “The Kurevs.”
“Exactly. And do you know what they do?”
“I prefer not to think about it.”
Lee smiled. That was a great reply, it wouldn’t get Graff killed if they were Kurev’s men come to extract some kind of revenge, and it answered Sin’s question. Perhaps the man would be useful after all.
Sin didn’t smile. She went for the jugular. “You work with us and we’ll save your family.”
“How?” Graff was shaking, standing in the middle of his own office, probably regretting he’d ever come back for whatever had seemed so important.
“You tell me what to tell your wife. Where they should run. Where the Kurevs won’t find them. I’ll get her the message before you’re found.” She closed the door softly behind her.
Lee saw his own eyes in Robert Graff’s. Suddenly knew what the man’s family was worth to him. His heart went out, but at the same time he shuttered it‒no one had given Lee the chance to save his family. His voice was harsher than he intended it, but never left a whisper. “You’re working now to save your wife and daughters. Your pretty blonde wife, and three little girls, the youngest who is still in diapers and has red curls.”
Graff stiffened at the mention of his family. With lead feet, he sat himself at his desk. “What do you want me to get?” Even as he asked it, Lee was positioning the Heckler along the man’s spine to remind him to do as he was told.
Trust me, he thought, you don’t want to find out what the Kurevs will do to your girls. But he bit his tongue and didn’t issue the warning. He had worked with Robert Graff, only a little and a long time ago, but he couldn’t give the man that much warning about his identity. Because he wanted out.
Graff stank of scared sweat an hour later, but he’d opened all kinds of files the two of them would never have been able to.
Grateful for that, Lee motioned the man out of his own seat and stepped in to scrub his trail. Fifteen minutes later they had cleared out both the offices they had been in. They had better decrypting software that Graff had loaded for them, and offshore accounts with deposits going in.
Still afraid but resigned to his fate, he only nodded as Lee talked him through the next step. “You realize you are in serious trouble here?”
Graff nodded again.
“We’re going to save your family from the Kurevs. Where should we tell them to go? Someone not connected with your family in any way that can be traced.”
Graff thought on that for a minute. After he told them, he acted like the model prisoner, staying with them as they used the back exit to the building. They all climbed into the rental car, with Sin in the back, holding the Heckler on Graff, and drove out of the parking structure looking like the best of friends. There was no traffic to speak of, as it was nearly midnight by that point. But that meant no one would see Graff with them or remember the three of them in the gold sedan.
Lee thought as they drove along, that they absolutely could not go back to the building again. The guard would likely look for them when they hadn’t returned in several hours. The accounts Graff had tapped into might very well show the activity. Things would blow soon‒they’d lit the fuse, even if they hadn’t intended to.
He pulled up in the alleyway behind the pretty house in a nice Chicago suburb.
Graff looked at it longingly and even moved for the handle of his door.
Sin’s voice carried on a sweet whisper from the backseat. “Goodnight, Mr. Graff.”
Her hands expertly located the bundles of nerves in his shoulders and he slumped just a little, the sensation not the same but not all that different from pain, Lee knew. When he was disabled, her hands closed around his throat, her fingers searching. Even as Graff regained use of his limbs, he blacked out.
“Go.” Her word reached Lee, and he nodded only once before pulling the ski mask down over his features, the only thing showing were his lips and blue eyes. He used Graff’s key to let himself in through the back door, the alarm pad there blinked at him, and Lee popped open the panel and cut a wire, then quickly taped two others together. Graff hadn’t lied about the system. So far, so good.
The hard part was sneaking into the bedroom‒violating this woman’s sense of privacy and her space. But it was the only way he knew to save her. She was sleeping on her back, and Lee wondered what Samantha and Bethany had been doing when Leopold had come in. He shoved the thought aside and focused.
He brought one gloved hand down across the woman’s mouth. his finger found his lips, motioning her to be quiet even as her eyes flew wide in fear. “Shhhh! Don’t wake your girls.”
She nodded under his hand, her motions controlled by abject terror.
“Listen, Robert sent me.” He didn’t move his hand, no matter how confused she looked. “His firm works for the Kurev family. He’s in trouble. They’ll come after you if you don’t take your girls and leave now. Now. Nod if you understand me.”
She did. Eyes wide. Breath came heavy against his hand. She would never forget him. He was grateful his eyes were blue tonight. As always, just in case.
“Robert said to go to your fairy godmother’s. Do you understand?”
She frowned, and her chest moved with the deep need for air. He wasn’t cutting it off, but she was still fighting for it. Lee watched as her eyes changed. He knew the nod was coming before she did it. She’d figured out what Robert meant, which was a damn good thing. Because Lee sure didn’t get it.
“If you do not leave in the next hour, the Kurevs will likely come after you. Do not contact anyone. Throw your cell phone in the water. Take only what you need, whatever money you have on hand, stop and get as much cash at an ATM as you can before you leave town. Use your credit card to fill up on gas and leave the card at the gas station. You want it to get stolen and used. Take the little car, it uses less gas. Take any jewelry you can pawn. Do not contact anyone. Anyone.”
She nodded again and again while he talked. And Lee hoped she was getting it all. One slip up, one credit card receipt in the wrong place could bring the Kurevs down on them. He tried again to give them every advantage. “Buy hair dye, make your girls look like boys. Don’t do anything to be remembered along the way.”
Her breathing had ratcheted up, but Lee stayed calm. “I’m going to remove my hand. I’m going to leave. Do not scream. Do not call the cops. The Kurevs can get to you through the police. I’ll be gone in one minute and you’ll never see me again. Then get up and leave.”
His hand had slowly moved from her mouth. He stood upright and walked backward out of the room. He heard no movement from any of the other rooms, until he was at the back of the house.
A small blonde girl in a ruffled nightgown held a glass of water with two hands. She looked up at him with questioning eyes. And, God help him, he saw Bethany.
Her mother appeared in the doorway behind him and he was bracketed by the two females. “Hey, sweetie.” She said to the little girl, who docilely walked within inches of him, more worried about spilling her water than she was about the strange man in the ski mask. Mrs. Graff looked up at him one last time. “Robert?”
Lee shook his head and whispered. “I don’t know.”
Then he slipped out the back door. Mrs. Graff punched buttons to re-set the alarm system, he was too far gone to tell her he’d disabled it. He spotted Sin in the driver’s seat and Robert Graff in the back, already trussed up and ready to go. He only awaited the red bow and tag. Lee looked back at the house as Sin pulled away and was grateful to see what appeared to be a flashlight bobbing in one of the upstairs bedrooms.
Owen was a bundle of sweat and nerves.
His pager had gone off at three a.m. Again he was dressed and in the car with his bag before he placed the return call. He’d come fully awake to hear that no, he did not have a dead body on his hands, but a live one.
It had taken a while for the feds to locate the man yelling into his cell phone, as he hadn’t known his location himself. Once they arrived they’d done nothing. The agents had left him right where he was. They worked with the local police after being alerted by a passerby who had called 9-1-1 describing what she’d seen. They set up barriers around the man, the high fabric kind they used to keep people from staring at bad car accidents. They were saving the scene for Owen. Not a cop in the U.S. wanted to touch anything that came with a big red bow.
Owen got a call from a police officer on the scene halfway through the flight, updating him. Armored trucks had been driven in as barriers, and other bullet-proof shields were being erected around the man, unless Owen wanted them to move him? There had been shots fired ten minutes earlier. One officer was on the way to the hospital but would live. The barriers had provided enough of a shield that at least the shooter had missed his mark.
Agitation poured down his forehead in liquid beads. Owen fought to take a breath. Who was trying to take out the live man the Christmas Killers had left? And why? “Who is he?”
“Robert Graff, sir.”
“That means nothing to me.” God, people were stupid. “What does he do? Why him? I need info!”
The cop took it all in stride. “He’s an accountant with Black and Associates.”
“Get him out of there!” He heard the barked order repeated at the other end of the line to the agents already on the scene and Owen just as quickly rescinded it. “No! Wait! What does his tag say?”
“I’m not looking right at him, gimme a sec.”
A ‘sec’ felt like a year, but he waited, praying he didn’t hear shots ring out in the background of the call.
“It says: ‘To the Agent on the Case. From the CKs.’ I’m guessing that’s the Christmas Killer-”
“Yes.” He wanted a teleporter, although if the first thing he would do upon appearing at the scene was examine the man or wring this cop’s neck, Owen wasn’t sure. “Anything else?”
“Yes. ‘Will tell all in exchange for immunity’”
“Take him down!” Owen practically screamed it into the small cell phone. As it was, between the force of the words he was expelling and how slippery his hands were with sweat, the phone was likely to go flying right out of his grasp at any moment. The thought didn’t calm him. “Protect him with your lives!”
Why didn’t the plane go faster? He was grateful it was only to Chicago.
The order was issued. “One more thing. We’re going to have to cut some rope to get him down, and he’s got some CDs he’s wearing on a string like some kind of tribal necklace. He’s not gonna blow if we move him, is he?”
“The Christmas Killer has never used explosives before. He’ll be fine.” Owen didn’t mention that there were two Christmas Killers and that they just kept changing their M.O. Case in point. So explosives wouldn’t surprise him one bit. Them killing an accountant would. He spoke into the receiver again. “Be sure he’s protected from the top as well as the sides from gunfire.”
“What? Someone’s coming after him in a chopper? Or up in a tree?”
“The Kurevs are after him.”
That shut the cop up real fast. In Chicago, the Kurevs were big business. The cops either worked for them or feared them. This guy had called Owen, so he likely wasn’t on the payroll. Owen prayed Robert Graff stayed safe.
Five minutes later he got a call from the Chicago field agent. “Sorry we couldn’t get in touch before, we were securing the scene. I think it was an officer that fired the shot earlier. With that tag, the Christmas Killer might as well have just dumped him in a piranha tank with some raw meat. We didn’t get here in time to keep it strictly feds. But we are removing cops as more agents are answering the call.”
“How is he -” Owen didn’t know what to ask. “Is he tied up? Staked out? What?”
The agent actually laughed. “He was tied to a tree. His arms were wrapped around the trunk and secured with some knots that take me back to Eagle Scouts. His feet were also tied and secured to nearby trees.”
“Let me guess,” Owen scrubbed a hand over his face finally feeling the descent of the plane, and noticing for the first time that Nguyen and Blankenship were gleaning every ounce of the conversation that they possibly could from his side. “He was tied up with rope that could be bought at Home Depot, OSH, any of a handful of stores.”
“Try Wal-Mart.”
“Fuck.”
Nguyen looked up at that, and Owen mouthed ‘Wal-Mart’ to the scientist who then uttered his own ‘fuck’.
“We took photos. Lots of photos. And we’ve got Graff in the armored truck now. What’s your ETA?”
“Twenty minutes.”