Did he really believe he was getting out of here?
Mallory Rooney forwarded an email about the dead waitress. At the time of Van’s funeral, Caroline Perry had not been at the bar nor the university. No one could place her anywhere which meant they couldn’t rule her out as the shooter. She had been working at the Mule & Pitcher when Van had eaten there and the Feds found capsules of Liquid E in her bedroom of her shared apartment, suggesting she was probably responsible for drugging and nearly killing Dominic. Had she drugged Van and staged his death? ME’s tests were inconclusive, but GHB metabolized out of the body fast.
No long gun. No evidence she’d ever owned or even fired a rifle, but they were still looking for the waitress’s car.
Had she finished whatever she’d set out to do? Maybe she thought Dominic was dead in that car wreck? Had she committed suicide rather than go to prison?
ME said she’d probably drowned but hadn’t been absolutely certain. They were waiting on lab test results. And DNA results.
DEA were immovable on sharing their video footage. Boy, were they ever pissed with her for ruining their op. Lincoln Frazer’s team was doing its thing creating a profile. Alex Parker had examined Van’s cell phone data and discovered her friend and mentor had received a call from a burner the morning of his death. The call had lasted fifteen minutes.
Alex was trying to find out when and where that burner had been bought and used. Maybe they could catch the UNSUB on surveillance images somewhere.
If this was an intricate plot designed to kill a specific group of FBI agents then Ava doubted the UNSUB would be sloppy enough to be caught on camera. Planning had been too detailed, too thorough. Even figuring out the names of the agents on the squad would take work for someone outside the Bureau.
Could they have hired an investigator?
Ava looked up as some sort of scuffle broke out on the TV monitor. The sound was on very low so the headset Joe—the guy doing all the talking—was using wouldn’t pick it up or produce feedback. The hostage-takers had their phone on speaker.
Gino had grabbed the lone woman in the room—the warden—who cried out as the mobster dragged her by her bound arms across the floor into the center of the room.
“What’s happening in there, Gino?” Joe kept his voice calm even though the tension in the room felt like something was about to shatter.
“Nothing’s happening, you fucking prick. That’s the fucking problem. We want out of here. Do you get it yet?”
Joe closed his eyes and seemed to be mentally bracing himself. “I’m sorry, Gino, that this is taking some time, but how am I supposed to arrange that helicopter when I don’t have the assurance from all three of you that you won’t hurt the hostages?”
Dominic pressed his lips together. Although he was still in his seat, he looked animated and full of energy. And handsome. Those bruises were faded to pale gray now and did not detract from the outer package.
And did you? Want to be touched?
Ava closed her eyes and looked away before he caught her staring.
“How about this, Joe? How about if we don’t get a helicopter in the yard in the next thirty minutes then I’m going to slice this bitch from throat to snatch.” Gino’s voice oozed venom. “But only after I’ve had a little fun.”
Gino tore the warden’s shirt open, and everyone in the room froze. The woman had maintained a brave front until that moment, but now her face crumpled as Gino ran the edge of the knife across her flesh, leaving a thin red welt in its wake.
Joe didn’t look up at the screen.
“Gino, talk to me. You know that if anything happens to the hostages it won’t look good and the chances of the higher ups delivering that helicopter gets increasingly less likely—”
Suddenly the third hostage-taker, the one who’d sat in the corner sharpening his knife and refusing to communicate for days, stood and walked over to where Gino held the trembling warden.
Milo Andris spoke quietly into the receiver. “You have my assurance that none of us will hurt any of the hostages, as long as you provide us with a helicopter as my colleagues have requested, by noon tomorrow. Now you can move forward.” And then Milo took the warden gently by the arm and sat her on the floor in the corner beside him, and he carried on sharpening that damned blade.
Gino grinned like Milo’s reaction had been his intention all along and went to rummage in the refrigerator, but Ava didn’t buy it. Gino wasn’t smart enough to pull off that level of manipulation, but he didn’t want to look foolish or take on the other guy.
Serial killers even freaked out mobsters.
A man knocked on the door of the negotiation room and entered. Joe muted his mic.
The newcomer wore old jeans and a t-shirt with a beer logo on the front. “Hi there, I’m Dr. Jones. The prison psychiatrist. Just got off the plane from Lisbon so apologies for looking like this. What can I do to help?”
Dominic hustled the guy over to Ava’s side of the room and sat in a chair so close to her his knee brushed her thigh. She tried not to react.
“Tell me everything you can about Milo Andris,” Dominic asked the psychiatrist. “Especially his relationship with the warden.”
*
The area was remote and densely wooded. A couple of hikers had reported finding the car, seemingly abandoned, ten miles upstream of where they’d pulled Caroline Perry out of the Rappahannock River.
Mallory stopped to take a breath.
“You okay?” Alex asked, taking her elbow.
“Junior is kickboxing my lungs, a favorite pastime, and I’m roughly the size of a hippopotamus, but apart from that…”
“Take it slow. The vehicle isn’t going anywhere.”
“Unless the local sheriff tows it.”
“He won’t tow it,” said Alex. She hated how reasonable he sounded. “Not when it belongs to a suspect in Tuesday’s shooting.”