Mallory nodded. “Appreciate it.”
She went to the trunk, but Alex stopped her.
“Let me check it out first.” Alex put on gloves and a very unattractive hairnet. He was hypersensitive about leaving his DNA at any crime scene, for good reason. He opened the rear passenger door and eased the back seat forward an inch and shone a penlight inside the trunk.
For a full minute he studied the interior of the trunk in meticulous detail. Then he crouched and looked under the vehicle, working his way around the base. “I don’t see any obvious boobytraps.”
Because even though she was already dead, if Caroline Perry had killed multiple Federal Agents, she’d presumably be happy to take out a few more should the opportunity present itself.
“Stand over by the trees,” Alex told them, but he was looking at her when he said it.
She pressed her lips together but decided it wasn’t worth arguing about. She had a baby to protect.
“Be careful,” she told him before moving thirty feet away. Maybe they should call the bomb squad, but Alex wouldn’t open the trunk if he seriously thought there was a threat. She spread her fingers over the baby bump, feeling the person inside stretch and wriggle.
“What did you say he consulted about again?” the deputy asked.
She huffed out a silent laugh as Alex carefully eased open the trunk. “Everything.”
When Alex turned to face her, she knew he’d seen something of relevance.
Inside the trunk was a Browning rifle complete with a hunting scope.
“Is that the rifle used to shoot Agent Mortimer on Tuesday?” Mallory asked Alex.
“Could be.”
She’d bet on it.
The flash went off as the police photographer recorded the evidence. Mallory turned away and walked down to the water’s edge. The opposite bank was reflected in the river. It was wide here, clear and shallow at the margins. Tiny fish darted away as her shadow fell across them.
If Caroline Perry had killed herself, how had she done it? Got undressed and then walked out into the river and let the current take her? The drag marks suggested otherwise. It suggested the woman had been incapacitated, or dead, before going into the river.
Mallory called Frazer even though it was a Saturday and he was home relaxing with Izzy. The FBI did not stop on weekends. “We found a rifle. We need a ballistic analysis on it straight away. I’m going to ask the local sheriff about a dog team to track some footprints. Someone should put a tail on Feldman—just in case.” Something about this whole thing wasn’t adding up. Mallory stared at the footprints walking away from the scene. “And another thing, find out what size feet the guy has.”
Frazer laughed mockingly on the other end of the line. “Yes, Boss.”
Chapter Nineteen
Dominic left the negotiation room at eight that night. The last four days had been a monotonous grind comprising of twelve-hour stints in the negotiation room—still situated in the main prison admin building—and sleeping a few, short inches away from a woman whose looks and scent were starting to drive him insane with lust.
He’d had a brief meeting with the Incident Commander and Kurt Montana when he’d finished his shift tonight. He planned to be back on duty by six AM sharp tomorrow. If the hostage-takers didn’t surrender beforehand the plan was for three tactical snipers to simultaneously shoot all three hostage-takers as they walked to a helicopter that would be waiting for them in the courtyard. A hugely difficult plan fraught with the potential for death of the hostage-takers and the hostages alike, but the authorities were losing patience with these inmates.
In the meantime, the negotiators needed to keep the hostage-takers calm and talk them through all the stages of what they thought was their exit strategy. Making sure each stage was carefully choreographed even though the prisoners would never leave the compound.
The hostage-takers were to leave the four hostages on the ground, and the FBI pilot would serve as their only remaining captive until he set them down somewhere remote north of the border. That was the deal. The pilot would be armed, and the prisoners needed the guy alive as none of them could fly a helicopter. Still it was a hell of a brave thing to agree to, even in principle.
These men were armed and dangerous and, as Milo had proved, completely unpredictable.
Dominic followed Ava back to their trailer, his steps dragging with weariness.
The prison shrink was shocked Milo was involved. The serial killer was doing a doctorate in philosophy and had a good working relationship with the staff at the prison—nothing like multiple life sentences to focus the mind on education. According to the psychiatrist, Milo had been a model prisoner who regretted his crimes and respected the warden and was grateful to her for allowing him to continue his studies. The guy had never been alone with her though, or armed and in control. That changed things.
A lot depended on the sadist’s fantasies, and if any of these events fed into them, not to mention whether or not he was swallowing the medications they were sending in via an air vent in the wall.
Dominic did not like the steady deterioration in Gino Gerbachi’s behavior. The man only dozed if Frank took a watch. He was sweating, nervous, exhausted, pissed. He was close to breaking. Dominic found his tired eyes instinctively going to Agent Kanas’s round ass as he walked behind her to the trailer. Maybe Gino wasn’t the only one close to breaking.
He shook his head at himself. She was off-limits and the last thing he should be even thinking about was sex. Except now he was thinking about sex. Goddammit.
“I have some news on the investigation,” Ava began, turning eagerly to fill him in on any updates.