Every passing minute felt like an hour. Proctor finally sent him a message that they had arrived.
Sean informed him of the change, that Elise had left but Jay was holding a gun on Everett, and Lucy and Brad were being held hostage at Everett’s house, along with the Everett family.
Kane is on his way—if he’s not already there. Give your people a heads up.
He heard nothing from Proctor for a minute. Everett switched accounts and started blubbering next door.
“This is the last one,” Everett said. “There were twenty-four, I swear.”
“There’s supposed to be twenty million. Where’s the rest?” Jay said.
“I don’t know! The computer says you should have all the money.”
“My bank says I don’t.”
Jay. He was Mona Hill’s contact. The one to whom she’d sent the ten-second video of Lucy chained up and about to be raped.
Sean wanted to beat the bastard senseless.
He had to control the rage. He wasn’t an angry person. He’d always been fun loving. Carefree.
Not always. He’d been extremely angry when his parents had died.
And then when he’d been expelled from Stanford because he’d hacked into the computer network and exposed one of the professors as a pedophile.
And then when he’d been at MIT and learned someone was stealing the pensions from retirees.
And when he found the foster kids locked up, malnourished, beaten—and some of them dead—in an old Mexican prison.
Yes, he had rage because he hated bullies. He hated people who preyed on the weak and innocent. Who stole money from old people and abused children. But he didn’t just have angry feelings about these bullies, he acted. Because if he didn’t, who would? The FBI couldn’t stop these people, not all of them. The FBI had known about Lucy’s rapist after the bastard raped and killed one of their own agents, but couldn’t find him for five years. Had they done their job right the first time, Lucy would never have been kidnapped and raped.
And that bastard Jay would never have seen her suffer. Even a ten-second clip was ten seconds too many.
Jay was talking too low for Sean to hear. Sean shut down the network completely to buy more time.
He sent Proctor a message.
Now or never—I shut down the network to stall, but Jay just realized that they’re missing seventeen mill.
Sean closed down his laptop and stuffed it in his bag. He walked over to the peephole and saw Everett frantically typing on his computer.
“I’ll shut down, then bring everything back up.”
Jay grabbed Everett by the collar and hauled him out of the seat. “Who did you tell? Did you call the police?”
“No! No, I swear, don’t hurt me. Don’t hurt my family.”
“Too late for that.”
Jay pressed a button on his phone. A text message? A sign to Elise? Or Tobias?
“We’re going,” Jay said.
“Just don’t hurt my—”
Jay hit him on the head.
“Shut. Up.”
Sean sent Proctor a message saying that Jay was on the move with Everett.
He’s holding a .45 and has another weapon under his jacket.
Almost immediately, Proctor responded:
We’re in place. Stay where you are.
Sean complied because there was no way he wanted to get killed today.
Jay left the office and then there was silence. For a long, long minute, total silence.
Suddenly, bright lights flooded the building from outside. A bullhorn bellowed, “FBI! Freeze! Drop the weapon or we will shoot.”
There was movement outside, but Sean couldn’t see anything through the closed blinds.
A single rifle shot echoed, then there was commotion.
But it was only the one shot. They’d taken out Jay, who was their only link to Tobias.
Sean looked at his phone and saw that Elise was in a vehicle, her signal moving too fast to be on foot.
Jay wasn’t their only link.
“Rogan!” a voice called out.
Sean opened the door to the office where he was hiding. Leo Proctor, in full SWAT gear, came down the wide office corridor, flanked by a team of six. He told the men to fan out and search the building.
“He’s dead. He refused to comply, and we couldn’t let him leave with the hostage.”
“You get no complaints from me.”
“Casilla wants a full report.”
“He’s going to have to wait. This isn’t over. They have Lucy.”
“Casilla knows that Lucy and Donnelly are hostages. We have a team there. Our top hostage negotiator is already on scene.”
“I’m not going to the house,” Sean said, though that’s exactly what he wanted to do. “Elise Hansen is on the move. I’m tracking her.”
“Shit, Rogan, you can’t—”
“And how long until you get someone in place to track her?”
Proctor spoke into his mic. “Dunning, Quiroz, meet me at base stat.”
“Thank you.”