She frowned at him, not liking this at all, but wary of telling him how to do his job. The man had his pride and she wanted to protect that too. But dammit, she wanted him alive. ‘Adam . . .’ She sighed. ‘You’re putting yourself at risk, getting Linnie out yourself.’
‘I know. But I gave her my word. And I need to finish this, Meredith. I need to.’
She understood. But still . . . ‘What if this is a trap? What if Wyatt Hanson shows up?’
His lips curved grimly. ‘We should be so lucky. I hope he does show up.’
‘Seconded,’ Scarlett declared. ‘I want to take that sonofabitch down.’
‘Thirded,’ Deacon chimed in.
Adam took her chin and tugged her face up for a hard kiss. ‘You stay down. Got it?’
Meredith nodded. ‘Understood.’
Cincinnati, Ohio,
Monday 21 December, 11.40 A.M.
Wainwright had handguns, he remembered as he pulled the man’s truck into his garage and closed the door behind him. He knew this because Wainwright had permits for the guns, which he’d looked up when he moved in next to the man.
He wished Wainwright had a rifle, but he didn’t. The gun would have to be enough. There were two cops outside his house, just as Wainwright had said. He wouldn’t shoot them if he could help it, mainly because it would tip his hand and he wanted to cross over to his own property through the backyard and slip in the back door to get what he needed.
So far, so good, though. No one had come to check out Wainwright’s return so soon after leaving. The cops outside weren’t very competent. They really deserved anything that he had to dish out.
The news media had been even worse. They were setting up in front of his house. They were going to talk about him. Like they knew anything. But they’d ignored him as he’d driven into Wainwright’s garage. As long as he left the same way, he’d be fine.
He found the gun in Wainwright’s nightstand drawer, a little surprised it wasn’t in a gun safe. But that made things far easier, so he wasn’t complaining. In the bedroom closet was enough ammo to survive an apocalypse.
He filled his pockets – or, more accurately, Wainwright’s pockets. The old man’s coat was a snug fit, but it would keep him warm until he got to his final destination. Which he still hadn’t decided on, but it would be somewhere warm and sunny where nobody cared if the girl in your bed was a little young.
Fucking prudes. This whole country was packed with fucking prudes.
Armed and ready to slip next door into his own house like a goddamn thief, he moved to Wainwright’s backyard, staying easily hidden behind the eight-foot-tall temporary barn the old man had erected for the animals for his ridiculous nativity scene. Slipping into his own yard was an easy thing. A vault over a standard chain-link fence and he found himself grateful that Rita had nagged him to build the rose trellises that spanned the width of the fence on their property. He was invisible to anyone sitting out front.
It was perfect. Until he paused to check on the cops watching his house.
Goddammit to hell. A van was rolling to a stop, the side door already sliding open. And of course it was Adam Kimble who jumped out the second the van stopped. Fucking Kimble, riding in to save the day like the fucking Lone Ranger.
Hate roared through him like a speeding train and for a moment all he could hear was the pounding of his pulse in his head. He’d pulled the gun from his pocket and aimed before the intention had fully registered in his mind.
Stop. Focus. Focus. If you kill him now, you will never make it out of here alive. Right now, that’s more important than revenge or even satisfaction.
The front passenger door opened and Scarlett Bishop got out. They were here. At my house. His house that contained his bank codes and passports.
He had to get them. But he had to get away. He wasn’t sure how to do both.
Heart pounding, he mentally flipped through his options as Deacon Novak got out of the driver’s side of the van and he and Kimble approached the two cops in the unmarked car. Who then pointed to Wainwright’s house. Dammit. They’d noticed his arrival after all. They’d merely been biding their time, waiting for backup.
In the next ten seconds, two more cruisers rushed up his quiet street, lights flashing, but no sirens. Novak directed them to park across Wainwright’s driveway.
SUVs – three from CPD and two black unmarked – pulled up behind the van and Kimble directed the two unmarked to park in his driveway, blocking his own garage.
And that fast he was trapped. No way out. At least not the way he’d come. He cast a look over his shoulder, frowning at the woods at the back of his property that had always been a comforting buffer between his home and the rest of the world. That had given him an illusion of safety, that no one could sneak up on him.
Fat lot of good that does me now. Because, conversely, he couldn’t sneak away. At the rear of the property was a thirty-foot drop to Columbia Parkway. He could try it, but there was a good chance he’d break something when he hit.
He couldn’t go backward and he couldn’t go forward, but he could go sideways. To the right and he’d be seen by the cops surrounding Wainwright’s house. But to the left was the cul-de-sac, six houses down. If he stuck to the backyards, he could get around the cul-de-sac and behind the houses on the other side of the street and find a car to steal.
The five million in his password-accessible account would have to be enough for now and he’d have to buy himself another ID before he got over the border.
Shouldn’t have been so greedy. I could have been on my way to Canada by now.
But he’d never been one to dwell on should-haves. He narrowed his eyes and plotted the best way to circle the cul-de-sac.
Cincinnati, Ohio,
Monday 21 December, 12.05 P.M.
Adam wanted to groan when he saw the media setting up in front of Hanson’s house, but he wasn’t surprised. He was actually more surprised that there weren’t more reporters, especially since Isenberg’s press conference confirming Hanson’s involvement. ‘We need them gone,’ he said. ‘The last thing we need is one of them spooking Linnie into shooting that baby.’
‘I’ll deal with them,’ Scarlett said. She’d gained some experience with dealing with reporters, now that she and Ledger-owner Marcus O’Bannion were together. She set a perimeter and directed the crews from two networks to retreat behind it while Adam and Deacon talked to the cops who’d been watching Hanson’s house from an unmarked car.
Backup arrived in the form of three CPD SUVs, four cruisers, and two unmarked FBI SUVs. Deacon directed two of the cruisers to park across Wyatt’s neighbor’s driveway, because the cops out front had seen the neighbor’s truck leave and return within a ten-minute time period with a ‘different-looking’ driver. One of the cops thought he was taller, the other said broader. Either way, the cops were convinced that a different man had returned to the neighbor’s house.
Which meant that if it was Wyatt, he’d be able to fire on them at will as long as they moved about the property. They needed cover, so Adam directed the three CPD SUVs to park in a line in Wyatt’s driveway, fender to bumper. The cops who’d occupied the SUVs took cover on the passenger side of the vehicles.
He, Deacon, and Scarlett regrouped, using one of the SUVs as cover, just as another black SUV pulled in behind the first two in Hanson’s driveway, Trip behind the wheel, Nash riding shotgun. ‘We were headed to check out Mike Barber’s garages,’ Nash said, ‘but Isenberg called us back.’