Voice of Fear, page 18
Patrick was about to say they’d take the dog. But he didn’t. He suddenly felt as Colleen had earlier.
Bry-bo would be the best alarm system in the world for his sister, and she’d now be at the house alone.
“We may be better off on this one alone,” he said.
Jordan had her phone out and nodded to him to indicate they could leave while she was talking to Jackson.
They left Megan, and as they got into the car, Jordan told Jackson she was putting him on speaker.
“Megan believes Ayers is somehow back in his old house,” she told him. “There was a sudden money transfer. I don’t know how he could have gotten in. I mean, didn’t she get a new alarm system for the house and aren’t there police and agents watching it?”
“Yes,” Jackson replied. “But I think Megan could be right. Ayers was bitter after the divorce stripped him of his easily available income. I’m afraid if we go in guns blazing, he’ll take her out first. And if he got in there, he’s got a way to get out.”
“I think I should just go to the front door,” Jordan said. “Ayers has never seen me. I can pretend to be an old friend of Amelia’s daughter, Deirdre, and pretend I hadn’t realized she wasn’t still staying with her mom. If I can get her to the door—”
“You’d have to get through the gate,” Jackson said.
“Or over the gate and then pretend the intercom wasn’t working?”
“Risky,” Jackson said.
“We can’t just let him kill her!” Jordan protested. “Jackson, I can pull this off, I swear it. Because Patrick can be seeking a way in while I distract Ayers. I think he’ll let her get to the door. He’ll be afraid someone might use force to come in if she isn’t seen. And I will know right away, Jackson, if something is or isn’t wrong.”
“I can’t see another way to do this,” Patrick agreed, listening to her.
He didn’t want Jordan taking any risks. And yet he knew if she were a male agent, and a plan to use subterfuge had arisen, he would have weighed the situation and believed it was their only recourse.
He knew he had to let Jordan be the agent she intended to be.
“Jackson, we can do this. I’ll be right there.” He glanced at Jordan. Her jacket, he knew, covered the Glock at the back of her waistline. Her hair was loose, and while her appearance was businesslike, it could also be considered casual enough. Something she wouldn’t have bothered to change before stopping by to see if a friend was available.
And, he thought dryly, she was wearing pants. So much better for scaling walls.
“I’ll inform our agents and the police captain of what you’re attempting and why. They’ve had a constant check-in here. No one has approached the house from the front, and we’ve had agents circling the property as well. It is in a heavily wooded area, so of course, they’ve made a point of circling the perimeter throughout the day.
“The man managed to fake a murder attempt. He was willing to play Russian roulette with his own life. And he had no problem murdering the doctor trying to save his life. I’m sure no matter how agreeable she is—transferring money to save her life—he’ll kill her when he’s gotten all that he wants. He loathes her; she was his charade for years. Now the charade is over. Jordan, we protect and save, but I’ll be damned if I want to lose an agent to that man.”
“I’ve played it close before, Jackson. I’ll be fine,” Jordan said. “Again, I’m not alone. And maybe—” She broke off, staring at Patrick. “Alfie! Alfie could help. Is the cemetery on the way?”
“Close enough. Let’s go pick up a ghost,” he said.
“Keep me caught up on every step,” Jackson said.
“Yes, sir,” Jordan assured him, ending the call. “Night again. One of these days, we will get arrested for trespassing at night in the cemetery.”
He grinned. “Alfie will hear us, and when we ask him to jump in, he’ll do so. We can explain on the way.”
He was glad to be proved right. Alfie had been chatting with a friend, a man whose ghostly uniform suggested he had protected and served back at the beginning of the 1900s. He saw Patrick and Jordan heading toward him—having hopped the wall again—excused himself, and hurried over to them. He was anxious. “Something? Nothing?”
“We need you to walk through a wall,” Patrick told him. “Come on; we’ll explain on the way.”
They did. When they pulled up near the Ayers house, they all left the car quickly. Patrick paused only to grab his bag of tools. Both Jordan and Alfie looked at him curiously.
“I learned a lot from some of the criminals I’ve encountered,” he told them with a shrug. “Break-in tools.”
When they reached the grounds, Alfie grinned and walked through the wall and fencing system, leaving them to carefully crawl over toward the rear, where they could find the cover of several old trees.
“I’ll be right back,” Alfie promised.
He slipped into the house. Patrick and Jordan remained hunched down by the trees and waited.
“You were right. How the hell he got in there, I don’t know,” Alfie said. “But he’s got Amelia downstairs in her office. He has a gun to her head. He believes she’s terrified and addled enough to be having trouble finding numbers and accounts.”
“Amelia has a housekeeper who has been with her forever; she’s a part of the family, really,” Patrick said.
Alfie nodded. “Whatever the plan is, execute it soon. The housekeeper is on the floor by the stairs; she’s been knocked out. Blood trickling from her forehead. She’s going to need medical assistance ASAP.”
Patrick frowned. “You’re sure she’s alive?” he asked.
Alfie nodded. “I know the difference between the living and the dead,” he told them dryly.
“I’m ringing the bell,” Jordan said. “Alfie, get back in there. Maybe you’ll get a chance to trip the man. Patrick—”
He pointed. “Give me a minute. I’ll get in through a window in the rear.”
“You might set off an alarm,” Jordan warned.
“And if I do, it will throw him off. And you will be ready. Alfie—”
“I can’t shoot anyone,” Alfie warned quietly.
“No, but you can throw him off, too. I need to get in there. He’ll probably start worrying about getting out in whatever way he came in. Which means he won’t dare kill a hostage; he could be shot down if he is seen and he’ll know that. He’s not a stupid man. He’s been playing everyone for decades. When he realizes he may be apprehended, his first thought is going to be to get away. Jordan, give me a minute to get around and figure out my entry. Then ring the bell.”
“I’m going in,” Alfie told them.
Heading around the house, Patrick found a large bay window. He had learned a great deal from the criminals he’d worked with. He opened his bag and found glass cutters and a grip. He wanted to keep the glass from crashing, to avoid any sound until they were ready.
He heard the doorbell. He’d managed to remove a good-sized sheet of the glass when the doorbell sounded. The glass opened to the parlor; the small office was one room over.
Patrick could hear Ayers talking to Amelia.
“Who the hell is that?” he demanded. “I know you didn’t call the police, even if they’re out there. Get up. Now. I want to know what the hell is going on here. You open your mouth, say the wrong thing, I’ll be happy as hell to put a bullet through your head.”
“You’re going to kill me anyway,” Amelia Ayers whimpered.
“But you’re going to live on hope until the last minute!” Ayers told her. “Let’s both pray it’s not a cop ringing that bell.”
Patrick kept at it with the glass as the two walked away. He had cleared an entry when he heard Ayers say, “It’s some woman. A pretty one. Maybe we could have some fun here tonight. Who is she?” he demanded.
“I don’t know. I’ve never met her,” Amelia said.
“Open the door. Find out what she wants. Invite her in. Wait a minute. Why didn’t we hear her at the gate?”
“Maybe the alarm isn’t working. Maybe she jumped the fence. I don’t know. I didn’t call her. I didn’t call the police, I swear it!” Amelia said.
“Open the door. She’s my type. Gorgeous. And young. Much younger than you, bitch. All the money in the world couldn’t make you attractive to me! Of course, you weren’t for years, but you were a good old girl when it came to making me look good.”
Patrick heard the door open. And he heard Jordan’s cheerful voice.
“Hi, Mrs. Ayers. We haven’t met, but I’m a friend of Deirdre’s, and I had heard she was living back home for a while?”
“I’m sorry, dear. Deirdre isn’t here now. She’s back working.”
Ayers must have shoved his gun into his ex-wife’s head, because she seemed to choke before speaking again.
“But come in, come in!”
It was time to move. Patrick jumped over the sofa and started for the hallway.
But as he did, he heard Amelia Ayers suddenly scream, “No!”
And a shot went off.
Twelve
Two things happened that saved the life of Amelia Ayers.
Alfie was there. And while he was nothing but spirit, something of that spirit moved the air and Rory Ayers’s hand just to the left.
And Jordan had a choice. Catapult herself through the air and bring Amelia down where she’d be out of the range of the bullet, or...
Let her die and take Ayers.
There were all kinds of arguments that might be made. Amelia needed to die so that others could live. But they might get Ayers before he managed to kill again; he was on the run. And with Amelia alive, money could be transferred back, and he wouldn’t have the funds he needed to keep up his reign of terror.
In the split second in which she had a choice to make, Jordan knew she had to save the life of the woman who had just been willing to die to warn her to get out.
And so, Jordan flew at Amelia, bringing her down, rolling as quickly as she could before Ayers regained himself and shot them both.
His bullet went astray and killed a lamp.
Miraculously, he didn’t take aim again. Because he heard someone coming. He knew someone was in the house. Someone lethal.
Coming for him.
Ayers turned and ran. He jumped over the body of the prone housekeeper and disappeared across the parlor like a streak of lightning.
But Patrick was there, ready to take up flight, except just as he reached them, Amelia began to seize violently on the floor. He stopped briefly with a pained expression before falling to his knees and yelling for Jordan to find something, some kind of a stick, something for Amelia to bite down on lest she take out her own tongue and choke on it.
“There!” the ghost of Alfie Parker said.
There was a small newspaper stand by the door. Jordan slammed it violently on the marble entry floor and handed him one of the narrow legs. He quickly rose and caught hold of Amelia Ayers’s violently flopping arms and secured her against his form while getting her to bite down on the stick. He didn’t have to tell Jordan to get on the phone and get help there fast.
Because law enforcement was watching the house, help arrived quickly. A police medic first, and then emergency services. Amelia was quickly secured in an ambulance, the seizure being brought under control.
Medics also confirmed the housekeeper was alive, though she had taken a heavy crack to the head and might have a skull fracture.
Jordan had also alerted the officers on the scene, and Jackson, to the fact they’d had Ayers. While teams searched the grounds and surrounding area, others scoured the house top to bottom.
Every room, every closet, and every nook and cranny was searched. They couldn’t find Ayers. One of the officers broke down the space beneath the stairs, but there was nothing there except for dirt and spiders.
Officers reported there had been no time when the perimeter of the house hadn’t been watched; they even had security footage.
But then, the security footage never showed the man entering the house in the first place.
As Jordan and Patrick listened to Detective James Parker of the county police, Patrick shook his head. “It’s impossible. He got in somehow, and he got out somehow. We just haven’t figured out how.”
“My men have gone crazy in there. They’ve broken walls and found nothing. Hell, I can’t figure it out either,” Parker said. “You’d think the man was a ghost.”
“An insult to all ghosts,” Alfie muttered, standing behind Patrick.
“It’s there—he has a secret entrance in there,” Patrick said.
“But we would have seen him in the yard,” Parker said. “I swear to you, we have been on this. The FBI has had your fellow agents on it. We would have known if he’d approached the house, and we would have seen him fleeing, for sure!”
“He was real,” Patrick said. “Flesh and blood,” he added dryly, aware of Alfie’s words, though, of course, Parker hadn’t been.
“We’ll keep at it,” Jordan said.
Parker looked at her, shook his head, then looked at Patrick. “Kudos to you both. From what I understand, Ayers wanted to kill that woman and you kept her alive.”
“And let him go,” Jordan said regretfully.
“But we serve and protect; you saved her life. We’ll keep looking. We’ll have crews out here until we do know what the hell happened—”
“We’re here to help, too,” Patrick said. “And when we hear she’s stable, we’ll bring a computer to the hospital. Mrs. Ayers is going to want her money back.”
“Right.” Parker nodded. “Well, we have crews who can do this, and you surely deserve the rest of the night off, but if you’re determined, knock yourselves out.”
“Thank you,” Patrick said. He grinned. “We’ll do that.”
When Parker had walked away, Patrick turned to Jordan and said, “He headed toward the kitchen. Basement stairs, I believe. He got in and out that way, I’ll bet.”
“Megan,” Jordan said.
“What?”
“Patrick, we have to get the money back. The money he forced her to transfer to his accounts. Is Megan good enough to get in there and get it transferred back?”
“Megan is good with this stuff, but we should call Jackson. They have people at headquarters who can get on it.”
“Right! If anyone can manipulate anything, it’s Angela.”
“I’m headed down to the basement.” He paused, looking at her. “That was amazing, by the way. You really did save her life.”
“With a little help,” Alfie said. “Still, you did move like...a speeding bullet.”
“And thanks to you, Ayers murdered a lamp!” Jordan said. “But now he’s out there...”
“We can never second-guess,” Patrick said. “Jordan, just pat yourself on the back for once, okay?”
She grinned at him. “I wasn’t too reckless?”
He groaned and turned and headed for the kitchen. She looked at Alfie and then hurried after Patrick, remembering the house was now crawling with officers and agents and forensics crews.
The door to the basement stood open and Jordan hurried to it; Patrick was already going down the stairs.
He stood on the concrete floor at the base of the stairs, and she joined him.
It was a basement. Just an ordinary basement: pipes were visible throughout, the water heater stood against one wall, gardening tools were in a corner. Another section housed a washer and dryer, plus an ironing board. Folding tables were in another. The walls all looked like old brick. Structural elements of the house were clear and evident.
Jordan shook her head. “I don’t see anything!”
“But we know he is flesh and blood,” Patrick said, his hands on his hips as he studied the place, slowly.
He walked to the wall in the laundry area and crawled over a basket to reach the wall.
It was a large house.
That meant a large basement.
But Patrick wasn’t giving up. He went by the laundry, the gardening tools, and the water heater. Old bikes were stacked up in one area, probably not used for years, Jordan thought. Patrick walked behind them, and searched for any sign of a break or oddity in the wall. He walked past the little area where the water heater was, looked at it curiously, walked back. He stepped behind the heater and began running his hands over the wall again.
“Patrick?”
“Come over here. It’s made to look as if it’s just where bricks join. But look, it’s too smooth—too clean-cut—even where the bricks are different sizes.”
“Right,” Jordan muttered. “No grout!”
He kept pressing the wall in different places. Jordan took a step back as he did. She frowned and noted there was a strange handle near the floor that didn’t seem to be connected to the water heater.
She stepped over to it. It was metal, the same as the water heater. But she stooped down and pulled it and then jumped back at a strange grating sound. The wall was opening behind the water heater.
There was, however, no one there. Instead, there was a tunnel that led into darkness.
Jordan hadn’t realized Alfie was standing behind her until he spoke quietly.
“I should go first,” he said.
“Alfie—” she began.
“What’s he going to do, kill me?” Alfie asked.
“No,” Patrick said. “You have to give us a chance to tell the cops and warn whoever is out there in the forest that Ayers has a tunnel here and he might be anywhere by now. I’ll just run up, and Jordan—”
“I’m already calling Jackson,” she said.
A minute later, Patrick was back. “Let’s go.” He switched on a heavy light he had apparently obtained from his bag of tools.
“Alfie, feel free to lead,” he said.
Alfie nodded and started into the tunnel. Jordan followed, and Patrick—keeping the beam of light high and clear above them—followed behind Jordan.
