Cold Silence, page 30
Imagining the look on his boss’s face when he discovered who Ethan really was, and how Ethan had used his job to help evade capture? Ha. He felt a surge of anticipation while the message downloaded. Then utter panic had him careening onto the shoulder and punching the brakes.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
He hit the disconnect button and sat breathing hard as sweat dampened his brow. Blood roared through his ears until he couldn’t hear anything except the frantic beat of his own heart.
Fuuuuuck.
His VPN should hold up but the Feds might be able to locate the cell tower his signal had jumped onto. He needed to move. He needed to get as far away from here as possible. Still, he didn’t go anywhere. He examined the photograph again. And fury grew until it was lava punching through his veins. They’d stolen his money. Alex Parker and that bitch had broken into his home and stolen his crypto. It would take them time to hack into the wallets but he didn’t kid himself they wouldn’t be able to. Parker had the resources and brains to eventually figure it out. All that work and strife and those motherfuckers had ripped him off.
Ethan didn’t believe they’d give it back. Any attempt to negotiate would be a trap designed for him to tumble into and then back to jail. Death row was not somewhere he intended to spend the rest of his life.
Maybe if he could get to Africa or some country that didn’t have an extradition treaty with the US. Take this bitch with him. Negotiate from there. He had enough online connections that he could turn around and get on a boat and have a new identity arranged before they hit port on the other side of the ocean.
His hands wrung the steering wheel.
Red and blue lights flickered in his rearview and he realized a patrol car was behind him.
“Shit.”
He watched the cop slowly get out of his vehicle, adjust his hat and start walking toward him.
Ethan rolled the window down an inch as he rested the pistol out of sight.
“Sorry, Officer. I pulled over to check my cell phone.”
The man leaned closer. “You aware you have a broken taillight?”
Ethan blinked twice. “No, sir. I wasn’t.” The road was empty. No headlights in either direction.
“License and registration.”
Muffled sounds from the cargo area had the cop’s eyes going wide. Ethan fired twice through the door, straight into the man’s torso.
“You had to fucking ruin my fucking day, didn’t you, bitch!” Ethan screamed. There was only one reason the taillight could be damaged.
A sob came from the back.
He pulled on his gloves before climbing out and stepping over the large man’s body. Quickly, he opened the trunk to make sure she was still tied up. Laura stared up at him with reddened eyes.
She flinched away from the cop car’s headlights. Her hands were tied together but somehow, she’d pushed the fitting out. He quickly put it back in place. Then he grabbed his taser and hit Laura with a five-second cycle. Her eyes rolled and she shook like she was having a fit.
“Do it again and I’ll hurt you so bad you’ll wish you were already dead.”
He slammed the door shut and grabbed the cop by the feet and dragged him into the thick grass at the side of the road. He snatched the body cam off his jacket.
He rolled the guy down the embankment, sitting on the frozen ground and kicking him with both feet. Next, he jumped in the patrol car and pulled out the dash cam, as well as the computer. He turned off the lights and the engine, got out and pushed the car off the road, steering it down the embankment toward the dead officer. Then he opened the cargo door on the SUV again as Laura scooted away from him. He pulled out another set of fake plates and quickly put them on the vehicle. It was fucking cold and even with gloves his fingers were almost numb. Ten minutes later and a car was just starting to head his way, headlights visible in the darkness. He pulled carefully onto the highway and punched the gas. He was going to make sure Laura and Yael and Alex Parker all wished they hadn’t pulled that stunt. Then, after Laura was taken care of and his coffers replenished a little, he’d leave the country and start a new life.
Ethan knew how to make money on the internet and how to avoid getting caught. He’d been doing it for years. It wouldn’t take him long to re-amass his fortune.
Unfortunately, it wouldn’t take long for Laura to die, either. For the millionth time he cursed Yael’s good luck and his bad. But he’d make her suffer with his current plan and, one day, when she was least expecting it, he’d make her pay.
31
Shane had caught forty-winks but was now wide awake and trying not to stare at Yael as she worked on one of the couches toward the rear of the small plane. Dark circles shadowed her eyes. Her expression was drawn. Worry for her friend etched every line. At least she’d gotten a little rest.
“How are your feet?” he asked her.
She looked up, startled. “They’re fine. A little sore but healing.”
He nodded, wanting to say a million other things and unable to utter a single one.
Tension was ramping up as the start of the auction loomed.
“Storm approaching from the west. I’m going to have the pilot refuel in Wichita while we can still land,” Alex said quietly.
Shane nodded. Wichita was as good a place as any and central if they ever figured out a location for Grice. They still had no firm idea where this guy was. Alex’s crew in DC were working tirelessly to find some trace of him in the electronic universe but so far this guy was a ghost.
Everyone was on edge. They’d had a glimmer of excitement when EG had opened the email but he had a sophisticated VPN that Yael had only been able to narrow down to the Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado area.
EG hadn’t responded to Alex’s message yet and he was either considering his options or he’d decided recovering the money wasn’t worth the risk of death or incarceration.
Ashley Chen was in the restroom freshening up. Everyone was going to need to be at the top of their game for the next few hours.
His work cell buzzed.
“Hey, text from Sloan.” It had gone out to everyone on the task force but he read it out anyway. “Highway patrol cop was shot and killed on a rural road near Limon, Colorado around 3:20 a.m. last night.” Anger curled in Shane’s stomach. Another senseless death. “Cop stopped a green Subaru with a broken taillight. Suspect got away and stole the cop’s body and dash cams before he fled the scene. Sloan and company believe this could be our UNSUB.”
“That was around the time someone opened the email…” Yael’s lips were pale as they pressed tightly together.
“I guess he didn’t take it too well,” said Shane.
Alex swore.
“Still no reply from the email?” Shane asked.
“Nothing. He knows the chances of getting that money back and getting away are close to nil,” Alex stated numbly.
Alex opened up a program that showed cell towers near where the cop was killed and identified them and downloaded the cellphone numbers that had connected to them between 2:45 and 3:45. Then he pulled up a program and ran the numbers through another database.
“One of the phones that connected to one tower in the area for a brief one-minute window was a burner cell and yep, it matches the model that opened the email,” Alex said. “Phone was sold in Charlotte last year.” He looked around Shane to Ashley. “See if you can find out any information on who might have bought the phone.”
“Send me the details,” Ashley said, grabbing a coffee on her way across the room. “Where exactly is Limon?”
He and Alex leaned over a map and Shane felt a tingle of anticipation that suggested they were onto something. They were close to that area.
“It looks like our guy but where’s he going? And why drive out all this way in January?” Ashley mused.
“Oh god.”
He turned. Yael was staring at the map and at Alex with huge eyes, a growing look of horror on her face.
“You don’t think…”
“Think what?” Ashley prompted harshly. “This is not the time for guessing games.”
Yael flinched at the sharpness of the other woman’s tone and Shane had to batten down his protective urges. Professional, remember?
Professional sucked.
Yael tipped up her chin and leaned closer to the screen, zooming out on the map a little. “My family has a personal association with a town near Colorado Springs. A dark one.” Her shoulders slumped and she seemed to shrink in front of him. “I mean, it could have nothing to do with his intentions.”
“Or it could be everything,” Alex said quietly.
“What association?” Shane asked.
“My brother was responsible for a school shooting there.” She swallowed repeatedly. “He also murdered our parents.”
Ah, shit.
Shane’s heart broke for her. So this was her big secret. Her big shame. It was a hell of a burden for anyone to carry.
Ashley didn’t look surprised. Looked as if the other agent had already figured it out. And Alex knew. Shane’s feeling of frustration grew. Not because this was about him, but because he wanted Yael to know he was here for her. And maybe he just had to prove it to her by supporting her now that the truth was out.
“Aside from the fact he fixated on you in Quantico, why do you think he would risk traveling all this way?” Alex asked.
“I don’t know.” Yael sounded angry, which was good. “To twist the knife? To hurt me because hurting people is what gets him off?”
“Would he risk going to the school?” Shane asked. “Or your old home?”
“The house was torn down by a developer a few years ago.” Yael shook her head. “I don’t know about the school.”
“It’s Sunday so the school is a viable option.” Alex pondered. “Maybe that’s why he sped up the auction? I doubt he’s expecting us to track him via aircraft and he didn’t plan to get pulled over or kill a cop. But he might abort his original plan after opening that email. Conducting the auction anywhere in the area would be enough to drive home the point. Especially when he reveals Yael’s real identity and connection afterward.”
Shane jolted. Real identity?
He looked at her but she wouldn’t meet his gaze.
“Do we call in the local PD for help checking the school or not, Shane?” Ashley asked for his opinion to his great surprise.
“If we have a lead on a possible location, I want us to be the first ones checking it out. I’m not sure I trust a small local police department to be up to the job when this guy has evaded law enforcement for years. Nor do I want to catch a bullet from an inexperienced officer when they see us arrive on scene heavily armed.” Shane checked the map. “Let’s get Sloan to call in HRT’s Blue team from the west coast in case this turns into a hostage situation. Keep Gold team on the east in case we’re wrong about EG’s location. It’s going to take Denver’s FBI SWAT time to get down there and into position, probably longer if the storm is as bad as the weather service predicts and if we’re wrong…” Laura could be dead by then. He checked his watch. Considered the various options. “Have our pilot head for the airfield closest to the school. Ask SWAT to stage nearby but out of sight as soon as they can get there. Explain we have a small team doing some initial recon. The three of us can check out the building while Yael stays in the jet and tries to pinpoint EG’s location.”
“The auction is about to start,” Yael reminded them all. “Communications might be dicey with the bad weather. I don’t want to be cut off if you need my help.”
“You can work in the car,” Alex said, heading to the cockpit to tell the pilot to change course.
“What car?” Shane asked pointedly.
“On it.” Ashley followed Alex to also talk to the pilot, while Shane updated Sloan.
When Alex came back a few moments later, Yael still hadn’t moved from where she stood with her hand gripping the back of the cream leather seat.
She cleared her throat. “There’s something I didn’t tell anyone. I didn’t imagine it could be in any way relevant at the time.”
“What is it?” asked Alex with a lot more patience than Shane was feeling.
“The night of the attack. EG took a photograph of my family off the sideboard.”
“I never saw any photographs,” Shane stated.
Yael crossed her arms over her chest. “I only put it out that night.”
And it being stolen had probably reinforced all her beliefs that keeping her past hidden was the right thing to do.
“If he hadn’t figured out who you were before that night all he had to do was run facial recognition on that image and he’d get about a million hits,” said Alex.
She nodded.
Ashley looked annoyed. Alex shrugged. Shane wished to hell Yael had trusted him enough to share this with him.
“Let’s gear up,” Shane told them, making sure to keep his tone neutral. They started gathering the equipment they were going to need when they hit the ground.
“Was this the real reason you decided we were over?” asked Shane under his breath as he leaned down beside her.
Her fingers trembled as she stuffed various power bricks and a second laptop into a bag. “That and the fact the good people of this town put me on trial as an accessory to mass murder. I guess they didn’t trust me either.”
He flinched. Jesus. His suspicion was the worst possible thing he could have done to her.
“Do a Google search. The internet is full of bullshit conspiracy theories where I somehow instigated the whole thing and got away with it.” Her eyes filled with tears but she blinked them away. She always did.
“You lost your parents…” He was struggling to understand.
She zipped her laptop bag and grabbed her coat, swinging it over her shoulders. “Apparently that was part of my wicked plan.” She sent him a defiant look. “I inherited a lot of cash and was the beneficiary of two large life insurance policies when my parents died. The companies tried their best to make sure they never had to pay out.”
“Time to strap in,” warned Alex.
“You could have told me,” Shane said quietly, sitting in the nearest seat.
“It doesn’t change anything.”
“Like fuck it doesn’t. You could have trusted me,” he reiterated.
“The same way you trusted me?” She refused to meet his gaze and he burned to make her understand that things were different now. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll be moving on when this is over. Some people will make sure of it.”
He blinked in surprise. “You’re going to run away from it your whole life?”
“What do you care? The sex was great but right from the start you told me you weren’t interested in relationships.”
“I told you at the lake—”
“We’d just had the best sex of our lives at the lake and you felt guilty as hell for lying to me,” she whispered fiercely.
Shane’s tongue welded to the top of his mouth. Everything had changed, but how did he convince Yael of the fact? He had to catch this killer and fulfil the vow he’d made to his best friend. Even thinking about a future with Yael felt like a betrayal of Scotty’s memory, a betrayal of his widow and fatherless kids.
Yael gave him a baleful stare and turned away to carry on working, desperately searching for a fixed location on EG.
He didn’t have time to deal with their personal issues. Neither of them did. It was costing them focus on the mission and that was the damn problem with relationships.
The jet touched down with barely a bump and Shane glanced out the window with an annoyed sigh.
“Fucking snow.”
Yael looked up warily.
He unclipped his seatbelt before they came to a stop and pulled on an extra layer before he gathered his weapons and ammo. Everyone wore a flak jacket under their top layer. None of the others were fully prepared for a snowstorm and he didn’t have all the cold weather equipment he’d usually favor for warfare in this kind of environment. He and Alex had night vision goggles.
“Can you turn off the power for the school if we give you a signal?” he asked Yael. “Maybe we can catch him off guard in the dark.”
Yael nodded. “I should be able to.”
“Do not leave the vehicle. No matter what.” He tossed Ashley a pair of thin but warm gloves. He couldn’t do much about her leather boots but maybe they’d get lucky and they wouldn’t be outside much and the snow wouldn’t be too deep.
Perhaps that was all wishful thinking in a case that had never gone their way.
He had a basic comms system with him and he handed everyone an earpiece. “Clip the other end to your collar,” he explained to Yael. “Press the button if you want to speak. It’ll only work within a short distance of about a hundred yards.” What he wouldn’t give for Gold team’s comms system.
He tossed Ashley his black knit cap and she pulled it on without a word of complaint. He handed Yael the red bulldog hat she’d worn a few days earlier on the hike to Zenko’s cabin. A lot had happened since then.
“Oh, no.” There was a shake in her voice even as she held her head high, focused on the job. “The auction just went live.”
Feelings for her stormed through him but now wasn’t the time. He needed to catch this killer and then maybe figure out his life. This was for Scotty and for all the other victims of the psychopath. Capturing Evi1Geni-us was the only way to keep Yael safe. He just hoped she gave him a chance to prove himself to her again. To prove he wasn’t like all the other assholes who’d doubted her in the past.
32
Ashley had arranged for a four-wheel-drive SUV to be delivered to the tarmac where their jet landed. Alex insisted on driving. They were still five miles from the school and it seemed to be taking forever to get through the snow-covered highways.
