Crossfire (33 page)

‘‘You know,’’ Cait said thoughtfully, ‘‘it’s not such a bad idea.’’

‘‘What are you talking about?’’ Brendan nearly exploded. ‘‘It’s a fecking dangerous plan!’’

‘‘Well, using Valentine to draw him out is stupidly risky,’’ she allowed. Then slanted a glance toward the newswoman. ‘‘No offense intended.’’

Val folded her arms. ‘‘I’ll hold off judgment on that,’’ she decided, ‘‘until I hear you come up with a better idea.’’

‘‘I’ll take your place.’’

‘‘No way,’’ said Quinn, who’d returned from his mysterious trip.

‘‘Just because we’re sleeping together doesn’t make you the boss of me,’’ she said, flashing him a falsely sweet smile.

‘‘You two are a couple?’’ Valentine asked.

‘‘About time,’’ Brendan said.

‘‘Which is why I’m not going to let you put yourself out there as a target,’’ Quinn said, in that no-nonsense, I’m-a-big-bad-killer-SEAL-and-you-will-not-argue-with-me way Cait was getting used to.

She’d certainly heard it enough times growing up with her father, the vice admiral. Which also meant there was no way Quinn was going to intimidate her.

‘‘I’ve got an idea,’’ she said. ‘‘If you two males will just dial down the testosterone for a few moments and hear me out.’’

The shooter had been pleased with the media coverage. He wished there’d been more footage of the ferry murders, but all in all, given the time constraints of local news, he thought Valentine Snow had done a remarkable job. In his opinion—and he was, after all, an expert on her—she’d even topped her Desert Storm war coverage.

The only bad thing about all that success was that when he’d called St. Brendan’s to verify the time of Cait Cavanaugh’s sister’s baby’s baptism, he learned it had been postponed. Which he had to assume was due to overkill on his part.

He smiled at the double entendre, even though he experienced a twinge of regret that he hadn’t been able to blow the FBI agent away on the cathedral steps, as he’d hoped.

Oh, well . . . there was always next time.

He was sitting at the table in the studio apartment he’d rented in Cotton House—a former warehouse in the harbor district that during slave days had served as a shipping point for Sea Isle cotton leaving for England—cleaning his rifle and waiting for the noon newscast, when a bulletin suddenly flashed onto the screen.

‘‘This just in,’’ said the male anchor with a toupee that looked like raccoon roadkill sitting atop his head. ‘‘The Somersett sniper appears to have struck again.’’

‘‘What?’’ The shooter stared at the screen. ‘‘That’s fucking impossible, you moron.’’

‘‘The victim is our WBUC’s own Valentine Snow, who was shot in the head this morning on her way into the station. She was rushed to St. Camillus Hospital, where, according to doctors on staff, she has undergone surgery to extract the bullet. We’re now returning to regular programming. Stay tuned to WBUC for updates on this breaking-news situation.’’

As the scene on the screen switched to a bunch of broads sitting around a table, chewing the fat about God knows what, the shooter pointed the remote at the TV and darkened the screen.

His actions had obviously triggered a copycat.

Whom he’d have to deal with.

But first he had plans to make.

‘‘Are you sure you’ve got everything set up?’’ Quinn asked SAC Brooke Davidson for the umpteenth time.

‘‘Yes, Mr. McKade,’’ she said with what even he had to admit was extreme patience. ‘‘We’ve guards in plainclothes posted in the parking lot, at all the entrances, and in the hallways up and down the surgical recovery floor. No one without the proper credentials will be allowed to get anywhere near Special Agent Cavanaugh.’’

From what she’d seen of Cait’s boss, the woman was intelligent and hadn’t earned her position at the top of the South Carolina FBI chain by any affirmative action, but by being one of the best at her job. He’d checked her credentials, which were gold.

But that didn’t mean he was just going to sit back with his thumb up his ass while other people who still didn’t have his qualifications protected his woman.

Who was currently lying in bed, wearing a bandage wrapped around her head and one of those backless hospital gowns she’d complained mightily about, at which he’d reminded her this had been her idea.

If the special agent in charge was right, the shooter wouldn’t even make it this far. But they were going to have to let him try, in order to catch him.

And when he did, Quinn would be ready.

Dr. Drew Sloan had bodies piling up like planes over Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson Airport during a thunderstorm. Which was why he didn’t immediately concern himself with the fax he heard coming into his office outside the autopsy suite.

A minute later, his administrative assistant came in carrying two sheets of paper. ‘‘This just came in with a top-priority notice,’’ she said. ‘‘It’s from someplace called the Armed Forces Repository of Specimen Samples for the Identification of Remains.’’

His interest spiked, Drew pulled off his gloves and went over to check out the report. The good news was the military had gone ahead and put a rush on the test and had identified the body found in the trunk of the Altima.

The bad news was that the name and the photo meant nothing to him.

‘‘Call Michael Gannon at the free clinic across from St. Brendan’s,’’ he suggested. ‘‘Maybe, with luck, he’ll recognize this guy.’’

The shooter wasn’t worried about getting into the hospital. That would be a piece of cake. The problem, as he saw it, was how the hell he was going to get up to the surgical recovery floor to see Valentine Snow.

The latest report was that she was in a coma. Which was impossible. Because if she died on him, it would mean all he’d done over these past days, all the people he’d killed, would have been for nothing.

One lucky thing. Cotton House happened to be just four blocks from St. Camillus. The proximity to the hospital, along with its relatively inexpensive monthly rents, made it a popular choice among interns and residents of the teaching hospital. During his three months in the building, he’d learned the shift rotations, which was why he was waiting in the shadows as the elevator came down to the parking garage.

The first elevator held three people, which was two more than he needed.

The second held two, both of which were females, which didn’t do him a damn bit of good.

He hit the jackpot on the third when the metal door opened and a single male he recognized as an ER resident stepped out of the elevator and headed toward the black and chrome bad-boy Honda VTX 1800 motorcycle he kept chained to a concrete pillar.

He’d unlocked the bike and was putting his helmet on when the shooter strolled up behind him. He glanced back and began to smile in recognition when he noticed the silenced Sig.

His eyes widened. He might be a whiz in the ER, but he wasn’t fast enough today. Having the advantage of surprise, the shooter pulled the trigger before the resident’s brain could send the message to his legs to run like hell.

Michael Gannon had just finished diagnosing a seven-year-old with chicken pox and was on his way to examining room A for a routine check on a young woman who’d come in for her monthly prenatal checkup, when his nurse came running up to him and handed him a fax. She was breathless, and the hand holding the paper was shaking.

‘‘This just came in from the medical examiner. It’s the man whose body was found in the trunk of that burned-out car in the marsh?’’ Her voice went up, turning the statement into a question. ‘‘The ME thinks he might have been working with the shooter.’’

Mike recognized the face immediately. Which wasn’t really a surprise, given that the former vet, who’d already suffered one tragedy, could have been unduly influenced by another, stronger personality.

And he knew exactly which one that would be.

A second thought came storming into his mind. Something the chicken pox patient’s mother had just told him. That Valentine Snow was currently in the hospital after undergoing surgery for a gunshot wound.

Knowing that the shooter harbored an obsession for the newscaster, Mike feared he was at this very minute on his way to her hospital room.

And damn it all to hell, he was the one who’d given the killer the key to St. Camillus.

The shooter wasn’t surprised by all the guards at the doors of the hospital. Some were in uniform and armed. Others, in hospital scrubs, were obviously plainclothes officers, since he would have recognized them if they’d actually been on staff.

He thought it was a clever touch to have actual hospital security checking IDs at the same time. Having always prided itself on being a state-of-the-art hospital, in the years since 9/11, St. Camillus had installed a thumbprint identification system.

He greeted the guard at the kitchen employees’ entrance, as he had five days a week for the past month. Ran his thumb over the glass scanner. The former priest had arranged for the job, which was scut work that paid only minimum wage, but at least it had given him a respectable enough cover while he planned his killing spree.

Fortunately, his salary wasn’t the only money he had coming in. Otherwise there’d have been no way he could have afforded to buy his arsenal. And better yet, live at Cotton House, which had proven to be a stroke of luck today.

Once inside the hospital, he bypassed the kitchen entirely, going instead to a janitorial supply closet down the hall, where he changed from the white kitchen staff uniform into a pair of blue scrubs. Then pinned a badge reading DR. JAMES FITZPATRICK onto the cotton shirt.

Having just promoted himself from dishwasher to surgical resident, the shooter left the closet and headed for the bank of elevators.

‘‘What the hell’s taking the guy so long?’’ Quinn grumbled from the bathroom adjoining the surgery recovery room where Cait had been lying in that damn bed for the past two hours.

‘‘Maybe he got stopped by all the guards,’’ she said dryly. ‘‘I tried telling everyone the uniforms were overdoing it, but would anyone listen to me? No.’’ She answered her own rhetorical question.

‘‘Well, excuse us for not wanting you to be the wacko’s next victim.’’

‘‘I’m an FBI special agent, McKade,’’ she reminded him. ‘‘I’m trained to be even more armed and dangerous than our guy. In fact, I’ll bet, on a good day, I might even be able to outshoot you. At least with a handgun,’’ she tacked on.

‘‘That’ll be the day.’’

‘‘I outshot Joe once. Actually twice. And since he beat you on the range—’’

‘‘He told you about that?’’

‘‘Sure. We used to share everything—well, most everything—when we were on the force. That’s what partners do.’’

‘‘Speaking of sharing, there’s stuff we need to talk about.’’

‘‘Like your parents being antiwar terrorists who were involved in the robbery of a Brinks truck that ended up with a guard being killed?’’

The question, asked in such a calm, casual tone, nearly took his breath away.

‘‘How long have you known?’’

‘‘After you mentioned your dad’s suicide and hedged about your mother. You’re usually the most forthright person I know. So, since it seemed we had a thing going, although I’ll admit to an invasion of privacy, I ran a background check.’’

Deciding that the killer wasn’t going to come bursting into the room anytime soon, and that the system was set up to radio him once the guy did get into the hospital, he came to stand in the doorway between the two rooms.

‘‘I was going to tell you.’’

‘‘I figured that.’’ He heard the truth in her voice. ‘‘And I’ll apologize. But when you left on your emergencyyesterday, I was worried about you.’’ Her eyes, softening with concern, backed that up. ‘‘So, how is she?’’

‘‘As well as can be expected. It’ll probably take some time to adjust. She’s had her life regulated for so long, she looked a little lost when I left her at the house.’’

‘‘Tess Gannon’s house.’’

He lifted a brow. ‘‘You have been busy.’’

She shrugged. ‘‘What can I say? I’m good.’’

‘‘She didn’t have anything to do with that shooting,’’ he said. ‘‘She wasn’t even there. But she was a member of the VWPA.’’ The Vietnam War Protestors Army, which had spun off from the infamous Weathermen.

‘‘Only because she was kidnapped because her parents were rich.’’

‘‘And refused to pay the ransom.’’

He’d always wondered what would have happened if they had, but according to the court records he’d read, the FBI had been adamant against dealing with homegrown terrorists.

‘‘Yeah. Then later disowned her when she seemed to join them. I don’t think it was like all the papers reported,’’ he said. ‘‘That she got Stockholm syndrome. Granted, I was just a kid, and you never know about anyone’s marriage, least of all your own parents’, especially since our lives were anything but normal. But I believe she really loved him.’’

‘‘Well, whatever.’’ Since he’d never been able to resist this woman, he gave up his cover to cross the room and take the hand she stretched out to him. ‘‘I’m glad she stayed with him. Because if she hadn’t, you wouldn’t have been born. And you wouldn’t be here with me. Right here. And right now.’’

As serious—and potentially dangerous—as their situation was, Quinn chuckled at that. ‘‘Yeah, like this beats the hell out of Key West.’’

She grinned, her eyes sparkling beneath that fake bandage. ‘‘You know what they say. It’s not the place. It’s the company that’s important.’’

He bent his head and was about to kiss her when a voice came in over the earphone he was wearing.

‘‘We’ve got a dead resident over at Cotton House,’’ the crisp, controlled voice of SAC Brooke Davidson said. ‘‘Name of Dr. James Fitzgerald. And guess what, boys and girls, I also just received a call from Dr. Michael Gannon that our shooter has been working in the hospital kitchen for the last month. And proving that bad news comes in threes, he just checked past security five minutes ago.’’

Frank Angetti was pissed. Bad enough that because of that damn interview, he’d been stuck answering phone calls about barking dogs and trash collection. Now here he was, dressed in green janitorial scrubs, mopping a damn hospital floor over and over again, waiting for some stone-cold killer to come around the corner and whack him.

At least that SEAL had pulled rank and insisted on taking the inside position. The guy wasn’t even in law enforcement, but having spent years killing people for a living, along with being the size of the Incredible Hulk, he had kept that new SAC from arguing.

Angetti had been spreading the damn wet suds over the same twenty feet of tile for the past hour. Since they couldn’t shut down the hospital just on the off chance that newswoman’s cockamamie idea might actually pay off, he kept having to put up with the constant traffic of people pushing gurneys, which was why he paid no attention to the scrub-clad doctor pushing the cart toward the room where his partner was waiting for his signal.