The phone! He could have set the inner office to speakerphone, opened a line before he left. The knowledge hit her like a fist striking a mirror, shattering everything she had believed. Her vision fragmented, everything too bright, too focused, as she searched for an escape.
Tommy turned, his mouth opening in surprise, and she realized her expression must have given her away. Before he could say another word, she bolted through the door. And ran for her life.
LYDIA WAS HAPPY TO SEE BOTH PETE SANDUSKY and Jim Lazarov squirming under the watchful eye of the guard left manning the security office.
Well, maybe not exactly squirming. “Lydia!” Pete called out when he saw her. “Care to comment on finding Seth’s body?”
“He’s not dead,” she told him. Pete looked disappointed. She turned to the guard. “Did he have a cell phone with him? I think he swiped mine, and there are some sensitive pictures on there.”
The guard pulled out a plastic bin of personal effects, and Pete lunged forward. “She’s lying—that phone is mine!”
“Hey!” The guard’s hand went to his gun and Pete froze, hands up in surrender. “Back up and sit down.”
“You can’t do this, Lydia,” Pete shouted.
Too late. While the guard had his back turned, she clicked through the photos of Nora, deleting them.
“Sorry,” she told the guard, sugaring her performance with a sweet smile. “My mistake.”
“Lydia.” Jim Lazarov spoke up for the first time, his voice edging on despair. “Tell them I didn’t do anything, tell them to let me go, will ya?”
“Sorry, Jim. That’s up to the police, and they’re a bit tied up right now.”
“Hate to put a damper on your party,” Sandusky said, “but the kid’s right. He’s not the guy who talked to me. Much too young. And much too short.”
“So you did see him.”
“Only in silhouette, he stuck to the shadows. But he was at least six feet, maybe six-one. Walked like a soldier, talked like one, too. Always giving orders.” Sandusky smirked. “I might remember more if you give me the inside story on what’s really going on around here.”
Should’ve known Sandusky would try to take her for a ride. He probably didn’t even see the killer. Lydia started to tell him to go to hell when she noticed the monitors at the desk start to wink out, one by one. “What’s going on?”
The guard turned from his prisoners to focus on the monitor display. “That’s funny. But those are all from the research tower, and that place is empty tonight. The boss must be shutting them down so we can focus on the folks at the gala.”
“How can you be sure it’s Glen shutting them off?”
“Easy. ’Cause it wasn’t me and the only way to access the research tower security system is from here or from Glen’s handheld.”
“Really?” Lydia felt her body tense as if preparing to strike out. She touched a hand to the small of her back, reassuring herself that her gun was still there. Suddenly Pete’s ramblings made sense. “What else can he control remotely?”
“It’s a pretty cool setup—he can control the cameras, even access the room-to-room intercom system, the panic alarms, the lights, door locks. All from the palm of his hand.”
Lydia stared at the dark screens. “Can you override his command? Bring up the hallway outside Tommy Z’s office?”
“Sure, why?” The guard started punching in a command, then frowned. “That’s funny. They’re not responding.”
Lydia’s stomach plunged. “Call the police, get some men over to Tommy Z’s office. Now!”
“I’ll have to call Glen,” the guard hedged.
“You do that and you might get someone killed.” She couldn’t trust him not to tip off Glen. But she could trust Jerry Boyle. As Lydia raced from the security office, she dialed Boyle’s cell. Damn it, pick up, pick up.
No answer.
THIRTY-SIX
Saturday, 5:34 P.M.
THE WAIT WAS AGONIZING, BUT GINA KNEW IT was only a few minutes. Jerry appeared at the doorway and spotted her immediately. He stepped inside. “Gina, whatever you need, I hope it can—”
The man lowered his gun and placed it at Jerry’s temple. Jerry’s muttered curse easily carried through the empty lab to Gina.
“You were right, angel-lady, this place will do nicely,” the man said as he took Jerry’s gun from his belt and then used Jerry’s own handcuffs to restrain his wrists in front of him. He closed the lab door and shoved Jerry into the office. “Deserted for the weekend, building to ourselves, no worries about noise or unexpected visitors, especially with the shindig going on downstairs. Perfect.”
“What do you want?” Jerry demanded, placing himself between Gina and the gun.
Without warning, the man smacked him across the face with the gun, then brought the butt down so hard on Jerry’s clavicle that Gina heard the snap from where she cowered behind Ken’s desk. Jerry staggered but didn’t fall. He braced himself against the desk, as if he expected more to come.
Of course he did—he was powerless as long as Gina was there for the man to threaten.
Jerry wiped his bloody nose and mouth against his jacket collar. “Look, I can’t help you until you tell me what you want,” he said in a reasonable tone. “Let Gina go. I’ll give you everything you want.”
Using her name, smart, it would make her seem like more of a person to the man with the gun. Only the guy wasn’t buying it. Instead he smirked at Jerry. “I know all about you, Detective Gerald Boyle. Tough guy. Smart guy. Worked SWAT until you blew out your shoulder.”
He brought the gun down hard on Jerry’s broken collar-bone. This time Jerry dropped to his knees, his jaws clenching as he bit back his pain.
“Stop it!” Gina cried out.
The man aimed the gun at her face. She backed into the corner behind Ken’s desk, the farthest away she could get.
“Sure thing. See, I know a tough guy like him will never talk. Will never break.” The man stepped around the desk. Too late, Gina realized she was boxed in, nowhere to go. “Not by hurting him. But hurting his woman—well, that’s more than most men can take.”
“No, don’t!” Jerry somehow pushed himself up, putting all his weight on his one good hand, dragging the other along, the handcuffs stretched to their limit. “Tell me what you want.”
The man stopped in front of Gina, the muzzle of his pistol below her chin, leveraging her face up until she was choking for air. He ground the muzzle into the soft flesh there, pain searing through her vision.
“Where is she?” he snapped, glancing over his shoulder to keep an eye on Jerry, who was collapsed half across the desk.
“Where is who?”
The man forced Gina’s head back even farther. She could no longer even see Jerry. All she could see were red spots dancing before her and the overhead ceiling tiles. The pain was unbearable. Tears escaped her. She tried to stand on tiptoe to relieve it, but the man merely followed her movement.
“Marie Ferraro’s little girl. I know you found her.”
Gina could barely comprehend their words through the pain. Marie? Who was Marie? Someone who worked at Angels?
“A friend of mine in L.A. was the lead detective on Marie’s homicide,” Jerry hastened to explain, his words spraying Ken’s desk with blood as he spoke. “He’s retiring, and the case always bugged him, so he asked me to take a look. A fresh pair of eyes, in case he missed something. That’s all. I don’t know anything about the kid. Check with L.A. County social services; they took her.”
The man released Gina. She dropped to her feet, her bound hands catching her weight on the ledge of the filing cabinet behind her. Before she could drag in a breath, the man sucker-punched her, doubling her over. She fell to her knees, retching, fighting to both vomit and breathe at the same time and unable to do either as pain shot through her belly.
“Don’t lie to me again or I’ll hurt her for real. I know you’re the one who contacted Epson. By the way, his retirement was cut short—I paid him a little visit before I flew out here. How’s it feel to know your buddy is the one who gave you up, put you in this spot? Right before I killed him. And that other cop—who knew there’d be two Jerry Boyles in one department?”
The words sliced through the terror and pain clouding Gina’s brain. This man wasn’t the rapist. This man was the one who had tortured and killed Officer Boyle. And now he was after Jerry.
And she’d led him right to him.
“Epson’s dead?”
“Stop stalling. Tell me where she is!”
“I’ve never met anyone named Marie Ferraro. Or her daughter.”
The man reared back, ready to aim a brutal kick at Gina, but Jerry shouted, “I’m telling you the truth!”
Instead of kicking Gina, the man whirled on Jerry and brought his gun down across his head in a slicing motion. Jerry’s face bounced against the desk. As Jerry lay there, gasping, the man pulled a copy of a photo from his back pocket, holding it in front of Jerry.
Gina finally caught her breath. She wanted to crawl under the desk, but she couldn’t leave Jerry.
It was killing her, watching him suffer. Then she caught a glimpse of the faces in the photo as the gunman dangled it before Jerry.
Her gasp broke the silence. The gunman cocked his head in surprise. He pivoted to her, lowering the photo to her eye level. “You know her, don’t you?”
“She doesn’t.” Jerry was practically on top of the desk, trying to crawl across it to get the man’s attention away from Gina. “She doesn’t know anything.”
But she did. The photo showed a girl, maybe ten or twelve, and a dark-haired woman. The same woman she’d seen in the photos of Lydia Fiore and her mother.
NORA’S FOOTSTEPS RANG AGAINST THE CONCRETE floor of the fire stairs. She stopped, listened. Someone was definitely coming down the stairs behind her.
She grabbed for her cell phone. It was gone—she must have left it behind in the locker room when she changed. She sprinted to the door on the next level.
There was a panic button beside the door.
The bright red button taunted her—should she push it?
She hit it just as she heard the footsteps start again. Now they sounded like they were coming from below her—but that was impossible; Tommy was above her.
“Hello, this is Angels of Mercy Medical Center,” a tinny, disembodied voice blasted from a speaker above her head. Nora tried to squash it with her hands, but it was too late. Anyone in the stairwell would know her location now. “Can I help you?”
“I’m in the research tower and there’s a man following me,” she said, her face lifted up to the grill. “Please send someone.”
“Ma’am, I need your location.”
“Fourth floor, stairwell.”
The footsteps grew louder, faster.
“Hurry, please.”
“Don’t worry, Nora.” A chuckle exited the speaker and clawed its way down her spine. She jerked her hand away. “I’m on my way.”
Nora’s head buzzed—was she imagining the voice? Or had Tommy somehow taken control of the intercom system? She ran through the door, pressing herself against the wall, hoping that whoever was in the stairwell would keep going past her. The corridor was dark except for a few scattered overhead lights.
As she cowered, gasping for breath, covering her mouth so that she wouldn’t be heard, she remembered this feeling. Paralyzed with fear. Exactly like two years ago.
The door from the stairwell slammed open, bouncing against the cement block walls. “Nora, thank God I caught you,” Tommy Z said, leaning forward, huffing with each breath. “I figured out how you heard the voice in my office.”
“No!” Nora backed away from him, holding her arm straight out, as if that could stop him. “Leave me alone. Please.” She hated the way the last word came out, as if she were begging.
He straightened, his forehead creased in concern, and stepped toward her. “What are you talking about? God, it’s all my fault. He told me he was getting help, I never dreamed—” He broke off, his gaze scanning the darkness that surrounded them. “Come with me; we need to go back to my office. We’ll be safe there.”
She was shaking her head. “No, no, I won’t go. I called the police. They’re on their way.”
He held his hands out, palms up, spread wide as if to show that he was no threat. “Good. I want the police to see this as well. It’s okay, Nora. I’m not going to hurt you. I’m here to help you.”
“I trusted you. How
could
you?”
“I didn’t do anything. Look, we can’t stay here. It’s too dangerous.”
Nora heard the sound she’d been waiting for: footsteps sounded from the stairwell.
“Stay where you are,” she told Tommy.
He stopped about five feet from her in the middle of the corridor, hands still wide. Keeping her back to the wall, she warily circled past him so now she was closer to the exit than he was.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said in a calming voice. “I know you’re scared; it’s all right.”
A sharp laugh ripped through her. “You’re telling
me
it’s all right to be scared? After what you did?”
The sound of footsteps in the stairwell slowed, as if uncertain where to go. “Here! I’m here!” she called out.
“Nora. Honestly, I’m not the guy. I didn’t do—”
The door to the stairwell opened. Glen Bakker came through it. Nora felt her lungs collapse in relief as she blew out her breath. Glen took her arm and pulled her behind him, putting his body between her and Tommy.
“Nora,” Tommy called out. “Don’t—”
A shot blasted through the air, followed by another one. Tommy took a step forward, arms reaching out. Two more shots. He staggered and fell to the ground.
Tommy’s lifeless body lay facedown on the carpet, blood slowly puddling from beneath him. Nora sank to her knees, unable to keep on her feet another moment.
It was over, it was over.
“You’re safe now,” Glen said, holstering his gun.
Nora didn’t respond; she was too stunned.