Kill Alex Cross

Chapter 72

“Get on your toes! that’s it. Shoulder front. Good. That’s perfect. Now pick up that can of Coke.”

Ava reached out and took the Coke off the shelf where I’d put it.

“Good. Now put it back,” I said.

She set the soda can down, but then dropped her arm in frustration. “I thought boxing was about punching,” she said.

“What do you think you’re learning to do?” I said. “Now go again. But keep your elbow in this time.” I showed her. “Keep it tight. Close to your side.”

“Gotta keep the box closed,” Ali said, mirroring the stance for her. He was loving this, being able to tell a thirteen-year-old what to do. Ava didn’t seem to mind. It was me she rolled her eyes at.

“How am I supposed to learn anything if you won’t let me wear gloves?”

“You’ll get the gloves when you’re ready,” I said. “Now pick up that can again.”

I honestly wasn’t sure if boxing was a great idea for Ava, or a terrible one. But she’d expressed an interest, and that was enough for me to give it a try.

“How do you like your new school?” I asked, motioning her and Ali into the center of the floor. They knew the drill and turned to face each other.

Ava kept her elbows in as she put her hands up, left foot in front. Ali did the same.

“It’s a’ight. I like Ms. Hopkins,” she said.

It probably doesn’t sound like much, but this was about a thousand percent more than Ava had been giving me so far. Kids off the street can go one of two ways. It’s either no boundaries at all, and they share way too much, too fast. Or they clam up tight. That was Ava. So far, we had our good days and our bad days.

There were still plenty of questions I wanted to ask. Like what happened to you out there on the streets? Did you know your mom was going to die? What makes you feel safe, Ava? Who are you?

The questions would come, eventually. For now, I stuck to small, tangible stuff like school, meals, movies — and boxing.

I ran the kids through some balance drills, did some more mirroring, and then let them play at dodging the heavy bag. That one was Ava’s favorite. She gave up a few rare smiles while she and Ali swung the bag, feinting and weaving on the balls of their feet. At least the two of them were bonding.

After a while, Jannie came down the basement stairs and poked her head under the banister.

“Hey, Daddy? Mr. Mahoney’s here to see you. And Nana says enough with the roughhousing. It’s time for bed.”

I looked over at the clock radio on the windowsill. It was quarter to ten and a school night. Oops.

What was Ned Mahoney doing here at the house this late?

“All right, guys, that’s it. Gym’s closed for the night,” I said.

Ava stood holding the bag with both hands. “Just a little more,” she said.

“Nope. It’s already past your bedtime. Ali’s too. Let’s go.”

A nasty scowl came onto her face. “I don’t need no goddamn bedtime,” she said. She swung the bag hard and caught Ali off guard. It knocked him right to the floor. While he burst into tears, Ava started stomping up the stairs.

That was, until I made her come back and apologize — first to Ali, and then to me.

“No more boxing this week,” I said. “You need a break. This isn’t the way it’s going to work in this house.”

“Whatever,” she said, in that really charming way adolescents can have. Then she turned to go.

Like I said, good days and bad days. Sometimes all at the same time.

Chapter 73

Ava was still sulking when we got up stairs. She walked right by Mahoney, who was waiting in the front hall. Ned pointed at the kids as they went by, counting on his fingers. “Three?” he mouthed at me.

“Don’t ask,” I said. “Also known as Ava.”

“Good night, Also Known as Ava,” he called up the stairs.

“G’night,” Ava said without turning around. But at least she talked.

“Good night, Mr. Mahoney!”

“Good night, Jannie. Good night, John-Boy. Good night, everyone!”

Jannie and Ali liked Ned just as much as I did. Once they were gone, though, he dropped the “Uncle Ned” act and his face turned serious again. I hadn’t spoken with him since the raid at the motel, three nights earlier. I think this was the first time I ever saw him when he wasn’t clean shaven and raring to go.

“How are your guys doing?” I asked.

“They’ve been better. Totten’s already home, but Behrenberg’s going to be in the burn unit for at least two more weeks,” he told me, shaking his head.

“How about you?” I said. “You holding up?”

Ned shrugged. “I’ve been spending most of my forced time off at the hospital with Behr’s wife. But they’re putting me back on tomorrow,” he said.

“Is that a good thing?”

“Sure. Nothing worse than sitting on the sidelines. I need to be in on this, or I’m going to go crazy.”

I could have guessed Ned would feel responsible for what happened. I’d probably feel the same way, for better or worse.

“Listen, Ned, if you ever need to talk about—”

“Thanks,” he said, “but I’m already seeing one of the Bureau shrinks. She’s pretty good, actually. A lot better-looking than you, too.”

I was glad to see the trademark sense of humor wasn’t dead, anyway.

“Well, how about I pour you a drink, then? I’ve got some good Scotch I think even you could appreciate,” I said.

“Actually—” Ned took a step toward the door. His keys were still hooked on his finger, and he had that look in his eye. The one that said he’d never really left work behind.

“I was wondering if you wanted to go for a ride,” he said. “I’ve got something you might be interested in seeing. This is good. You want to see it.”

I nodded. “Of course I do.”

Chapter 74

Half an hour later, Mahoney and I showed up at a four-story, red-brick building on the corner of Sixth and P streets, across from Masjid Al-Qasim mosque. We parked in the back and took the stairs to a third-floor. railroad apartment.

Inside, it was mostly empty. Just a few lawn chairs and long folding tables, loaded up with listening equipment. Two agents sat in the chairs, both of them with headphones on. Another was at the kitchen counter with two laptops in front of her.

I didn’t know any of these agents, but Mahoney’s kind of a rock star with the surveillance crews. He introduced me to Cheryl Kravetz in the kitchen, and pointed out Howard Green and Andrew Landry with the headphones.

“Thanks for calling,” Mahoney told Kravetz. “We’ll try to stay out of the way.”

“No problem.” Kravetz worked while they talked. She had half a dozen different camera views up on two screens and scrolled through them with an external keyboard hooked up to both computers.

Most of what I saw didn’t look like much — an empty hallway, a classroom of some kind, a dark alley.

“Isha prayers let out about an hour ago,” she told us. “I’m not sure what the holdup is.”

“And nobody’s going in after them?” Ned asked.

“When was the last time you took someone down in a mosque?” Kravetz said. “Or any church, for that matter. It’s too damn complicated. Besides, we’ve got this covered.”

I listened but didn’t say anything. This wasn’t my op. All Mahoney had told me in the car was that intel from the Bureau’s Al Ayla informant had been coming in fast and furious. Tonight was supposed to be some kind of takedown. As for who they were going after, he had no idea.

It was another hour before anything significant happened. Ned and I were talking quietly in the corner when one of the listening agents put up a hand and snapped his fingers several times.

“Here we go,” Kravetz said. We went over and stood behind her, where we could see. She had pulled up two full-screen views. It looked like the front and back entrances of the mosque.

A second later, one of the double front doors opened from the inside, and a woman in a hijab and long coat started backing out onto the front walk.

“What the hell—?”

It took a second to see the man in the wheelchair. Once they’d cleared the door, the woman did a 180 and started pushing him down toward the street.

“That’s them?” Mahoney said.

They looked to be in their sixties, both of them heavyset. The man had a thick, almost nonexistent neck and just a few wisps of hair. The woman walked with a slight limp. Actually, she hobbled more than walked.

Kravetz manipulated her controls to follow them on camera.

“Wait for it,” she said. “Wait for it...”

As soon as they turned onto the sidewalk, two unmarked cars were there! They pulled up to the curb, and half a dozen agents jumped out. One of them took control of the wheelchair. Another cuffed the woman immediately.

I could hear the man in the chair shouting now, but I couldn’t make out what he was saying.

It all happened very fast. They’d barely gotten the woman into one of the cars when a handicap-accessible van pulled up. The Bureau was clearly ready for this. They loaded up their mystery man and everyone took off, leaving the corner just as quiet as it had been sixty seconds ago.

I looked over at Ned when it was done. He was still staring at the screen, but his eyes looked blank. If I had to guess, I’d say he was thinking about that terrible scene at the motel from the other night. Was this couple responsible? Were they the planners?

“Where are they taking those two?” I asked. “Any idea?”

Mahoney shrugged. “To hell, I hope.”

Chapter 75

The name of the man in the wheelchair was Faizal Ahmad Angawi. According to the prevailing intel, he went simply by “Uncle” within the organization.

When they reached their destination, he was unloaded from the van, and his blindfold was removed.

“You maniacs! Where in God’s name have you taken me?” he screamed at the FBI agents. “You are breaking your laws.”

They’d arrived in a vast, unheated garage bay. Nothing too specific to clue him in to his exact whereabouts. There was a loading dock and a long row of empty steel shelving units along one wall. Several fluorescent light fixtures hung from the girdered ceiling, far overhead. Also, it was quite cold.

CIA interrogator Matt Sivitz stood in front of Angawi. His hands were clasped behind his back, while the seated man ranted on and on.

“I have my rights! You can’t do this. I demand to see my attorney immediately!”

“Absolutely,” Sivitz told him. “Just as soon as we’re back in the real world, you can see a lawyer, Mr. Angawi. Or should I call you Uncle?”

The man squinted up at him while the corners of his mouth turned down. “Uncle? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Don’t be insulting. You know exactly what it means.”

Sivitz walked over and took a folding chair off the dock. When he set it across from the wheelchair and sat down, the two men were face-to-face.

“Here’s how I see it,” he went on. “I think you’re stuck in the middle of something here. You answer to your people back in Saudi. You pass orders to your operatives. But you don’t control anything. Not really. You’ve got all the knowledge but none of the power — and that’s what makes you vulnerable. Am I close?”

“Close to what?” Angawi shouted. “This is an outrage! I’m a law-abiding man. Look at me!” He reached for the wheels on his chair and found them locked.

Sivitz held up a finger, which was also clearly a warning. “Actually, we’ve been watching you for a while.”

He unfolded a slip of paper from his pocket and glanced down at it. “Does the number 20852409 mean anything to you?” he said. “No? Maybe you didn’t memorize the account numbers. How about Trinity Bank, in Washington? Saudi British Bank, in Riyadh?”

Angawi was having none of it. “You can’t intimidate me like this,” he said between clenched teeth. “All of my accounts are perfectly legal.”

Sivitz nodded. “All of Faizal Ahmad Angawi’s accounts are legal. That’s true. But not the ones you’ve created under Muhammed Al-Athel. Or Charity of Hope. Or Chesapeake Properties.” He watched the man while he spoke, gauging his expression. “That’s where Al Ayla’s money is coming in, isn’t it? Please correct me anytime here. Just in case I have any small details wrong.”

The detainee didn’t even show a glimmer of recognition. Just pure, seething hatred.

“I have a right to an attorney,” he said again. “I insist you take me back to the mosque this instant! Right now! Do you hear me? Are you recording this?”

Sivitz stood up fast. His chair slammed back onto the concrete floor.

“Listen to me,” he said. “Listen very carefully. If you ever want to see your wife again, you’re going to drop this pathetic act of yours and start talking to us. Who is your contact in Saudi Arabia?”

“Are you threatening my wife?” The man was shaking with rage now.

“No, Faizal. You are. What I’m saying is that you’re both going to spend the rest of your lives in separate American prisons at the rate you’re going. So tell me, who’s running your ops in the District?”

“This is illegal! Racist! Outrageous—”

“Where are Ethan and Zoe Coyle?”

Angawi reeled back then and spit in the agent’s face.

Sivitz saw red. He cocked a fist and came at him until Angawi was cowering with his hands up around his head. This meant he wasn’t immune to pain. Good to know.

It took another breath for Sivitz to pull himself back from the edge. He wasn’t going to hit this cripple. There would be no bruising. No physical proof of anything. Instead, he reached down and took Angawi’s chin in his hand.

“Look at me,” he said.

Slowly, the man’s eyes came up to meet his.

“You want to keep wasting your people the way you’ve been doing, you go right ahead. Put your wife on that list while you’re at it. Doesn’t make any difference to me. But just so you know — we’re not leaving this place until you give me something I can use. And — I will hurt you.” Sivitz stepped back and let go of his face. He looked visibly shaken now. “Names, Faizal. Places. Targets. You know what I want.”

Angawi took a deep breath. For the first time, it was hard to tell which direction he might go in. Maybe they were making some progress here, after all.

“I... demand... to... see... my... attorney,” Angawi said. It was so slow as to be mocking. Then he folded his hands on his lap and bowed his head, either at rest or in prayer. It was hard to tell which.

Sivitz watched for a minute, then turned away. He took out a pack of gum and unwrapped a piece as he headed for the door. “Goddamn, I miss cigarettes,” he growled to no one.

It was going to be a long night.

Chapter 76

The hallway off the loading dock had been cleared of all personnel except for a lone armed agent at the far end. The guard pushed the elevator button for Sivitz as he approached.

“How’s it going in there?” he asked.

Sivitz ignored him and got onto the elevator without a word.

He rode to the sixth floor, where another agent was on post. Continuing down the hall, he passed a long row of dark offices until he came to the last one, with a light showing under the door. The placard next to it had his name engraved in block letters beneath a small rendering of the CIA seal.

Sivitz knocked twice, then opened the door with his key.

Inside, Mrs. Angawi was sitting at the conference table with a female translator from Langley. Peter Lindley was there as well, and Evan Stroud from the Directorate of Intelligence, who had jobbed Sivitz in for this one. All four had Styrofoam containers of sandwiches and chips in front of them and bottles of water from the kitchen down the hall.

“How are we doing in here?” Sivitz asked. “Everybody nice and comfy?”

The translator quietly relayed the question to Mrs. Angawi, who came back in a torrent of Arabic.

“‘I want to leave this building, this city. It’s a cursed place,’” the translator said, speaking for the woman as she went. “‘I shouldn’t be here anymore. It’s not safe for me.’”

“Tell her she’ll be in a hotel tonight, perfectly secure. Once we have everything we need, other arrangements can be made,” Stroud answered.

Sivitz kept his thoughts to himself. The woman seemed a little simple to him. It was amazing that the Bureau had put this much stock in her. Although, by the same token, all of her intel had been good so far. Maybe her own people had underestimated her, too.

He also noticed that her hijab was down around her shoulders, even with these strange men in the room. That spoke volumes about her.

“‘I want a new life,’” she went on through her translator. “‘My husband is not the same man that I married. I can’t stand by and watch this happen anymore. I have friends here. American friends, do you understand?’”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ve got it,” Sivitz said.

Somewhere in there, she’d turned her attention on him. Maybe she felt like she wasn’t getting anywhere with Stroud and Lindley. But he was no baby-sitter. “Ask who her husband reports to in Saudi Arabia. We need to know who’s giving the orders here.”

“We’ve been trying, Matt. You do know that, right?” Stroud said.

“Pretty please?” Sivitz’s adrenaline was still high, and he didn’t give a shit whose pay grade was up the scale from whose right now.

Stroud nodded at the interpreter, who posed the question to Mrs. Angawi.

“‘I don’t know,’” she translated.

“What about the Coyle kids?” Sivitz asked.

“‘My husband says that The Family is responsible. He said as much to two of our people just the other day. The ones who are in charge now, I think.’”

“And who are they? What are their names? What do they look like? Where are they?”

Sivitz tried not to rush, but he was finding it difficult. Time was short.

“‘I believe she is a doctor. The man is somewhat plain — in his looks, but also maybe in his head. I think it’s the wife who controls things. She’s very strong.’”

“And you don’t know their names?” Sivitz tried again.

No.

“Or where they are?”

No.

“Jesus.”

He turned and walked to the window. The Capitol dome loomed just a few blocks away. The needle of the Washington Monument stood tall in the distance. It was a great nighttime city, really. Not that he ever got to enjoy it.

Again, the woman spoke up, followed by the interpreter. What the woman had said seemed important. Her voice had risen.

“‘What I can tell you is where the next attack will be. Also maybe when it is scheduled.’”

Everything in the room seemed to go still. When Sivitz turned around, Mrs. Angawi’s expression had changed. Was she smiling? The corners of her mouth looked curled.

“Tell me,” Sivitz asked. Lindley was already dialing his phone. “Give me a location. A time. Whatever you’ve got. Then you’ll get what you want.”

She sat back then. Yes, she was definitely smiling. She was just as smug as her husband when she wanted to be, wasn’t she?

Taking her time now, the woman picked up the uneaten half of her sandwich and carefully wrapped it in a paper napkin. She tucked it into the purse on the table next to her and then put the purse on her lap, speaking quietly through the translator as she did.

“‘As soon as you get me out of this godforsaken city, I’ll tell you what you want to know.’”

Chapter 77

First thing the next morning, I was back on the trail of Zoe Coyle’s cell phone. The number I got from her friends traced to a prepaid Firefly flip model. It was the kind of thing you could pick up at any convenience store — no calling plan, no subscriber information required. Zoe had obviously gone to some trouble to keep this thing a secret.

Fireflies were especially popular with schoolkids, since they were so small and easy to hide. Even their advertising campaign played it up — Where’s Your Firefly?

I hated to think about where Zoe’s might be right now. Buried underground somewhere? In pieces at the side of the highway? Sitting in some maniac’s glove compartment? None of the images that flooded my mind were good ones.

As soon as I had the signatures I needed, I faxed off an administrative subpoena for records to the phone company down in Jacksonville, Florida. I gave them exactly one hour to respond.

When I didn’t hear back, I called and left a message for their director of security: another subpoena was on the way. He could bring those records up and present them to the grand jury himself, if that’s how they wanted to play it.

Five minutes later, my phone rang.

“Detective Cross, it’s Bill Shattuck with Essential Electronics. How can I help you?”

“What don’t you already know?” I asked, cutting through the bullshit.

“Well, I’ve got the records for the number you requested right here in front of me. Should I e-mail you a copy?”

“Please and thank you,” I said.

Shattuck cleared his throat. “There’s one other thing. I can send you the transaction logs for text messages and voice calls, no problem, but we just don’t have the kind of data storage you get with an AT&T or a Verizon. The actual content of any texts drops off our system after seven or eight days, and the last transaction on this phone was... let’s see. Twelve days ago. An incoming text on September ninth.”

No surprise there. Just a little punch to the stomach. That was the day of the kidnapping.

“Just send me what you’ve got. Thanks again,” I told him, and hung up.

The report came through a minute later. As soon as I got it, I scrolled down to the bottom and looked at September 9. The text in question was the only entry for that day.

It had come into Zoe’s phone at 8:05 a.m., right in the middle of Branaff’s homeroom period. That was also about fifteen minutes before Ethan and Zoe disappeared.

It took me only a few keystrokes to run a reverse lookup on the incoming phone number. It was registered to a Cathy Allison, with an address in Foggy Bottom. And in fact, I knew the exact house. I’d been there on Saturday to interview Ms. Allison’s daughter Emma, one of Zoe’s inner circle of girlfriends.

I looked up at the clock. It was 10:15 a.m. Emma would be in class right now — third period.

If I left right away, I could be there by fourth.

Chapter 78

Emma Allison’s eyes went wide as she stepped out of the science lab and into the hall, where I was waiting for her. So was the headmaster.

“Emma, Detective Cross is here to ask you a few questions,” Mr. Skillings told her.

She seemed like a scared little girl to me, but in a fourteen-going-on-thirty kind of way. She had too much dark liner around her eyes and a pair of half-shredded leggings under her school uniform. The thick-soled boots looked just like the red ones Zoe had been wearing the morning she disappeared.

“Did they find Zoe?” she blurted out. “Oh please. Please, please, please.”

“No, I’m sorry, Emma,” I said. “Actually, what I need is to get a look at your phone.”

“My phone? But why? What’s going on?”

“Do you have the phone with you?”

“I hope not,” Skillings said pointedly. “The students aren’t allowed to have any electronics in class. Isn’t that right, Emma?”

“It’s in my locker,” she said.

The headmaster motioned her up the hall, not even trying to hide his impatience. I’d already spent a good fifteen minutes in his office, tracking down Mrs. Allison and getting permission to speak with Emma in the first place.

We followed her outside and across a breezeway, into one of the campus’s several redbrick annex buildings.

Halfway up another hallway, Emma stopped at locker 733 and twirled the combination on the lock.

She reached inside, took out an iPhone in a zebra-striped rubber case, and held it out for me.

Her eyes flared again when I pulled on a pair of latex gloves to take it from her.

“Emma, when we spoke on Saturday, you said that the last time you had any contact with Zoe was the afternoon before the kidnapping. Is that right?” I asked.

“Yeah. We have eighth period social studies.”

She craned her neck, trying to see what I was doing. I’d powered up the phone and navigated over to her Sent messages.

Sure enough, there it was, September 9, 8:05 a.m.

“Z — Quik ciggie b4 assembly? Ditch if you can — pleeeez?? I’ve got major dirt to share... ...xoE”

“And there were no calls between you two on the morning she and Ethan disappeared? No texts?” I asked.

“That’s right,” Emma told me. “I got to school, put my phone in my locker, and went to homeroom, like always. Why?”

“You’re positive about that? This is important, Emma. This is extremely important.”

“I swear!” She fiddled nervously with the purple ribbon around her wrist. Most of the students and staff had started wearing them since the kidnapping.

“Am I in trouble?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “But I am going to have to hold onto this phone for a little while.”

A minute later, I was double-timing it back down to the visitors’ lot and my car. Finally, we had some kind of pattern to work with — or at least, the suggestion of one. Could that earlier text from Ryan Townsend’s phone have been a test run of some kind? Were there others?

And most of all, if Emma Allison’s phone was in her locker that morning, and she didn’t send this latest message — who did?

The caller had to be the kidnapper. Who else could it be?

Chapter 79

Suddenly a lot was happening, even more than I realized. I was shuttling back over to headquarters, when I got a call from Ned Mahoney.

“It’s your better half,” he said, and snorted out a laugh.

“Well, you’ve got Bree, Nana Mama, and John Sampson ahead of you on that one,” I said. “But what’s up?”

“Those two arrests from last night. The dude in the wheelchair and the sixty-something accomplice? I don’t know what kind of black op hole they fell into, but one of them must have coughed up some serious intel. Joint Terrorism Task Force is standing up another whole operation for tomorrow night. They’ve already got full surveillance going on some parking garage in Chinatown. That’s all I have so far, but it’s going to be big, Alex, and I’m not talking about just standing around watching this time.”

I could barely process what Ned was telling me. My mind was overflowing with the details of everything I’d just learned at the Branaff School.

“Thanks, Ned, but my plate’s a little full here,” I said. “Isn’t that what I have you for?”

“Actually, buddy — old friend, old pal — I was calling to get in on your team. This takedown’s going to be all SWAT, but they’re pulling people from the kidnapping side for the investigative unit. I’m thinking this time you bring me in.”

“Ned, I don’t even know what we’re talking about,” I said.

“You will. I wouldn’t be surprised if your captain’s leaving you a voice mail about it right now. There’s a briefing, two o’clock today. It’s at the police academy in Southwest.”

“Why all the way down there?” I asked.

“They need the room. They’re going to be staging this thing all into the night. Like I said — mucho grande. Tell me you’ll let me tag along.”

“You don’t need my permission for that,” I told him.

“Actually, I do this time.”

This was unbelievable. I thought about everything I still had to get done — the things I wanted to do myself and the few things I could hand off. There were dozens of calls and texts on Zoe’s phone to track back. I also had to try and reach the First Lady, if I could.

“Let me make this easy for you,” Ned said, cutting into my thoughts. “You’re coming to the briefing. You know it, and I know it. Can we move on now?”

I swear he’s got caffeine instead of blood. The guy’s one of the Bureau’s locomotives.

And he was right. If this had anything to do with the kidnapping, I wanted to be in on it — whether I had the time and energy or not.

“Yeah,” I said. “All right. Police academy, two o’clock. And where’s this parking garage you’re talking about, anyway?”

Chapter 80

That Thursday evening at six o’clock exactly, Hala and Tariq’s attack team convened on the upper level of the Chinatown municipal parking garage on H Street.

There were eight of them in all, four couples who arrived separately and would also travel in their own vehicles to the target site. Everyone wore Western business dress, as they had been instructed to do. The men’s jackets and women’s tops were specially cut to conceal the identical Sig Sauer pistols they’d all been issued.

Only Tariq was unarmed. He’d resisted his part in the assignment, but Hala had insisted he be there. He handed around earbuds, transmitters, and laminated conference badges while she began the briefing.

“I’ll make this as fast as possible,” Hala said. “The U.S. secretary of the interior, Justin Pileggi, is scheduled to address the World Alternative Energy Expo at seven thirty tonight. Pileggi will have a full security detail, of course, and they’ll keep him moving around the convention center. His remarks may or may not start on time. We need to keep ourselves just as unpredictable,” she said. “Anyone watching out for an assassin will have seven of us to contend with. No one can stop us.”

There were a few approving smiles around the circle. A few nervous expressions as well. But they all got the plan.

“If at any time you have a clear shot, you’re to take it,” Hala went on. “At that point, the rest of you should know what to do. Escape, if you’re able. And if not—”

She held up the cyanide capsule from her pocket in one hand and her Sig in the other.

“Those are the options. Any questions?”

No one was smiling now.

“I have a question,” one of the men said. He was the tallest in the group, with a heavy brow and an aggressive stare. “What about the arrests at Masjid Al-Qasim the other night?”

Hala kept her face expressionless, but the question surprised her. She hadn’t realized anyone even knew about the mosque, much less Uncle’s disappearance.

“What about them?” she said.

“Well, it’s troubling, isn’t it?”

The rest of the group remained perfectly still, their eyes darting between Hala and the man. This one wasn’t just obnoxious, she realized. He was dangerous. He’d have to be dealt with accordingly, but now was not the time.

“There were arrests, it’s true,” she said. “There have been murders and suicides as well. Bombings, too. We’re at war, if you haven’t noticed.”

“But who’s in charge now?” he asked. “Who is the leader here in Washington?”

“I am,” Hala said without hesitation. “This is how The Family works. One falls, and another is there to take his place. Washington will be brought to its knees, make no mistake about it. Where’s your loyalty, brother?”

“Don’t preach at me, sister,” he shot back. “My loyalty is to Allah, and to The Family. Not to you. Do you even know if this assignment is meant to proceed?”

The truth was, Hala didn’t know. There had been no word either way.

But she never got to answer the insolent man’s question. Before anyone realized it was happening, three stun grenades skittered across the cement floor and went off in a shattering volley of noise.

Suddenly men in gas masks and dark uniforms were streaming out of the stairwells, carrying M16s and AR15 assault weapons.

Two more flash bangs went off almost right away. One of them detonated at Hala’s feet, and she was completely deaf before she’d even started to run away.

Chapter 81

It was a huge, coordinated operation. swat units from three different agencies made up the first line of attack. Mahoney and I were pressed into the parking garage stairwell, waiting for our go-ahead from the unit commander. Once the suspects were contained, we’d go in as part of a second wave and take it from there — arrest, transport, and questioning.

I heard three flash bangs go off like giant firecrackers!

Then a rush of pounding footsteps and shouting as the SWAT teams moved in. The whole idea was to catch these people off guard and contain them before anyone could reach for the cyanide. If there was one thing we knew about Al Ayla by now, it was that they had no regard for human life — including their own people. These operatives were just disposable garbage to them.

A second round of stun grenades echoed off the concrete walls, ceiling, and floor. Even in the stairwell, the sound hurt my ears. My heart was thudding.

Mahoney was champing at the bit, waiting to go like a horse at the starting gate. It wasn’t in his nature to hold off at times like these.

Then suddenly I heard the distinct, percussive pop of gunfire. A single shot came first.

Then a fast double tap.

“Suspect down!” someone shouted.

Two people flew by the stairwell door, sprinting away from the action.

It was a man and woman in American business dress.

Mahoney didn’t hesitate. He was out after them. And I was right behind.

The couple raced down a long row of parked cars toward the circular ramp at the far end of the garage. The woman had a pistol in her hand and fired blindly back over her shoulder as they went. Even firing like that, she was accurate, skilled.

We took cover behind the nearest parked car, an Audi A6. A bullet ricocheted off the hood and took a divot of shiny silver paint and metal with it. Too close.

Gunfights are never fair game for the police. The bad guys have no rules whatsoever. We have to know exactly what we’re shooting at and what’s beyond it. The best strategy is to stay as unpredictable as possible.

I kept to a low crouch and ducked around the back of the car. Once I reached the far end, I popped up, squared my feet, and got off one fast shot before they even knew I was there.

My vision tunneled around them like a spotlight. There was a flash of red.

I’d caught the man in the right hand. He yelped, but they didn’t slow down. The woman returned fire, pushing him ahead of her now. She was very good with a gun.

They cut between two cars and scrambled over a concrete barrier. A second later, they’d dropped down to the level below and disappeared.

Already, Ned Mahoney and I were up and running again.

“Careful, Ned, she can shoot lights-out.”

Chapter 82

I threw myself over the parking barrier after our two runners and jumped maybe ten feet. The cement landing was a vicious jolt to the bones. I had to drop and roll before I got up again, just to save my legs.

There were several dime-size red blotches on the ground where I landed, but nothing to indicate which way they’d gone. The guy might have wrapped his hand.

All I could see from here were lots of parked cars, concrete, and a dozen ways out.

“What the hell?” Mahoney came running up behind me. Several more SWAT officers were sprinting down from the level above as well. “Where’d they go?”

“Any sign of them?” Command radioed down.

“Negative,” I said. “Get all the exits covered. And shut down the block if it’s not too late.”

We all fanned out, checking the adjacent rooftops, throwing open doors, looking under cars with any kind of clearance. But it was no good. They were gone. Somehow, they’d gotten past us. The woman was a professional. She didn’t panic and she could really handle a gun.

There was still a chance someone could pick them up on the street. Their faces were a matter of record now, and every unit in the city would go into high alert.

Homeland Security could even shut down the bridges and put checkpoints on the highway if they wanted to, but that wasn’t my call.

By the time Ned and I got back up to the top level, everything on that end had been contained. One of the SWAT sergeants, Enrique Vaillos, was sitting on the bumper of the same Audi where we’d taken cover. The back of his hand was up against his mouth. It looked like he’d gotten a nasty pop in the face during the takedown.

“What’s our status up here?” Ned asked.

“Five in custody, one dead,” he said, “and two—?”

“Still missing,” I said.

Farther up the row of cars, a tall Saudi man in a gray suit was laid out flat on the ground. His head was turned our way so you could see the open, glassy eyes — also, the perfectly round black hole in his forehead. Even now, it sent a chill rolling down my back.

“What happened?” I asked.

Vaillos shook his head. “It was the damndest thing. That chick? The one who got away? Just before she ran, she turned and put a fast one in the guy’s head, point-blank. I don’t know why she did it, but I’ll tell you what. It’s all she had time for. Probably saved one of my guys’ lives.”

He turned away and spit a mouthful of red on the cement.

“Whatever. I ain’t going to lose sleep over it. These people want to act like a bunch of cannibals, I say let ’em. Just makes our job easier.”

I was thinking about the woman again, and how she wasn’t going to make our job easier.

Chapter 83

The “Al Ayla Five” were transferred to a U.S. Marshals holding facility at the DC Jail on Massachusetts Avenue. A wing of eight-by-ten soundproof interview rooms was cleared, and the suspects were brought in one by one. Above all, there would be no exchange of information between them.

We worked in teams, rotating from suspect to suspect. I was with Mahoney, along with a forensic psychiatrist from the CIA, a ranking rep from Homeland Security, and an FBI field office supervisor, Corey Sneed, who took the lead. That was fine with me. I kept my focus where I needed it — on the Coyle kids.

Presumably, these people were Saudi nationals, but none of them was carrying any identification, and none of them would talk to us. Nothing. Not even to ask for a lawyer, though we suspected they spoke English.

Our strong assumption was that the whole eight-member group had been composed of four couples, given Al Ayla’s m.o. up to this point. If that was true, then one of these women had just lost a husband. Maybe that was something we could use.

After two hours of getting nowhere, I took my best guess and asked to speak privately with the one woman who had seemed most on edge.

“Go for it,” Sneed told me. It almost seemed like a dare.

I stopped at the vending machines on my way back in and bought a bottle of water. It wasn’t much, but I wanted to bring something in with me besides files and questions.

When I opened the interview room door, the woman’s head jerked up as if I’d caught her off guard. Her dark hair was pulled back in a French braid, and her magenta silk blouse and gray pinstriped skirt looked wrong on her somehow, like someone else’s idea of American dress.

I came around and unlocked the cuff securing her to an eyebolt on the metal table.

She rubbed at the red mark around her wrist as I sat down but ignored the bottle of water I’d left for her.

“I’ve got something I want to show you,” I said. “You should look, at least. Just look.”

I opened one of my files and took out a screen capture from the night’s surveillance video at the parking garage. The image was grainy, but the eight of them were easy enough to make out, huddled next to a couple of SUVs.

When I slid the picture around to show her, my finger was on the woman at the center of their group.

“This is the one who shot and killed your husband,” I said, watching her face.

I wasn’t positive about the husband part — not until her eye twitched, and her lips tightened over her teeth, like she was holding in a scream, or maybe a curse.

“Do you want to tell me who she is?” I asked.

To my surprise, the woman answered.

“I don’t know,” she said in a thick Saudi accent. “Her, I would help you find, if I could. Evil bitch. Controlling. Hard.”

“Is she running Al Ayla’s Washington cell?” I asked, but already, she’d retreated back into silence.

“Let me ask you something else,” I said. “It’s about the kidnapping of the president’s children. Do you know if Al Ayla’s responsible?”

All I got there was more of the same. Silence, and she wouldn’t look at me.

“You know, it’s not too late to cut a deal here,” I said. That got her attention. It even got me some minimal eye contact. “The first one of you to talk is going to be on a plane back to Riyadh when this is all said and done. The rest are going to be here for a long, long time.”

“A deal?” she said then. “Do you think I am absolutely stupid?”

The question spoke for itself. If she wasn’t interested, she wouldn’t have asked.

I shrugged. “Believe what you want. This offer stands only as long as nobody else comes forward. If I get a knock on that door” — I thumbed over my shoulder — “then you and I are done here.”

I didn’t want to give her too much room to think, so I leaned in and kept talking, a little faster now, whatever came into my head.

“If your husband had been martyred, I might understand all this silence. Or even if he’d been allowed to take his own life. But that’s not what happened, is it? He was killed by one of your own. By Al Ayla. The Family. I can’t imagine that’s what either of you signed up for,” I said. “What do you owe them now? What do you owe your husband’s murderer?”

She was seething but still watching me. I took it as a green light.

And then slowly, without even the slightest change of expression, she said, “There have been rumors.”

“What kind of rumors?” I said.

“Talk. Among some of the others. They say Al Ayla kidnapped those children. That your president got what he deserved.”

“Do you know if the children are still alive?” I asked. “Just tell me that.”

“I don’t know.” She slumped in her chair, maybe hating herself for doing this, for even talking to me. This was against all her beliefs, wasn’t it?

“Do you know where they were taken?” I pressed her.

This time she only shook her head. I was starting to wonder where this was going, if anywhere. Did she know more than she was telling me? Probably.

“How about this?” I said. “Do you believe those rumors are true? Do you think Al Ayla has those kids?”

Her expression muddied. It was like I could see the gears turning. Her defenses were down now, clearly weakened, and she was easier to read.

“Of course I believe them,” she said — about two seconds too late.

She’d just put herself in a corner, and we both knew it. She wanted to believe those rumors, even needed to believe them. But she didn’t. Now she had nothing left to give me. No currency to buy her freedom.

“I think we’re done,” I said. Then I counted to ten in my head. When she didn’t say anything, I stood up to go.

“And just so you know,” I told her, “the secretary of the interior wasn’t going to be anywhere near that expo tonight. Your mission failed before it even started. The plan you were given was a bad one. Your husband died for nothing.”

I left the room with a clear conscience. The fact was, we’d both lied to each other. There was no deal. Never had been, never would be. I hadn’t even cleared the idea with my team.

Some days are just like that. You do whatever you need to do to get the job done. Anything at all. By tomorrow, maybe my conscience wouldn’t be so clear.

Chapter 84

The Major Case Squad office was a twelve-cubicle circus that morning. Staff were coming and going, phones were ringing off the hook, detectives were swapping information across the room — all the usual, but it was nonstop chaos these days. A thousand clues and rumors were being chased down. At least that many leaks. Way too many.

I barely noticed any of it. I was hunched over my desk with a stack of Branaff personnel files spread out around me.

Whatever had or hadn’t been achieved the night before, it remained true that we had seventeen Branaff faculty and staff unaccounted for during that homeroom period when someone used Emma Allison’s phone to set a trap for Zoe Coyle.

I’d also started to wonder if Ethan had been an unintended second victim in this kidnap plot. Had Zoe’s fight with Ryan Townsend thrown a monkey wrench into the plan? Was she the sole target to begin with?

I was up to my eyeballs with all of it when I got a knock on my cubicle wall.

“Uh, Detective?”

It was Dennis Porter, one of the research team members. Porter was fresh out of the academy, and still green, but eager and fairly bright, I thought. The bags under his eyes and day-old ginger fuzz on his face were a testament to his hard work.

“What’s up, Denny?”

“Well, maybe nothing, but I just found this,” he said, and laid a copy of a death certificate on my desk.

It was from the Department of Vital Records in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, dated November 10, 2006. The name on the certificate was Zachary Levi Johnson-Glass.

“Glass?” I said. “As in—”

“I think so,” Porter said. “There’s no obit that I can find, but I did pull the birth certificate. The parents are listed as Rodney Glass and Molly Johnson, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The poor kid was eight years old when he died.

“And I found a 1998 lease agreement from Harrisburg with the same Social Security number as Glass’s file at Branaff. Like I said, maybe it’s nothing, but I thought you should know.”

Glass, the school nurse, was one of those seventeen names on the list. I was already pulling his file to the top of the mess on my desk.

“I want you to start from scratch on this guy,” I said. “LexisNexis the hell out of him. Check NCIC again, and Interpol while you’re at it. I want to know where he’s lived, every job he’s ever had, every parking ticket, every itch he’s ever scratched. Pull in whoever you need, I’ll sign off on it. Don’t take any crap from anybody on this. Just get it done.”

Porter still looked a little tentative. “Don’t you already have all that on file, sir?”

I picked up the death certificate and waved it at him. “You would have thought so, right?”

He smiled for half a second before he seemed to remember how serious this was. “I’ll get right on it,” he said, and went off at a trot.

I wasn’t going to get too excited... yet. It’s easy to be blinded by circumstantial evidence. But that didn’t stop me from putting a whole new lens on Rodney Glass.

One thing I kept coming back to over and over on this case was how personal the kidnapping felt. There had been no indication that Ethan and Zoe might be returned to their parents under any circumstances. Just like Rodney Glass had lost his own child forever? There wasn’t anything more personal than that, was there?

I also thought about the last time we’d spoken. “Ethan’s my little lunch buddy,” he’d told me. There would have been plenty of opportunities to gain Ethan’s confidence. Maybe enough to have learned about Zoe’s secret cell phone while he was at it.

Not to mention that someone had gotten Ray Pinkney high as a kite on the morning of the kidnapping. And someone had also very likely drugged Ethan and Zoe into unconsciousness before pulling them off campus. The fastest way to do that is by injection. Not that you have to be a nurse to know how, but it doesn’t hurt.

By the time I’d run through it all in my mind, I was ready to move on this, pronto.

Chapter 85

Molly Johnson was the closest thing to immediate family I could find for Rodney Glass. She’d never taken his name when they were married, and the two had been divorced for over four years now — since about six months after the death of their son. She agreed to meet me at the end of her lunch shift, hostessing at the Fire House Restaurant in Harrisburg. I left DC right away and was waiting for her in the parking lot by the time she came out. We spoke right there in my car.

“I don’t know how much help I can be,” she said. “I didn’t even know Rod was back in the States. A friend told me he’d gone into the Peace Corps.”

“He’s been living in Washington for three years now,” I told her.

“Gosh, really? Time flies.”

She stared out the window and absently fingered the gold crucifix around her neck. I could tell she was nervous. All she knew so far was that I wanted to ask about her ex-husband. So why was she so jittery?

“So I’m guessing you two didn’t part on very good terms,” I said.

“No. After our son died — Zachary — it got... pretty bad between us.”

“Can I ask how he died?” I said.

She smiled, the way people do when they’re trying not to cry. “The actual cause of death was severe malnutrition,” she said. “But in terms of why his organs started shutting down, we never did get an answer. They just kept passing us from specialist to specialist.”

“That must have been a nightmare for you, for both of you. I’m sorry,” I said.

Without any prompting, she took a red leather wallet out of her purse and opened it to show me a school picture of a very cute little boy. He had Rodney Glass’s same dark hair and pale blue eyes. I felt a pang of hurt for the parents.

“He wanted to be a doctor, like his dad,” she said. “Or at least, like his dad was going to be. Rod was in med school when Zach got sick. The nursing thing was supposed to be temporary. Funny how life turns out.”

“And you said things were difficult between you afterward?” I asked.

She nodded as she put away the picture. “Rod changed. I mean — to be fair, we both changed. But he just got so... paranoid. And so angry, angry, angry. I think on some level, he blamed himself. Like he never got to be the doctor who could save his own son, you know? But on the outside, he blamed everyone else.”

“And when you say everyone—”

“I mean everyone,” she answered. “The doctors, the hospital, the whole messed-up healthcare system. We didn’t have any insurance at the time, so you can imagine. If you’d asked him then, he probably would have said it was the system’s fault that Zach got sick in the first place.”

Molly stopped suddenly and turned to me, as if something had just occurred to her. “What’s he done, anyway? Is Rod in some kind of trouble?” she asked.

I’d been gauging her carefully the whole time, trying to figure out how much was too much to say here. I didn’t want to leave without getting everything I could, so I went ahead and took a calculated risk.

“Molly, I told you before that Rodney’s been in Washington for the last three years. But what I didn’t say was that he’s been working at the Branaff School for most of that time.”

She looked at me blankly. Apparently, the name didn’t mean anything to her.

“It’s where Zoe and Ethan Coyle are enrolled. It’s where the kidnapping occurred.”

“Wait,” she said. “Are you saying Rod’s a suspect in that kidnapping?”

“Technically, anyone who works at the school is on our list,” I said. It was the kind of answer I had to give, but she understood perfectly.

Now her whole demeanor changed. Suddenly she seemed twice as shaky and nervous as before. Her hand treaded back up to the crucifix and her eyebrows knitted together.

“I just can’t believe that. No. I mean... he couldn’t possibly... could he?”

“I don’t know, Molly,” I said quietly. “Could he?”

It took her a long time to answer. She bowed her head and closed her eyes for several seconds. Her fingers were all over the cross and I wondered if she was saying a prayer. And also if she was involved herself.

When she looked up again, she was trembling all over.

“There’s something I have to tell you,” she said. “Maybe something important.”

Chapter 86

“It was a few months after Zachary died,” Molly Johnson started in. “Things had gotten pretty awful between me and Rod. But then one night, out of the blue, he came home and said he wanted us to go for a drive.”

She was still staring off into the distance, not really focusing on anything — except maybe the memory of that night. We’d obviously opened some kind of Pandora’s box. I kept my mouth shut for the time being and just listened to her.

“Honestly, Detective, the last thing I wanted at that point was to go anywhere with him, but we’d been fighting so much, it just seemed easier to say yes. So I got in the car and he started driving.

“After a while, Rod took out this thermos he used for work. He told me he’d filled it on the way home, at this place where I always liked the hot chocolate. It seemed like he was trying really hard to be nice, so I went ahead and drank some. I didn’t even think about it until later, but he never had any of the cocoa. Just me.”

It seemed pretty clear where this was headed now. I could feel the dread climbing up my neck, thinking about Molly, but also about Ethan and Zoe.

“Pretty soon, I started feeling sleepy,” she went on. “Like weirdly sleepy. It came on so fast, I didn’t even get to wonder what was happening.

“The next thing I knew, I was waking up in this... place. Like a basement, or a cellar. I don’t even know what it was. I remember it smelled like dirt, if that makes any sense.”

“Molly, do you have any idea where this was?” I asked. I couldn’t hold back my questions anymore. “Do you remember where he took you? Anything about the ride there?”

She shook her head. “Believe me, I’ve wondered, but that whole time is just a foggy dream in my mind. He left a cooler with sandwiches, and some water, and I’m sure the food and water had more of whatever was in that hot chocolate. But it was like I didn’t even care. I barely remember any of it. Sometimes I even wonder if it happened at all.”

“I think it did, Molly. Please go on. How long were you there?” I asked.

“Three days. I was in and out the whole time. Then, at some point, I woke up again and I was just... back home. In my bed. There was a note from Rod, trying to apologize, and all of his things were gone.”

She took a long, deep breath and looked over at me for the first time since she’d started her story. She was still shaking, but not as much as before.

“That was it. A week later, I called a lawyer and filed for divorce. Rod didn’t contest it.”

“And you never pressed charges?” I asked.

“I never told anyone about this,” she said. “Not a soul. I know how that must sound, but... I don’t know. After losing Zach and everything else that happened, I just couldn’t stand to look back anymore. Like I’d go crazy if I thought about it too much. All I wanted was to move on.” She smiled again, sadly, down into her lap. “You must think I’m pretty pathetic.”

“No,” I said. I reached over and took her hand, fighting back my own tears. “Just the opposite. I think you might be a hero.”

Chapter 87

On the way back to DC, I got Bob Shaw, the captain of MPD’s Homicide Unit, on the phone and started lining up an immediate mobile surveillance team on Rodney Glass. This detail needed to be as covert as possible. That meant pulling cars out of the pool that weren’t Crown Vics or Impalas — makes that screamed “undercover cop” to the informed eye.

I also gave Shaw a list of names from Narcotics and a few of the warrant squads — guys I knew had the look and skills to go unnoticed on the street. What I didn’t want was anyone who had been anywhere near the Branaff campus since this investigation had started.

That included myself. Glass knew me. I was going to have to stay on the fringes of this surveillance for the time being.

By four o’clock that afternoon, I was back in the city, and we had three cars positioned strategically around the school neighborhood, just as Glass was leaving for the day.

All of my team were carrying GPS locators so I could use a single laptop to track them from a distance in my own car. We had radio communication set up on an alternate, nonrecorded channel, which was as private as we were going to get on short notice. I parked several blocks away and listened in.

“This is Tango. He’s out the south gate. Green Subaru Forester, turning north on Wisconsin.”

“Go ahead, Tango. This is X Ray. I’ll cut around and get you somewhere after Thirty-seventh Street.”

“No problem. Bravo, hang back if you can.”

“Copy that.”

We had just enough units to run a floating box, with one car following for a while, then dropping off while another came in to take its place. I gave them some time to get ahead of me, then pulled around and brought up the rear from about half a mile back.

“Who’s got eyes on him?” I asked, once I was headed up Wisconsin the way they’d gone. “What’s he doing?”

“This is Bravo. He’s just driving. Listening to music, it looks like, tapping his hands on the wheel. Guy doesn’t seem like he’s got a care in the world.”

“Yeah, well, I think maybe he does.”

Glass stayed on Wisconsin for a couple of miles. It seemed like he might be headed into Maryland, but then I got word he was stopping in the Friendship Heights shopping mall. He parked in the lot outside Bloomingdale’s and walked over to the Mazza Gallerie mall.

I sent two guys inside after him and kept one circling the block, then parked myself just past the lot, where I could see Glass’s empty car.

For the next forty-five minutes, it was the usual kind of boring minutiae you get on ninety-nine percent of surveillance details. I sat and listened while Glass went to McDonald’s. Got a burger. Sat at one of the tables, reading a paperback copy of Sebastian Junger’s War, which I’d read myself. He didn’t seem to be in any kind of hurry. Nothing special about the day.

When he finally got up again, they followed him into Neiman Marcus, leapfrogging around the store while he looked at shoes and men’s shirts. It almost seemed like he was deliberately killing time for some reason.

And then suddenly he was gone.

“Tango, you got him?” I heard.

“Negative. Hang on a second. Hold on. I think he went into the bathroom.”

Another fifteen seconds ticked by. C’mon, c’mon, c’mon!

“What’s going on there?” I said.

“This is Tango. It’s not him in the bathroom. I think we might have lost him.”

“Lost him?” I said, trying not to rip anyone’s head off — yet. “Or he gave you the slip?”

“I really don’t know,” he said. “But we’re going to want some more eyes in here.”

I resisted the urge to run inside myself. I didn’t want to lose my head and blow this thing. But I sure as hell didn’t want to lose Rodney Glass, either.

Chapter 88

This was pure misery. A disaster — and I’d been in charge. I was so angry at myself, even if I couldn’t have done anything differently now.

I was going crazy, watching Glass’s Subaru from the confines of my own car, and listening to nothing but radio silence while my guys scoured the neighborhood.

Both malls.

The parking lots.

Side streets.

Then, just after seven o’clock, I spotted Glass.

He came sauntering around the corner from the front of the mall and cut diagonally across the parking lot. That son of a bitch!

“I got him,” I radioed. “He’s headed back to his car. Get out here, and get yourselves ready to go.”

It was dark by now, but the parking lot was well lit. I used a small pair of binoculars to try and see what Glass was carrying. He’d been empty-handed on the way in.

The shopping bag he had in one hand was from Anthropologie, I saw. The kind of place where my kids might shop. Or the president’s kids, for that matter. Nothing in there for someone like him. He was a tall, strapping guy — a grownup, for starters. He favored L. L. Bean and Carhartt, as far as I could tell. Not the trendy fashions of this place. What was that about?

In his other hand, he had a tall cup with a straw sticking out the top. The logo on the side said AMC. That meant the movie theater, not the food court.

Jesus. Had I been tearing out my hair for three hours while Rodney Glass had taken himself to a matinee?

Or was that just what he wanted us to think? Was this all for show? Where else might he have been all this time?

As I watched him throw his bag into the back of the car — casually, maybe too casually — I started to get a horrible, sinking feeling. It was nothing I could prove to myself either way, but my gut was starting to tell me what my head didn’t want to know.

He knew he was being watched, didn’t he? He knew.